This Debut Wasn’t Quite My Chicken Wing
When I spotted A Murder Most Fowl by Carmela Dutra, I couldn’t resist. Culinary cozies always catch my eye, and this one was set in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I grew up near there. I just had to give it a try. Sadly, it didn’t quite work for me.
The book introduces us to Beth and Seth Lloyd, twins who have inherited a chicken wing themed food truck from their aunt Dolly. Beth has gotten the idea to enter them in a reality TV show for a food network, and Seth is going along for the ride.
Unfortunately, among the competitors is Benji, a fellow food truck owner that Beth knows all too well. Another local, they have clashed in the past. So when Benji turns up dead in his truck at the end of the first day of filming, Beth finds herself answering lots of questions. Can she get a few answers of her own to figure out what really happened?
The book started out well. I was laughing at the first couple of chapters, and settled in for what I hoped would be a good read. Then the problems started.
The first was the plot. While it started quickly, this was a classic example of events masking any real investigation. We learned little about any suspects and rehash the few things we do learn. Beth does figure some things out near the end, but we don’t learn what they were until later. I did feel the solution answered my questions, but I would have appreciated a bit more sprinkled throughout the book.
As I said above, the suspects are pretty flat. Honestly, I had a hard time keeping most of the other contestants straight. Some of the other supporting characters did fare a little better.
Even our main trio of Beth, Seth, and their friend Rylie were only a little better. I felt like their reactions to things was a little over the top. I found that funny early on, but it wore thin before the book was over. And Beth missed a few obvious things and was a bit too stubborn as things went along.
Even the location turned out to be less than I’d hoped for. The setting was fictional, which I get and can enjoy. But there was little to anchor it to the San Francisco Bay Area. But I would bet that others have felt that way about fictional settings near areas they know well.
This is one of those cases where the book’s flaws are obvious, but it doesn’t mean the book was bad. I still got caught up in the story as I was reading it. It just wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for.
Yes, this is a culinary cozy with a couple of recipes at the end. They do sound good.
If A Murder Most Fowl really appeals to you, give it a shot. You might find that you enjoy it more than I did.
NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.
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