Nothing
like a good palate cleanser after a tough read! Julie Hyzy’s White House chief
chef, Olivia Paras, does that for me every time. The mysteries are
entertaining, the behind-the-scenes peeks at how 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue runs
are interesting, and the characters are engaging. This is definitely cozy, but
also a good mystery.
When
visiting chefs who are representatives of an extremely repressed foreign
country are dumped on Olivia’s plate just as her staff is cut back, she finds
herself battling on multiple fronts. The chefs come from a male-dominated
society and are not happy having a woman in charge. When her pastry chef
collapses and lands in the hospital, is discharged, returns to work, and
collapses again while in the company of the visitors, alarm bells start going
off. She has a state dinner to prepare to honor the female candidate for the
chefs’ home country, a pastry chef out with a concussion, suspicious behavior
on the part of the chefs, and then one of the visiting chefs dies. Olivia knows
if she can’t figure out the who, what, and whys cluttering her kitchen, her
goose will truly be cooked.
Not
every book has to be life-altering; sometimes it’s all right to just be
entertained and All the President's Menus does exactly that.
CAS
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