Yes, I know I just had Death by Chocolate as my featured cookbook yesterday and now I have Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson. I think most of us wouldn't mind that death as long as it wasn't HOT chocolate and that got me thinking. Has anyone else noticed how mysteries books are now turning into cookbooks? I sure have since I read a lot of them. Now you find recipes tucked right between the murders and mayhem. It's a strange combination but it works surprisingly well. This book contains recipes for "Scout's Brownies" and "Crustless Jarlsberg Quiche". The amateur detective in this series is Goldy Bear who runs a catering business so she's always talking about and planning dishes and menus. I guess it's only fair that after making your mouth water they should also include the how to's, so all the recipes are right there. As it says on the cover, she's a cross between Mary Higgins Clark and Betty Crocker. Not my favorite mystery writer or cook for that matter but you get the idea.
It's not just this mystery series either where this is taking place. There's one of my favorites Lou Jane Temple from Kansas City who wrote two series the "Heaven Lee" culinary mysteries where her heroine, Heaven, runs a cafe and her historical mystery collection with authentic recipes of 19th century New York. Tamar Myers does a nutty Pennsylvania Dutch mystery series with all the recipes for the food they serve at Magdalena Yoder's country inn. Joanne Pence has her chef Angie Amalfi solving her crimes in lots of books that always include "Cook" in the title. Virgina Rich and Miranda Bliss have cooking classes in their books and it goes on and on.
Now maybe these are too general for you, you might only want to read mysteries that take place in the world of coffee baristas. Cleo Coyle has that genre covered in the Coffeehouse series. I'm not a coffee drinker so I prefer Laura Childs. She's killed off people in Death by Darjeeling, Gunpowder Green, Shades of Earl Gray, Chamomile Mourning and many others. See the theme there?
There's also Wine mysteries, herb stores, chocolate shop mysteries, food writers mysteries you name it they've got it covered. I always say I read my cookbooks like novels and now you can read your mysteries like cookbooks. I do just wish someone would come up with a detective who was more of a cross between Agatha Christie and Julia Childs, or maybe Craig Claiborne and P.D. James. Or even Martin Yan and Charlie Chan. I bet I couldn't guess the ending in those. So the "cookbook/mystery" today is # 34 Dying for Chocolate, A Culinary Mystery.
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