Ashland, Oregon’s best bakeshop, Torte, has moved on to hosting gala events. Owner Juliet Montague Capshaw and her crew have been recruited to create a dinner and dessert buffet based on recipes from Shakespeare’s times. The Southern Oregon Museum of Art (SOMA) has managed to be the first American stop on the tour for a long-lost manuscript believed to be penned by Shakespeare. Double Falsehood is the title of the manuscript, and the director of SOMA, Javier de la Garza, used Ashland’s connections to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to make this opportunity come to pass.
The viewing will be a huge deal for the museum, and Javier wants to make the evening epic. He’s asked Jules and her crew to create a reproduction desk and chair, complete with moving parts, all our of chocolate. It had been a while since Jules had worked much with chocolate, so she had to study her textbooks from culinary school and consult with old friends to figure out how to accomplish such a task. But after weeks of experimenting, she was able to figure out how to get the chocolate strong enough to hold up the structure but still glossy and movable. Finally, they managed to put together a chair and a desk, complete with a drawer that opens to reveal a white chocolate manuscript copy of Double Falsehood.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew from Torte created an assortment of appetizers, hand pies, stews, frangipane candy, breads, cakes, and tasty desserts that were similar to those in Shakespeare’s times. Jules is nervous about the event, because it had been a huge undertaking and it could potentially lead to more business. But the night of Shakespeare’s Lost Pages comes, and Jules and her team have it all in hand. The night is going beautifully, until she sees Cindy and Tim arguing.
Cindy, the head volunteer docent for the museum, is wanting to get Javier. Tim, the custodian, tells her not to ruin the evening. When Jules goes over to find out what they’re arguing about, she learns the bad news—Cindy and Tim think that someone has stolen the Shakespeare manuscript and replaced it with a copy. Tim noticed that the entire display case is all wrong, and he thinks that someone changed out the entire display case, absconding with the priceless manuscript.
Jules insists that they tell Javier, knowing that the police will need to be notified as well. Her stepfather is already at the event, and as he is both a police detective and a Shakespeare expert, he is the second person that Jules wants to let in on the problem. As the police show up and start to question all the guests, Jules finds Tim in the basement, under a heavy shelf. She goes for help, needing more hands to get the shelf off him, but even after he’s been treated at the hospital, the knock he got on the head meant that his short-term memory has been erased, and he can’t tell them what exactly happened.
Javier’s niece, Rosa, works at Torte and asks Jules for help clearing Javier’s name. But the questions just keep piling up—why is there a box of cash in the museum’s basement? Why did someone attack Tim? Could Javier’s assistant be involved? She is a grad student working on her dissertation about how Shakespeare was probably actually a woman. Or could it have been their biggest donor, Ernest, who wants to keep art separate, for the elite and the wealthy, and wanted Javier to follow his agenda?
Jules doesn’t believe that Javier had anything to do with the manuscript going missing, or with the physical attacks that happened in the wake of its disappearance. But will she be able to figure out who did before they come after her?
Bake, Borrow, and Steal is book 14 in the Bakeshop Mystery Series. Author Ellie Alexander continues to create interesting crimes about the happenings in the small town of Ashland, Oregon. As Alexander creates a warm family, with Jules and her husband as well as with the bakers, cooks, and baristas who staff Torte, she makes a safe place with comfort and grace for Jules to work from, as she inevitably sets out to investigate horrible crimes. Her books are consistently balanced, with sweetness to counter the murder.
I have been a big fan of the Bakeshop Mysteries for years, and I really loved Bake, Borrow, and Steal. I loved the connection to Shakespeare, and the conversations she started about whether art is for everyone or just a few, and who really wrote the plays we think of as William Shakespeare’s. There is always a lot of food talk, which in this book was especially comforting, as they talked of warming soups and treats like brownies as the snow was falling. Bake, Borrow, or Steal is smart, delicious, and deadly and the perfect book to curl up with in a coffeeshop just like Torte.
Egalleys for Bake, Borrow, and Steal were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.
