Death in a Mud Flat

Taking a little detour from cookbooks here, with a mystery novel, Death in a Mudflat by N. A. Granger.

But ... it's not totally devoid of food. While the main character, Rhe, is a nurse and her husband is the chief of police, Rhe likes to cook, as does her best friend, so people actually cook things, serve dinner, and discuss events over food. Kind of like real people.

That's not a huge part of the story, though, it's all about a murder. Rhe, besides being a nurse, also consults with the police department, so she's in the thick of things, from the very beginning, when a dead body is discovered near the beach wedding of some friends.

Yup, that'll put a damper on the festivities.

Like many characters in mysteries, Rhe has lots of time to investigate murder, even though she has another job. But that's okay. It's not a medical mystery novel, and we don't need to know how many times she took someone's blood pressure during the day. Her medical knowledge does come in handy though.

As mysteries go, this was complicated enough to be interesting, the characters were likable, and the end was satisfying. What's not to like?

I received this book at no cost to me.

Cinnamon Girl

I've been making time for doing more reading these days ... and not just reading cookbooks.
But I still have a bit of a soft spot for books that have a food or cooking theme. So, I picked up a copy of Cinnamon Girl by Valerie Horowitz. And, by "picked up" I mean that I ordered it from Amazon.

Cinnamon Girl is a murder mystery, and the main character, Bonnie Emerson, owns a store that sells cookware, cooking gadgets, and cookbooks. Some of the chapters start with recipes from cookbooks, and the recipes are mentioned in the stories. There are also cookbooks and cooking items mentioned in the text, as Bonnie interacts with customers and other folks at her store.

But those are just window dressing. The real story is the dead body that Bonnie and her husband found in their back yard. Opps. I hate when that happens.

And then it gets more complicated from there. Another murder, a book signing and cooking contest at the store, and the Secret Service people lurking about, since Bonnie is the daughter of an ex-President and he's still got pull with the White House.

The characters are likable ... even the murderer, and the story is fun. Fairly light reading, but engaging enough to keep me turning pages.

If you like mysteries and food and cookbooks (there's one that was mentioned that I actually stopped reading so I could slip it into my Amazon cart) I think you'll like this one. Oh - and although this isn't really a cookbook, the recipes chosen are winners. So you just might end up cooking from it.

Oh, and this is billed a Book 1, so it looks like there will be more to come.

Dex

I read a kid's book, and I liked it. There were no wizards. But there was a lot of cooking.

Dex Rossi, the main character of the book Dex, by Sheri Lynn Fishbach, is a middle-schooler who likes to cook. He has a business in front of his house selling sandwiches before his school day begins, and he sells more at school.

A geeky sort of kid with a crush on a classmate who seems to favor jocks, Dex faces all the same sorts of problems that average kids face, but he's also got worries about the family restaurant and his desire to save money for an exercise machine that will help him bulk up to impress the girl.

A strange turn of events lands him a cooking show on television, but then everything gets even more complicated...

As as adult, there were a few times when I shook my head and said, "no, that's not likely," but then I had to step back and realize that the book is, of course, fiction. And it's written for kids who will breeze right past the little inconsistencies.

This is exactly the sort of book I would have read as a kid - I loved Nancy Drew mysteries. But the fact that this kid is really into cooking was the icing on the cake. Hehe. Icing ... cake ... get it?

This would be a fun book for kids who like mysteries or for kids who love cooking.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

Hit and Nun

I was totally amused by Hit and Nun by Peg Cochran. From the title, you might think it's about a convent ... from the cover, you know there's pizza involved. But how do nuns and pizza tie together?

The heroine of the story, Lucille Mazzarella, is an old-school middle-aged Italian wife and mother who works part time for a church. That doesn't sound like the setup for a mystery novel ... but then Lucille is the sole witness when the owner of a nearby pizza parlor stumbles into the church and dies.

But he's not dead from natural causes - of course, he's been murdered.

Lucille apparently has a reputation as an amateur detective ... of course ... so she and her gal-pal Flo get themselves involved in figuring out who the murderer is.

No only does Lucille feel responsible because the guy died in front of her, but he was also the owner of her favorite pizza place.

Lucille goes as far as applying for a job at a competitor's pizza parlor - she suspects he might be involved -  and all while she manages to cook for her husband and extended family, and annoy her adult daughter who has moved back into Lucille's home with her husband and infant..

A running joke through the book is that Lucille read about the paleo diet in a magazine at the "Clip and Curl" while she was waiting to get her hair done, and she decides to give it a try. Of course, she didn't read the whole article, so the reasoning she uses to decide what "cavemen" ate is pretty funny.

Lucille is an interesting character. She goes from being down-to-earth and traditional to being goofy and flighty in the blink of an eye, but somehow it works. By the end of the book, some of the decisions she makes are downright daft, but it still works. By that time, we're used to her goofiness, and we follow along on the ride.

