Customer Reviews

The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery

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

 

 

Her family asked Eugenia Potter to return home to Devon, Rhode Island to help her grandnephew Jason stays clean following his possession conviction. Unable to say no, Genia leaves Arizona for the East Coast. In Devon, gourmand Stanley Devon persuades Genia to join with him in producing a cookbook, The Secret Ingredient Cookbook. Six guest chefs are providing their favorite recipe.

A special dinner at Genia's rented cottage is arranged for the chefs. On his way over to attend the dinner, someone kills Stanley. Unable to ignore the murder of her long time friend, especially since Jason is the prime suspect, Genia begins to investigate in hopes of finding who had a motive. To Genia's shock, many of the locals, including the guest chefs, preferred seeing Devon dead.

Renowned author Nancy Pickard (see the Jenny Cain tales) affectionately pays homage to the late Virginia Rich by continuing the latter's popular Genia Potter series. The story line does justice to the original novels especially its star, leaving most readers unable to discern any difference between the two writers. As expected with a culinary amateur sleuth tale, the novel is filled with delectable recipes and savory food descriptions. Although the support cast is amusingly stereotyped to the extreme, there is no secret that this novel is a gourmetís delight.

Harriet Klausner

There are many similarities between the heroine of this novel, Genia, and Jessica from "Murder She Wrote". Both are older women, who live in a small New England town. The characters in the stories are both very likable and your overall experience is comfortable but predictable. The likable characters, comfort factor and picturesque Rhode Island locale make this a pleasant read. The downfall is the plot--in some cases very predictable and in one case so absurd it is laughable. I really did like Genia, a former rancher who moved to Rhode Island to help her niece and niece's children. Everyone wants an Aunt Genia--a really caring person. As the book begins, Genia is working with Stanley Parker on writing a cookbook. Stanley Parker is killed on his way to a dinner party at Genia's house where he is to make a startling revelation. The "suspects" at the party are likable New England townspeople for the most part. You find out that Stanley is very controlling and some aspects of his character wont be missed. Another murder thickens the plot stew and it is wrapped up very quickly at the end. The absurd part of the plot involved an envelope with newspaper clippings that would have revealed the identity of the murderer that Genia seems not to be able to see in Stanley's cookbook, despite having gone through it in much detail earlier, finding several clues.

A pleasant read with not much heavy lifting to solve the murder. The recipes seemed good as well.

I wouldn't go so far as to compare Eugenia Potter with Jessica Fletcher. Potter is too laid back for that. But I do think that for a rather leasurely Cozy, this book is a fine read. Enjoy it for what it is and move on to the next title on your reading list. If you don't feel like spending money on this novel check it out at the local public library. You will still like reading it.

I thought this was a good book. It starts out with a missing man who is then found dead. Who killed him.? There were many who hated him.

The book totally keeps you guessing and the ending is great.

It did not deserve only one star. It was a good book.

This tale opens from the third person perspective of Stanley Parker, a diehard, leathery old man who's feeling, yet not succumbing to deterioration in every skeletal line, angle, and joint, as he inches painfully toward his motorbike. The pivotal character for the story, this spicy, elderly man grows rapidly in the reader's mind. He alternates between the fading sunlight of Genia's view of him, and the spotlights on shadows he has forced into the opinions of others, as various characters expose facets of this archetypal paragon of, is it elemental evil or situational good ...

Cross generational perspectives are drawn with amazing realism here, especially as exposed in the relationships between Jason, a teenage male, and Parker; and in the same complex kid's exchanges with Genia (his aunt), parents, friends, towns people. In fact this plot has a fairly large collection of characters with multiple-unique-relationships; each connection has fluid depth, with bonus intrigue in unanticipated, fluky foibles.

Nancy Pickard seems to have the knack which Virginia Rich had and instilled into Genia, of exposing the flickering nuances between the bright spots and dark alleys in any persona. I continued wondering, throughout the novel, "Is this a good or bad guy? If he's a bad guy, he's not too far off the edge of redemption."

