Three-Course Murder (Culinary Mystery Series) [Paperback]

Nancy Fairbanks (Author)

Book Description

Series: Culinary Mystery Series | Publication Date: January 3, 2006

Forty-something Carolyn Blue is through with being a homemaker. She's decided to throw in the dishtowel and take on a dream job as a food writer. Now her plate is filled with exotic locales, delectable foods-and even a dash of crime- to taste. She could very well get used to this.

Crime Brûlée
With her husband in New Orleans, Carolyn decides to write a story on Cajun cuisine. But as she gets a taste of Creole, a friend disappears and clues lead to an alligator swamp where it's eat or be eaten.

Truffled Feathers
A large company trying to win over Carolyn's husband flies them to the Big Apple. They get serious city wining and dining and a true taste of New York, until someone in the company is murdered by the pastrami.

Death à l'Orange
It's a culinary tour de France for Carolyn Blue in Normandy, but it seems like the tour bus has taken a wrong turn down Rue de Murder. Carolyn is once again tracking down a killer with an insatiable appetite.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nancy Fairbanks is a pseudonym for Nancy Herndon, author of the Elena Jarvis mystery series. She has also written historical romances under the name Elizabeth Chadwick. She lives in El Paso, Texas, with her husband, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Texas at El Paso. She travels with her husband throughout America and Europe, enjoying new places, interesting people, good food, opera, and scientific conferences.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade (January 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425207641
• ISBN-13: 978-0425207642
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #635,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Turkey Flambe, March 15, 2010

By 

Phineas Fogg (AK, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three-Course Murder (Culinary Mystery Series) (Paperback)

I love these type of books! A murder, travel, mystery, humor and a new recipee!--You only need chocolates to make this a perfect read! I love the way each book in this series is different from the previous one. Not only did I enjoy it, I passed it on to my sister and even my Mom liked it!

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars yawn, December 8, 2008

By 

D. K. Stokes - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Three-Course Murder (Culinary Mystery Series) (Paperback)

*** Crime Brulee.

*yawn* I really don't like mysteries with gimmicks. The mystery is just an excuse to pontificate in an exceptionally boring manner about food and recipes.

The amateur sleuth's "best friend" goes missing during a scientific convention in New Orleans, but nobody's concerned except the sleuth. I didn't care about any of the characters, and the solution of the mystery was an anti-climax.


**˝ Truffled Feathers.

Some humorous moments, which garnered this an extra half star. But otherwise, ho-hum.

This time, the first person narration goes back and forth between the chemist husband and the food writer wife. The only problem with this is that they have identical voices. The husband drones on just as boringly about food as the wife does.

Did I already mention how much I despise mysteries with a gimmick? Not only is the mystery in this one just an excuse to give excruciatingly long descriptions of every single bite of food they ate in a week, but also for obscure and pointless trivia.

If that weren't bad enough, one clue hinges on the heroine being able to distinguish between Russian and Czech in an overheard phone conversation based on helping her college roommate with vocabulary words 20 years ago. I don't think so.

And amazingly, everyone in NYC knows everyone else. The scientists the husband is meeting and the publishing people the wife is meeting all know each other, as do sundry waitresses and limo drivers.


** Death a l'Orange.

I probably should have waited to read this--I'm so tired of these tedious characters, and the errors and inconsistencies irritated me. You don't wear a "broach." In 2002, why would you bring along a printer and a fax machine to send columns to a newspaper editor instead of just emailing them? Why would a group of college professors, of all people, be shocked by statues of naked people, or not know/be shocked by beef tartare being raw? And on losing their luggage, the heroine's main complaint was that she was going to have to sleep in... *gasp* a T-shirt.

I was hoping somebody would come along and just murder the lot of them.

And that's not even getting to the story, which was a series of fairly minor "accidents," each one dissected after the fact--with charts!, interspersed with complaining, and excruciatingly detailed descriptions of food.