Nancy FairbanksRezensionen

In the first book there was one point of view, in the second there were two, and now in this, the third book in the series, the story is told from three points of view, which is a bit excessive for a relatively short and standard mystery. It also became rather tiresome to read the same events related from three slightly different perspectives.

I really liked this book. Food writer Carolyn is visiting New Orleans with her scientist husband but her friend Julienne goes missing. Enjoyable fun but someone is stalking Carolyn and trying to do her in, also. The ending is kind of a let down but overall a good book with recipes!

Carolyn Blue, food writer, is off with her husband and son on a tour of France. The group is made up of faculty and family members of Carolyn's husband's previous university. The tour is through the Normandy and Loire Valley, not only will there be history but also fine dining. At least that is the plan.

Among the travellers are three faculty members who are vying for the position of dean of the college of arts and sciences. Professor Childeric, a pompous man with a huge ego; Dr. Hugh Fauree, who is being pursued by another faculty member for romantic purposes; and Dr. Laura de Sorentino, who is married to a plastic surgeon who seems to only have his mind on what could be done to make other tour members look better. Also thrown into the mix is a 16 year old girl who is going through that rebellious stage and has eyes for the Blue's son Chris.

From the start there seems to be frequent accidents happening, the first at the luggage carrousel when Professor Childeric goes to retrieve his luggage. Immediately he charges that Dr. Fauree is the instigator. Childeric seems to be the target, but who is causing these accidents and why are the big questions. It doesn't help that Carolyn seems to be one of the victims in a number of them. Is someone out to get her? Why?

Various tour members may have reasons for wanting Childeric out of the way, but no one is telling. Along with trying to figure out who it is, there is also a number of not-so-tasty meals that all have to endure. Seems that the tour company does not have the highest standard of taste.

A cosy mystery set in some of the most historic and beautiful parts of France. It keeps you guessing who is the instigator and why. There are entries from the person who it is, but you still don't know till the end, but you do get an idea of why.

There are also recipes for a few of the dishes in the book, for those who like that.

Carolyn Blue comes to Barcelona to meet up with her friend Roberta and enjoy the tastes of Spanish cuisine. She also finds a the discovery of a dead body in a performance art piece also on her menu. The fact that it bears a striking resemblance to her friend is just more spice on the dish.

The style of the book is a narrative between Carolyn and the Inspector Pujol, the policeman in charge of the investigation. Told in chapters titled by the character who is narrating at that point. Carolyn telling of the dive/dangerous areas of the town she winds up in and what is happening from her side. Inspector Pujol tells of what he has to deal with in the upper echelons of the politicos he has to deal with, along with dealing with the American lady and her talkativeness. Carolyn moves at a quicker pace than Pujol but both with the same goal...solve the murder.

One glitch is dealing with the names. An example is Inspector Pujol's name is formally Inspector Ildefons Pujol i Serra. It seems that i Serra denotes 'of Serra'. A number of characters are so names in the text. Also being in California I am used to a different type of Spanish that what is found in Spain. I know there is a difference. Once I settled into this all was fine.

I have read Nancy Fairbanks' books before and do enjoy them. They are light read with enough clues and red herrings to keep you guessing along the way. Also the characters aren't weighted down with too much personal baggage. What I call a fun quick read or ... a Goodread.

Good enough to keep going to the end.

You know, this wasn't a bad book, it just... wasn't. I didn't much care about the characters, couldn't figure out why the protagonist hung out with such a vile group of "friends" and really didn't give a rip if the mystery was solved.

It was very easy to just set the book down - nothing really held me. I think I got about 3/4 way through it (5 or 10 pages at a time) and finally decided to give up.

This is an airplane book. Entertaining, not taxing, and just something to point your eyes at to avoid the other people in your row.

Why read: Looking for new-to-me culinary mystery series

What impressed me: I really enjoyed that Carolyn was a culinary writer. It was a great twist on the usual culinary mystery. I loved that the focus shifted away from cooking and was more on the taste and appearance of the food she wrote about.I liked traveling along with Carolyn and getting the touristy feel of New Orleans.

What disappointed me: I'm totally over the victim's jerk spouse. This comes up way too often in mysteries in every form of entertainment . Anyone who's every read a mystery or even seen an episode of Law & Order knows the spouse is always a suspect, so having this one be over the top nasty was unnecessary and slightly annoying.

Recommended: Yes. This book is definitely great for culinary mystery fans, especially foodies that aren't real interested in the actual cooking.

Continue series: If the series continues with Carolyn traveling and tasting her way around the world, I'll definitely enjoy this series for a l

There were a couple of times there I spit out what I was chewing on.

