Customer Reviews

A Cook in Time: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

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Although Chef Angie Amalfi and homicide inspector Paavo Smith remain an item, they seem to spend little time together. Angie, tired of being a failure, desperately wants her newest business venture to work. She spends all her time on Fantasy Dinners. Her concept centers on a form of entertainment built around an evening of theme oriented events. Paavo hunts San Francisco's latest serial killer. This psychopath cuts the lips, nose, ears, and the entire area between the pubis and the colon from his victims. He completes his gruesome task by carving a number on the casualty's chest.

Angie's first client is society doyenne Triana Crisswell, a member of the Prometheus Group that believes in extraterrestrial life. Triana wants to host a reception for the group's leader Algernon, who is publishing his first book. The two women decide that Roswell Area 51 is the ideal theme. Paavo learns that the serial killer's victims are linked to Area 51 and the Prometheus Group. As Angie works her party and Paavo treks a gruesome trail, they soon find themselves working together.

Joanne Pence does her usual fine job with her latest Angelo Amalfi mystery although this time the author includes otherworldly elements to focus the plot. Ms. Pence's explanation for Roswell and Area 51 seems plausible. The protagonists feel as if they are familiar dear friends and acquaintances from previous tales add to the welcoming feel of the novel. An Angela Amalfi story is always a treat, but A COOK IN TIME is a feast.

Harriet Klausner

Joanne Pence's latest thriller is the best yet in the Angelina Amalfi series. Her story is a cross between the X-Files and all of the Y2K hype. If you are looking for an intriguing, yet light read I strongly recommend this book.

Joanne Pence's books are very good. I think out of all of the Angie/Paavo books I have only not liked one. This one was good (and strange)but I read it in one night. Angie is ditzy and when you team her up with her friend, Connie, it kind of reminds you of Lucy and Ethel. Paavo is serious, but his homicide investigations balance out the comedic adventures of Angie. Angie's adventures always tie up with Paavo's investigations towards the end and Paavo saves the day each time. I like these books. They are what I consider light reading and the characters have real like depth to them where you really find yourself caring what happens to them. Each book advances their background and you find out more about them. The only thing that I consider irritating is the name brand mentioning in the descriptions. That gets a little old. Yes, we know she is rich, but please I don't care what brand of clothes, shoes, jewelery, etc. Angie is wearing. All in all I would highly recommend this series if you want something light and fast to read. The books can definitely deliver up some comedy and will get your mind working to try to figure out who done it.

Want a good mystery with a millennium atmosphere? This is it, fantasy dinners, alien conventions, mutilated corpses, and an auditorium full of people who witness a body snatching...

Angie is hired to create a dinner for an author/alien believer. And to create this "fantasy dinner to remember" Angie decides to do a little research. She seeks the help of her friend Connie and an old love interest from the past that works for NASA. He takes her and Connie into the world of alien believers who are more impressionable than one could imagine. They meet two groups, the NAUTS and the Prometheus. Each group accuses the other of being phony.

Angie's love interest Paavo Smith and his partner Yoshiwara spend time together investigating the strange murders and talking personal about the women in their lives. Pavvo noticed Angie has not been honest with him since her old flame arrived. And Yoshiwara's wife, third generation Japanese, is taking Japanese lessons and spending a lot of time with her artistic teacher.

I found Angie Amilfi to be a warm, independent protagonist. And I was able to picture each character just as Ms. Pence penned them; from the graphic corpses to the alien believers named for the t-shirts they wore. The recipes in the back are out of this world, but I am afraid the mystery might cause some controversy among believers and aliens alike. Ms. Pence did so well in presenting this millennium mystery that she may find herself being followed by the men in black....

The reading capture in this one was so consistently smooth I forgot my habit of remembering exactly what grabbed my lapels and jerked me into the book. I wasn't grabbed or jerked; I was just there, and there, and there. Period. This is good!

Eventually a true novelist forgets to focus on being interesting, loses the angst of being boring, and simply writes effortlessly. This novel makes it appear that Pence has made that leap, though I'm not sure exactly where the cliff was, not that it matters because I've had no trouble remaining cozily in Angie's world while reading, from page one of the pilot to the series, SOMETHING'S COOKING. Though A COOK IN TIME is the 7th book in the series, it's my 12th and last novel to read in this exotically seasoned collection (until RED HOT MURDER comes out in February, 2006).

