Criminal Appetites [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Marks (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Edgar nominee Jeffrey Marks gathers 14 tales of culinary skullduggery with recipes from Nancy Pickard, Anne Perry and Tamar Myers -- Publisher’s Weekly, June 10th, 2004

Product Details

• Hardcover: 196 pages
• Publisher: Overmountain Press (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570722609
• ISBN-13: 978-1570722608
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,306,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeffrey Marks is a long-time mystery fan and freelancer. After numerous mystery author profiles, he chose to chronicle the short but full life of mystery writer Craig Rice.

That biography (Who Was That Lady?) encouraged him to write mystery fiction. His works include Atomic Renaissance: Women Mystery Writers of the 1940s/1950s, and Criminal Appetites, an anthology of cooking related mysteries. His latest work is a biography of mystery author and critic Anthony Boucher entitled Anthony Boucher. It has been nominated for an Agatha and fittingly, won an Anthony.

He is the long-time moderator of MurderMustAdvertise, an on-line discussion group dedicated to book marketing and public relations. He is the author of Intent to Sell: Marketing the Genre Novel, the only how-to book for promoting genre fiction.

His work has won a number of awards including the Barnes and Noble Prize and he was nominated for a Maxwell award (DWAA), an Edgar (MWA), three Agathas (Malice Domestic), two Macavity awards, and three Anthony awards (Bouchercon). Today, he writes from his home in Cincinnati, which he shares with his partner and two dogs.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Food Can Be Murder!, July 24, 2005

By 

Kevin Tipple (Plano, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Criminal Appetites (Paperback)

While some apparently see food as an aphrodisiac, for the authors of this anthology, food becomes either a weapon directly or as a reason for murder. Food, which includes a recipe or two with every story, much like the "Martha's Vineyard" mystery series by Philip R. Craig, is an integral part of each scenario. Some stories are more hands on with food than others, but each story would collapse without the vital food element.

For Nancy Pickard in her story, "Truth Serum" A Marie Lightfoot Story" food involves a coffee shop in Spokane, Washington. Marie Lightfoot begins to investigate the deaths at Qahveh Khaneh and soon finds the suspect right under her nose.

In "When Henry Met Salad" by Tamar Myers, it isn't just all about the food that makes this story both intriguing as well as funny. One can try but one can't fake being truly Amish.

Then there is the dark twisted story, "Best Served Chilled" by Robert Perry. I'm not going to even try to explain this one full of twists and turns that will leave you guessing until the end. You just have to read it.

While those three were my personal favorites, the rest of the book is equally good. It features stories by Joanne Pence, Tim Hemlin, Denise Dietz, Camilla T. Crespi, Kris Neri, Jeffrey Marks, Amy Myers, William Allen Peck, Toni L. P. Kelner, Anne Perry and Janet Laurence. Not a bad one in the bunch. Each one serves as a tasty read and guaranteed, no matter your level of cooking skills, you won't look at food as quite so innocent again.

This complete review previously appeared online at Mysterical-E.

Kevin R. Tipple (c) 2005