In this uncanny awareness of the fluctuating shift of good and evil, Pickard fertilizes another of the captivating qualities of Genia, a generous wisdom, which Pickard has weeded and pruned around Virginia Rich's rooted and sprouted character seeds. It's intriguing indeed to observe close up the fleshing out by a younger female author a character and setting initiated by an older female author who has passed on, through her own death, a fictional character strong enough to be worthy of continuance.

A theme of this type of character continuance seems to be rooting and flourishing beyond Eugenia Potter, considering the current situations of Archy McNally, and Nero Wolfe, at least. Isn't it interesting that each of these diehard, fictional characters has been inspired, allowed, even encouraged, to jazz up their plots by wallowing in the sensual ambiance of culinary persuasions?

Is food in a novel akin to food for the soul; does this nurturing on paper feed a fictional persona well enough to survive, develop, and sell long past his creator's passage?

Does this budding concept (now flowering and fruiting) somehow expose the secret ingredient for cooking up the creme of the gourmet in fiction, handing readers a silver platter of solved mysteries of life and death? Fresh fruit and creme, with a few edible flower blossoms tanging the "soup"; that would be one of my favorite desserts.

Returning to the reality of reading, I'll report that in Nancy Pickard's SECRET INGREDIENT MURDERS' the fast paced build up to denouement was intensely satisfying and insightful (especially for an old lady romping realistically to the rescue, then being caught dead-handed, then delayed into an unwelcome exchange with the culprit). The conclusion and wind down were inspiring as well.

Read it and reek of delicate-snow-fall drifting on peach blossoms.

Read it and reap the essence of springtime cracking the chrysalis of winter.

Writing with a contented, Chess-Cat-grin, gardening a ten-ton Wish List at Amazon.com, possibly knowing something you don't, but soon will,

Linda G. Shelnutt

Nancy Pickard's THE SECRET INGREDIENT MURDERS is the last of her efforts to continue the exploits of a character created by the late Virginia Rich. The story has complex story lines that are loosely woven together, but I found the mother's actions and concerns for her children who turned 18 during the story to be excessive. The idea of threatening a son with military school when he will be entering college doesn't fly, maybe if the son was 14 this story line might have worked.
Other than the above the plot is tight and the conclusion is satisfying.
Nash Black, author of SINS OF THE FATHER.

Eugenia Potter was called to leave her Tucson ranch and head to Maine to help her great-nephew when he finds himself in trouble. Upon her arrival her long time friend Stanley Parker convinces Genie to help him publish a secret ingredient coockbook. The two decide to throw a small dinner party to test a few of the recipes, asking each guest to also bring a recipe with one secret ingredient.

When Stanley doesn't show up to his own party, the crowd soon discovers Stanley is dead. Genia decides to investigate the circumstances surrounding his murder, especially because her nephew is the chief suspect.

Genia soon finds that the none of area residents are saddened by his death, and now any number of people are under suspicion.

Nancy Pickard deftly continues the Eugenia Potter culinary mystery series. Her writing seems much more relaxed in this book, and flows well for an easy and enjoyable read.

It isn't easy to assume another authors writing style and voice, but Pickard has accomplished that and more as she has thrilled Eugenia Potter fans with three more stories than they would otherwise have enjoyed if she had not stepped up to the plate.


The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery

Ignore the rating of other critics. It is a wonderful read. Eugenia Potter is sympathetic and you just want to read the book in one sitting.

Secret Ingredient Murders reads more like an amateurish first novel than the product of a fine writer like Nancy Pickard. Even the author seems to be bored with the plot as she experiments with potential motives and villains. Pickard did a fine job of completing work that Virginia Rich left unfinished on her death, but Pickard is far better suited to the delightful social activist Jenny Cain than to the "Murder She Wrote" cozy style of Eugenia Potter.

Skip this book and hope the real Nancy Pickard reemerges soon, perhaps with Jenny Cain in tow!

You might enjoy the book. The first chapter was so full of similes that it almost made me sick - as if this was the writing element being practiced at the moment. And yet I continued on - tortured - just to discover who did it.