The House That Jack the Quipper Built: Drop Dead Gingerbread Cred

"Run, run, fast as you can.  You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"  The beloved rhyme turns out to be untrue in Lee Hollis's Death of a Gingerbread Man.  Because the runner up of Bar Harbor's annual gingerbread house building contest loses more than first place.  He bites the sugar dust, with the winner emerging as the prime suspect.  And he (the winner, not the dead dude) happens to be Hayley Powell's long-lost father.  

In the twenty-odd Hayley Powell food and cocktails mysteries, we've heard nary a word about the man who gave the sleuth life.  Sure, her impossible-to-please mother Sheila sometimes rears her ugly head, but her pops has remained, well, a mystery.  Until now.  Fresh from yet another failed romance, Dwight Jordan blows back into Bar Harbor, much to the delight of half the town -- and the chagrin of the other.  A charming if disheveled conniver, Dwight leaves a trail of chaos wherever he goes.  And this time that trail includes murder.

Death of a Gingerbread Man may be Hayley's zaniest misadventure yet.  I snickered at the sitcom-worthy snafus that Dwight "unknowingly" authors.  Each is more cringeworthy than the last, making for a quirky Christmas caper.  Yet despite being a clever whodunit, Death of a Gingerbread Man isn't really about whether or not Dwight offed his fellow baker.  It's about if he'll stay in Bar Harbor or keep running. You know, like the Gingerbread Man.

Maybe the rhyme rings true after all.