Olivia ("Ollie") Paras is the White House executive chef. As
such, her goal is to create and execute the best cuisine for
the First Family. At the beginning of the book, she is
paired with the White House sensitivity director, Peter
Everett Sargeant, to plan a birthday event for the Secretary
of State. Although Ollie and Sargeant don't typically get
along (actually, Sargeant doesn't get along well with
anyone), the First Lady's assistant insisted that they work
together on this assignment.
However, as they check out Lexington Place (a potential
venue for the event) they find not one but two dead bodies -
- the chief of staff and the First Lady's assistant. Even
more ominous than finding the bodies, however, is the
realisation that they may have seen the killer making his
getaway from the crime scene.
Ollie is warned not to get involved. Her ex-boyfriend (a
member of the Secret Service protection detail) is all too
familiar with her penchant to nose around in affairs, and
although Ollie is curious about Sargeant's nephew, Milton.
Milton keeps popping up convinced that he has information
about the murders. Sargeant brushes this off as the
ramblings of an unstable man who has never been able to hold
a job and is all too eager to get a job in the White House
at any cost.
But once Ollie catches a suspicious character following her
and then she realises that someone has broken into her
house, things start looking much more serious. Could Milton
actually know something? How much danger is Ollie in? Will
Ollie and Sargeant be able to put their long-standing
differences aside to work together to solve this mystery?
AFFAIRS OF STEAK is both fun and intriguing. It gives enough
of an insider's peak into the inner workings of the White
House without being boring while still keeping the action
moving. The characters were all interesting and the annoying
ones were just annoying enough (in other words, I knew who
to love to hate). One annoying subplot was the are-they-or-
aren't-they romance between Ollie and her beau. However,
this was not annoying enough to take away from the overall
enjoyment of the book, and I will keep my eye out for other
books in the White House Chef Mystery Series.
White House chef Olivia Paras and her arch nemesis, White
House Sensitivity Director Peter Everett Sargeant, must work
together to solve the double murder of one of the First
Lady's assistants and the Chief of Staff-before they become
the next victims of a merciless assassin with a secret agenda.
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