Roux Morgue [Large Print] [Paperback]

Claire M Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2008

Mary Ryan, San Francisco pastry chef, is happy to be teaching at her alma mater. But she soon realizes that the teaching staff are at loggerheads with each other. Adding to her dismay, her ex-lover, Homicide Detective O'Connor, has enrolled as a student on disability from the San Francisco Police Department. In the middle of this turf war, Mary is confronted by dean Robert Benson. Mary must either force student Coolie Martin to leave the school or lose her job. Why would Coolie's father, a member of the Board of Directors, allow this to happen? But when faculty and staff begin dying, Mary thinks that Coolie's forced exit might only be part of a larger, more sinister plot.... Claire M. Johnson was a professional pastry chef in San Francisco and Oakland for eight years. Roux Morgue is second in her Mary Ryan series following Beat Until Stiff. Claire lives in Lafayette, California, with her family. www.rouxmorgue.com

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The growing rift between the dinosaurs and the young brats on the teaching staff at San Francisco's École d'Epicure fuels the highly amusing action in Johnson's superior second cozy to feature funky pastry chef Mary Ryan (after 2002's Beat Until Stiff). Mary is unpleasantly surprised when Inspector O'Connor of SFPD homicide shows up as a student claiming he's on stress leave. Although the cop is her ex-husband's married best friend, Ryan and the sexy O'Connor have obvious chemistry. Tension among École's chefs escalates with public insults, a petition to fire one of the classically trained dinosaurs and a water fight in the school's prestigious restaurant. When one chef dies after an allergic shellfish reaction with no shellfish on the menu, and another is strangled at home, Ryan suspects something more sinister than differences of culinary theory. In one of many farcical scenes, Ryan enlists the aid of a hostile friend-of-a-friend to hack into École's computer system to dig for answers. This enjoyable romp should gain Johnson new fans. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

In this new mystery, Johnson resumes the adventures of pastry-chef Mary Ryan, whose cooking career nearly foundered in the sensational murders at her American Fare restaurant. To recover her financial integrity, Ryan is forced to return to teaching at the École d’Épicure, the culinary school where she had inaugurated her career. The faculty clearly don’t get along with one another: witness the lunchtime fight in the academy’s dining room her first day of class. To add to her distress, an old flame, a police detective on medical leave, unexpectedly appears as a student. Then a chef dies from an allergic reaction in the dining room, and Ryan’s life is once again turned topsy-turvy as she uncovers clues that the woman’s demise was perhaps not accidental. Johnson wraps her story with details of kitchen lore, and the twists and turns of the plot leave readers guessing. --Mark Knoblauch --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 330 pages
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (April 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590584880
• ISBN-13: 978-1590584880
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,386,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Claire M. Johnson completed the California Culinary Academy's program for professional chefs in 1983 and worked as a pastry chef in San Francisco and Oakland for eight years. Set in the restaurant world, Ms. Johnson's first novel, Beat Until Stiff, won the 1999 Malice Domestic Writer's Grant, was a BookSense pick for Winter 2002, and was nominated for the 2003 Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Her second novel in this series, Roux Morgue, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. She lives in Lafayette, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Five Star Tasty Murder Mystery, May 15, 2008

By 

Bennet Pomerantz "Bennet Pomerantz, AUDIOWORLD" (College Park, Maryland) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Roux Morgue (Audio CD)

As an audio critic, I look for a few things when I review an audio presentation. I ask myself such questions like Is the audio production a faithful version of the book? Is the talent on the audio entertaining the audience or is he or she just reading the story?

Christine Williams narrated this unabridged recording with such a lemon zest. The mystery is written in first person. Her narration fills your ears with the humor the book has and sweet sound of mystery. It is like a cake out of the over for your ears. So moist and faithful to the text, but filled with a lightness and texture

Chef Mary Ryan returns to her roots, the cooking school (Ecole D'epicure) that trainned her as a chef. However this time , she is an instructor. However, there is a surf and turf (dont you love these food images) war between old style chefs and their modern day counterparts..and you thought gang wars were bad, Mary is the thick of it.

When one of the Instructor chef's dies of a shelfish reaction but there is no shell fish on the menu..our cooking Nancy Drew starts turning up the detective heat. Stir in a few leads and this mystery is cooking with gas burners on high.

There are a few smelly red herring afoot as the audio listener is treated to a prize winner of a mystery, narrated with a certain tartness. Claire M Johnson's culinary mystery is a special desert for those fans who like a good mystery.

And for those who liked everything wrapped up at the end. This mystery does that with a flair for presentation. The listener is never left with a sour taste in their ears after you have enjoyed this audio meal.

One can wish Blackstone audio can get Christine Williams to narrate the first Mary Ryan mystery and all future novels. This spoken word novel is like an Iron Chef match...and this mystery just grilled Bobby Flay.

So Until Rachel Ray or Paula Dean writes mysteries, go get this production and start cooking!

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars MORE PLEASE, December 23, 2011

By 

S. Schreiber "HARMET" (renton, wa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Roux Morgue (Mary Ryan, Pastry Chef Mysteries) (Paperback)

I enjoyed Claire's Beat until Stiff... I didn't realize there was another book written before this.

Not really about restuarants cooking or recipes...but inter tangled murders... I can see this as

a continuing series with characters and relationships growing.....

Hope there are more to come in 2012....

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun, engaging read, December 2, 2008

By 

A. Rappoport (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Roux Morgue (Mary Ryan, Pastry Chef Mysteries) (Hardcover)

A really likable protagonist, light touch with the writing and good dialog with appropriate voices from each of the characters, who were more than just cardboard stereotypes. The mystery was not obvious halfway through, like some others I've read recently. I knew nothing of the high-end restaurant business but really enjoyed this peek into it, especially with a guide like Mary Ryan (and the author).

I hate to have to say it, this is an old-fashioned, properly edited, pleasure to read. This is unlike several books I've read lately, full of terrible grammar, the half-baked sentences, tense changes, POV changes and awful misspellings throughout.

Roux Morgue is definitely worth reading: it's not pretending to be anything but a good mystery, and it's is very satisfying.