Customer Reviews

Beat Until Stiff

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I gave this book a five star rating because I am a big fan of light mysteries, the characters being thrown into a homicide investigation, the books with cooks, store owners, moms.....but this one I felt was really different. It was actually a little darker than most, a light mystery with an edge. Everything wasn't so wrapped up, no pat ending.
I look forward to the next in the series.

Mary Ryan, pastry chef at American Fare -- the hottest restaurant on the West Coast, is 34, recently divorced from Jim, a San Francisco homicide inspector, and cranky.

Getting a chef's jacket and apron from the laundry room of the deserted restaurant, she steps on a laundry bag. It feels hard, not spongy like a bag of dirty laundry. She opens the bag with her chef's knife and finds Carlos Perez, one of her pastry assistants, beaten to death and neatly folded into the laundry bag. After she throws up and hides in the bathroom to make sure whoever killed him has left, she calls 911.

O'Connor, Jim's partner and a friend, is assigned to this case. Mary disobeys O'Connor and puts herself in danger time and time again. But she also helps uncover what has been going on under her nose. Many secrets of the food business at American Fare are uncovered.

I found Mary Ryan to be a likeable character even though her life is dysfunctional at best.

If you like food and mysteries, you will like this debut novel. I am looking forward to reading future books.

I am truly surprised that this was the author's first book. I read a lot and can usually tell when its a first try. I really enjoyed this book and read it in one sitting. I hope she writes more!

Mary Ryan, pastry chef at the trendy American Fare Restaurant in San Francisco, makes a grizzly discovery while alone at the restaurant in the early morning. She steps on a trash bag which contains a body of a fellow worker. The fact that she has made the discovery places her at the center of the investigation. Leading the investigation is O'Connor, the former partner of Mary's ex-husband. He gives her the inside track on the progression of the investigation. As much as O'Connor entreats Mary to stay out of police matters, Mary always seems to find trouble--including a couple more dead bodies.
I liked this formulaic amateur PI debut novel. The characters are engaging, the setting of San Francisco well utilized and the author's occupation as a pastry chef of interest. Ms. Johnson also manages to keep the length just long enough to contain the well paced plot, yet, short enough to be read in one evening. In future books I would like more inside information about the restaurant industry. This is often the only thing that separates these amateur PI novels-- the occupation of the main character. Ms. Johnson should definitely avoid the timeworn device of the villain holding the hero hostage at the end with a gun while divulging all. Otherwise a very admirable first effort.

What a fun book! Great characters, great locations, great everything! This is a quick read, I couldn't put it down! Please please please Ms. Johnson, write more....quickly!

Claire M. Johnson's Beat Until Stiff deserves enthusiastic mention as a very special title which offers an unusually frank view of the cooking and restaurant scene in San Francisco. Herself a professional and experienced pastry chef, Claire Johnson presents the reader with a lively style that mixes autobiography with culinary and social insights. Highly recommended!

Sometimes I don't realize that characters are cardboard-ish; actually they aren't, until I read a sharply contrasting, fictional live-wire like Claire Johnson's Mary Ryan. Mary is unerringly real, balanced perfectly between guts and sensitivity, with a snarky sarcasm which feels so natural and so right on, it doesn't reduce her to being too edgy to live with. Beat that!

I've read and loved all of Sue Grafton's alphabet mysteries featuring Kinsey Millhone, and Diane Mott Davidson's Catering mysteries featuring Goldie Schulz. I'm hooked enough to purchase their new hardbacks as soon as they come out. I didn't expect to find a female sleuth I liked as well as Kinsey and Goldie, but I have. (Actually I've found several, but in this review I'm focusing on a very welcome newcomer to the genre.)

By the time I had read about a quarter of the way through BEAT UNTIL STIFF, I was viscerally implanted into this mystery pilot driven by the antics of an addictive Mary Ryan, pastry chef at a premier San Francisco restaurant. Edging beyond the best of both Kinsey and Goldie, Mary folded into an anorexic, Type-A-hypertension, a complex richness, realistic vulnerability, not overdone grit, and sheer character appeal.

