I love to eat, read, write, and talk about food. Since I was a clinical psychologist before turning to writing, I use food to develop complex characters, including my food critic protagonist, Hayley Snow. Here's how she describes food writing: "When we wrIte about simmering a stew or a sauce for hours or days, we are really talking about how much we owe to the folks who came before us and the importance of cherishing their memory. And how much we yearn to give to the people in our present who’ll be gathered around our table. We are writing about food as family history, and love, and hope, and sometimes a little splash of guilt."
Davidson's series about a Boulder-based caterer who solves mysteries on the side is probably the grandparent of the current culinary mystery boom. As I read this first book, I wanted to be friends with caterer Goldy, sitting in her kitchen, tasting her food, helping her untangle herself from an abusive marriage. When Goldy finally remarried—this time to a cop—many crimes were dissected in their kitchen as they cooked. How did I know Goldy’s husband Tom was a good guy? He didn’t push her aside when she had smart ideas, and he made her incredible comfort food and cups and cups of fabulous coffee.
MEET THE CATERER WHO WHIPPED UP THE MULTIMILLION-COPY MYSTERY SERIES– AS GOLDY SOLVES HER FIRST MURDER!
Diane Mott Davidson’s winning recipe of first-class suspense and five-star fare has won her and caterer Goldy critical raves and a regular place on major bestseller lists across the country. In Goldy’s tantalizing debut, she serves up a savory dish of secrets, suspicions, and murder....
Catering a wake is not Goldy’s idea of fun. Yet the Colorado caterer throws herself into preparing a savory feast including Poached Salmon and Strawberry Shortcake Buffet designed to soothe forty mourners. And her culinary efforts seem to be…
In this first book in a foodie mystery series, Ross’s character, Julia Snowden, is lured home from a successful career in New York City to a small town in Maine to help save her family’s clambake business. Those books set in the summer season, including this one, feature the bake as an extra character in the background. Repeat readers know the menu by heart (fish chowder, lobster, steamers, corn on the cob, a roasted onion, baked potato, a boiled egg, and blueberry crumble). The mystery is clever, the protagonist appealing but not perfect, and the cast of small-town characters and family, irresistible.
Summer has come to Busman's Harbor, Maine, and tourists are lining up for a taste of authentic New England seafood, courtesy of the Snowden Family Clambake Company. But there's something sinister on the boil this season. A killer has crashed a wedding party, adding mystery to the menu at the worst possible moment. . .
Julia Snowden returned to her hometown to rescue her family's struggling clambake business--not to solve crimes. But that was before a catered wedding on picturesque Morrow Island turned into a reception for murder. When the best man's corpse is found hanging from the grand staircase…
Davis is particularly good at using food to show connections between people and bring the surrounding community to life. Sophie Winston, the series' main character, runs an event business in Old Town Alexandria. She’s nosy and loving and a consummate entertainer, who regularly whips up appetizing meals and snacks for unexpected visitors. When I read one of the books in the series, including Cheesecake, I yearn to be part of Sophie’s inner circle, and certainly to have her in my corner if I run into murderous trouble.
In a delicious new Domestic Diva Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Krista Davis, entertaining guru Sophie Winston is faced with a midsummer nightmare when a celebration in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, is the appetizer for murder . . .
Old Town's midsummer festivities are getting a tasty addition this year. To coincide with a public performance of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Bobbie Sue Bodoin, the Queen of Cheesecake, has hired Sophie to organize a dinner with a dessert buffet on the waterfront. Bobbie Sue's homegrown company is thriving, and since her baking dish overfloweth, she wants to…
Crombie has a popular and long-running series featuring a pair of married London detectives. I especially enjoyed this entry as it’s focused on a high-strung and competitive chef, and a high-stakes charity luncheon for important guests and critics. But the chef’s growing reputation drags the past into the present, with disastrous results. The food is divine, and the hot kitchen with its sharp knives and pressure-cooker atmosphere makes a perfect backdrop for murder.
"Crombie’s characters are rich, emotionally textured, fully human. They are the remarkable creations of a remarkable writer."—Louise Penny
“Nobody writes the modern English mystery the way Deborah Crombie does—and A Bitter Feast is the latest in a series that is gripping, enthralling, and just plain the best.” — Charles Todd, New York Times bestselling author of The Black Ascot and A Cruel Deception
New York Times bestselling author Deborah Crombie returns with a mesmerizing entry in her “excellent” (Miami Herald) series, in which Scotland Yard detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James are pulled into a dangerous web of secrets, lies,…
Ann Cleeves is a British mystery writer with three-plus long-running series. My favorite, including Raven Black, features emotionally wounded but fiercely dedicated Shetland detective Jimmy Perez. Cleeves is by no means a cozy culinary writer, but she’s a master of showing characters through their relationship to food. How can a reader resist lines such as, “Mr. Scott was a pale, thin man. A stick of forced rhubarb said Sally’s mother, who had seen him at a parents meeting” or “She tried to imagine Mr. Ross, sitting at their kitchen table while her mother hacked at the overcooked meat and picked away at him with her questions.”
Introducing Inspector Jimmy Perez. Raven Black is the first book in Ann Cleeves' bestselling Shetland series - now a major BBC One drama, starring Douglas Henshal.
A remote community with a killer in their midst . . .
On New Year's Day, Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance . . .
Key West food critic Hayley Snow’s beach picnic is interrupted when her husband’s dog disappears. She follows his barking to find him furiously digging at a shallow grave containing a man’s body. A birdwatcher identifies the dead man as GG Garcia, a rabble-rousing local builder, famous for over-development on the fragile Keys, womanizing, and refusing to follow city rules. Then Hayley’s mother is hired to cater GG’s memorial service reception at the Woman’s Club, using recipes from the club’s vintage Key West cookbook. The real clues materialize when Hayley begins to study the old cookbook, as whispers of old secrets come to life, dragging the past into the present—with murderous results.
Writer, reader, editor, reviewer, publisher… those are all parts of me. With a lifetime of experience in the “words” industry, I have a pretty good handle on what makes a book not just good, but hot. I say this with the understanding that each reader brings their own histories to the reading experience, and what one person may like, another may not. Nonetheless, I offer you my professional and personal favorites in the mystery/thriller/suspense categories. It is my sincere hope that you find these books as addictive as I’d found them. Superb and clever writing, engaging characters, unpredictable plots—yes, please! Though I occasionally step outside my comfort zone, I'm consistently drawn back to these categories.
Liza O’Connell was a horror buff in every sense of the word. But there was one deadly nightmare she would never be able to talk about … her own. A friend murdered. A business in trouble. A marriage struggling to survive. And that’s just the beginning.
When salon owner Carrie King discovers Liza dead in the back room of her shop, everyone becomes a suspect, even her. As tensions in the community rise, so does the death toll, and now the local cops believe there’s a serial killer on the loose. The question is … are the two investigations connected?…
Liza O’Connell was a horror buff in every sense of the word. But there was one deadly nightmare she would never be able to talk about … her own.
A friend murdered.
A business in trouble.
A marriage struggling to survive.
And that’s just the beginning.
When salon owner Carrie King discovers Liza dead in the back room of her shop, everyone becomes a suspect, even her. As tensions in the community rise, so does the death toll, and now the local cops believe there’s a serial killer on the loose. The question is … are the two investigations connected?…