This Time added levels of curiosity have been conjured, as the plot revolves around X-Files-type alien conspiracies, and I wonder how far Pence will go into UFO ozone, how much of the Mulder/Scully type of Truth she will seat into the reality of Angie and Paavo's world. Having read COOKING UP TROUBLE and BELL, COOK & CANDLE, I knew Pence would probably not just spoof & guffaw alien abduction believers, like many people do when beliefs stretch the norm. I anticipated that she'd give these believers their due, simultaneous to painting their comical caricatures.

Even so, Angie's backbone and skeptical criticism seemed to have kicked in with this 7th book. Given the fact that previous plots have pushed her through buying into preacher cons, flitting through gothic mansions with ghosts & gurus, dancing with a sour serial killer, food fighting through bubble-popping movie star veneers (oops, that plot was in # 11), etc., Angie's no longer the wide-eyed, endearing puppy, warming entertainingly to every out-of-the-park scenario. This Time, she's scrunching her nose and darkening her judgments of the collection of "odd balls," as she silently terms them, at a meeting of UFO scientists. As much as I cherish Angie's spirited gullibility, I enjoy her maturing skepticism even more.

Of course, her reason for attending the meeting was delightfully driven by her usual ambitions. She's started a new business and is researching a UFO theme for a dinner she will be catering for her first live-wire customer. Loved Angie's compulsive chewing and chewing as she set her path investigating alien appetizers. Exactly what DO they eat? When she was finally handed the answer, the compulsion dropped dead in its tracks, never to rise again.

The contrasts between Angie and Paavo's worlds and the ways they were bridged were as entertaining as ever, and the scenes shifted from one to the other like veterans in a line dance. The resulting mood was strangely mesmerizing in a quiet, pensive way. This easy alternation between Angie and Paavo's worlds was accomplished in spite of the fact that the murders were darker and more gruesome than others have been, and that Angie was off in her own world as much as ever. Reader interest was still baited with anticipation of the two worlds crashing head on. How would this overlap happen, THIS time.

One of the most endearing, lighthearted male bonding scenes occurred in this novel, between Yosh and Paavo. Their exchange of shared angst, resulting in mutual confirmation that the loves of their lives were indeed still in love with them, was as real and warm as I've read anywhere. The scene was played very much as it should unfold between two males such as these. Loved it. You won't want to miss it.

Another "not to miss" in this offering was Pence doing an about face to stand up and cheer for in one of her characterizations. Instead of having this guy gradually gain in stature and personality intensity after she etched his caricature, he stepped into the plot hot, strong, heart-stopping, and eye-popping; then he deteriorated in seamless increments as Angie's new titanium backbone took no flack whatsoever from him. Loved it!

What also interested me was that this theme of The Millenium change's craving of info on the strange and unusual, which was so prevalent when this novel was released, is more interesting to me now, in retrospect, that it would have been then, in 2000.

ACIT definitely has a mesmerizing plot. The possibilities of dark paranormal events kept the edge of suspense and intrigue a bit higher than it would have been with only the "norm" of crime to anticipate, especially each time Angie wandered through the huge old warehouse/auditorium. The discovery of one of the bodies, after a bit of a breath holding during Angie's solitary explorations of warehouse rooms, nooks & corners, was particularly perfect for a classic scene in a murder mystery:

>> She stared at the liquid, a mounting horror stealing over her. A drop fell into the pool. A drop of blood coming from ... <<

The descriptions prior to and following the above sentences complete this scene, which is one you'll want to seat into your reading repertoire. It's not overly dramatic or "Oh My God" in intensity. It's just a ... Perfect. Classic. Scene. For a murder worthy of the revered early novelists in the genre.

Well. Shoot.

It's really sinking in now. Yes, this is my last Angie mystery until RED HOT MURDER comes out. I'm awed that this one happened to be the final in my reading sequence, a timing which wasn't pre-planned. As a student of serendipity, when an event seems to design its own timing for a spotlight, I'm all eyes, all ears, all heart & soul interested in it, and wanting to know why it lifted itself out of normal time.