By the time I had read half-way through the book I really, really LIKED Mary. I kept asking myself why, since this type of hyper-angst is usually so edgy it's off-putting if not repulsive.

By the time I was three-quarters into the book I was feeling that rare dread of not wanting to finish the read without owning a stack of sequels and having number two ready to open as I close the last page on BEAT UNTIL STIFF.

It fits that Johnson is a pastry chef, because her novel exposes the sense of rhythm, design, contrast, and timing required for success at her level in San Francisco's culinary culture. I was hoping it was possible, but wasn't certain if an "up there" chef could incorporate those skills into writing escape fiction. Now I am.

Attempting to put my finger on exactly what solidified Mary's addictive appeal, I kept coming up with her being almost too true to life as an emotionally unstilted, free-wheeling, strong-within-the-depth-of-untethered-vulnerability, female. She seemed to dance a spontaneous, serendipitous choreography through an onslaught of trials and tangents, the main one being a realistically pervasive, reeling, rocky healing process from the shock-power of an absolutely unexpected divorce. She flowed, through both pain and pleasure, yet did not ever, not at all, seem over-planned or staged. I'm in awe of this character who clearly exposes that the author cannot be far behind in embodying a delightfully-rich, magnetic hypersensitivity.

This glorifying praise of Mary Ryan doesn't even begin to address the other aspects of BEAT UNTIL STIFF which are outstanding for a true gift in escape fiction.

- There's the depth of Johnson's cultural open-minded-ness, honoring the Latino strength in the culinary industry without martyring them into a repelling political agenda (which would sour both the "cause" of escape fiction and the cause of a valid industry expose).

- There's the fun and feisty relationship between Mary and her friend, inspector O'Connor

- There's a well-run, tightly-plotted, fully-satisfying mystery.

- And we have the bonus of a snarky, sarcastic woman who, surprisingly, has an appealingly warm connect with her Irish mother.

What else could we WANT??

There's yet more to this story, but this should be enough to recommend the purchase and read of BEAT UNTIL STIFF.

The only reservation I'd offer, in all fairness, is to warn of that feeling of dread of having to finish reading the book without having 10 more Mary Ryan mysteries to buffer the loss of finishing the book without knowing there'll be a backup collection. Even so, ya gotta read this!

I'll leave with a wish about the cover artwork on both the paperback and hardback of this book:

- The paperback's cover presentation is awesomely perfect in style, color coordination, and typesetting panache addressing title, author, and text detail; it fits both the chef ambiance and murder mystery gestalt. But the knife-in-the-back, and stirring of a soup pot does not fit the plot detail. Those images made me feel that the artist, as fantastically as his skill is portrayed in "to die for" perfection, did not read the book.

- There's a similar problem in the cover of the hardback. While the photographic presentation of a smiling chef breaking eggs into a bowl is absolutely, drop-drool-GORGEOUS, and though it does fit the title's reference to beating eggs for meringue, the happy chef mood would indicate a cookbook rather than a better-than-classic murder mystery.

Johnson deserves an artist as dedicated to her series as Joanne Fluke's artist, who is said to have gone to the trouble (more like rapture) of feeding his artistic inspiration by baking the recipe featured in the murder, then eating the confection while he's leisurely reading the novel.

The artist on the BEAT UNTIL STIFF paperback, Joe Bailey, is better than the best. If he were allowed the time to savor the book to the degree that he has developed his exquisite style, in my book he'd be at the top of the heap of book cover artists. In fact, I'd be more than honored, I'd be ecstatic to have him do the cover on my mystery pilot! But, ya gotta READ the book!

Truthfully, I originally put this paperback on my Amazon Wish List because of the beauty and appeal of the cover art, even though I hadn't been totally locked in by too quickly skimming the first few paragraphs online. I just felt that a book with this gorgeous of a cover HAD, just had to be good. (Upon finishing the book I see those first few paragraphs as perfecto!)

Listening to Claire Johnson talk about her novel at the recent Boise writer's conference, "Murder on the Grove," I was intrigued by what she said about what she wanted to put into the book and why she had written it. I was drawn mostly to the fact that Johnson trained at a premier chef school and worked in the kitchens of San Francisco restaurants. Wouldn't it be fantastic, I thought, if a real chef at the top of the game could write a great culinary mystery? It is great; she did it.

