Review: "Deathday Party" (1999)

"Like I said, people who are careless with their gardening can't be trusted. You just never know what they have in their background. That's why we've got to get out of here, Jane, dear. I am not used to this kind of thing, you know."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, neither am I. I mean, it's been years since anyone, excuse me, anything tried to impale me with pruning shears."

Synopsis: Southern decorating belle Hillary and her fish-out-of-water assistant Jane agree to cater a party for an eccentric Gothic family, but get trapped at the house by a storm. Then bodies start cropping up everywhere except the family cemetery. It's just that kind of party.

Grade: A-

While this book's technically the second of Carter's Decorating Duo of Deduction series (#1 was Leading an Elegant Death and #3 is Red Wine Goes with Murder) it's all about catering and includes a recipe, so I'm cheerfully including it here.

Broke single mother and California transplant Jane Ferguson takes a job with Hillary Scarborough, the Martha Stewart of the South, despite not knowing a glue gun from a frosting bag. Still growing accustomed to Southern eccentricities, Jane still boggles at their latest catering job: a birthday party for America Elizabeth Bean, a dead woman renowned for having killed someone who may or may not already be dead. But when a storm traps Jane and Hillary at the Bean mansion, they find their hostess dead but unable to stay in her coffin. More bodies follow suit, none of them in the family cemetery, however. And why does the local gas station attendant look just like the telephone repairman and an out-of-town preacher called in to do the honors at the party?

Cozies by now have a ton of tropes attached to them: the amateur sleuth with the failed love life, usually including a terrible ex-husband and a burgeoning relationship with the local lawman (check, check); a sassy sidekick less skilled at detecting (check); and a small town or family full of secrets (check). Bonus points if one of the sleuthing duo is a terrible driver (yup, check).

But there were two things that made this mystery really work for me. One, the banter between Jane and Hillary is phenomenal without straining credulity (a lot like the best of Mary Daheim's Judith McGonigal-Flynn and her cousin Renie) and contains a handful of laugh-out-loud moments.

The other was that one of the biggest cozy tropes, that the amateur detective is usually also a harried mother and failed domestic doyenne here is done to perfection. While Hillary's perfection in these areas highlights Jane's flaws Jane never lets it cow her and she stands up to Hillary repeatedly. You get to see how her detection skills more than make up for all the dust bunnies on her rugs.

I am deeply suspicious of amateur sleuths who have everything pulled together and still manage to have flawless hair, eyes the color of farting cornflowers and "comfortably rounded" figures. Dude, give me the whip-smart, unbrushed, covered-in-cat-hair detectives any day of the week.

I suspect part of the popularity of the Harried Amateur is commentary on the backlash against women who entered the workplace in large numbers during the late 70s and 80s. Hear me out: so many cozies that feature these women were also written by female authors, who en masse, have the effect of saying, look, I may not be the Angel of the Household, but my intelligence more than makes up for that.

Which has nothing to do with food. :)

One recipe included in the book, Hillary's Brandy Sauce, which sounds awesome. I did wish for the recipe for Hillary's pecan and cranberry quickbread, as well as more of a focus on what she recommends the Beans serve at their deathday party as a type of clue to funeral meats and traditions and whatnot, but I wasn't sorry at all that the omission of those things came at the cost of more plot and a slightly madcap dash around a modern-day House of Usher. Highly recommended.

From the table of the Iron Duke, by Meljean Brook:

One of the many things I liked about this book was the food, and how it, along with the rest of the world, had been ingeniously thought out. In a book set after privation and war, it makes sense that a fresh orange would be the most indulgent of delicacies. I like to see that type of thinking from an author. It's clever.

Take, for instance, the first lines of the book:

Mina hadn't predicted that sugar would wreck the Marchioness of Hartington's ball; she'd though the dancing would. Their hostess's good humor had weathered them through the discovery that fewer than forty of her guests knew the steps, however, and they'd survived the first quadrilles. But as the room grew warmer, the laughter louder, and the gossiping more vigorous, the refreshment table set the First Annual Victory Ball on a course for disaster.

Which meant Mina was enjoying the event far more than she'd expected to.

On the other hand, I completely agree with The Book Smugglers about the Iron Duke's cover. Gah headless man-titty.

