Customer Reviews

Cooks Overboard: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

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

 

 

~<p~ own cabin is searched and the cook tries to desert. Apparently, the duo has booked the wrong passage because this ship contains a microfilm with Professor Von Mueller's successful research into an alternate form of energy. Everyone wants the results and killing Angie and Paavo is perfectly acceptable if they get in the way. <p~ Paavo remain a fresh couple and the secondary players add much intensity and humor to the tale. Joanne Pence continues to climb the ladder to the top rung as her story line's turn more delicious with each new outing. COOKS OVERBOARD is Ms. Pence's best plot due to the various twists and turns that keep reader's attention throughout the book. An already fabulous series has turned into a gourmet's delight.

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I actually read the books previous to this in the series- but this book I had to resort to skimming because so much was farfetched. Having Angie randomly spout theory about science... which so conveniently happens to tie to the mystery? I appreciated the attempt to actually have Angie to the rescue instead of Paavo, as usual, but it was so ridiculous that this book made me wonder how much Pence thinks readers can suspend our disbelief and just swallow all this craziness. She again tries to draw out some other characters but they are shallow and forgettable. And Pence must realize it- the next book is A Cook In Time which is when she begins adding a couple of Angie's recipes at the end of the book to try to make up for how full of holes her stores are starting to become. Maybe she was trying too hard to go the Evanovich path. This book is probably one of the worst in the series.

While not my favorite of the series, still a good book. I really like how the characters are developing and the sense of reality you get from reading the book. Particularly Paavo. Joanne's ability to make you understand and feel for him increases with each book.

Enjoyed watching Angie's plans for great vacation turn to disaster. Also some great scenes when she's mistaken for world's most deadly female assassin. Highly enjoyable.

Cooks Overboard was a disappointment compared to other Angie Amalfi Mysteries. There were very few cooking references along with a half-cooked plot. The characters were under developed, and yet overly simplistic in their predictable actions. I had the "bad person" of this book figured out way to early to truly enjoy it.

I was looking for another quality mystery and found little more than an exercise in reading.

This novel opened with a dramatic, brow-puzzling change in Paavo's character.

The change was so perfectly etched into flawless syntax and so absolutely unexpected, it zapped the buzz wizz chaos of my reality, welded it into a reading focus, and snapped me into the book before I could get a clue on what hit me. I was glued to Paavo's every lifeless word and rare thought as Pence polished his presence as a lackluster blob of nothingness.

Who was this guy dragging around a dead attitude of non-investment-in-anything-suspicious, shuffling around with a drool-grinning acquiescence of whatever slithered up to him?

Due to the effective hook of this Paavo puzzle, COOKS OVERBOARD was more fast paced than some of the other novels in Joanne Pence's Angie Amalfi series. I was compelled to surge my reading speed because I absolutely had to know what had caused Paavo to become to this lost soul, sleepy non-entity.

Angie's antics sidestepping around and hot-footing into Paavo's dead-weight dullness was entertaining; her lively spirit was used well with poking, prodding attempts to re-connect to a Paavo who seemed to no longer be THERE. If I didn't have a feel for the outer limits of Pence's parameters for ozone travels into the paranormal realms, I'd have wondered if Paavo's body had ingested an alien being, or been possesed by an evil spirit. I was given just the right amount of access to Paavo's thoughts, in just the right amount of plot spacing to be strung along nicely without becoming impatient.

In addition to be carried into the plot by curiosity about Paavo's personality switcheroo, I easily slid into the vicarious venue of being aboard a freighter rather than a cruise ship. Lacking the garish, boorish, carnival brightness of the typical cruise mood, the no-frills freighter developed quickly into a surprisingly full-bodied fictional world. Pence made good use of the ambiance variances of the freighter Vs cruise setting by detailing the dining locations, types of menu, cabin arrangements, passenger interaction, etc.

The vignettes of subplots off ship were woven into the ocean going machinations in a Sidney Sheldon like manner of kaleidoscopic alternation, in a style similar to that in TOO MANY COOKS, yet with an even deeper development of each alternate scene.

With the freighter's ambiance being naturally grey and grim (no cruise-ship forced-color or pushed-pace), and with Paavo's focus being so off (more like lost in a fog), and with the sinister vignettes given more plot space than Angie's typically hilarious romps, the resulting gestalt was intriguingly darker than prior books. The cloudy, grey-scale worked fascinatingly to keep me anesthetized into the story. It almost felt like I lived the plot in an equal intensity as Angie and Paavo.

If I were to conclude that Pence's storytelling talent is multifaceted in mood management, I would be making such an understatement, the conclusion might cartwheel into a kaleidoscope.

(If you can make sense out of that statement you may be a literary Black Belt. I've gone overboard in desperation to prove my own writing skill, and seem to have made a splash in the pan of discontentment. But, hey. I've got steam. Wanna hear me hiss? My mood is so sour sugar has gone on strike. Or maybe it was vinegar that made the vignette off the scene.)

With the above conclusion about Pence's multifaceted mood management having fallen into the miasma of my dysfunction, I'll conjure another wrap by mentioning the bonus in this novel:

In addition to all the above, this mystery is a Russian-accented, spy-thriller. Yet, even with the humor and well done "v" lisps, COOKS OVERBOARD is too capturing, too grey-scale, too well-done to be called a spoof.

Maybe what this work does best is prove Pence's ability to brain-dance through a repertoire of fast-steps (what she accomplishes is not mere wordsmith-ing) which choreograph into a plot complexity and character metamorphosis "to die for."

Jaw open-and-shut in chirping amazement, I'll always be ready for more engrossing twists of sentiment, or even "more of the same" from Joanne Pence.

Linda G. Shelnutt

Maybe it was because I could only read it whenever I could get a few hard won free minutes or maybe it was because I really don't like spy books. Whatever the reason, I did not think this one was as good as her past books. Those I could not put down once started. I made time for reading them. This one I wasn't as compelled to find time. Still, a good read.

Witless and unrelievedly dreadful. So bad it could have been the basis for a late 70's Disney movie. I've found more convincing plots and more compelling characters on the backs of cereal boxes. Even a "no-star" rating would be too high -- Amazon should have a "black hole" rating for books like this one.