Category Archives: Julie Hyzy

Review: Buffalo West Wing by Julie Hyzy

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The fourth book in the White House chef series sees Executive Chef Olivia (Ollie) Paras and the rest of the White House kitchen staff welcoming a new President on Inauguration Day. But when Ollie finds a box of famous brand barbeque chicken wings have been delivered especially for the new President’s young children she makes the unpopular decision of refusing to give the wings to the children because she doesn’t know who delivered the box and the rules about what food can be given to the First Family are very clear. The decision plays a role in the President’s wife bringing in a new personal chef to the White House and even though her job is on the line Ollie is not allowed to tell the First Lady that the chicken turned out to be poisoned or that the children are still under threat.

I like this series because of the out-of-the-ordinary setting so it didn’t really bother me that in this one there was less mysterious drama for Ollie to be involved with than in some of the previous books. In some ways it made for a more believable story because it really isn’t feasible that chefs face a life threatening situation every day, and the inner workings of the kitchen politics that underpinned this one kept me entertained and empathetic. Poor Ollie has her job in jeopardy for doing exactly what she was supposed to do with respect to her workplace rules and has to cover for the shortcomings of the person brought in to potentially replace her. Anyone know a workplace where that kind of thing doesn’t happen regularly? If you do can you leave me a comment and an application form?

If not terribly real-world credible the core of the mystery here is logical and believable within the context of the novel and not nearly as far-fetched as some cosies tend to be. It involves people from a hostile country (Hyzy sensibly made up a country rather than ascribe evil intent to anyone real) wanting something from the US Government that they are unlikely to want to give so dastardly means are resorted to and Ollie is, once again, in the right place to attempt to save the day.

This is a light, quick read that is full of well-researched details about White House goings-on. The characters are fun to love (or hate) and there is enough suspense in the story to while away some pleasant reading hours.

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I have reviewed the three previous books in this series State of the Onion, Hail to the Chief and Eggsecutive Orders
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My rating 3/5
Author website http://www.juliehyzy.com/
Publisher Berkley Prime Crime [2011]
ISBN 9780425239230
Length 275 pages (plus recipes at the end)
Format mass market paperback
Book Series #4 in the White House Chef mysteries
Source I bought it

Review: Eggsecutive Orders by Julie Hyzy

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When an important guest dies after eating a meal prepared in the White House kitchen Executive Chef Olivia (Ollie) Paras and her team are banned from the building while an investigation takes place. As Ollie’s mother and grandmother have come to town for a visit she is particularly upset that she won’t be able to show them her exciting workplace but at least her family are on hand to help her out. Ollie, of course, can’t seem to help from getting involved in finding out how and why the guest was killed.

The main reason I have read these books in the past is for their insider perspective on the running of the White House but that element was largely lacking during this outing as Ollie and her colleagues were banned from the kitchen. The Washington setting is still very evident as Ollie and her family take in some of the more interesting tourist sites but I did miss that ‘insider’ element of the book.

I did enjoy the introduction of extra characters in this book, particularly Ollie’s grandmother who is the kind of fun elderly character I like that doesn’t stretch into the unbelievable territory of Janet Evanovich’s Grandma Mazur. One of Ollie’s colleagues was also shown in extra depth which added an interesting element to the book.

Unfortunately though Ollie annoyed the pants off me in this outing as she seemed completely incapable of understanding why her Secret Service boyfriend might want her to stay the heck out of dangerous situations which she has neither the training nor the skills to be anywhere near. I love seeing strong female characters portrayed in fiction but it does annoy me when stupidity is disguised as strength or independence.

