Popular and busy author Daryl Wood Gerber has brought out
another book to begin her French
Bistro Mystery series.
Already on the loose are the Cookbook
Nook series and,
writing as Avery Ames, the Cheese
Shop series. Moving
between series is a good way for an author to keep her
favourite characters fresh and to avoid them being involved
in murders more than once a year. We do have to feel sorry
for these amateur sleuths sometimes; they're just trying to
make a living, running a bistro in the Napa Valley, and old
friends turn up unexpectedly deceased on the premises.
A DEADLY ÉCLAIR introduces Mimi Rousseau, who had the
misfortune to marry a man who loved his mountaineering so
much that he bought all his gear and trips on his credit
card... which rebounded on his unsuspecting widow after he
died in an accident. Now she's working to pay off the debt,
opening a bistro and adhering to top standards to entice
the best custom. A society wedding is to be held at the
nearby inn and Mimi is catering. But her mentor Bryan Baker
is killed overnight at her premises and an éclair is found
by his body -- and a call was made to him from Mimi's phone
that she doesn't know about, framing her.
As we'd expect, a location like this provides sumptuous
recipes on the fly, like split pea and smoked ham artisan
soup. Mimi does spend rather a lot of time dining, cooking
and taste testing for her chef Camille Chabot. This means
that by and large, the suspects have to come to her at the
restaurant and neighbouring inn, rather than having her
trailing around town looking for those who might have an
involvement. Several recipes are written out at the end,
from pastries to chicken, plus the French onion soup whose
aroma suffuses certain chapters.
If you collect food-themed mysteries you'll probably want
to add this one to your shelf. If you normally prefer
something more dramatic and suspenseful, well, everyone
needs to slow down and refuel now and again, so you could
start with A DEADLY ÉCLAIR and see where it leads you.
Daryl Wood Gerber has created an interesting cast and well-
fleshed out background, so I'm sure we'll be seeing more of
Mimi.
It’s always been Mimi Rousseau’s dream to open her own bistro, but it seems beyond her grasp since she’s been chased back home to Nouvelle Vie in Napa Valley by her late husband’s tremendous debt. Until her best friend Jorianne James introduces her to entrepreneur Bryan Baker who invests in promising prospects. Now, working the bistro and inn until she’s able to pay it off and call it her own, Mimi is throwing the inn’s first wedding ever. The wedding will be the talk of the town, as famous talk show host Angelica Edmonton, daughter of Bryan’s half- brother, Edison, has chosen the inn as her perfect venue. Anxious, Mimi is sure things are going to turn south, especially when Edison gets drunk and rowdy at the out-of- towners’ dinner, but by the evening, things begin to look up again. That is until six AM rolls around, and Bryan is found dead at the bistro with an éclair stuffed in his mouth. And the fingers point at Mimi, whose entire loan is forgiven in Bryan’s will. Now it’s up to Mimi to clear her name and get to the bottom of things before the killer turns up the heat again in A Deadly Éclair, the scrumptious series debut by Agatha Award-winning author Daryl Wood Gerber.
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