Customer Reviews

Dead Men Don't Get the Munchies (A Cooking Class Mystery)

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

 

 

I've read the other Cooking Class Mystery books and have enjoyed them. They're all light reading....but this one is a disappointment. It takes Miranda Bliss almost half the book for the first murder to occur and not much after that you can figure out whodunit. The clues are obvious (they scream at you right off the page!) It drove me crazy that the main character, Annie, was so oblivious to all of them!

Plus some of the situations are a bit contrived. Eve, accused of 2 murders, take a back-seat in this story yet somehow she manages to always be at the wrong place at the wrong time. While she knows not to touch the knife at the crime scene (she says so to Annie) she goes ahead and does it anyway. Tyler, Eve's ex, who's a cop actually ASKS Annie to help investigate the murders. It's not in his character to do this and what cop would actually ask a banker/bar manager to help out a double homicide investigation when her best friend is the prime suspect?

With all the other light reading mysteries (Coffee Shop Mystery, Flower Show Mystery, etc) out there, take a pass on this one. There are lots of other options.

Dead Men Don't Get the Munchies: A Cooking Class Mystery is a fun read. The characters are all enjoyable, as is the setting. However, the murder of Brad Peterson, former journalist and student of culinary arts does not create a compelling read for mystery fans. The writing is fun and breezy, and if you'd enjoy some escapist fluff, this could be a good choice for you.

Serious mystery readers should look elsewhere. You won't be kept up nights wondering who done it.

Annie Capshaw, bank teller by day, business manager of Bellywasher's Pub and Restaurant at night didn't think things could get worse than when Jim MacDonald - "the man she hopes some day to be her boyfriend" but currently the owner of Bellywasher's' decides she would be the perfect person to be his assistant at the Monday Night "Best Bar Foods, Bar None class.

Unfortunately, that was before her best friend Eve showed up and threatened to kill one of the participants in the class. It seems that Eve had previously worked for Brad Peterson and when she refused to give in to his sexual harassment, he had fired her, saying she was stealing and prevented her from getting a job she really wanted by giving her a bad reference.

And Eve wasn't the only one. There was a long string of women who had the same problem and they were now all organized into a group know as "WOW" - Women Opposed To Weasels. Their plan was to spy on Brad and find out if he was doing something illegal.

Eve tries to get Annie to get back into the detecting business and help the group, but it's soon too late to find out anything, as Brad meets his end, being pushed off the platform in front of a train.

It doesn't help that Eve is suddenly the number one suspect. Annie will do anything to help her friend, even if it means doing things a little bit dangerous and a tiny bit illegal.

And then there's Jim's pregnant cousin who shows up with her seven daughters, having decided she can't live with her husband any longer as he wants to do all the housework now that's she's going to have another baby.

Highlights:

Annie, Eve and Jim are all great characters. Very well written.

Eve and her dog Doc, whom she dresses up in matching outfits. This poor dog is probably too embarrassed to ever leave the house.

Eve taking control of the seven nightmare daughters of Jim's cousin. Teaching them that they can dress nice and look nice and still be smart, and especially not to fall for weasels.

Tyler Cooper - Police Detective, formerly engaged to Eve. He has the distinction of being the only one of her many fiancee's who dumped her and she can't let it go. I think she wants to get him back just so she can dump him. Although he doesn't like Annie nosing around in his investigation, he does supply her with information so she can go off and investigate where the police can't.

Lowlights.

This is the third in the series starting with Cooking Up Murder and Murder On The Menu. The first book was ok, but the mystery was a little confusing. I really liked the second book. This book, however, is a different matter. What is actually quite an interesting mystery is completely destroyed by:

SPOILER ALERT

The Killer. Anyone who has ever read a mystery or even just touched a mystery book will know the instant the killer shows up. They are practically wearing a sign saying "It's me". It was impossible to enjoy the mystery because I kept thinking, it can't be this person, there must be a surprise ending, it can't be this obvious.

Annie's actions make no sense, except that she could then be really surprised at the end of the book while all readers are saying "Are You Blind?"

Wasn't there an editor who told the author they should maybe change things a little? It would have been so easy to hide the killer, I can only think no one read this book before it was published.

Every series has it's bad books, let's hope this was just a misstep as the characters and storyline's are very good and an interesting read.

If you likes the first two books, you'll like this one too. Once again Annie finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. This time the victim is so hated that there are countless suspects, but the number one suspect is Eve. Annie can't let her friend go to jail for a crime she didn't commit. This leads her into an investigation with a lot of twists and turns. I love this cozy series. It's a perfect blend of humor, romance and mystery.

This is a light mystery and is easy to read. It is a cooking class movie.

I think this book deserves a 5 star rating. This is the third book in this series that I have read and all deserve 5 stars. I loved the added character in the second book of the series of the little dog and in this third book the character Kegan is a great addition to characters. The personalities of each character in this series are just terrific . I can't say enough about how much I am enjoying it. Miranda Bliss, please continue this series for a long time.

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

love these kind of books have not a chance to read yet, have bought to many and still reading them all

This (third book in series) could have been a fun mystery if the culprit hadn't been so blatantly obvious in the beginning of the book. Also, there were WAY too many typos. Someone was sleeping on the job...

In Washington DC nobody could accuse Annie Capshsw of being a slacker. During the day she is a bank teller; while at night she runs the business and helps outdoing everything but cooking since she can't even boil water.

Jim, the owner and Annie's boyfriend is sponsoring a six week bar food cooking class. When Annie's best friend Eve sees one of the students is Brad Peterson, she runs off crying, but not before everyone in the class heard her say she wants to kill him. Later Eve tells Annie that Brad is a weasel, who enjoys hurting others; because of him she belongs to a support group helping people like her cope with these weasels. Not long afterward Eve's wish comes true as someone kills Brad. Because of her loud angry comment at Bellywasher's, Eve is the prime suspect as she apparently had the motive. Annie does not believe for a moment that distressed as Eve was, she could kill anyone even someone she loathes. She plans to affirm her belief in Eve by uncovering the identity of the culprit.

While investigating, a cooking student Kegan assists Annie so that the audience follows the quirky escapades of Batwoman and Robin (a modern day gender bending version of the 1960s spoof TV show that is). Whereas the eccentric cast adds humor to the amateur sleuth; the victim receives no empathy as he was a harassing predator who used his power position to force sexual favors from females whose other choice was being fired with a campaign to paint the woman as a deviant. Readers will appreciate this amusing whodunit with its serious workplace undertone.

Harriet Klausner