| by
Lucy Arlington
Food
often takes center stage in cozy mysteries because the act
of sharing food is an intimate one. Food is filled with comfort.
It invokes memories. And it can be made as on offering of
friendship or sympathy (unless it’s laced with poison,
which does tend to happen in mystery novels).
But food
can be used to express less pleasant emotions. In Books,
Cooks, and Crooks, the third installment in the Novel
Idea Mysteries, literary agent Lila Wilkins learns just how
dangerous a kitchen can be.
Consider
what your own kitchen is like during holiday meal preparation.
Think of the tools you use. You have sharp knives for chopping,
a cleaver for hacking, a peeler for stripping rinds from fruits
and vegetables, a food processor to pulverize, a blender to
grind solids into liquids. If your kitchen is especially well
stocked, you might also have a garlic press, slicers with
julienne blades, jagged graters, razor-sharp shears, and more.
Try to imagine the sounds as well. The hiss of steam, the
crackle of oil in the frying pan, and smack of a chicken breast
being tenderized, the gurgle and pops of water boiling on
the stovetop. Next, picture the motions of a cook’s
hands. The aggressive kneading of dough, the stuffing of a
turkey cavity, the squeezing of a lemon over a filet of fish…
See?
It’s a fairly violent process. Add vanity, anger, and
the stress of competition to the mix and you have a potentially
lethal combination. That’s exactly what happens in Books,
Cooks, and Crooks. A group of celebrity chefs come to
Inspiration Valley to conduct culinary demonstrations, promote
their television shows, restaurants, and latest cookbook release,
and to vie for the position as America’s favorite chef
in the eyes of the adoring public.
All of
these ingredients make for an explosion situation, and when
a fire erupts in the demo kitchen, it will become clear to
Lila and to readers, that food in cozy mysteries definitely
has a darker side to it than the pleasant act of sampling
a slice of Amazing Althea’s chocolate banana bread.
So brew
a cup of tea, warm up a scone, and settle into your favorite
chair. Make yourself comfortable. Because once you delve into
Books, Cooks, and Crooks, you’re not going
to want to move. You’re going to want to read and read
until you discover how people who can create such beautiful,
incredible food can be so shallow, ugly, and yes, deadly.
|
