“The Golden Spoon” by Jessa Maxwell

The Golden Spoon is Jessa Maxwell's first novel and this reviewer hopes we'll see a lot more of her in years to come! Her quick wit and great storytelling make The Golden Spoon an instant classic.

Jessa Maxwell lives in Jamestown, Rhode Island, with her husband, two cats, and a three-legged dog. Since the book hasn't been released yet, I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum and instead just entice readers into immediately adding the novel to their to-be-read pile.

Maxwell's writing is engaging, concise, and witty. Readers will be drawn into the book and unable to put it down. I read the whole thing in one day (with minimal breaks for food). On the other hand, I did find myself confused by the number of characters a few times, so be sure to have a better memory than I do, or keep a cheat sheet nearby to differentiate the characters. Ultimately, The Golden Spoon will bring readers back to the simpler times of mystery novels.

This novel is an excellent example of a classic mystery. Quick, quirky, and quaint, with tints of many mystery subgenres, this novel kept me reading for hours at a time. Maxwell does a great job weaving together a cozy, locked-room caper while ensuring the storyline stays fluid and intriguing. Her mix of eccentric, in-depth characterization and the haunting landscape surrounding them makes for an unputdownable story. Each step of the novel contains a call-back to a different mystery subgenre. Take a look at just a few of the subgenres involved:

1. Cozy Mystery - The setting of The Golden Spoon is a baking competition set over a week with multiple quirky characters who play off of each other and create an atmosphere of familiarity and bonding. The ease with which the characters connect with each other and their surroundings makes for a simplistic, compelling, background to the intense baking competition they've all been called to participate in.

2. Caper Story - These are told from the point of view of the criminals, instead of the classic police or detective hunting for the criminal after the fact. One of the things I enjoyed most about Maxwell's story was that there were no police involved. It's entirely about this small group of people brought together for a baking competition that turned deadly. The group of bakers must make it through the week's intense competitions and solve the strange occurrences surrounding this season of Bake Week.

3. Locked-Room Mystery - Since the characters spend the entire story on the grounds of a dilapidated mansion, it leads to a sort of locked-room scenario. The characters must piece together what is happening around them without help from the outside world. With no phones, no other contact, and no one but each other for the week, the bakers and staff are completely on their own.

4. Amateur Sleuth(s) - None of the characters know that they will end up being involved in a crime, but readers do from the beginning. The characters must become sleuths in their own rights to make it through the week of the baking competition. There are no police, detectives, or other help coming, so these few characters must bond together to figure out what has happened to the Bake Week competition.

Readers will find themselves drawn into Maxwell's world and rooting (or booing) for the characters as the twists and turns of the mystery send readers down a spiral of what just happened?!?! Personally, this reader didn't see the ending coming, so once you've read it, come back and tell me if you figured it all out ahead of the big reveal.