This is definitely a lighthearted mystery that won't give you the creeps late at night, but will leave you shaking your head and laughing.

I received a digital version of this book at no cost to me for the purpose of a review.

Cognac Conspiracies by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noel Balen

I love food, and I love a good mystery. A cocktail is nice, too. Cognac Conspiracies has it all. This book takes place mostly in the world of cognac-making, where a family business is in a bit of a turmoil, a murder is committed, and wine expert Benjamin Cooker and his assistant get themselves involved.

I recently reviewed another book by these authors, Deadly Tasting, and one thing that's different in this one is that we learn more about Cooker's past - one of his old girlfriends happens to live nearby, and he pays her a visit and meets her son -  but who's the father?

I'm not telling.

We also learn a bit more about Cooker's assistant, Virgile Lanssien, who also plays a more significant role in this book.

The one downside of this book is that since it's set in France (and originally written in French for that audience, and subsequently translated into English), names of places are thrown around casually, with the assumption that the readers will have a vague idea of the region - much like we'd understand the difference between Cape Cod, Brooklyn, Dallas, and Los Angeles, even if we've never visited any of those places.

But it's only a small blip, and it doesn't affect the actual story line.

Like the previous book, this is a fairly short book, and a quick and easy read. The end was satisfying, which is pretty much the best you can say about any book.

I received a digital copy of this book at no cost to me.

Scratched

One of my goals for this year is to take some me-time on weekends, and just relax. Step away from the Internet and the computer and the ... everything else that seems like work. I was hoping to read a book every weekend, but Scratched by J.J. Partridge took me a little longer than one weekend.

Not because I was slacking off on my relaxing. And not because it's an overly-long or difficult book. Possibly because there was so much going on, that I needed to really pay attention. And sometimes go back a few pages to make sure I followed all of the threads correctly.

This is the first J.J. Partridge book I've read, but apparently this author likes writing mysteries involving pool. Earlier books are Carom Shot and Straight Pool.

The book starts with a murder. Or I guess, more accurately, it's the discovery of the dead body. From there, several threads emerge. The whodunnit about the murder is primary. But there's also a pool tournament that's the biggest thing in the city, a conflict over Columbus Day, and a financial scandal. Meanwhile, the main character, Algy Temple, is preparing for his wedding.

At first, all the threads seem separate, but then things begin to intertwine in interesting ways. And then it's all one well-woven story.

One of the best things about this book was that although the ending made complete sense, I didn't see it coming. There's nothing worse than knowing the ending before the characters do.

I'll definitely be looking for more books by this author.

Criminal Confections by Colette London

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was to take some time off to relax, so for the past few weekends, I've spent time reading books. And I don't mean cookbooks, although I adore those, too.

Nope, I've been reading fiction.

My latest was Criminal Confections by Colette London. The main character is a chocolate expert who goes to a chocolate retreat where a murder is committed. Of course, the murder could be an accident, which is what most people believe.

The chocolate expert and her pal, a good-looking ex-con in the security business, start nosing around ... and then someone else dies - murder or accident.

Meanwhile, there's a lot of chocolate, so much so that when I was about halfway through the book, I wondered how anyone could enjoy that much chocolate in real life. And the next day I baked a pan of brownies.

At the end of the book, there are several recipes using chocolate. I didn't try any of the recipes, but I probably will.

This book is an easy read - I polished it off in a single day - and it's well written with just a couple hiccups that temporarily pulled me out of the story, like when the narrator broke that fourth wall and spoke right to the reader. I suppose that was used for effect, but for me, it disturbed the flow of the story for the moment. It wasn't a huge problem, though, and didn't affect my total enjoyment of the book.

The best part of this book was that I had no idea who the murderer was until the very end of the book, and once revealed, it made sense. So that's a huge plus.

I'll be looking for more books by this author in the future.

I received a digital version of this book from Netgalley for the purpose of a review.

Deadly Tasting: A Winemaker Detective Mystery by Jean-Pierre Alaux, Noël Balen

I'm trying to make more time for reading novels, so a mystery book that talked about wine seemed to be a good way to ease away from cookbooks.

Deadly Tasting was a pretty quick read, and funny along with the mystery. Translated from French, it assumes the reader will be familiar with locales, but that wasn't really an issue - no more than when I'm reading a sci-fi novel where the locations don't actually exist.

One note of humor that runs through the book (without revealing the plot, so don't worry) is that the protagonist's wife has decided he's a little too chubby, so she puts him on the cabbage soup diet.

Poor guy.

My only quibble with this book was that the ending seemed a little bit quick - when it was all done, I wished that it would have been a little bit more detailed and drawn out.

But I guess that wanting it to last longer is a good thing.

I'll definitely be looking for more of these books.

Note: I received a digital version of the book at no cost to me.