Review: "Death by the Glass" (2003)

"Morales is going to fucking ruin me," said Osborne, puffing as he settled his briefcase and groped for the seat belt. "He's trying to destroy my restaurant." He waited for a response but didn't get one. "Who eats Moroccan food, anyway? Who wants to eat Moroccan food?"

"Moroccans?" said Nick.

Synopsis: Luminous foodie murder set entirely in the overheated, incestuous world of high-end restaurants, with an interesting accidental sleuth and a panoply of interesting supporting characters. Minor hiccups with plotholes and strings left dangling at the end.

Grade: A-

High-stakes wine fraud and murder disguised as a heart attack compel Sunny McCoskey to again toss aside her chef's apron and don the role of sleuth. When the list of suspects includes her new lover, the celebrity chef at a posh Napa Valley eatery, the personal risks of her investigation rise dramatically.

That's the official blurb and it's both accurate and terrible. Here's what really happened.

(For all of you who've ever worked in a restaurant, lots of this will sound familiar. Although if that involves murder, yikes. Talk about your dead-end jobs...)

Sunny McCoskey operates a small gourmet restaurant with her friend Rivka when they're not gossiping with their effeminate heterosexual winesnob friend, Monty, who in my head was both looking and sounding like fashion designer Michael Kors. Go with it. I watch a lot of Project Runway.

Sunny and Rivka hop across the street to do a charity dinner at Vinifera, mainly because of the hunky chef there, Andre. There's some talk about getting back on a relationship horse because Sunny's kind of a wiener. But she's also well-actualized and complicated and an insomniac, so of course Andre leaps at her like a dog on a bone.

However, and this was a little weird, right after her date with Andre (not her dinner with him, thanks) Sunny gets consumed by finding the killer of Vinifera's owner. Who no one thinks got murdered. It's safe to say that Rivka's right on with her assessment of Sunny's honking big intimacy issues.

It's a great book. Sunny and Rivka are fantastic and funny friends and there's food everywhere in this book, mostly being prepared rather than eaten, but also wrapped delicately into such descriptions as "Near the front, parked under a tree, was a Mercedes sedan the color of vanilla ice cream. A black 911, too new to have license plates, sat nearby showing a tease of cherry-red disk brakes through the silver wheel covers."

There are gorgeous descriptions of the Napa Valley throughout, although you do have to roll with the fact that Napa's the kind of place where you can belly up to the bar and talk to the bartender about what kind of red wine to take on a booty call...while eating deep-fried olives stuffed with anchovies. Which I think we all agree are totally a bar-food.

Napa's a very upscale boondocks, or as Rivka and Sunny put it, "Les Boondocks".

There are a couple plotholes, like a scene with a villain menacing early on that's oh, you know, never mentioned again, and we never do find out if Sunny gets her act together with Andre, even by the end of the book. And there are references to things in a previous book but hello, it's a series, so I should just calm down and get over it.

Or just read the rest of the other books.

In the kitchen with five (hardboiled) detectives

Southern California surf PI Boone Daniels:

“Everything,” Boone says, “tastes better on a tortilla.” This is an article of faith with Boone. He’s lived his life with it and believes it to be true. You take anything—fish, chicken, beef, cheese, eggs, even peanut butter and jelly—and fold them in the motherly embrace of a warm flour tortilla and all those foods respond to the love by upping their game. Everything does taste better on a tortilla.

--Don Winslow, The Dawn Patrol

Inspector John Rebus:

Nothing in the world tasted as good for breakfast as stolen rolls with some butter and jam and a mug of milky coffee. Nothing tasted better than a venial sin.

--Ian Rankin, Knots and Crosses

Detective Inspector Jack Frost:

Two dubious-looking rashers of bacon sweated and cowered in the corner of the fridge. He took them out, sniffed them, and decided to chance it.

The rashers were laid into the frying pan with a generous chunk of recycled dripping, then two eggs were cracked and dropped in, and everything started sizzling and spitting and filling the kitchen with greasy smoke. He turned his attention to making the tea. No tea bags left. Damn and flaming blast!

He ferreted around in the rubbish bin and found a swollen, soggy used bag looking like a drowned mouse. Beggars can't be choosers, he thought as he dumped it in his cup and drowned it again in hot water. Then he buttered some bread, tipped the contents of the frying pan onto a plate, fished a knife and fork out of the washing-up bowl, and settled down to eat.

