Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: Light and tasty murder
Cons: Some endings under cooked; "Food for
Thought"
The Bottom Line:
Delicious murder
In many bite size servings
Sample one today
Invitation for Dinner and a Murder
You are hereby invited to a sixteen course meal of
murder. Death Dines In contains sixteen short stories themed around food
related crime. That means we’ve got lots
of poison and a couple of allergies. And
a few are just a murder while dining.
Coming into the book, I must confess that I was only
familiar with three of the authors.
Parnell Hall takes his Puzzle Lady to a benefit luncheon where her talk
is (fortunately) interrupted by one of her table mates dying. Rhys Bowen shows us the first Christmas of
her Irish immigrant Molly Murphy. Molly
takes on a case in 1901 New York City
where she is looking for a thief only to have it turn into murder. Finally, there’s Donna Andrews, who sends her
series sleuth Meg to a dinner with a relative who has just been released from
the loony bin for poisoning two people.
A few of the authors take the opportunity to write a story
with new characters. Meg Chittenden sets
her story on a train and writes about a put upon husband. Dean James, one of the editors, creates a
very dysfunctional family coming together for the patriarch’s birthday. And the other editor, Claudia Bishop, sets
her story at Hemlock Falls, but instead of her normal detective introduces a
couple who happen to be staying there as well.
Falling somewhere in the middle is Mary Jane Maffini who has
created a pair of con artists she uses for short stories. They show up here as well as their latest
swindle goes horribly wrong when a dead body turns up under the tea table. And Anne Perry used her story to introduce a
new character, Theolonius Quade.
My favorite story was also the longest, running just over 30
pages. “Café Con Leche” was written by
Marcos Donnelly who was new to the genre.
He tells the tale of a church’s first week in their new building. Just as the sermon is getting started,
someone enters who claims that a man was shot in the building while it was a
restaurant. Maybe it’s because of the
length, but I felt the story and characters were the best fleshed out of
anything in the book.
And, frankly, that is my complaint overall. The average length is about 20 pages, and a
few times it feels like the author just threw the ending at us because time was
up. The stories are still enjoy,
however, with a light touch and a dash of humor every so often.
After each story, there’s a three or four question Q&A
between the editors and the authors, which was a fun feature. Each author also provides one recipe. You get everything from a salad dressing to
shrimp, sweet potato soup, traditional English pudding, and pumpkin pie. No poison is site.
I was all set to give this collection 4 stars until I ran
into Jeremiah Healy’s “Food for Thought.”
This story was unnecessarily disgustingly crude and tasteless. Trust me, I will never read anything else by
him again and highly recommend you skip this story.
The other fifteen stories are well worth reading and
savoring. So make a reservation for Death Dines In today.
The Stories:
"Cocktails with the Corpse" by Mary Jane Maffini
"Lethal Luncheon" by Parnell Hall
"Stark Terror at Tea-Time" by Lyn Hamilton
"Cafe Con Leche" by Marcos Donnelly
"Alice and the Agent of the Hun" by Elizabeth Foxwell
"Waiting for Gateau" by Claudia Bishop
"All in the Family" by Dean James
"Matinee" by William Moody
"The Birthday Dinner" by Donna Andrews
"Where the Wildflowers Bloom" by Mick DiChario
"The Proof of the Pudding" by Rhys Bowen
"Food for Thought" by Jeremiah Healy
"The Spirit of Washington "
by Meg Chittenden
"Sing for Your Supper" by Don Bruns
"License to Koi" by Carole Nelson Douglas
"Sing a Song of Sixpence" by Anne Perry
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