The Beartooth Cafe

Bud Shumway Mystery Series, Book 8

By: Chinle Miller

Narrated by: Richard Henzel

When ex-sheriff and watermelon farmer Bud Shumway and his wife, Wilma Jean, head to Montana to pursue Bud's dream of learning to fly-fish, Bud never guesses he'll soon be deeply involved in trying to solve the mystery of a missing lunch lady he's never met, as well as trying to stay off the radar of a strange religious cult that believes in immortality while plotting to kill people.

Set in the magnificent Absaroka Mountains near Yellowstone National Park, this mystery will have you mystified and on edge as you follow Bud as he witnesses a grizzly bear resurrection, meets a young investigative reporter with a knack for following the wrong person, and dodges a shady John Deere salesman and religious guru, who Bud knows are up to no good.

All this, along with a combine demolition derby, meeting a Crow medicine woman with a cryptic message, losing his two beloved dogs, finding a fish made of stone, exploring old underground Prohibition tunnels, wrecking model railroads, and worrying about the Yellowstone supervolcano exploding, and you'll soon see why Bud wishes he'd never set foot in the Beartooth Cafe.

And of course, back home in Green River, Sheriff Howie tries to mediate ongoing feuds between Old Man Green and Junkyard Goldie, hoping Bud can keep them from killing each other, even though he's 1,000 miles away.

In any case, you'll find out what really happened to the lunch lady, and it might not be what you think.

©2016 Yellow Cat Publishing/Marjorie Miller/Maya Kurtz (P)2017 Yellow Cat Publishing/Marjorie Miller/Maya Kurtz

Still enjoying this series

One thing you can always count on is Bud will always find trouble. Chinle Miller always writes original stories. She also proves that it is not necessary to use fowl language. If you're a fan of cozy mysteries, you'll be sure to enjoy this one. I advise readers to start with the first in the series.

Beware Narrator Changed

After waiting eagerly for the continuation of the Bud Shumway series. I was very disappointed to find the narrator has been changed.

Ray Worley was the soul of the books, and was, for me, largely responsible for the unique enchantment of the experience of listening. I made it through the book, but can't give it the good review the previews stories have deserved.

Narrator change - Bud character change

I fell in love with the narrator's voice for the Bud Shumway books 1-7. His voice made you feel like you knew Bud. Every character's voice was distinctive. He was surprisingly good at doing a variety of believable, "real" women's voices. Also, the voices and conversations were notably easy to hear clearly if you listened to the audiobook in the car.

The switch to a new narrator in Book 8 is disappointing. Almost every character has the same wavering, quivering "really old person" voice. It's hard to tell them apart, even the women from the men. I kept having to rewind The Beartooth Cafe to figure out who was talking. And sometimes they get low-volume, deep and whispery, and are hard to pick out from any background noise. I guess if a narrator switch was absolutely necessary, I would try to get used to a new one. But I don't think I can with this new narrator; the voices are distracting and they really turn me off from wanting to order any more Bud Shumway audiobooks. I like the stories and characters and I'm invested in their world, so I might buy them to read on the Kindle going forward. (I've switched back to Longmire and other audiobooks for now.)

Aside from the narrator switch, Book 8's plot disappointed a little in that it seemed to have Bud act out of character - it just wasn't in character that Bud would leave the lunch lady in danger and hand it off to others. He's not a "not my department" kind of guy.

Disappointing addition to this series.

I prefer Mr. Worley to this new guy. Mr. Henzel makes everyone sound too old. I also do not like the way this book changes Bud's character. Bud would have never left the lunch lady in a situation where she might be killed. He would have gotten her out of there. Between the new narrator and the strange change in Bud, it almost seems this series is being written by someone new. The story line showed promise, but did not deliver. Very disappointed. I am done with this series.

Used to love this series

Not to take anything away from Mr. Henzel but the voices he chose for the characters were, to say the least, annoying. While he was strictly in narrator mode he was easy to listen to but I found myself not paying attention to the plot because I was so distracted by the voices of the characters ...... I couldn't finish this one and that's sad because I won't be getting the rest of the series that I used to enjoy so much.