Beat
Until Stiff
A
Mary Ryan Mystery
Claire
M. Johnson
Poisoned
Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-040-0 (1590580400)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-040-0 (9781590580400)
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 ...
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.
Special thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of Beat Until Stiff for this review.
Review Copyright © 2003 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Beat Until Stiff? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series ...
Beat Until Stiff
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), December 2002
ISBN-10: 1-59058-040-0 (1590580400)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-040-0 (9781590580400)
Roux Morgue
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), April 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59058-487-2 (1590584872)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-487-3 (9781590584873)
Omnimystery
keywords for Beat Until Stiff
...
Location(s) referenced: San
Francisco,
California.
