I liked this pretty well. Goldy Bear is an interesting character. Her best friend is another ex-wife of her ex-husband. The Jerk (for Dr John Richard Korman - his initials JRK) a psychiatrist was abusive to her, but never to their son Arch. So he still spends time with his father on weekends. But John Richard has been acting threatening lately, calling and threatening to have the child support payments cut, driving slowly by her house, etc. So she is having a security system installed and meanwhile has gotten an offer to work for General Bo and Adele Farquhar as their cook. She also has permission to run her catering business out of their house. The General is very supportive, insisting that she is one of the family. Adele has an old back injury and gets around with the help of a cane.Goldy has been going out with another psychiatrist, Philip Miller. He tells her he has to talk to her that day, but not on the phone. She meets him at the breakfast she is catering for Elk Park Preparatory alumni for a fund raiser the school is doing for a heated outdoor swimming pool. She is following him back to his office after the breakfast, when he suddenly begins driving all over the road, finally into the path of a bus. The wreck kills him and Goldy is rather unhinged. Tom Schulz, the homicide investigator is notified and tries to calm her down. She cannot figure out why he was driving so crazily on a snowy mountain road.Also staying at the Farquhars is Julian Teller. He is on a scholarship and staying with them because the boarding part of the prep school is closing. Philip Miller is Julian's psychiatrist, which she hadn't realized until she tells the General he died in a car wreck. Philip's sister tells Goldy that there were a couple of people he was worried about. He says one was homicidal - threatening to kill someone and he was going to try to stop it. The other was someone he was trying to help who had been in an abusive relationship and he was trying to get her over it. A friend he wanted to help. Incidentally, he was doing a study of women who had been in abusive relationships. Goldy is dumbfounded at the news and feels rather betrayed since she is sure she is the woman he was talking about. But who was homicidal she has no idea. Then a next-door neighbor dies, found floating in the Farquhar's pool.Goldy feels Julian is hostile to her, but not really sure why. He was adopted she knew, but didn't know he wanted to find his birth parents. Although he considered his parents back home to be his real father and mother. The General adores Adele, but she seems rather embarrassed at his open adoration. He also is a little eccentric and strange in that he continually keeps up with terrorist plots and is always using explosives and considering what terrorists might do. When the Jerk comes by one time to pick up Arch, he starts yelling at Goldy and throwing flower pots. The General comes around the corner of the house unseen and unheard (Goldy is never sure how he moves so quietly) and grabs the Jerk in a headlock and threatens to break his neck if he catches him behaving that way again. Then he tells Goldy she is never to speak to John Richard alone again and shows her a stick that he has to hold the door closed so it can't be shoved open unless it's broken down. She, Arch and Julian all like the General even tho he can be rather odd. But he is efficient and caring and concerned about those under his roof.But there is obviously someone in the area who doesn't want to be discovered and is determined to cover their tracks. And Goldy can't prove it was the Jerk, much as she'd like it to be. So, who? Also, someone is writing an article for the local paper slamming Goldy's cooking with obviously evil intent - misnaming the dishes and complaining about the taste and texture. And that is driving her furious.
