Review

For fans of:  Jerrilyn Farmer, Phyllis Richman

When Brooklyn Wainwright’s sister Savannah gives her an old leather-bound cookbook to restore, she can’t wait to get to work; the contents are handwritten and appear to have some serious historical significance. Brooklyn’s enthusiasm for the project wanes when she learns the book’s intended as a present for Savannah’s lecherous ex-boyfriend Baxter (now a world-famous chef), but Savannah claims she’s forgiven Baxter and asks Brooklyn to do the same. Ever the good sibling, Brooklyn assents, completing the task and relinquishing the tome.

Unfortunately for Baxter, though, it appears not everyone’s so willing to let bygones be bygones. Shortly after the grand opening of his new restaurant, the superstar chef is found dead  – stabbed through the gut with his own fish knife. Savannah’s the one to discover the corpse and is therefore considered a suspect, but Brooklyn knows her sister is incapable of such violence. Plus, the cookbook has gone missing, and why would she steal back her own gift? Can Brooklyn exonerate Savannah, catch the real killer, and find the missing volume, or will her digging simply doom her to share Baxter’s fate?

A Cookbook Conspiracy is the seventh of Kate Carlisle's Bibliophile Mysteries, and if you ask me, it's the series' strongest installment to date. Kate Carlisle's latest is a fresh, fun take on the old-fashioned traditional mystery. The pace is brisk, the mystery is multiply layered and cunningly crafted, and Carlisle's characters are young, hip, and charismatic as all get-out. Carlisle's dialogue is snappy and snarky. Her prose is intelligent yet graceful and easy to read. She's skilled at writing place; in Dharma, the Sonoma commune where Brooklyn grew up and where most of her family still lives, Carlisle's created an idyllic little food-and-wine-filled refuge I'd give my right arm to inhabit. And while the book contains a wealth of information regarding old books and their restoration, Carlisle writes about the subject with such passion and enthusiasm that it never once detracts from the plot or slows the tempo. In fact, while the book's central puzzle may revolve around Baxter's murder, the secondary mystery Carlisle's constructed concerning a 230-year-old handwritten cookbook may be even more riveting than her whodunit. The end result is a read that's entertaining and informative in equal measure, and that's a rare find, indeed.

Carlisle's character work is nothing to sneeze at, either. Brooklyn's not only an engaging narrator, but a wonderfully likable and refreshingly relatable heroine to boot, and Carlisle's fashioned for her a perfect match in sexy British security specialist Derek Stone. Brooklyn and Derek are more than just bedmates, they're partners, and more importantly, they're friends. They bring out the best in each other, and their relationship only serves to make both characters more interesting. Brooklyn's flaky New Age parents (particularly her mother, the "original wackadoodle flower child") provide the perfect amount of comic relief. And I greatly enjoyed my introduction to Derek's brother Dalton; his chemistry with Brooklyn's sister Savannah is electric, and I sincerely hope Carlisle has plans to make him a series regular, as the four of them would make a wonderful crime-fighting team.

To be honest, I've always had mixed feelings regarding this series; I could take or leave the other Bibliophile Mysteries I've read. A Cookbook Conspiracy has made a convert of out me, though, and I eagerly anticipate Brooklyn's next adventure.

Reviewed by Kat