About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

BEAT UNTIL STIFF
by Claire M. Johnson
Poisoned Pen Press, November 2002
204 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 1590580400


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The culinary world of five star restaurants and chefs is an excellent setting for a murder mystery. Ellen Hart has mined this field quite well in her Sophie Greenway series, and now we have Claire M. Johnson making an auspicious debut as well with her first novel, Beat Until Stiff.

Pastry chef Mary Ryan is not in a good place. Overworked and still trying to recover from a messy divorce (her husband, a police detective, left her for another woman), she is a wreck emotionally. She has let herself go, moved into a house she has done nothing with, and buried herself in her work. The morning of a huge fundraising party at the restaurant where she works, she arrives only to discover the body of one of her co-workers stuffed into a laundry bag. Before long, Ryan is doing some amateur sleuthing of her own, despite the protests of her husband's former partner, who is assigned to the case.

What truly makes this book work is the character of Mary Ryan. Johnson has created a strong character, one who, despite her flaws, is immensely likable. (Who hasn't felt the urge to murder a really annoying co-worker?) Mary is already wrung raw emotionally, and the fact she keeps stumbling over bodies keeps re-opening her wounds. By trying to focus on finding the killer, she also manages to gain some perspective on herself, and her own life, and begins to emerge from the cocoon of pain she has been sheltering herself in.

Johnson has a gift for character, and Ryan is a remarkable creation. I hope Johnson is thinking about turning this into a series. I would like to follow Mary's development and growth as a person, as well as seeing her solve a crime or two (or three).

Reviewed by Greg Herren, November 2002

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]