--RD Wingfield, A Touch of Frost

LAPD Homicide Detective Harry Bosch:

Bosch gave her Pounds's serial number and then the names Gordon Mittel, Arno Conklin, Claude Eno and Jake McKittrick. He said he needed the home addresses on their licenses.

He was put on hold again. During the time he waited he held the phone to his ear with his shoulder and fried an egg over easy in a pan on the stove. He made a sandwich out of it with two slices of white toast and cold salsa from a jar he kept in the refrigerator. He ate the dripping sandwich while leaning over the sink. He had just wiped his mouth and poured himself a second cup of coffee when the clerk finally pciked back up.

--Michael Connelly, The Last Coyote

Psychologist and very serious detective Alex Delaware:

We went into the house. [Milo] fixed himself a bowl of Cheerios and milk, stood at the counter and spooned the cereal down nonstop before pausing to catch his breath. "Hand me a napkin."

--Jonathan Kellerman, Silent Partner

Conclusion: I would never eat at Inspector Frost's house. I might not even touch anything or sit down.

Cooking with Inspector Frost:

Two dubious-looking rashers of bacon sweated and cowered in the corner of the fridge. He took them out, sniffed them, and decided to chance it.

The rashers were laid into the frying pan with a generous chunk of recycled dripping, then two eggs were cracked and dropped in, and everything started sizzling and spitting and filling the kitchen with greasy smoke. He turned his attention to making the tea. No tea bags left. Damn and flaming blast!

He ferreted around in the rubbish bin and found a swollen, soggy used bag looking like a drowned mouse. Beggars can't be choosers, he thought as he dumped it in his cup and drowned it again in hot water. Then he buttered some bread, tipped the contents of the frying pan onto a plate, fished a knife and fork out of the washing-up bowl, and settled down to eat.

Imaginary foods made real: Maggie Stiefvater creates November cakes

And they sound freakishly delish:

Of course, as with all food descriptions in my novels, I quickly warmed to my mission and proceeded to fill the pages of the book with more things about "the moist crumb, the nectar that seeps from the base of it, the icing that soaks into the cake before you can lick it off." Oh, yes, now we were getting somewhere. My legacy as a fake food writer was beginning to look more promising.

--via her blog

"Nothing can be fictional if there's a recipe." I kind of want that on a tshirt.

Review: "Cookie Dough or Die" (2011)

"I'm surprised you're not fat," Olivia teased her brother.

"I'm surprised you're not in jail," Jason said, just before forcing another half of a sandwich into his mouth.

Synopsis: Niche cookie-cutter boutique becomes ground zero for an all-family squabble over inheritance, past sins and murder -- yes, murder. Bonus points for the canine sidekick, no matter what the health department would say.

Grade: B+

I confess, I usually eschew niche cozies that don't involve food. Call me crazy, call me focused, but there are so many culinary mysteries out there to read that I need some sort of focus in order to not be buried under an avalanche of books that need reading. Not that they don't all need reading.

I picked this book up, though, based on the title and cover. Admit it: Cookie Dough or Die is a fantastic title. And then once I started reading, I was hooked. And there's a dog in it.

Olivia Greyson owns The Gingerbread House, a cookie cutter boutique somewhere in or near Maryland, with her best friend Maddie and her rescue dog, Spunky. When her mentor Clarisse is found dead, Olivia's thrown for a loop, and even more so when it turns out to be murder. When it turns out Clarisse left Olivia a hoard of antique cookie-cutters, she basically does a loop-de-loop. But the murderer really wants the secrets kept, their identity never found and oh yeah, all the cookie cutters back.

Very smooth and enjoyable writing. Great quirky characters -- Maddie, the best friend is flighty and sparkly, Olivia's interesting, her love interest, the sheriff, is not obnoxious in the least, and Spunky basically steals the show.

Lowell does a ton of things right in this book: even though Olivia decides to solve the mystery, she never forgets that she has a business to run and a dog to walk, and she prioritizes those well. She has a great support network in Maddie and her mom, but the flow of the story remains well-anchored to the idea that the mystery-solving protagonist is first and foremost a small business owner.

Loved the rest of the townspeople, especially the very terrible newspaper editor, loved the crazy family. It was a little hard to believe the sheriff went along with Olivia's plans for confronting the murderer, but I guess love makes people do strange things.

Will definitely be continuing on with the series.