by Melinda Wells
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| List Price: | $7.99 |
| Amazon Price: | $7.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
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| Lowest New Price: | $3.95 |
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Product Description
Meet Della Carmichael, owner of a cooking school in Santa Monica, California, and, as of this week, star of a brand-new cable cooking show. But she's about to add another credit to her rŽsumŽ: suspect.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 A Masterful Dish of Fun, 2008-09-23
Like a lot of other fans of Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton and the like, I am always looking for a new series to enjoy. I happened upon this book and found it thoroughly entertaining. I might add that I even made one of the recipes in the back and it was delicious!
If you want a scary read with lots of blood and guts, this won't be for you. If you want something light and thoroughly entertaining, give this a try!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
First Aid WAY OFF, 2008-08-08
I dithered about giving this one three or four stars. I chose four stars on the basis of dialogue which is first rate -- the most real I have read in a long time. I think a better editor should have caught the really major problems with the protagonist's first aid skills. A few very minor changes could have fixed this problem. Since the other reviewers seem not to have noticed, I will state them.
In the first chapter a woman dies of an apparent heart attack. Our heroine says there is no need to do CPR because the woman is obviously dead. No one does anything to try to save the woman. The obvious first step because she had just eaten was to try the Heimlich maneuver. Then to try establishing an airway. As it turned out, the victim died of anaphylactic shock, and amateur first aid might not have been enough, but, the heroine did not know this. (Any of us might have hesitated to do a tracheotomy which is pretty radical for nearly everyone.) As a former teacher, she would have had first aid. Had I been the detective I would have put her at the top of my suspect list for doing nothing.
I almost set the book aside at the first chapter because of this incident. I didn't, and it turns out the heroine is not an airhead at all, but a self confident middle aged widow with a lot going for her.
But there is another place where her first aid skills -- or, rather, the lack of them was abysmal. In an emergency, she had to deliver a baby. Help was on the way. She was not snowed in in the wilderness with no help in the foreseeable future. Our heroine delivered the baby just fine. Unfortunately she decided to cut the cord. There is no mention of the placenta having been delivered. There is no sign she waited until the cord went flaccid. But the absolute worst thing was that she didn't tie it off first. I could be wrong because it has been over thirty years since I had first aid, but I think that could have caused massive bleeding in mother and child.
Let us say that I don't want her near me in the case of a life threatening emergency. It took an awfully good book to overcome these deficiencies which could have been caught by a better editor. The author is very good, and I recommend reading the book. I don't recommend tucking the first aid information in the back of your head for future use.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 A fun read, 2008-07-10
I really enjoyed this book and I hope there are more to come in the series!
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Runny Mousse, 2008-06-11
I do not know how this book rated so many stars. It is an OK read for a first novel but does not have enough substance in the characters to hold it together.
It seems like the focus of this heroine was on her sex life not her culinery skills. I buy a culinery mystery looking for good recipes; waiting for the author to tie in those morsels with the characters; and hoping for good character build up and action.
The murderer is easy to figure out early on. In a good book that is OK as there are twists that keep the reader engrossed but having children feel weird foods just doesn't do it. I put it in the romance novel catagory.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
A good beginning to a new mystery series., 2008-06-06
Della Carmichael owns a small cooking school in Santa Monica, California, and is just beginning a new cable cooking show on the Better Living channel. Della is different from most people she knows. Her late husband, Mack, was a LAPD detective (died two years ago), her mother and sisters are all accountants, her close family friend, John O'Hara, is LAPD and his wife, Shannon, has mental problems... You get the idea. The only friend Della has who could possibly understand her love of the culinary arts is Eileen O'Hara. Eileen is John's daughter and is not only Della's houseguest, but also her cooking school assistant.
Now that Della has a cooking show she is surrounded by many more people, but not all of them are nice. Mimi Bond's cooking show has been canceled and Della's cooking show is the one replacing it. Needless-to-say, Mimi is NOT a fan of Della's. Still, Mimi is the one chosen to be the taster at the end of Della's first show, which goes out live! Mimi ends up dying after taste testing Della's mousse, in front of a national audience.
Detective Emil Hall has Della listed high on his suspect list. John is pulled in to work with Hall and cannot guarantee Della that she will not end up in prison. Phil Logan, head of publicity for the Better Living Channel, has Della spending a week with a crime reporter for the Chronicle named Nicholas D'Marino "NDM", who will (hopefully) help Della solve the crime. A second person soon ends up dead and Della is, once more, the main suspect.
Della must get through several unrehearsed show tapings and solve the two murders quickly - or her next show may be from behind bars.
**** This is the first of the Della Cooks mysteries. The author did a terrific job introducing all the characters that will often appear in the series and none of them came across to me as false. That is not an easy thing for an author to accomplish. BRAVA! A few continuously running sub-plots have been planted as well. It will be interesting to see where they lead. For readers who enjoy the culinary arts, the recipes used in the book are written out in the back. That makes this book even more than worth the money. Engaging characters, an intriguing mystery, and suspects galore make this title a winner! ****
Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.
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