Customer Reviews

Dying for Dinner (A Cooking Class Mystery)

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

 

 

Bank teller/restaurant manager/amateur sleuth Anne Capshaw has finally taken the plunge. She's given up her safe and secure job at the bank and traded it for a full time position at her boyfriend Jim's restaurant, Bellywasher's. Things are heating up nicely for Jim and Anne outside of the kitchen when in walks Anne's ex-husband, Peter. Anne used to dream that Peter would come back begging for a second chance but now she has Jim.

So not only does she have Peter to deal with, she's hip deep an investigation. There's been a murder at the chic gourmet shop Très Bonne Cuisine and its owner Monsieur Jacques Lavoie is missing. As Annie jumps into the investigation with the help of her best friend Eve, she learns some startling facts about Monsieur Lavoie that lead everyone to question who he claims to be. Getting to the bottom of it all just might mean more trouble than Anne bargained for.

Dying for Dinner is book four in the Cooking Class mystery series but also stands alone. There wasn't as much action and intrigue in this installment as there was in the previous three books but it was still pretty cute.

Anne is good at putting two and two together and along with Eve they make a great pair of investigators. What's especially refreshing is that the handsome Scotsman Jim is falling in love with the "cute" Anne instead of the "sexy" Eve. It makes her character that much more endearing. When you add in the fact that she absolutely can't cook yet works at a restaurant and dates a chef there's a lot of fun in reading this series.

Also included are nine delicious recipes. I recommend this one for all cozy lovers and I hope that another book in this series is in the works as there was a major cliff hanger at the end.

not really stand alone. i accidentally skipped one and spent the whole time going what did i miss. i like the girls alough they are a bit busybodyish. but its a fun style of writing

Occasionally one wants an extra light book such as when you have to get ready for houseguests or awaiting a plane. Even so, you don't want complete idiocy. That is where books like this come in. I enjoyed the book. I could pick it up and put it down without having to go back an reread parts. The current boy friend is especially nice. The best friend is flakey. The policeman is okay. The man who was almost murdered was a con man. The man who was actually murdered wasn't given much of a character.

What prompted me to give the book 4 stars were the recipes. Finally one of these frothy hobby genre books with some recipes that sound WONDERFUL! Most of these book have recipes for dishes I would put straight in the trash. I can't wait to try these.

This was a good easy read. I like all of the books in this series and hope that there are more to come!

I was so VERY, VERY tired of reading the SAME thing over and over again...about how Annie was good at being a detective, how she should be a detective, how she would be a detective. (What happened to the spunky manager of Bellywasher's?) The words kept repeating themselves to the point where I did not have the slightest desire to find out how the story ended. I did finish it though because I don't believe it's fair to rate a book you haven't read through. Now I'm left with the question, what the heck happened to Claude?

This book is an ultra-lightweight entry in a lightweight series. It's a perfectly competent chic-lit mystery for this era of chic-lit mysteries (heaven help us all!)

There's not much here but both the book and the series to which it belongs are entertaining in their predictable way. For what it's worth, in "Dying for Dinner," an obvious phony is exposed as an obvious phoney and with the consequences to be expected from such exposure in these piping times.

Sometimes unchallenging fluff is just the sort of thing that's needed. Since three stars, which I regard as an absolutely neutral reaction, has somehow morphed into a negative rating, I think "Dying for Dinner" edges just slightly over the line into for four (very generously allocated) stars.

LEC/Am/5-09

This was the first book I read in this series and I won't be reading others. The whole thing seemed awfully silly to me - there was just nothing here I could grab hold of. The situation's twists and turns were not even vaguely believable. And the bits of humor that snuck in were not enough to salvage the book. I did finish it - since it made me want to know the ending, I guess it had some redeeming value. But it didn't make me want to read another one of the series.

isbn 978-0-425-22610-0,berkly Prime crime mystery. Dying for Dinner by Miranda Bliss.I received my book in excellant condition.

Really enjoyed this latest entry in the series. Quite fun and a great ending, or should I say beginning!

Lots of action and twists to the plot. The suspense is wonderful. Really worth your time to read.