As with each Angie book, this one has its unique feel, but I haven't quite pegged it. It's more silent, somehow, than the others. Its lighting is dimmer, as if continually preparing the reader to become privy to A Secret. A true secret, like an answer to Mulder's, "The Truth is out there."

Okaaaay... So, what IS that Truth? What will Pence offer as her vision of something extraordinarily worth knowing, beyond routine, everyday trivia we hear and see repeated day after day after day.

What's it all about, Angie?

Pence's answer was dramatized, as it should be, throughout the novel; she didn't highlight it in one neon light statement. Pense threaded her theme though several scenes (especially the final one) which acted out the essence, like Spock clutching Jim Kirk's hand and whispering in a raspy, newly awakened voice of awe, "This." To fully realize Pence's answer you may have to allow it to surface, after finishing the read and asking yourself what it was. You'll get it, but it needs to be quietly given; too much drama would dissolve the potent essence.

Prior to finishing the book, though, as I continued reading, I anticipated something from Pence which wouldn't have fit into any of the other novels. After all, this was her offering for the shift into the New Millennium, a transition into a new world, one way or another.

The conflict between the paranormal fanatics and the fringe UFO conspiracy scientists was well done, and just the right amounts of background detail in each camp was provided. This is the first time in the series in which Angie appears to be truly shaken from her steadfast, spirited, yet basically conservative view of reality. Even as maverick a spirit as she has been though all the "regular time" offerings which haven't leaped totally out of the reality box, this one slips almost out of Time. Entertainingly so.

This is what people used to call Mystery with a capital "M" in era's long past, when printed books were still a treasured novelty, when intrigue went worlds beyond shock, speed, noise, and gore, when none or only balsamic amounts of those gimmicks were necessary in order for entertainment to hold an audience captive.

This quietly engrossing novel made me wonder what has happened to our Cultural Soul. Do we have one any more? As a young girl, a religious Italian Catholic (similar to Pence's background), when I first heard the statement, "God is Dead," I was shocked, puzzled, and disturbed. But that feeling doesn't hold a candle to a concern that the Spirit of Mystery may be either dead, or in the final gasp of its Last Chapter.

If Pence wrote A COOK IN TIME and it got published, The Spirit of Mystery is still with us. As writers and readers, we're still in the game.

Breathing Very Large Sighs of Relief,

Linda G. Shelnutt

The premise is bizarre, and the conflict between the two lovebirds seems too contrived. Furthermore, at this point I started getting irritated with Angie- now that she is paired with Connie, the ditziness combined with random understandings of the world Pence gives her transform Angie to just outright airheadedness 90% of the time and clear-headedness from out of nowhere 10% of the time so that Paavo doesn't start running the other way. Pence returns back to the formula of Paave rescuing the damsel in distress at the end, as usual. She also starts with this book including "Angie's recipes" at the end I guess in an attempt to apologize for the last book. She recovers a bit in this one... but then again, the last one was also just ridiculous, an attempt to continue to interject humor that worked in one book that just went too far in the last. So in this one she tries for oddball instead. It doesn't work well at all. The next book in the series is To Catch A Cook, which is more tolerable. Skip this.

Well maybe Angie does not find the answer to this question, but she does learn how much her policeman boyfriend Paavo feels about her.This Joanne Pence book has it all:Humor,romance and suspense.The only thing I was disspointed in was that the book jacket said " If you love books by Diane Mott Davidson and Densie Dieetz you will love this series."Well I do love Davidson's books but Pence's novel is nothing like them. While Davidson blends recipes into the story, Pence contains two at the end of the book. However, do not let this stop you from buying the book.

As someone who reads a lot of mysteries, I'm used to suspending belief somewhat for the sake of the story. However, this book is so ridiculous and far-fetched, it's an insult to the reader. The series just keeps getting worse. Angie is very hard to relate to. How many of us have no jobs but can afford designer clothes and Ferarri Testarossas? Her bubble-headedness is supposed to be endearing, I'm sure; it just ends up being annoying. How long is this relationship between Angie and Paavo going to go nowhere? The charcters are not likable, and the plot is absolutely absurd. Anyone looking for a good cozy should bypass this book.