Bibliography: Davidson, Diane Mott. (2007). Sweet Revenge. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN: 9780060527334
Plot Summary: Intrepid espresso gulping caterer Goldy Schulz is back, surrounded by her usual jovial entourage. The busiest season of the year for caterers, the winter holidays are about to begin. Cookies are baked and iced, parties and luncheons planned. Goldy agrees to cater a breakfast for the staff and volunteers at the public library. When she is there the day before setting up, she brings son Arch along to study for his finals. They both have a run in with hostile (and loud!) Larry Craddock and then the librarian finds the body in the back of the library: former D.A. and current rare map dealer Drew Wellington. In addition to being stalked by a young woman, he was suspected of stealing rare maps from university libraries, and his former mentor Larry Craddick and current partner Neal Tharp were not too happy with him either. But Goldy’s on the case, and even though she get’s pushed into the snow, wrecks a luxury car and a mink coat and is almost scalped, she still manges to solve the case.
Critical Analysis: This long running cozy culinary mystery series has its fans, and I am one of them. However, the mystery and detecting scenes don’t quite come together in this entry for me, and I find the secondary Sandee Brisbane plot to be distracting. While a few scenes are quite compelling, including a fight she overhears at the MacArthur house and being pushed into the snow when she gets too close to the solution, I found the reveal to be anticlimatic–Goldy figures out who done it, rushes over to confront them, only to find that Tom and his officers got there first. I guess not every entry can end with a dramatic confrontation that put’s Goldy’s life or the life of those she loves in danger, but this ending sort of changed the way I felt about the whole story. Plus the rest of the plot points never quite seemed to gel or come together.
This next part is more of a mini rant than true analysis. (Sorry!) I was disappointed in how Davidson portrayed both the library and the librarian. The scene where Arch confronts Larry Craddick about not using his cell phone in the library (Can’t you read the signs?) and reference librarian herself are not shining examples of the best that a public library can be. Okay, the librarian did just deal with the murder of a regular patron, but she comes across as a sort of wet noodle.
The recipes however were all up to Davidson’s usual high standards. The Bleak House and Gotta Hot Date bars especially had my mouth watering. HarperCollins, if you are reading this, we need a Goldy Schulz cookbook with ALL the recipes please! (Kensington is publishing just such a book of Joanne Fluke’s recipes in 2011!)
Readalikes: A whole post devoted to culinary mysteries can be found here.
Review Excerpts:
“Bestseller Davidson is at the top of her form in her 14th culinary suspense novel to feature Colorado crime-solving caterer Goldy Schulz (after 2006′s Dark Tort)…..Readers will happily sink their teeth into Goldy’s latest case and come away hungry for more.” -Publisher’s Weekly
“Goldy crashes her friend Marla’s car in pursuit of Sandee, receives some nasty threats and narrowly escapes death at a snowboarding facility, but she keeps on cooking and sleuthing until she tracks down the murderer. Not Goldy’s brightest day. Her legion of fans may well prefer the ten appended recipes to the tale itself.” -Kirkus Reviews
