Customer Reviews

A Taste of Murder: Diabolically Delicious Recipes from Contemporary Mystery Writers

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What great fun it was to participate in this very worthwhile project and to discover that my fellow mystery writers are such fantastic cooks. The recipes are varied, well presented, and easy to follow. But even if you're not interested in stirring up something diabolically delicious, "A Taste of Murder" also serves up entertaining vignettes and bits of insider information with every recipe.

Great recipes from great writers. You simply must try Patsy Ward Burk's Taco Soup. You can't get thru the winter without it!

What a delightful book! Beside including some hiliarious recipes like "Susan Silverman's Boiled Water" from Robert B. Parker, there are interesting recipes from a number of mystery writers and places associated with mysteries. I plan to try the Tea Scones from Brown's Hotel (Agatha Christie's Bertram's Hotel) first. This is a must for mystery readers.

A Taste of Murder is a collection of recipes from today's top mystery writers.

Some of the recipes in this book sound good (the "Spaghetti Angelica") but others are a waste of paper, like how to prepare boxed macaroni and cheese, how to boil water and how to make "beans on toast". It's a mystery why a few of these writers couldn't come up with more inventive recipes to share with their fans.

Note to vegetarians: there are some meatless recipes in the book but many contain oysters, eggs or cheese. You may enjoy the "Night-in-the-Cooler-Eggplant Salad" or "Myron's Potatoe Latkes" .

Not being a mystery buff, I would've liked to see a little more tie-in to the mystery books these authors write...something to entice me not only into the kitchen but into the library to check out a novel by one of the authors whose recipes are featured in this book.

Another downside to this book is that there is no index, making it hard to locate a recipe quickly.

Afternote: The "Spaghetti Angelica" sounded so good I decided to try it. It's a mix of cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, parsley and mushrooms (I left out the nutmeg) that you stir into spaghetti. I found it quite tasty!

Mysteries and menus go hand in hand. Just picking up A Taste of Murder and quickly wading through it, I knew it was a recipe book that would never leave my kitchen.

Readers and chefs can expect great recipes, informative thoughts, witty remarks, and bits and pieces from Jo Grossman and Robert Weibezahl, who created the wonderful book, and the mystery writers themselves. An impressive introduction tells readers about the relationship between mysteries and menus, and each chapter adds a little more a long with the recipes. Under the chapter headings of First Instincts, Choose Your Poison, The Pot Thickens, Dressed to Kill, Kneadless Violence, Quick and Painless, Pasta Mortem, Something's Fishy, Fowl Play, Secret Meat-ings, No Place to Meat, Faithful Sidekicks, Revenge is Sweet, and Just Desserts, you will find some delicious, tempting meals. Expect to find recipes like, Bill Crider's manly recipe of Sausage-Cheese Appetizer, Cathie John's tasty Cincinnati Chili recipe with a dash of chocolate. Peter Robinson's tempting taste of Warm Pear and Stilton Salad, Sara Hoskins Frommer's bread recipe called Fred Lundquist's Sourdough Oatmeal Bread, Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone Peanut Butter and Pickle Sandwich recipe, Parnell Hall's Stanley's Head Pesto pasta, Anne Perry's Fish Pie, Leslie Glass's April Woo's Crispy Hacked Duck, Penny Warner's Hangtown Fry, Kate Charles's recipe for Quick Vegetarian Cassoulet, H.R.F. Keating's side dish recipe of Carrot Haliva, L.L. Thrasher's Boiled Cookies, and Jonathan Gash's British cake recipe called Parkin.

If you own one of those rare Bed & Breakfasts that includes live mysteries in the vacation weekend package, or know anyone who does, this is one recipe book that will add to the fun. It's a wonderful grouping of talent and taste. The recipes are worthy on their own, but it's nice to have a little mystery with one's meal - don't you think? Others must agree because it been nominated in the Anthony Mystery Awards for Best Non-Fiction.

You can't go wrong spending the dough on this one.

This is not a culinary murder mystery. Instead this tome lives up to its title as a mystery lover's cookbook. The recipes come from a cross section of some of the great genre authors either what they ate while solving an impossible puzzler or what their hero or another character cooked. The topics include what one would expect in a mystery cook book such as Dressed to Kill, Quick and Painless, Pasta Mortem, Secret Meat-ings, and Just Desserts, etc. The compilers Jo Grossman and Robert Weibezahl provide companion wit about the contributor, their sleuth, and/or the recipe.

The recipes are fun, but like some inquisitive reviewers I tested a few of the recipes on my sidekick though I allowed him to "Choose your Poison" within genre (house) rules. He enjoyed "Fowl Play", the non murder by chocolate "Just Deserts", and Millhone's "Peanut Butter and Pickle Sandwich", etc. However, like most sidekick sleuths he remains clueless as to why he mysteriously has received a few cooked meals from me. Don't worry he is back to the microwave (I'll use the kid to star in the sequel). Genre fans who enjoy items about their heroes or just appreciate a delightful cookbook will want to test the recipes of A TASTE OF MURDER: DIABOLICALLY DELICIOUS RECIPES FROM CONTEMPORARY MYSTERY WRITERS and follow up with the equally tasting and tasteful A SECOND HELPING OF MURDER: MORE DIABOLICALLY DELICIOUS RECIPES FROM CONTEMPORARY MYSTERY WRITERS, the next book in the series (what did you expect with a mystery you always get act two)

Harriet Klausner