Bird Nichols is not only a cheese enthusiast, but she's managed to turn that into her job, selling bespoke cheese boards, mostly through social media. After her beloved grandmother's death, hot on the heels of that of her parents, she inherits her gran's home in a small village in California, hoping to live quietly. That doesn't work out when only a few days after moving in, a local tough is found dead, after she and the friend she regards as her last remaining family, had an altercation with him. With Grizzy the main suspect, and a chronic, and merited, distrust of the police, Bird takes it upon herself to investigate.

This was a really fun modern, pretty cosy, whodunnit mystery. I'd read A Thousand Recipes for Revenge by the same author, and bounced off it, but I'm glad I gave this one a go as I thoroughly enjoyed it. The title helped sell it (I do love a good pun) but I quickly got invested in Bird and her investigation, even if I did think she was sometimes pushing her luck a bit in poking her nose in and bothering the police. I worked out the plot twist (yes, I'm pleased with myself) but was entirely taken by surprise by whodunnit.

On the food, the author really did her research. All the cheeses mentioned are real, and there's an impassioned plea to discover more local cheese to your area in the author's note at the end.

The setting feels like an American version of Midsummer Murders or something similar. It's a tiny village, not exactly isolated, but out of the way, where everyone knows everyone and their business, for good or ill. The other characters do get more fleshing out than can sometimes be the case, but I'd have liked to have seen more interactions with the landowner's agent, Rita, who is hostile to Bird from the get-go.

There's a slow burn romance as well, as Bird meets the owner of the local grilled cheese sandwich shop (somewhat inevitable, really), but the whole thing was really cute.

I also liked the depiction of Bird's autism, which comes out well through the first-person narrative. While neurotypical myself, I know enough people on the spectrum that this feels realistic and sympathetic.

I'm only a middling cheese person, but after finishing this I really wanted one of Bird to make me one of her custom boards.