Johnson solidified the deal by handing me a copy of her paperback, as attendees and featured authors were exiting the book signing area of the conference. I was so touched by this gift, and her manner of giving it, that I set aside the excellent mystery I had been reading, and opened Claire's book the evening of the end of the conference.

BEAT UNTIL STIFF has a great publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, and exquisite cover artist, Joe Bailey; Claire Johnson deserves the best they can give in support of her offering.

Okay, all right, already! I've broken even my black hole boundaries beyond brevity.

But, I HAVE to make two more compliments, one to the warm and genuine acknowledgments by Claire, prefacing her story; and another to the perceptive Introduction by Barbara Peters. Both attest to the awesome characters and talents backing this book.

Barbara opened her introduction by beautifully exposing her personal expertise (and great writing skill). Then she built upon the below statement with a fascinating prelude to BEAT UNTIL STIFF:

"One thing I've noticed over the years I've been selling, and now publishing mystery, is the nexus between murder and food. What you eat or drink can kill you ..."

Latest news flash is that the copies of the paperback may be limited, but Amazon has a few left. If this supply is temporarily halted, please do fork out the $$ for the hardback. It's worth it. Maybe it'll become a collector's item when Johnson's series grows to surge toe-to-toe with the Grafton/Davidson crowd in sales, long may they all prosper. It's their readers who will be enriched.

I'm hoping I'll be able to buy a new hardback when it comes out with a jacket upgrade which does justice to the mood and mystery elements in the novel, and a new mass market paperback which comes out with a parallel to the jazzed up art on the hardback.

Good luck, Claire! And Barbara, Robert, and Joe! May you win big, with your winner, and be set up to produce many more!

Linda G. Shelnutt

For a wonderful look into the decidedly unglamorous world of San Francisco restaurants, look no further than Claire M. Johnson's BEAT UNTIL STIFF. Ms. Johnson, herself a former professional chef, introduces Mary Ryan, a thirty-something pastry chef in the trendy American Fare restaurant. Recovering from a divorce from a San Francisco homicide cop, Mary is still bitter and angry at the loss of her marriage. Her attempt to sublimate her hurt with work is shattered when Mary discovers the body of one of her employees in their restaurant's kitchen. The murder brings in O'Connor, her ex-husband's former partner and definitely not Mary's number one fan.

Mary's need to know the truth behind Carlos's murder, an employee she had very much liked, results in revealing the ugly secrets of the restaurant world, including drug and alcohol abuse, illegal workers, unreasonable clients, and broken marriages. Another murder that appears to implicate Mary forces her to continue her investigation despite the pleas from her mother and the demands by O'Connor and her ex to stop her
efforts.

Mary herself is a very witty and likeable character who recovers her love of food and cooking as the investigation helps her to emerge from the angry hole she'd fallen into. Mary must also sort out her feelings for her ex-husband and O'Connor, as well as those in the restaurant world whom she had trusted. This is a very enjoyable, fast-moving mystery by a new author and it provides a fascinating look into the restaurant world. This will appeal to foodies, mystery lovers, and fans of the Food Network.

This is a mystery murder story revolving around a pastry chef. Hence the title "Beat Until Stiff".
The story starts out interesting and then like "bam" you are on the edge of your seat wandering what will happen next and even if the main character will die (which we all know never happens) and I am not going to tell you either way!
Fabulous read, I could not put it down once I started. Would highly recommend it. I even thought it was a fun sort of book in an odd kind of way.
YOU MUST GET THIS BOOK!

Mary Ryan is a bitter pastry chef at an upscale restaurant when she finds the body of one of the kitchen workers stuffed in a laundry bag. Worried that her detective ex-husband will get the case, Mary's relieved to find the detective in charge is the ex's partner -- for a while. As Mary investigates the people involved, we are treated to the dirty secrets behind the scenes of a successful restaurant, from illegal workers all the way up to prima donna chefs and crooked managers. This is a good mystery and Mary is an interesting protagonist. I look forward to others in the series.