a foody mystery

Is Corinna my twin in Melbourne? What an enjoyable twist and a gorgeous window. ( )

Another fantastic Corinna Chapman book by Kerry Greenwood. Corinna is possibly my favourite heroine. She's smart, sassy, successful, surrounded by friends and has a beautiful man in her life... all while being a fat woman. Positive fat heroines are really difficult to find.

Kerry Greenwood writes with wit, intelligence and fantastic descriptives. The Corinna Chapman books are definitely going into my permanent collection sooner rather than later. ( )

Ok. So I have recently overdosed on Kerry Greenwood books. And I have problems with them.

The first one concerns the baking. Corrina, the main character and narrator, is a baker. Ms Greenwood, our author, presumably knows nothing about bakeries apart from the notion that they smell good. She begin baking sometime about 4.30 (seeing that she wakes at 4, has coffee and breakfast and then dresses before baking) and gets all the work done (both for orders and for the shop) in about three and a half hours. And she has a mouse problem which is solved with cats. Which in the first book the health inspector has no problem with.

The second concern is the Ancient History. Greenwood has digusted me before by using the phrase "those hoi polloi" (Translated into english - those the people). Now she has a building built in some 'Roman' style, with apartments given Roman names. Included amongst the inhabitants is a classics Professor who is presumably so into the Romans that he had Roman furniture made. But his life work? Translating Aristophanes. 1. Aristophanes is not that hard - novice greek learners (like me) can translate large amount. 2. Aristophanes was Greek. Writing in Greek. When I learnt Greek, us pro-hellenic types rather looked down on the Romans who stole everything from the Greeks . . . (ok, leave the Greek vs. Roman debate for later). Anyway - it doesn't add up.

Third problem - a problem I'm beginning to notice with Australian crime novels. A cute little habit of making an in-joke about the location.

Fourth problem - these books are going to be terribly dated. Phillip Ruddock jokes and Buffy references.

Fifth problem - 18 year olds who read Girlfriend. They might be ditzes, but they would have given Girlfriend up about 14 or 15 and moved on to Comso/Cleo

Anyway, in the first book Corrina finds a body outside her bakery, meets a tall dark stranger, goes to a goth club, finds a bakery assistant who makes good muffins, and searches for a missing girl. Badly written, badly researched a lot of the time, but strangely addictive. I was looking forward to the second book. ( )