Mystery on the Menu: A Three-Course Collection of Cozy Mysteries

Mystery on the Menu: A Three-Course Collection of Cozy Mysteries (2023) Nicole Kimberling

After rereading Grilled Cheese and Goblins I was wishing I had more mysteries by Nicole Kimberling when LO! I see she has a new mystery coming out! I can preorder it!

DONE!

As with her other books, this was a series of interconnected mysteries.

Entrée to Murder
Recipe for Trouble
Homicide and Hospitality

And as she is a professional chef, the main character was a chef.

Which means we get little bits like this.

I pivoted and strode briskly into the walk-in refrigerator all the way to the back. Then I opened the second door to the walk-in freezer. As I closed the door firmly behind me a howl of absolute rage ripped from my chest. It took the form of the word, “MOTHERFUCKER!”

No one really knows how many lives have been saved by the invention of the decompression chamber known as the restaurant walk-in. Probably too many to count.

Ah, the walk-in cooler.

These stories have, of course, murder.

“This is Andrew,” Evelyn announced, waving her hand back as though I were some stray dog that had followed her home. “He’s the chef at the murder restaurant.”

And romance.

I’d fallen in love with a cop who I was pretty sure was in the closet— or if he was out, only he knew it, which amounted to the same thing.

And two amazing little-old-lady sidekicks.

“Design led me to Paris, and there I met Evelyn. And we’re married, aren’t we? For two whole years now.” Julie waved her ring finger under my nose. It sported an impressive rock. “Before, we’d been living in sin for decades and decades. Now I can finally hold my head up when I’m pushing my little trolley through the supermarket.”

“You haven’t been to the supermarket for anything but a Vogue magazine in forty years,” Evelyn commented.

“Because of the shame.” Julie put the back of her hand to her head like the heroine in a black-and-white film.

“What a perfect place to hold a wedding,” Julie remarked. Then, to Evelyn, “Darling! We should renew our vows.”

“As far as I know they haven’t expired,” was all Evelyn had to say on that subject.

The stories follow the romance beats of her previous books–main characters falls in love over murder. Second story, main character and love interest define their relationships. Third story, They work things out and you can see the HEA.

The mysteries were good, and I liked that they went unexpected places. I also liked that although Mac was complex, he ended up being so in far different ways that you initially expected.

“We can always wait,” he said.

“Maybe you can, but not me.” I pulled myself together and heaved the door up. “I’m the kind of guy who reads the end of the novel first.”

“What’s the point of reading the book then?”

“To find out how it all went down. The journey is still just as good when you know where you’re going as when you don’t.”

I was delighted by these stories, and wish she had a bigger back-list for me to wallow in.

Publisher: One Block Empire

Rating: 8.5/10

• Browse the archives:
  
• The Grand Tour: Or, The Purloined Coronation Regalia » »
• « « Veiled, Audio Book