It’s hurricane season in New Orleans and vintage cookbook fan Ricki James-Diaz is trying to shelve her weather-related fears and focus on her business, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop, housed in the magnificent Bon Vee Culinary House Museum.
Repairs on the property unearth crates of very old, very valuable French wine, buried by the home’s builder, Jean-Louis Charbonnet. Ricki, who’s been struggling to attract more customers to Miss Vee’s, is thrilled when her post about the discovery of this long-buried treasure goes viral. She’s less thrilled when the post brings distant Charbonnet family members out of the woodwork, all clamoring for a cut of the wine’s sale.
When a dead body turns up in Bon Vee’s cheery fall decorations, the NOPD zeroes in on Eugenia Charbonnet Felice as the prime suspect, figuring that as head of the Charbonnet family, she has the most to gain. Ricki is determined to uncover the real culprit, but she can’t help noticing that Eugenia is acting strangely. Ricki wonders what kind of secret her mentor has bottled up, and fears what might happen if she uncorks it.
Release Date: Feb 7, 2023
Series: Vintage Cookbook
Book: 2
Publisher: Penguin Group
Imprint: Berkley
Price: $8.99
Ricki James-Diaz recently moved back to her hometown of New Orleans after spending several years in Los Angeles. She loves her job running the vintage cookbook and kitchenware gift shop within a historic home and museum. Ricki is getting used to dealing with hurricane warnings and up-and-down sales but still enjoys her job and spending time with her new friends. She and the other employees of MIss Vee’s museum are excited by the discovery of valuable 150-year-old wine discovered in a crawl space of the home, but the added publicity brings long-lost relatives of the family who owns the museum out of the woodwork, as well as a murderer.
This book is the second in the Vintage Cookbook Mystery series. I fell in love with the premise and the setting of this series after reading the first book. I had mixed feelings about the main character, Rikki, who is sometimes wise beyond her years and sometimes very immature, and I felt this way again in this book. This second book works fine as a standalone since plenty of background information is given, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first. The setting is still wonderful and the information about vintage cookbooks and gadgets is just as interesting, but unfortunately isn’t as big of a part in this book. Rikki is more likable this time around, but still acts immature much of the time, ironically usually when she’s trying to impress the much older man she is attracted to.
The returning side characters from the first book, who are friends and colleagues of Ricki, are easy to like. However, the plot of this book, which calls into question the inheritance of the museum’s namesake and original owner of the home, Miss Vee, brings in several new characters. They all say they are relatives and make various claims upon the estate. Even with the list of characters at the beginning of the book, I had a hard time keeping everyone straight. One of the new characters that did make an impression on me is Olivia, the college student who is interning at the museum. She and Ricki work well together and I hope they team up again in future books. The moments of humor throughout the story helps to elevate the book. The murder investigation gets complicated, and Ricki needlessly puts herself in danger to try to solve the case. However, the book ends dramatically but positively, and I am curious to know what happens next in Ricki’s life.
~ Christine
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