Sweet Revenge

Every once in a while, when I need a break from heavy duty or very dark books, I will pick up something like this book from Diane Mott Davidson--predictable yet fun mysteries featuring Goldy Schultz, caterer extraordinaire who lives in the mythical Denver bedroom community of Aspen Meadow. We jump into Goldy's life in the middle of the holiday season when her schedule is jam packed with the usual assortment of wealthy, demanding, and irascible customers. As usual, murder intervenes when former district attorney Drew Wellington is murdered at the public library while Goldy is setting up a staff holiday party.   

Kirkus gives this one a lukewarm review but notes that the recipes are worth investigating. Publishers Weekly, on the other hand, says that Davidson is "at the top of her form" in this 14th entry in the book series, concluding that "Readers will happily sink their teeth into Goldy's latest case and come away hungry for more."

Brewed Awakening

I am unjustifiably surprised to find that their is yet another culinary based mystery series of which I have been totally unaware. There are almost 20 books in Cleo Coyle's "Coffeehouse Mysteries" series, this being the newest installment. Cleo Coyle is the pen name for the husband-and-wife team of Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini. There is seemingly an endless appetite (all puns intended) for books featuring food, beverages and recipes. The protagonist of this series is coffee roaster par excellence and owner of the coffee shop Village Blend,  Clare Cosi. Clare awakes on a park bench in Washington Square with no memory of how she came to be there and why everything looks so different. Turns out that Clare disappeared several days earlier when she went to a private tasting for wedding cakes hosted by an acquaintance and friend of her former mother-in-law. That woman, hotel heiress Annette Brewster, was kidnapped at gunpoint based on video footage from the hotel's garage, and Clare was a witness. The only problem is--and it's a big one--Clare can't remember a thing, and, in fact, has lost all memory of the last 15 years of her life. In her mind, she has just found out that her ex-husband, Matteo, has been cheating on her for years, their daughter is still in pigtails, and she has never met the man she is engaged to marry, Detective Mike Quinn. A celebrity psychologist, Dr. Lorca, who specializes in working with memory problems, offers to take her on as a patient for no charge, but it quickly becomes apparent that he has alternative motives. Maybe they are as benign as having another subject for another best-seller, or maybe something more sinister is behind his desire to move Clare to his private clinic, locked away from everyone who knows and loves her. To complicate matters, the police become suspicious of Clare's memory lapse and begin to consider that Clare was complicit in the kidnapping. It is a pretty compelling mystery and a provocative premise. Kirkus notes it's "An unsettling, often scary account of how memory loss affects a strong woman’s life." Publishers Weekly calls it a " delightfully twisty mystery" and asks " an intriguing question: if you lost all memory of your beloved, would you fall for him all over again?"

Dark Tort

I think I have outgrown Diane Mott Davidson. Her books are like the comfort food protagonist, caterer Goldy Bear Schultz, makes in each episode of the series. She has a likable family at the center of this series--Sheriff's Dept investigator and husband Tom, son Arch, catering whiz and partner Julian, and a  new half-brother to Arch-- with a trusty best friend Marla. She always does a decent job of creating her Aspen Meadows setting near Boulder, Colorado, and Goldie always solves the crime ahead of the officials who don't have her penchant for poking her nose in where it could get her in trouble. One evening as Goldie goes into a local law firm to help prepare foods for an early morning breakfast for clients, she trips over the body of the firm's paralegal and Goldy's neighbor, Dusty Routt. Distraught at losing her young friend, Goldy is asked by the girl's mother to find out who did it. She claims the law firm where Dusty worked was a "nest of vipers." The story also involves a recently deceased chef and painter whose wild success as an artist barely preceded his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. But his demise is from what is assumed to be an accidental fall. Another apparently random death gets pulled into the mix before this is all over. If you like mysteries with tasty recipe thrown in, this is for you. They just move a little too slow--without enough compensation in character or setting, etc.--to make these worthwhile for me anymore. Of course I have read at least half a dozen so take my grumping with a grain of salt.