Dying for Chocolate

Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson is the second of the Goldy culinary mystery series. As with the others, I listened to the Barbara Rosenblat audio. Unfortunately for the earliest books (except for the first) the CD audios are all abridged. My library offers it for download through Oneclick but those bastards put a non-Mac friendly DRM on it. So I ended up having to buy a digital copy from iTunes as I will probably have to do for book three.

In this book, Goldy and Arch have moved from their previous home to escape the ever abusive ex-husband. Goldy for room and board is cooking and answering phones in a massive home. Meanwhile Arch is attending summer school at the local private academy along with a petulant, mohawk sporting Julian.

Things go horribly wrong with the death of Philip Miller. It's a rather gruesome description of how he dies. Goldy is understandably distraught. Interestingly, though, her feelings for him change as she learns more about him.

Besides Miller's death, Goldy has a competing caterer complaining that she has stolen their name, a newspaper reviewer dubbed "Pierre" who is writing nothing but negative reviews of her food, and Arch bugging her to have a magic show swim party.

Although I've figured out other mysteries in this series, I didn't this time. It had the right amount of herrings to keep me confused and interested.

I also must admit that I have a complete and utter literary crush on Julian. ( )

Much better than the first one "Catering to nobody". I read that she changed publisher with her second book which might account for the depth the secondary characters have instead of being paper thin cut out like the first book. Goldy still annoys me to no end but I liked Arch (her son), Tom Schulz (police detective and on and off suitor of Goldy), Julian and the crazy retired General enough to stick with the plot. I was surprised. The character I thought was the culprit wasn't. If only because Davidson managed to surprise me and not go the obvious way I'm gonna read the next one, "The Cereal Murders". ( )

Listened to the Recorded Books cassette edition. Hmm. Goldy still annoys me; she's over-protective of her son in an annoying way and I don't understand her relationship with Schulz - why in the world wouldn't you have stuck with him in the first place and where did the marriage proposal come from in the end? Seems way too soon for that. I don't know if I'll continue working my way through these. I'm thinking maybe one more chance and if I'm still meh about them I'm giving up. ( )

Goldy finds herself a live-in cook for the summer, partly to avoid her ex-husband's threats. But she's moved out of one sticky situation only to find herself in another. Goldy has plenty of faults and insecurities, which makes her a very likeable character. She struggles to be a good single mom, fighting back guilt for a bad marriage. A bonus are the tasty recipes scattered among the pages of the novel. ( )

These are your basic light little mysteries, but they suffer from a two-dimensional quality. The viewpoint character is just so pure – she’s in her thirties, has a child, and still feels guilty about sleeping with her fiance before the wedding, and enjoying it – while all the other people in the small Colorado town where she lives are so nasty, snobbish, priggish, gossipy, and shallow that the reader gets a lopsided view that just isn’t believable. And the reasons these people have for committing murder strain your disbelief even further, but I won’t give anything away. I was also particularly put off by one line in Dying for Chocolate: “She had that drawn look that vegetarians get.” I haven’t looked drawn since I became a vegetarian – quite the opposite, in fact – and everyone knows that a vegetarian diet is, in point of fact, much better for you. Anyway, the books do have a redeeming quality – they all include several sinfully sweet recipes so you can take time out and cook something if the story is bothering you. ( )