American/Cozy Mysteries

In this outing, Davidson employs another tactic which has proven successful for her in the past. The victim - Goldy falls over her in the first scene - is a friend and neighbor of Goldy's, which adds a real emotional oomph to the story. She worked at the law firm where Goldy has a catering contract, and Goldy had been teaching her how to cook in her off hours (which are extremely few). To add to the heartbreak, the victim, Dusty, has a family living in a house built by Habitat for Humanity with an unemployed mother, a toddler brother, and a grandfather blinded in prison by cosmetic experiments. As Goldy begins to unravel the various relationships within the law firm - culminating in the catering of a birthday lunch for one of the lawyers - she also unravels the why of the murder. Davidson is able to gently skewer Aspen's upper crust while at the same time having Goldy live among those same people. Goldy's not an outcast so much as an outsider, a classic mystery trope. Sprinkled throughout are the day to day details of Goldy's life; unlike other books, except maybe the Spenser books, where the description of food and cooking is an intrusion, in Davidson's books she's just describing the work of an artist in the kitchen. Her description of the food Goldy's preparing, how she's preparing it, as well as the recipes for the food, are all part of the action. Another reviewer has already mentioned the sad lack of the recipe for potato puffs - to which I can only agree. I can't wait for Goldy's next outing though; she always leaves me wanting more, and whether that's a condition at the end of a meal or at the end of a novel, it's a welcome one. (Robin)