A Catered Thanksgiving

September 27, 2010
In Crawford's sprightly seventh mystery with recipes featuring sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons (after 2009's A Catered Birthday Party), the proprietors of A Little Taste of Heaven, their Longely, N.Y., catering company, prepare a Thanksgiving feast for Scrooge-like fireworks manufacturer Monty Field and his family at the Field mansion. When Monty comes into the kitchen to test the roasting turkey, Bernie and Libby watch in horror as Monty taps the pop-up button in the bird's breast and the turkey explodes, blowing off the top of his head. Libby fears their stuffing made the turkey explode, but they soon learn that there was plenty of rivalry among the assembled family members, any one of whom had reason to want Monty dead. A heavy snowstorm ensures the suspects stay put as the sisters start to investigate. That their father, Sean, was on bad terms with the victim complicates their task. The action builds to more fireworks and a dramatic rescue.

November 1, 2010

In Crawford's seventh foray (after A Catered Birthday Party) into the wacky world of caterers Bernie and Libby Simmons, the gals are cooking Thanksgiving dinner for eight very snarky members of the Fields family in a Westchester mansion. When the turkey explodes in the face of patriarch Monty Field and a snowstorm strands the party, the sisters must find out which of the Fields wanted to kill Monty to avoid being cut out of his will. VERDICT Fans of culinary cozies by Joanne Fluke and Diane Mott Davidson will enjoy discovering Crawford. Her murder method is original, and the recipes are good.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2010

A Thanksgiving meal blows up in a diner's face, leaving the catering team on the hook for murder.

Monty Field is too cheap to heat his dismal house, much less pay for a catered holiday dinner. So his equally repellent clan gets together and hires Bernie and Libby Simmons (A Catered Birthday Party, 2009, etc.) of A Little Taste of Heaven to prepare their Thanksgiving feast. Their business name turns out to be prophetic, since one tap on the turkey sends Monty to his eternal reward, leaving his trophy wife Lexus, his brothers Ralph and Perceval, his insecure children Geoff and Melissa, his pampered niece Greta and his nephews Bob and Audie to squabble endlessly over what he may have left whom in his will. A snowstorm strands the luckless Simmons sisters overnight in the Field homestead, where they overhear the family hatching plots to pin the murder on them, witness the reappearance of Monty's body on Lexus's bed, listen to various family members' complaints that other family members are trying to kill them and of course get locked in a bunker filled with fireworks. But they can't see a shadowy figure called "El Huron" (described in such cleverly gender-concealing language as "El Huron slid a gloved hand under the wool mask and scratched El Huron's cheek"), who may hold the key to Monty's gruesome death. Includes four recipes, three for Thanksgiving and one for Passover.

The inane dialogue and preposterous plotting are unlikely to tempt even the most devoted fan of cook-me cozies.

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