Death of a Kitchen Diva
I was in Maine in the last two weeks with a friend, and we passed by the very touristic village of Bar Harbor. The day before, we had done a 25 km hike (for real), including two summits, and you can understand that the next day we were exhausted. So after enjoying a brunch composed of eggs, potatoes, sausages, bacon and a huge pancake topped with a white ball that looked like ice cream to me but was actually butter (gross, maybe, but when it melts you don't notice and it's delicious), we went shopping.
One of the reasons we stopped by a bookstore was because my friend wanted a book for the trip. I had my e-reader and so I was mostly looking at what was cheesy in the gift section, when my friend exclaims, "Come see this!"
In the section Maine of the bookstore, composed of novels by local authors, there was a whole series of books by Lee Hollis with absolutely irresistible titles: Death of a Chocoholic, Death of a Pumpkin Carver, Death of a Lobster Lover… Kinds of culinary crime novels, written by a brother who is a crime writer and a sister who has won awards in cooking. My friend was about to raid the entire row, so I hurried to grab one. My e-reader took the edge: I don't think there's a more appropriate read for a vacation in Maine.
Summary
Hayley Powell is a journalist for the Island Times, a Bar Harbor newspaper. A single mother of two teenagers, she struggles to make ends meet. Her boss asked her to take over the paper's food column. She's not much of a writer, but it's true that her friends rave about her food all the time, and she accepts with gusto.
She then discovers an aggressive rival: Karen Applebaum, who writes the food column in the other local newspaper (there are two). So begins a feud that grows more and more bitter, which only ends when Hayley finds Karen at home, face down in a clam chowder, dead. Of course, everyone suspects the innocent Hayley. She then takes over the investigation, unofficially of course, to find the real culprit and avoid jail time. Through it all, the reader can read her columns and recipes (there are 7).
Impressions
With a concept like that, it really would have had to be badly written to spoil my fun. And I assure you, it wasn't. It was funny, light, and familiar as a comforter (a short trip to the area was enough to give me that impression).
As for the recipes, I'll take a rain check. I don't have the patience to make my own ravioli, and I don't want to buy lobster just to stuff mushrooms. I tried the Orange Blossom, a cocktail from the book made with gin and orange juice, and I found it so foul that I threw it down the sink. But all tastes are in nature. And anyway, who reads a novel to cook?