This is another one of the mystery series that I never got the chance to read while employed...or more specifically, another long running cosy mystery series with a hook the size of a riverboat pole: the Goldy Bear series, the hook being that Goldy Bear is a caterer in Colorado. Many tropes from the other mysteries I've read this summer are there: living in a small(ish) town, single woman running her own business, has no connection to crime solving...even down to getting a cat in book #3. This and the other book I read of the series together were about as light and fluffy an afternoon's entertainment as I'd hoped for and expected, though I'd suggest suspending your disbelief before picking them up.Would I read any of them ever again? not on your nelly.Dying for Chocolate, the second in the series, begins with Goldy and her son Arch living in the home of an ex-general who was kicked out of the army for selling goods to the Afghans (this book was published in 1992) and his wife, working as their chef while also running her catering business out of their kitchen. This is a temporary arrangement while she is having a state of the art alarm system installed in her house to prevent her abusive ex-husband from getting at her--he has so far not harmed Arch to Goldy's knowledge, but he's threatened her both before and after their divorce, ramping up his efforts as she becomes more serious about the two men in her life. As the book begins, she's put off a flame from the previous book, Tom Schulz the police officer, to spend more time with swankier handsomer psychologist, Philip Miller. Unfortunately, Philip Miller is victim number one, driving off the road after someone sabotages his contact lenses with a peroxide wash. Traumatized by seeing his car crash in front of her, she determines to investigate his death, and is herself poisoned by the murderer when she gets a little too close.I take this about as seriously as I do the Hannah Swensen series, which is to say: not at all. Authors ought not to substitute "hook" for crucial literary techniques such as characterization, plotting and holding out on your cleverer readers so they can't guess whodunit short of actually hiding clues from them. I haven't tried the recipes, so can't speak to whether the cooking's any good but given one of the recipes involves Fritos, I can't take Goldy's chops as a caterer seriously any more than I can Hannah Swensen's as a pastry baker. Some of the details don't ring quite true; I suspect that Davidson develops the same inconsistency issues I've noticed in other long running series. As an example: In book #2, she doesn't know what "chasuble" means, but in book #4, she's on the parish search committee. Given the nature of their shared ex-husband, I'm not surprised that the two ex-wives (Goldy and Marla) at least became acquainted, but I'm not sure I believe BFFs, though that may Davidson may have explained in book one...not sure I'm up for going back to read that though.Gah. So much dribble. So little time.
What do You think about Dying For Chocolate (2004)?
I bought two books in this series on audible when they were on sale, otherwise I wouldn't have gone back for more of this series. However, it kind of grew on me with this second book. The food/recipes mentioned actually made the main character sound like she had some skill, whereas the first book has her messing around with haute cuisine a la 1985. Still not literature, and I still hate this narrator in American English. Interesting side note, I'm listening to Barbara Rosenblat now reading Amelia Peabody, and she sounds fabulous in an English accent --go figure.
—Amara
2.5 stars because I like the character Goldy and her bevy of friends, family, and neighbors in Aspen Meadow. But this story was weird! In one of the opening scenes, a middle aged woman hosts an aphrodisiac dinner in an attempt to win back her philandering husband. But this is not an intimate dinner for two, but a party for 6. Guests, when you are trying to seduce your husband? Wait, it gets weirder. One of the middle aged couples can't make it at the last minute, so the hostess invites two high school seniors to fill in. Really? Two high school seniors at an aphrodisiac party with two middle-aged couples? And no character even comments on the total weirdness of this! And one of the older guys at the party in his fifties is lasciviously flirting with the hot teenage girl not only at the party, but throughout the book, and nobody does anything about this except grit their teeth at the guy's bad behavior. Nobody threatens to call the cops or even informs the girls parents that a fifty-something Lothario is after her. The weirdness of the whole situation made me feel as if I were in the Twilight Zone as I was reading it. On an up note, I started reading the Goldy Books late in the run, so it was pretty cool to read about the characters as they were years before I "met" them. I found the pacing of this book a bit jarring and stilted, whereas the later books flow along beautifully. This is the third Goldy book I've read, and even though this one was a little disappointing and weird, I am definitely going to read more!
—G.V.R. Corcillo
When a single mom takes a job as a private chef for a local family, little did she know the adventure and murder mysteries that awaited her. She becomes a private detective to solve the murders that have occurred at the mansion only to have hers and her son's lives threatened. The ending came as a total surprise! The author cleverly adds numerous recipes from the chef's menu. I purchased this book at a flea market because of the word "chocolate" in the title. Diane Mott Davidson made this story so riveting I couldn't put it down. Ms. Davidson has me hooked on her series.
—Tonnie
