From Publishers Weekly
Food, wine and good mysteries make for an unbeatable combination as shown in this anthology of 16 short stories, mostly by established pros, including the two editors. Bishop (co-editor of 2002's Death Dines at 8:30) serves up a delightful romp set at the Inn at Hemlock Falls, "Waiting for Gateaux," while James (Decorated to Death, the most recent entry in his Simon Kirby-Jones series) offers a cast of quirky and greedy characters in "All in the Family." In Donna Andrews's amusing "The Birthday Dinner," her series heroine, Meg Langslow, must attend a birthday dinner hosted by her Aunt Millicent, who "hasn't poisoned anyone in years." Molly Murphy, Rhys Bowen's Irish sleuth, spends her first Christmas Eve as a maid in the home of renowned political leader Sam Wilcox and finds herself involved in murder in "Proof of the Pudding." In "Sing a Song of Sixpence," Anne Perry introduces English Victorian detective Theolonius Quade and the remarkable Lady Vespasia, who discover a Christmas pudding containing more than the usual surprises. Brief author interviews and intriguing recipes at the end of each tale enhance a volume certain to delight any palate, but since poison is the weapon of choice, readers may need to let the stories digest before trying the recipes. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Fans both of short mystery stories and of food-themed writing will gobble up this anthology of 16 plots with recipes. An upper-class English household at the time of the American Civil War serves as the locale for Anne Perry's invention of Justice Thelonius Quade, who is called upon to determine the host's murderer at a holiday party featuring a cake with more hidden surprises than the dinner guests can imagine. A recipe for Victorian butterscotch candy supplements the story. Rhys Bowen sets her condensed mystery in turn-of-the-century New York City. It, too, has a Christmas theme and features plucky Irish immigrant investigator Molly Murphy. The recipe? Traditional British Christmas Pudding in all its glory. Each story also features a brief interview with the author. Whodunit fans will revel in these concise mysteries, and they will find the recipes amusing, but only serious cooks will be able to follow the generally barebones directions, for they lack specific detail that kitchen novices generally require. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Death Dines In FROM THE PUBLISHER
Sink your teeth into these delicacies from today's masters of mystery -- sixteen slices of life and death, peppered with peril, seasoned with suspense, and marinated with malice. New York Times bestselling author Anne Perry introduces her newest sleuth, Justice Thelonius Quade, in "Sing a Song of Sixpence" -- in which a horrible host gets his just desserts during Christmas dinner. Midnight Louie smells something fishy at an all-you-can-eat fugu dinner in Carole Nelson Douglas's "License to Koi." A tea party ends early for antiques dealer Clive Swain and his ex-wife Lara in "Stark Terror at Tea-time" by Lyn Hamilton. These and thirteen other tales are sure to satisfy your craving for crime fiction -- so pull up a chair and get ready for sixteen courses of mystery's very best...served with recipes on the side.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Food, wine and good mysteries make for an unbeatable combination as shown in this anthology of 16 short stories, mostly by established pros, including the two editors. Bishop (co-editor of 2002's Death Dines at 8:30) serves up a delightful romp set at the Inn at Hemlock Falls, "Waiting for Gateaux," while James (Decorated to Death, the most recent entry in his Simon Kirby-Jones series) offers a cast of quirky and greedy characters in "All in the Family." In Donna Andrews's amusing "The Birthday Dinner," her series heroine, Meg Langslow, must attend a birthday dinner hosted by her Aunt Millicent, who "hasn't poisoned anyone in years." Molly Murphy, Rhys Bowen's Irish sleuth, spends her first Christmas Eve as a maid in the home of renowned political leader Sam Wilcox and finds herself involved in murder in "Proof of the Pudding." In "Sing a Song of Sixpence," Anne Perry introduces English Victorian detective Theolonius Quade and the remarkable Lady Vespasia, who discover a Christmas pudding containing more than the usual surprises. Brief author interviews and intriguing recipes at the end of each tale enhance a volume certain to delight any palate, but since poison is the weapon of choice, readers may need to let the stories digest before trying the recipes. Agent, Lucienne Diver at Spectrum Literary. (May 4) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Eat, drink, and be murdered in this collection of 16 new stories. Why is the sociopathic impetus toward violent death so often balanced in contemporary crime fiction by the domestic impulse to set a good table and provide the gentle reader with recipes? Whatever the reason, most of these dine-and-die anecdotes tend toward coziness, from Elizabeth Foxwell's chronicle of Alice Longworth Roosevelt unmasking a German spy to the poisoned period Christmas dinners of Rhys Bowen and Anne Perry. Lyn Hamilton's "Stark Terror at Tea Time" is ingenious but never, thank goodness, terrifying. Venturing closer to the hard edge, Meg Chittenden's henpecked husband resolves to complete a luxury train trip without his wife, and Jeremiah Healy's mobsters take their culinary cue from the ancient story of Thyestes. Mary Jane Maffini virtually and wisely ignores the foodie element in her cat-and-mouse tale of con artists meeting murder. But top honors go to the two stories-Carole Nelson Douglas's well-plotted tale of how feline sleuth Midnight Louie interrupted a dangerous fugu dinner and cleared himself of raiding a koi pond and Donna Andrews's hilariously demented anecdote of a birthday dinner with self-confessed poisoner Aunt Millicent-that best combine light and dark to explore the downside of feasting. The rest of the contributions are summarized by Puzzle Lady Cora Felton's niece Sherry Carter: "Somebody got killed, and because of the quiche you were a suspect, but aside from that it went great."
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