New Book Review: Recipe for Disaster

Title: Recipe for Disaster 

Author: Tammy Beck 

Date: 2021 

Publisher: Tammy Beck 

Quote: "This weekend, we'd laid Grandma Des to rest." 

And one of the relatives who've gathered steals Grandma Des's favorite cookbook. Grandma Des was a baker who displayed lots of cookbooks, but only used one for the recipes that kept locals coming back. She chose a relative to leave that book to...but another one wants it. In this short novel, the cookbook is restored to its rightful heir. 

This cozy, wholesome mystery introduces a series that will include murders. As the term "cozy" presupposes, though, it's about following the clues to find out whodunit more than the sensational details and life-and-death danger of a "hard-boiled" murder story. 

I didn't get into this mystery. Maybe I've been reading too much fiction lately. Maybe it's the fact that I read a PDF copy that hadn't been properly formatted. Maybe it's the Morrison Farms Lentils I ate. The fact remains that when I've failed to love other books and known I was in poor physical condition, I've reread them when I was feeling better; when other books were formatted in a way I found really ugly, I've retyped them. So why don't I want to invest that extra effort in liking this book? 

 I don't even feel that the mystery was too tame, or too easily solved. Cozy mysteries are allowed to be tame. As long as there's a logical solution reached by ruling out alternatives, the solution can be that something was "stolen" by a child or an animal or misplaced by a distracted owner. I usually approve of such wholesome solutions. 

Maybe it's that I didn't feel that I'd solved the mystery so much as that, as in Nancy Drew, one character just seemed to be waving a little flag that read "Idunit," but I'm not even sure why I thought so. Anyway I'd guessed whodunit and didn't feel that I'd been further informed or entertained by following the false leads along with the characters.

Your mileage may vary, though. Somebody Out There will probably love this book.