Beat Until Stiff
A Mary Ryan Mystery by Claire M. Johnson
Review: Claire M. Johnson introduces pastry chef Mary Ryan in her uneven first mystery, Beat Until Stiff, sort of a cozy with a hard edge. There is a soupçon of romance as well. All in all, a strange mix. Johnson wisely chose to omit interspersing her book with clever dessert recipes, a favorite tactic of culinary cozies and totally inappropriate for this book.
Johnson would have done better to soften up Mary Ryan a bit. Ryan is angry and bitter years after her divorce, and that anger and bitterness seems, in an odd way, to be directed at the reader. She's not an easy character to like, and though it's probably unfair to draw this conclusion, it's understandable why her ex-husband left her.
Johnson does a good job of keeping the story moving along at a brisk pace. Despite revealing obvious clues to the solution of the mystery that even casual readers will take note of, she neatly ties everything together at the end.
If Beat Until Stiff is the start of a new series, in addition to a new venue for the second book, a kinder, gentler Mary Ryan would be a welcome change.
Acknowledgment: Poisoned Pen Press provided an ARC of Beat Until Stiff for this review.
Review Copyright © 2003 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
Roux Morgue
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), April 2008
ISBN-13: 9781590584873; ISBN-10: 1590584872
Location(s) referenced in Beat Until Stiff: San Francisco, California
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Beat Until Stiff by Claire M. Johnson
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 1-59058-040-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-040-0
Publication Date: December 2002
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Experienced pastry chef Claire Johnson whips up an insiders look at San Francisco's cutthroat restaurant trade. Cranky Mary Ryan has sunk a lot of time and talent into the in-vogue American Fare, the town's hottest spot, while grieving over her broken marriage. At work very early one morning, she steps on a laundry bag stuffed with the dead body of one of her employees. The investigation soon exposes all the dirty secrets that the food business would like to keep secret: the philandering chefs, the silly whims of the dining public, the hiring and illegal aliens, and the subsistence-living pay scale. Events begin to spiral that, in time, take out the restaurant's celebrity chef and force Mary to use her unique skills to uncover a poisonous scheme ...