Sticks & Scones (Goldy Culinary Mysteries, Book 10) [Print] [Mass Market Paperback]

Diane Mott Davidson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2002

Celebrated for her unique blend of first-class suspense and five-star fare, Diane Mott Davidson has won scores of fans and earned a place on major bestseller lists across the country. Now she dishes up another dangerously tasty treat of murder and mystery.

For Colorado caterer Goldy Schulz, accepting a series of bookings at Hyde Castle is like a dream come true. It’s not every day that she gets to cook authentic Elizabethan fare--especially at a real castle that was brought over from England and reassembled stone by stone in Aspen Meadow. Goldy is determined that everything will go right--which is why, she figures later, everything went terribly wrong. It begins when a shotgun blast shatters her window. Then Goldy discovers a body lying in a nearby creek. And when shots ring out for the second time that day, someone Goldy loves is in the line of fire. Suddenly the last thing Goldy wants to think about is Shakespeare’s Steak Pie, 911 Chocolate Emergency Cookies, or Damson-in-Distress Plum Tart. Could one of her husband Tom’s police investigations have triggered a murder? Or was her violent, recently paroled ex responsible? With death peering around every corner, Goldy needs to cook up some crime-solving solutions--before the only dish that’s left on her menu is murder.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Her first big catering gig in weeks has Goldy Bear Schulz salivating. But before she can collect her Elizabethan-inspired recipes (Queen of Scots Shortbread, Damson-in-Distress Plum Tart) and hie herself to the restored English castle in Colorado where she's putting on a donor's luncheon in Hyde Chapel and a high school fencing banquet in the castle's Great Room, someone blows a hole in her living room window. No sooner has she unloaded her pots and pans at the catering venue than another someone--or maybe the same one--shoots a hole in her detective husband, Tom. To make matters worse, Goldy's ex-husband has just been released from jail, and he seems to have a few reasons to want to kill her, too.

Between trying to solve the riddle of the castle ghost, keep her son Arch and her wounded husband safe, and get the food on the table while it's still hot, Goldy is up to her elbows in trouble. The would-be lord of the manor still looks like a business-builder for Goldy, but his Swiss-born wife seems a little wacky. And even from a sickbed, Tom's got a crime wave on his hands that seems to involve Goldy's ex, his flashy new girlfriend, the castle owner, and the dead man Goldy found floating in the castle moat. Not to mention a woman Tom once loved, who seems to have returned from the dead and is causing Goldy no end of distress. But Diane Mott Davidson's gutsy, multitalented series heroine (Prime Cut, Tough Cookie) triumphs again--the proof is in the reading as well as the eating in this fast-paced, frothy dessert. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Culinary sleuth Goldy Schulz finesses another catering job by the skin of her teeth in her 11th warm and fuzzy adventure from bestseller Davidson (Prime Cut, etc.). Goldy is preparing to cater two events at the baronial estate-cum-conference center outside Denver where she and her family are staying. While waiting for a delivery, she discovers the body of one of a gang of philatelic thieves and sees her husband, Tom, wounded by a sniper. A rich feast of false clues and red herrings follows. While Tom recuperates, Goldy is free to investigate the shooter. Embarking on a series of unpleasant and improbable personal encounters, as well as demanding meal preparations, she uncovers a string of clues that not only implicate her hosts, her son's coach and her ex (now out on parole), but raise questions about her marriage to Tom. Fortunately, the author grants Goldy a few brief respites in which to settle her thoughts, allowing the reader to regroup before taking off on the next hectic sequence. Davidson has garnished her story with a rich sauce of old feuds, double-dealing and marital secrets that overwhelms her basic ingredients of credible characters (adolescent son Arch, in particular, rings true), good food and an intriguing puzzle. In the end, Goldy gets her culprit, the guests get their meals and readers, perhaps not so much sated as stuffed, get several excellent recipes. The jacket which sports a teapot in the guise of a surly butler holding a gun will be instantly recognized by the author's devotees. Agent, Sandra Dijkstra.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Bantam Book, Bantam Paperback Edition, June 2002 edition (May 28, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553578316
• ISBN-13: 978-0553578317
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diane Mott Davidson is the author of more than ten bestselling mysteries. She lives with her family in Colorado.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sticks and Scones is a disappointment, April 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Sticks & Scones (Hardcover)

As a longtime reader of Mott Davidson's, I found STICKS AND SCONES disappointingly disjointed and implausible....Loose ends, and too many leaps of logic. Besides which, juvenile son, Arch, gets more tediously obnoxious as the years go by with NO redeeming qualities, and ex-husband, John Richard, keeps up harassment that NO wife of a police officer would ever have to endure. I know this is fiction, but no heroine can be interesting being as much of a career victim as Goldy is.

Even the recipes in this book are disappointing.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Goldy goes Gothic, April 17, 2001

By 

TundraVision (o/~ from the Land of Sky Blue Waters o/~) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sticks & Scones (Hardcover)

Goldy the caterer and her crew are back with more murder and tasty morsels. The action this time centers around an English castle which has been dismantled, moved, and re-assembled in the Colorado Rockies (think Jerry Jeff Walker: o/~ "even London Bridge is falling down and moved to Arizona" o/~ The characterizations here are much better than the disappointments of Goldy's most recent prior endeavors, but her whiney son and his adulation of his abusive father is really beginning to grate.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great recipes and fun mystery......, October 15, 2001

By 

jeanne-scott (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sticks & Scones (Hardcover)

Diane Mott Davidson has done it again, another fun mystery involving Goldy, the caterer/sleuth along with murder and missing valuable stamps, not to mention an appearance by Goldy's husband's old girlfriend. The story begins with Goldy's picture window being shot out, a suspect in a police case turning up dead near a catering sight, and after that , the clues and suspects mount up faster than the calories in the recipes!! There are wonderful recipes for scones, shortbread cookies and the totally fantastic and irrestible chocolate emergency 911 cookies!!! Davidson's mysteries are fun and interesting, and while some may find them a bit of a stretch for their imagination, the story is very entertaining and enjoyable. You will not be dissapointed. The characters are interesting, and some of them are really out there, and that is what makes the story move! I have read all of this series of books, and while some are better than others, this one is one of the most fun!!