I suspect the hardest thing about writing these amateur sleuth kind of books is achieving the necessary balance between credibility and entertainment and at a few points this book failed to do that for me. The plot contortions that Ollie went through to become involved in the investigation just didn’t ring as true as had been the case in the earlier books. However it’s a light, fun read that I sped through in a single sitting and I did enjoy the few ‘insider’ details such as the work the White House crew undertook to prepare for a children’s easter party on the White House grounds.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 3/5

Publisher Berkley Prime Crime [2010]; ISBN 9780425232033; Length 310 pages

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Eggsecutive Orders has been reviewed at Lesa’s Book Critiques and  The Mystery Bookshelf

I have reviewed the first two books in this series, State of the Onion and Hail to the Chef

Cooking can be murder

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I’m not sure what it is about food and cooking that makes the subject such a popular one for mystery writers (and readers) but it’s probably the same factor that makes celebrity chefs and TV cooking shows so prevalent these days. The popularity of food-related entertainment doesn’t seem to have much to do with the general public’s love of cooking because, according to this article anyway, we’re cooking less and less for ourselves, but we sure seem to love watching and reading all about food, even when it’s killing people.

Probably the first mysteries I read that featured food in any memorable way were the Enid Blyton adventures of my childhood. I can’t imagine any of Blyton’s young detectives in the Famous Five or Secret Seven solving a single one of the puzzles that confronted them without the lashings of food at their midnight feasts and the packets of sandwiches and ginger buns that they always seemed to stuff into their pockets before heading off on their next adventure.

But food really came to the foreground when I went through my Nero Wolfe phase many years ago. While detecting his way through dozens of mysteries Rex Stout’s most famous character employs his own chef, Fritz, who prepares an endless array of gourmet meals for Wolfe, his sidekick Archie Goodwin and, often, guests to their New York brownstone. I’m guessing that Wolfe was the first fictional detective to generate his own cookbook (which also features fantastic photos of New York in the 1930′s and 40′s). It’s impossible to think of Nero Wolfe without imagining him mulling over a problem while breakfasting on Eggs Au Beurre Noir (from Over My Dead Body) or sitting down to an exotic supper of something like Trout Montbarry (from Immune to Murder). Early in his career (Too Many Cooks) Wolfe addresses a group of international master chefs on the topic of America’s contributions to haute cuisine but the event is soured by jealous fighting among the chefs and, ultimately, a death which Wolfe must investigate. Wolfe is inextricably linked with food in my mind.

I discovered the relatively modern phenomenon of ‘culinary cosies’ during one of my early trips to the US to visit my newly migrated brother (America has many wondrous things to offer the  traveller but for me it was the range and quantity of bookstores that I fell most in love with during those pre-online shopping years). There are now dozens of cosy series that in some way relate to food and share features such as book titles that play on food-related words and a preponderance of dead bodies in kitchens  but I’ll only mention the ones I’ve read and enjoyed:

  • Dianne Mott Davidson’s series featuring newly single mum and caterer Goldy Schulz had its first book published, Catering to Nobody, in 1990. As well as the mouth-watering food (which I could make from the included recipes but never do) I’ve always liked this series because although it’s a cosy series the topic of domestic abuse and the fallout this can have on families is sensitively and realistically handled. It’s also nice to see a terrific female friendship depicted across the whole series between Goldy and her ex husband’s other ex-wife Marla.
  • Jerrilyn Farmer’s series featuring caterer Madeline (Mad) Bean who puts on lavish feasts for the VIPs and glitterati of Los Angeles is always fun and my favourite of the seven books I’ve read is probably Immaculate Reception which sees Mad catering an event for 2000 people to welcome the Pope to the city. I was given the first book in this series because I share something slightly unusual with the main character and kept on reading the series because the books are full of interesting details about LA (a place I visit regularly) and the world of catering to the rich and famous (reading about it is as close as I’d ever want to get).
  • Peter King writes a fun series that often combines food with travel as his protagonist, un-named man known as The Gourmet Detective, is hired to track down obscure ingredients and otherwise solve culinary mysteries around the world. In the first book in the series (also titled The Gourmet Detective) the protagonist is at a prestigious event when a TV journalist dies of poisoning (reading lots of these books does tent to make you want to hire your own personal food taster).
  • Michael Bond, better known as the children’s author who created Paddington Bear, has a long-running farcical (sometimes downright surreal) series featuring a French food-inspector (and amateur detective) called Monsieur Pamplemousse. In my favourite of these books, Monsieur Pamplemousse Rests His Case a bunch of mystery writers are attempting to recreate a meal first served by Alexandre Dumas when things go horribly wrong.
  • One of my recent food-related mysterious discoveries has been Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman novels which I’ve featured here and here.  As well as Corinna’s job as baker and bread-maker for her little community in inner-city Melbourne there’s a core group of characters in the series who share an apartment building and they’re always cooking for each other and sharing large meals and good times. And the odd death or three of course. The books are light but I do enjoy them.
  • I’ve also recently read and reviewed the second of Julie Hyzy’s series featuring the executive chef at America’s White House. It’s a perfect series for me as it combines food, political trivia and murder :)

