“Murder Takes the Cake” by Gayle Trent

This book introduces us to female-sleuth Daphne Martin. She is divorced, age 40 and has just returned to her home town of Brea Ridge in southwest Virginia. She has bought a home and dreams of starting her own cake decorating business.

Daphne’s first customer is Yodel Watson. Yodel’s parents wanted to be famous singers, so they named their daughters Melody, Harmony and Yodel, and their son Guitar. And Yodel named her parrot Banjo. But she broke with the tradition (a good thing, I think) when she named her daughter Annabelle. (Daphne herself is named after author Daphne du Maurier).

Yodel is extremely picky, so Daphne is on her third cake and desperately hopes Yodel will like it. Unfortunately Yodel is dead as Daphne discovers when she arrives to deliver the cake. She summons the police and tells them “I just brought the cake”. Later the police discover that Yodel was poisoned. Now Daphne is finding that she has to convince many of the townsfolk that her cake was not the cause of Yodel’s death!