Turn Up the Heat (A Gourmet Girl Mystery) [Paperback]

Susan Conant (Author), Jessica Conant-Park (Author)

Book Description

Series: A Gourmet Girl Mystery | Publication Date: February 3, 2009

Chloe Carter is helping her chef boyfriend with his new restaurant on Boston’s posh Newbury Street, when a crabby waitress is found dead in a fish truck. Was this a prank gone awry? Or did somebody want her to sleep with the fishes?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Murder's on the menu at Simmer, a popular Boston restaurant, in the third saucy cozy to feature gourmet girl Chloe Parker from daughter-and-mother writing team Conant-Park and Conant (after 2007's Simmer Down). When Leandra, a Simmer server, turns up strangled with her own apron strings in a seafood delivery truck belonging to Owen, the fiancé of Chloe's best friend, Adrianna, there are plenty of suspects. Most of the restaurant's staff appear to have despised the petite blonde, who happened to be the girlfriend of Simmer's owner, but did they hate Leandra enough to kill her? Chloe discovers Owen's been lying to Adrianna about something important, and Simmer employees and some of their significant others have a penchant for stealing. The snooping foodie dives deeper into danger as she decides to check out that delivery truck one more time. The authors serve up another delectable dish of detection. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

When waitress Leandra turns up dead in the back of a fish truck, Chloe Carter needs to find out who did the foul deed and why. Chloe’s boyfriend is chef at the restaurant where the deceased girl worked, and a murder is hardly going to enhance the eatery’s chic image, deliberately burnished to attract Boston’s elite. This mother-daughter writing team combines  a nicely detailed Back Bay setting with plenty of insights into the restaurant business, its kitchen characters, table-service staff, purveyors, and guests. They appreciate the business’ unpredictability as demonstrated in recreational drug use in the restrooms and tension arising out of menu-development issues. Recipes appended to the text reflect the eclectic nature of contemporary restaurant cooking and feature chutneys, salsas, and purees. A multipage formula for tamales takes several days to prepare. Recommend this one to fans of foodie crime. --Mark Knoblauch --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Berkley; Reprint edition (February 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425226638
• ISBN-13: 978-0425226636
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #287,139 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun is a Good Thing in a Book, July 2, 2008

By 

Barbara Sharpe (Kalamazoo, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Turn Up the Heat (A Gourmet Girl Mystery) (Hardcover)

This is the third of a series of very fun books. They are perfect for summer beach reads, for winter ski chalet reads, for anytime you want to read something that will a) keep your attention; b) be fun; c) is well-written and d) surprises you with the ending. These are not the sort of mysteries where you will easily guess "whodunit."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Is Stealing Really OK? This Disappointing Book Seems to Think So, July 7, 2010

By 

Linda Hurst "Your Bookie" (Aubrey, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Turn Up the Heat (A Gourmet Girl Mystery) (Paperback)

Another reviewer commented on the convoluted and dissatisfying ending to this installment in the heretofore enjoyable
Gourmet Girl Series and I completely agree.


As a cohesive mystery Turn Up The Heat fails from beginning to end.

Before Chloe discovers Leandra's body in her buddy's fish truck, she visits Simmers (her boy friend's restaurant) and finds the bar had not been properly cleaned the previous night and unused cocaine in lines in the women's restroom. Don't you think she might have mentioned the drugs and the disarray to the police? Or at lease to her boy friend Chef Josh who as head chef should know about it? These two items just disappear and are never addressed and there is also a red herring at the Memorial service when someone accidentally reads Chloe's study notes on Disfunctional Pathology that she is using to study for her finals in Social Work.

AS a long time cozy reader I assumed that one of the suspects thinks she is thinking of them as a suspect due to her diagnosis notes. But, no the reason that the killer struck is just dumb and the ending in general left a whole lot to be desired.

The other thing that bothered me about this book, was the attitude that "everybody steals" therefore it is OK. If this book is aimed at teenagers it is sure sending the wrong message. I worked for many years as a sales representative and can tell you that stealing happens--a lot, and often makes the difference between profitability and going under.
All 3 of my grown kids work in the restaurant business and acknowledge that much of the book is accurate, but that people who are caught stealing are fired and no one who wants to keep his job as head chef as Josh did would steal foodstuffs or turn a blind eye to employee theft--at least till they stole something that belonged to him instead of the restaurant--and keep his job.

Even worse was her best friend's filling her closet shelves with sheets, towels and other items she has stolen and worst of all is that when Chloe mentions this is wrong--it is her who is put down. Just an offensive message all the way around.

For the record, it is NOT OK TO STEAL!!!!

I was so disappointed with this book as the series has heretofore been lots of fun. I think I will take a long break before I dig the next book out of my massive tbrpile.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great to fall asleep, September 16, 2009

By 

ML5 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Turn Up the Heat (A Gourmet Girl Mystery) (Paperback)

I have to be honest, I haven't done reading this book yet but I am almost done. What I can say is that this book really helped me falling asleep, 5 pages before bed and you sleep all night like a baby.