Customer Reviews

The Grilling Season

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The food is the best part of this entertaining mystery. The dishes all sound irresistible, and food as therapy is well displayed both through cooking and eating. If that were all there was to the book, it would be a five star effort.

The story involves Goldy Schulz in some sleuthing when her ex-husband is charged with killing his latest girl friend. On the surface, it looks like he went overboard with his favorite activity of beating up women. Their son, Arch, is horrified and wants to protect and help his Dad. Reluctantly, Goldy tries to do the right thing, even though she cannot stand the vicious creep (referred to as The Jerk in the book).

Unfortunately, Ms. Davidson chooses to turn Goldy into a punching bag for physical and mental abuse throughout the often-distressing plot. Her ex-husband hurts her, suspects hurt her, and her son treats her like something he stepped in. Now really, enough is enough. We all know that much such abuse occurs every day. I did not see that it advanced the plot or my understanding of it to have the heroine being constantly assaulted. On the other hand, Ms. Davidson's development of the theme is well done. She nicely captures the lassitude and passive cooperation of the victim mentality, and the utter insensitivity of the abusers.

The mystery itself involves a sort of HMO gothic, filled with evil careerists who stop at nothing to advance their own ends. Where are the silver stakes when we need them?

I thought that the legal aspects of the plot were badly flawed. Goldy is married to a police officer, and she repeatedly acts in ways that compromise the legal case against various suspects. Ms. Davidson needs someone who knows criminal procedure to look these stories over for her. Goldy's marriage would have lasted about 4 minutes if she had done these things as the real wife of a real police officer. Her abuses of the legal process are awful!

If you are a devoted Diane Mott Davidson fan, you will probably enjoy the story enough to read it, but it will probably be your least favorite of her books. If you have not yet read her work, I suggest you skip this one and read any of the earlier ones instead.

After you finish the book (if you decide to read it), I suggest that you think about how you could use comfort food in a healthy and supportive way to improve your life and the lives of those you love.

Bon appetit!

I enjoy all of Diane Mott Davidson's books, but I found this one flawed by the totally unrealistic portrayal of Arch. How many sons would be furious with their mother because their father had abused and possibly killed another woman? And where is Goldy's backbone? She allows Arch to move out of the house to a friend's because he is angry with her. She allows him to berate her for things that are not her fault. She asks permission to speak to him! This is not a healthy mother-son relationship. The same with Maguire. Goldy is supposed to see to it that he eats, since he has lost so much weight from mononucleosis, but whenever Maguire says he doesn't feel like eating, she lets him not eat. As far as I can tell, she does nothing except put food in front of him that he doesn't like, after which he goes to bed. Goldy needs to develop the kind of backbone in dealing with teen-agers that she shows in defying the law on behalf of her friends.

Nevertheless I think readers of these mysteries will enjoy The Grilling Season. Just grit your teeth when Arch appears.

This was the second of Davidson's books that I have read. I really enjoyed it and I love the recipes in the book. This is just something that I have never seen before and it is fun to hear how she makes the items and then to see the actual recipe. A neat idea!

This is my first book by this author, but won't be my last. My stomach rumbled the whole time. The recipes sound yummy and the book was hard to put down. I read it in 24 hours. It was a light read but enjoyable and entertaining.

The plot is see-through. I think we can all see that the Jerk is a JERK indeed, but everyone knows somehow he didn't do it, deep down I think. All the fingers point to some of the other characters we meet along the way. I really felt I was at the health food store, and I loved the details. Colorado being my home state, I really loved all the descriptions.

I read the little blurb of Prime Cut, and already got it from the library! These recipes will be added to my collection!

This is the first book of Diane Mott Davidson that I have read.

Terrific story, fast moving, interesting characters, and last but not least a good plot. The recipes are an added bonus, I tried her Chicken a la Orange last night and both my husband and I loved it! I'm looking forward to other books in her collection.

Caterer Goldy Schultz is understandably leery of her abusive ex-husband John Richard whom she calls "The Jerk". When a woman named Patricia McCracken wants to sue John Richard for medical malpractice Goldy has mixed feelings because she knows that any blow to her ex-husband's income will eventually effect her child support. Things become even more complicated when John Richard's girlfriend is found dead, and the police have him pegged as the #1 Suspect. Although Goldy feels that John Richard is capable of such a deed, she also realizes that for her son's sake she must try to clear him of the murder. Diane Mott Davidson serves up the usual intriguing mystery, along with some delectable recipes in this, the 7th. book of the series.

This is one of the popular "female mystery solver" series you don't have to follow in sequence. But it doesn't hurt if you do. I think this is her best so far. The characters have by now become really well developed. A couple of her previous books have had moments in which the characters' actions or words didn't quite ring true, but I didn't have that sense in this one. Well paced, very well thought out, satisfying conclusion. It was a little too long for my taste at 400 pages, but amazingly well worth the time.

I've come late to this series and I'm trying to read them in order. On the whole I've enjoyed them and the characters, but I think Arch needs an attitude adjustment and Golda needs to get some backbone...I have never been abused so maybe the victim mentality continues forever but Arch seems to be turning into a manipulator who knows all the right buttons to push. This is probably too harsh a criticism for a book that is over all a good read.

It was all I could do to listen to all of this book. As far as I am concerned Ms. Davidson goes over the top in this book in her treatment of the JERK and his rampages. He could show up far less often in this book to far better effect. So intensly mean and abusive is he that I had to turn off the tape and take a break from his tirades. For those who have not read it I will not say weather we see the last of him here. But in more recent books the adolescent Arch seems to take more and more after him. It is for that reason I do not know how much longer I will follow the series if the Jerk hangs around.

I like this seiries of books but was not real happy with this particular one. The recipes, as always, are terrific, but the dynamics between Arch and Goldy makes me want to point somebody in the direction of family counseling.

The plot of the story is that it appears that Goldy's abusive exhusband has murdered his current girlfriend. Arch, her son, gets angry because he feeld Goldy and Tom don't want to help the "Jerk". This seems a bit difficult to swallow because I would have thought Arch would have seen the after effects of Goldy's abuse - the broken thumb, the black eyes, the bruises. You can't hide something like that from a child, they can tell something is going on. So that the "Jerk" would ba a good non-abusive father yet a horrible abusive husband doesn't seem to work for me. Nor does Arch's anger at his mother for what her perceives as her failure to try to clear his father's name.

If you're working thru the complete seiries (as I am), you will have to make this stop. I don't think you'll enjoy it as much as the other books, but the recipes may make up for it.