Still More Diane Mott Davidson 10/11/07

Tough Cookie - So, let’s see … Goldy does a PBS cooking show and winds up in big, fat trouble as always.

Sticks & Scones.  Okay, this was probably the best, thus far. 

Double Shot

More Diane Mott Davidson

These are starting to run together for me … thank God I’ll have a computer at home soon and will be able to write as I finish them.  Here are the ones I’ve read and don’t feel like writing about:

The Killer Pancake

The Grilling Season

Prime Cut

What’s pathetic about this is that I can’t remember, as I sit at my computer, which book was about what.  I’m bad that way, even if I haven’t read all of an author’s books one right after another.

The Main Corpse by Diane Mott Davidson 10/7/07

I have books at home but for some reason, I really want to read all of these, so yesterday I went to the mall shopping and bought 4 more.  This is the first of the four.

Both Marla, Goldy’s best friend, is in trouble.  Marla is accused of killing her boyfriend and possibly his business partner. 

 At the beginning of the book, Goldy is catering an event for a company that is looking for investors for a project involving a gold mine.  There is thought to still be gold in the mine.  Marla gets into an argument with the boyfriend’s business partner, then he disappears.   Shortly after, Marla and her boyfriend go camping.  Marla is beaten, her boyfriend is missing and Marla is framed for his disappearance - and presumably his murder.

Goldy tries to help Marla.  She also involves Marla’s brother in law, Goldy’s son Arch and Arch’s bloodhound, Jake.  By involve, I mean, she involves them in an activity that could get them all thrown in jail. Goldy could possibly have lost custody of her son over this, had Arch’s father found out and persisted.  It was just foolish.  However, it was also successful.

The Cereal Murders by Diane Mott Davidson 10/04/07

I read an amazon.com review of one of her books and the writer of the review said soemthing along the lines of: “how can this much happen to one person in one small town?”  Well, I sort of had that feeling with this book but decided, “what the hell? I probably wouldn’t think that if I read these once a year as they came out rather than reading them all in a row.”

In this book, Goldy is catering a meeting at Elk Park Prep’s headmaster’s house when someone is killed.  The class valedictorian.  As usual, Goldy gets involved and winds up in danger herself - at one point, she is bitten by a black widow spider (which apparently are common in CO, where the stories take place.) 

There are more murders, some crazy parental behavior and the bottom line is: this is all about college admissions.  I am so not kidding. And, if this is remotely true to life - I’m glad I grew up poor.

Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson 10/02/07

 

I’m off the vampire books for a minute!

However, I’m back to Goldy Baer.  I think the first of these books I read (well, actually listened to on CD in the car) was “The Last Suppers.”  I also read/listened to “Chopping Sprees”, “Dark Tort”, and “Sweet Revenge” before I decided I should begin at the beginning.  “Dying for Chocolate” is book 3.

It’s been interesting because, while you can read the other stories without having read the earlier ones, I am finding out how things came about.  For example, how did they meet Julian?  How did they find out Marla was his aunt? Read this book and you’ll know!

In this story, Goldy is staying at her best friend’s sister’s house for the summer while she is getting a security system installed in her own house. (Which she needs because her ex-husband wants to be abusive, even though they are divorced.) She’s serving as live-in cook as well as running her own catering company. 

Goldy has a friend who gets into a fatal car crash right in front of her.  Goldy doesn’t believe that it was an accident and sets out to find out.  She doesn’t get involved in the investigation quite so quickly as she does in later books, but eventually she does.  The murder method in this story strikes me as highly implausible on several fronts.  First of all, that it would work. Second that it could happen the way that it did without anyone else getting hurt or even ensuring that the right person is the one who was hurt.  Still, if I wanted to read reality-based books, I probably wouldn’t be reading all these vampire books, would I?