However not all food-related crime is quite so cosy. In Robin Cook’s Toxin a doctor’s daughter dies due to E.coli bacteria in a fast food joint’s hamburger. In order to find out how his daughter could have been killed by something so seemingly innocuous the doctor gets a job at the factory which manufactured the burger patty that killed his child and finds some pretty disturbing facts about mass-produced food (I swear even the most ardent meat-eaters will at least consider vegetarianism after reading this).

Even Dick Francis recently got in on the act, setting his 2007 novel Dead Heat in and around a restaurant in one of the horse-racing towns that feature regularly in his books. The book’s protagonist Max Moreton is a chef whose popularity is on the rise until his restaurant is shut down due to a suspected food poisoning case and things go downhill for Moreton from that point on.

I’ve only highlighted a fraction of the food-related mysteries that have been published, so do you have a favourite that’s not on my list?

This post was prompted by the theme of an upcoming bookworms carnival, do visit the bookworms carnival blog and take a look at the array of interestingly themed carnivals to be found. Surely you’ll find something to tempt you with Rebellious Women or perhaps you’re looking for a new Comfort Read.

Two cosies and a Christie

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My reading has whisked ahead of my reviewing of late. I’ve been scavenging reading time in between preparing food for festive feasts and managing a few pages at the end of each tiring day but I haven’t found much time to sit in front of a computer. So here’s some mini reviews of the last 3 books I’ve finished to bring me up to date.

The second book in Julie Hyzy’s White House series, Hail to the Chef again features Olivia (Ollie) Paras in the role of Executive Chef at the White House who also manages to become embroiled in the building’s latest security crisis. The White House is subject to several bomb scares during Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday season while the First Lady is being pressured by some old friends to sell a business that she inherited a stake in after her father’s recent death.

The main thing that annoyed me about the first book in the series was the eye-roll inducing dialogue about how world-shatteringly important everything that goes on in the White House is but happily that element was largely absent from this one. The things I liked about the first book are still present though, including the extremely well researched details of the daily activities in the building and the plucky but believable nature of the heroine. The setting also adds to the credibility of this series as it’s a little easier to believe that security threats would be routine events in Washington DC than in the small towns in which many amateur sleuth novels are based. My rating 3.5/5

I also listened to Agatha Christie’s Thirteen at Dinner (originally published as Lord Edgware Dies) narrated by Hugh Fraser who has played Captain Hastings in several of the Agatha Christie’s Poirot TV movies which feature David Suchet as Poirot. It’s a typically complicated Christie plot involving the death of a man whose actress wife, Jane Wilkinson, was seeking a divorce from him. Having been reported at Lord Edgware’s house moments before his death Wilkinson was immediately suspected of his murder by Inspector Jap but proved to have a strong alibi. Even Poirot is confused for some time by the presence of impersonators and liars among the potential suspects but when a second then third murder are committed he finally solves the case.

I thoroughly enjoyed the plot of this story which wasn’t as dated as some of Christie’s can seem and it’s quite nice to see Poirot humbled for a while. I’ve never liked Inspector Jap terribly much but he doesn’t play a huge role and the rest of the characters are interesting. In particular the character of Jane Wilkinson is quite intriguing as she changes over the course of the book.