This promising and potentially enjoyable story unfortunately falls sadly short of expectations. Even to a ‘lay person’ it is clear that the finished product required critical and careful editing and rewriting. I am at a loss to understand how this book was published in its current form. Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, I would suggest it was written to a deadline and then given very little editorial attention. Even on a very basic level, the book contains some clumsily composed sentences that interrupt the flow of the author’s otherwise adept writing style. One might expect this in an unpublished, unrevised manuscript, but not in a published book.

Another reviewer has already commented on the highly unsatisfying ending, in which the police detective simply tells us ‘who dunnit’, over the course of four chapters. This is certainly an anti-climax. There is no action involved, and we are not given any further glimpses of the other characters introduced throughout the novel, although many would appear to have little relevance to the central story. Instead, we follow the main character as she eats and shops in New York. Much more could have been made of the dining experiences, to examine the chief suspects more closely. Instead, much of the action and most of the characters do little to further the story in any way.

One frustrating aspect of the book is the constant switching of narrators between the main character, Carolyn Blue, and her husband. Although we are told each time the narrator changes, the narrative voice and style does not substantially change, so the husband lacks authenticity; he has no voice of his own. Frequently, his narration simply tells us what his wife is doing. Surely, some other device or third person narration could have been used to explain any important events not witnessed by the narrator, Carolyn Blue. All of these things might easily have been improved with some thoughtful editing and rewriting.

The main problem is that the murder mystery, which should be the central story, feels like a subplot. Instead, the main plot seems to be ‘Carolyn Blue’s trip to New York’. Carolyn meets her editor. Carolyn attends an appointment. Carolyn goes out to lunch and orders scallops. Carolyn catches the subway. Carolyn goes to the opera. Carolyn goes shopping for a rug. Carolyn catches a Taxi. Carolyn goes shopping for clothes. It is a credit to the writer that we stick with her through all of this, because Carolyn’s narration is full of her condescending opinions about what constitutes good taste. At the end of the story, we know a lot about Carolyn’s taste in rugs and clothes (and how nice she looks in them), than we do about the murder.

However, I must confess to being irritated by the portrayal of ethnic characters throughout the book. The story starts with a crazy Indian limo driver, more reminiscent of a patronising 1970s caricature than a real Indian person. He is followed by other ‘foreign’ characters, all of whom speak with the kind of clichéd accents one might find in a B grade action film. The final straw, for me, was an astonishing guide to eating in a Japanese restaurant, a newspaper column purportedly written by the main character. I presume this was intended to be amusing. What I can’t tell, is whether the author is poking fun foreigners (again), or at culturally retarded Americans who find the idea of eating Japanese food challenging. Perhaps the latter, as the narrator repeatedly draws our attention to her cultural superiority over dumb waiters (pun intended).

Having looked up the author on the internet, she seems to be a well educated, well travelled sort of person, so I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she is writing particularly for a culturally unsophisticated market. Either way, I can’t help feeling disappointed.½

I don't know what to say. I wanted to like this and sometimes I sort of did but I'm not committed to this series quite yet. I think I'll have to try another in the series to see what I think of the main character.

Carolyn Blue, a professor's wife is in New Orleans with her scientist husband to attend a convention and a reunion of college friends. When her childhood friend disappears and none of her other friends including the missing woman's husband seem to care. So, Caro decides to try to solve the mystery.

I would have to say the main fault I had with the story was the believability of some of the situations and with Caro's reaction to them. I'm just not sure I'm in love with her yet. But, I'm willing to give it another try. Plus, I loved the food aspect of the whole things so that's a plus.

Carolyn Blue is a food writer. For Mother's Day she receives a free gourmet food cruise in the Mediterranean. Her friend Luz Vallejo, a retired police officer, and her mother-in-law accompany her. A rather annoying female passenger disappears, and Carolyn sets out to investigate. There are too many situations that occur in this book that just don't ring true. There are too many inconsistencies. Even Carolyn's "food columns" fall flat. Many of the characters are not well-developed. I doubt that I'll return to this series.

Easy Read. Will read more in this series. Good Beach Book. Appropriate murder for 1999 some what dated for 2009. But something yong sexually active people should rally pay attention to, it could happen to them too.

This is, if I'm not mistaken, the 9th mystery featuring culinary writer Carolyn Blue. I've read 4 others. I'll recap my objections to the series as a whole: 1) I really don't like mysteries with gimmicks. These seem like the story is secondary to the recipes. 2) More than one first-person voice (in this case, three of them), and they all sound identical.

This time, Carolyn and her husband Jason are in France so he can attend a chemistry conference. When they arrive, Jason heads off to the university while Carolyn checks into their room, only to find a man dying on their bed after eating a gift of pate that had been left for them.