I’ve listened to several Christie stories narrated by David Suchet and thought it might be interesting to compare this book narrated by Fraser, especially as this story is told from Hastings’ point of view. Surprisingly, because the Suchet narrated stories are wonderful, I found this narration comparable in quality and again found myself quickly lost in the story.  My rating 3.5/5

Valerie Wolzien’s We Wish You a Merry Murder was the last christmas-themed book I’ll be reading until next December. In it housewife Susan Henshaw is up to her eyeballs in visiting mothers-in-law, shopping and preparing for an alarming number of festive events but is also worried about one of her neighbours, Kelly, who seems unable to come to grips with the fact that her ex-husband has married another woman. When they stumble upon his body and that body then disappears before anyone else sees it Susan moves into investigating high-gear.

I have to admit I didn’t really warm to this book. Normally I quite enjoy settings that are different to my own world but collectively the people in this story spend the equivalent of a small country’s GDP on presents and other seasonal paraphernalia (one woman receives a sports car as a gift for example and they all buy expensive gifts for virtually everyone they’ve ever met) and I found this off-putting and distracting as it made it difficult for me to like any of the characters. I also found the plot stretched credibility somewhat as no one in officialdom seemed remotely interested in the reported sighting of a dead man and the solution relied a bit too heavily on random guesswork for my liking. If you’re not turned off by rampant consumerism then give it a go for next Christmas as it’s definitely got lots of Northern Hemisphere seasonal traditions well depicted. My rating 2.5/5.

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I don’t know why I tend to read cosies at this time of year, it’s definitely not all to do with holiday themes although that does play a part. It’s probably got something to do with the fact they tend to be shorter and smaller (easier to carry around). Anyway now that things have slowed down (festively speaking) and I can read more than three pages of a book at a time I’m back to reading darker crime fiction having picked up Asa Larsson’s The Black Path from Mt TBR this morning. What a pity I have to return to work tomorrow.


Review: State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy

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Title: State of the Onion

Author: Julie Hyzy

Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime [2008]

ISBN: 978-0-425-21869-3

Series: 1st book in the White House Chef series

Olivia (Ollie) Paras is an assistant chef in the White House kitchen and on her way to work one day she inadvertently becomes involved in international espionage when she prevents an intruder from entering the White House. Ollie becomes the target of a world-famous hit man, has to fight an old enemy for the job of head chef, has a string of fights with her Secret Service boyfriend due to her continuing involvement in the investigation into the intruder’s purpose and must prepare menus and food for the most important political meeting in years.

I picked up this book purely because of the setting. As well as being a crime fiction nut I’m a political junkie and, despite being Australian, my favourite TV show of all time is The West Wing. I knew nothing about the author or the series but was pre-disposed to liking the book. I did enjoy the behind the scenes tidbits about life in the White House, such as the steps involved in preparing for State Dinners and running taste tests for the First Lady, which felt well researched and realistic. And the story was full of suspense and well plotted although a bit far-fetched in parts. But if all the security lockdowns that would probably take place in such a scenario were included the book it would have been about seven pages long and kinda dull so I didn’t mind the artistic license. I struggled far more with the seriousness of the book. It had a ‘we’re involved in the most important job in the world’ undercurrent that got a bit much after a while, although I imagine it would play better to an American audience. For better or worse we Aussies are more cynical about our leaders and I found myself eye-rolling at some of the dialogue.

As a character Ollie is rather likable and a bit more believable than some other amateur sleuths although in many series the first book is more credible than any that come afterwards so it remains to be seen if the believability factor can be sustained. Apart from an over-reliance on the public transport system in times of trouble she didn’t do anything ultra-dumb and she stood up for herself when it counted which I always like to see. The real character problem for me was that there weren’t any others who were terribly well developed (I found Ollie’s boyfriend a bit two dimensional) which would need to change if the series is to continue.

The uniqueness of this setting offers a lot of scope for interesting stories and there’s enough of the traditional romantic cosy elements to satisfy readers who aren’t so interested in politics. Personally I’d like to see a little more humour in the writing but I might be in the minority. All in all this is an above average book for the genre and I’ll look for the second one in the series.

My rating 3/5

More stuff

Review at Mysterious Reviews