A series of near-misses occur, and it becomes obvious to Carolyn, at least, that someone is trying to kill her or Jason or both of them. The mystery worked fairly well, with enough clues so that the solution didn't come out of left field, but not so many that it was obvious from the beginning.

However, the Blues, Carolyn in particular, got on my last nerve. Part of that might be attributed to the inaccuracy of French details.

At one point, for example, Carolyn exchanges dollars for French franc at the hotel. This book was released in 2006. They've been using the Euro in France since 2000.

And Carolyn cannot figure out the traffic lights, so she jaywalks. Traffic lights are pretty well universal. The pedestrian light looks exactly the same in France as it does in the U.S. It made Carolyn look like a moron.

Mostly, though, she's a caricature of the obnoxious American tourist, complaining about everything that's not identical to her hometown--something that I admit is one of my personal hot buttons.

This is the quintessential Carolyn Blue mystery. She accompanies her husband to a conference in France and walks into the middle of a murder mystery by simply walking into her hotel room.

The over the top plot in Bon Bon Voyage has Carolyn Blue up against international terrorists and in the middle of a mutiny aboard a cruise ship. This book strays from the pattern of the past books and is even less believable then the past books…yet still a fun read.

Carolyn Blue writes a food column and is finally ready to publish her first book. Carolyn sets out to track down the guilty party when her book launch is sabotaged. This is perhaps the craziest plot in the series so far. Lots of fun and no one dies.

Every once in a while I just have to read something that requires no thought at all... and this is certainly doing that so far!

The first book I have read in this series, definately left me wanting to read many more in the series.

Carolyn Blue has taken a dream job as a food writer. She is getting to go to exotic locals and eat delectable food. She could get used to this, even if she has to share a cabin with her mother-in-law and best friend, retired cop Luz Vallejo. The gormet cruise from Lisbon to Barcelona would be perfect except for the fact that her husband refused to accompany her and someone is murdering the passengers.½

I agree with Darla's comments in general. This book tries to be too many things, and really only marginally qualifies as a food-theme mystery.

*** Crime Brulee. *yawn* I really don't like mysteries with gimmicks. The mystery is just an excuse to pontificate in an exceptionally boring manner about food and recipes. The amateur sleuth's "best friend" goes missing during a scientific convention in New Orleans, but nobody's concerned except the sleuth. I didn't care about any of the characters, and the solution of the mystery was an anti-climax.

**½ Truffled Feathers. Some humorous moments, which garnered this an extra half star. But otherwise, ho-hum. This time, the first person narration goes back and forth between the chemist husband and the food writer wife. The only problem with this is that they have identical voices. The husband drones on just as boringly about food as the wife does. Did I already mention how much I despise mysteries with a gimmick? Not only is the mystery in this one just an excuse to give excruciatingly long descriptions of every single bite of food they ate in a week, but also for obscure and pointless trivia. If that weren't bad enough, one clue hinges on the heroine being able to distinguish between Russian and Czech in an overheard phone conversation based on helping her college roommate with vocabulary words 20 years ago. I don't think so. And amazingly, everyone in NYC knows everyone else. The scientists the husband is meeting and the publishing people the wife is meeting all know each other, as do sundry waitresses and limo drivers.

** Death a l'Orange. I probably should have waited to read this--I'm so tired of these tedious characters, and the errors irritated me. Gah. You don't wear a "broach." And in 2002, why would you bring along a printer and a fax machine to send columns to a newspaper editor instead of just emailing them? And why would a group of college professors, of all people, be shocked by statues of naked people, or not know/be shocked by beef tartare being raw? And on losing their luggage, the heroine's main complaint was that she was going to have to sleep in... *gasp* a T-shirt. I was hoping somebody'd come along and just murder the lot of them. And that's not even getting to the story, which was a series of fairly minor "accidents," each one dissected after the fact--with charts!, interspersed with complaining, excruciatingly detailed descriptions of food.½

Have I mentioned how much I don't like mysteries with gimmicks? I should also mention that I don't like books with inconsistent characterization. Why would a woman who's a staunch feminist blame another woman when a man makes a pass at her? And why would that same feminist continually tell this other woman (and not in a sarcastic manner) that she shouldn't do something because her husband wouldn't like it? Gah. Also, it bounced around between 3 different first-person POV characters, as well as sections written in 3rd person from the POVs of the villains. And then there were the sterotypical & cliched accents and two-dimensional stock characters. This wasn't so much a mystery as it was an adventure--we always know whodunit and why and how. The heroine/sleuth is a food writer, taking a free cruise so she can write about the food, and she has her friend (cue stereotypes: hispanic ex-cop) and mother-in-law (the pseudo-feminist) along. The cruise ship gets hijacked, and she saves the day, with the help of various passengers and members of the crew. So why three stars? It did get entertaining, particularly toward the end.

excellent