クッキング・ママの遺言書

Feels like an outlined story that then has [insert distressed family member here] and [add protagonist perplexing here] and [introduce important denouement info here] just randomly sprinkled into outline. Relationship with policeman husband very stilted.

Plus food was just not that appealing or engaging. Plus how could a caterer be so completely clueless on a missing recipe ingredient. Usage as a suspense building tool is a complete fail. Y

I suspect that the author has run out of inspiration and is just phoning the story in based on her formula.

Editor should be demoted for not tightening up story by about 300 percent.

This book had too much extraneous detail and description. Got tired of hearing about Goldy's son's life and activities when they contribute nothing to the plot. Also got tired of hearing about Goldy being so helpless when in other stories she has more guts. This was a really boring story and I skimmed most of it just to see who was the culprit. I like her writing but this wasn't up to her standards.

After gamely slogging through 232 pages of Goldy's feeling really, really bad about her friend Dusty's death, I skipped to the end. It turned out that two key characters hadn't been introduced in the first 232 pages (of 420), and that another character had only been shallowly introduced and characterized. Following the obligatory scene with Goldy's life being threatened, there followed a couple of pages of explanation of the perp's motivation that read like a plot outline. Too bad the book didn't live up to the outline!

The paperback places all of the recipes at the end of the book, instead of sprinkled through the text (which is a more interesting and fun arrangement). The recipes are the only thing that I can recommend--without having kitchen-tested any. However, I doubt that I will be purchasing another Davidson Culinary Mystery after having spent $7.99 for this turkey of a mystery novel.

Like others, I have read the whole Goldy Bear Culinary Mystery series and I have enjoyed each book...until now. This book is slow to start and as I am only on page 100 after a week, hasn't picked up speed yet. I can't get past Goldy wallowing in her sorrow. Granted, I have never tripped over a dead body only to find out that it was my neighbor, but enough is enough already. As another reader mentioned, there are a few disjointed parts for example, at one point Marla is driving Goldy to pick up Arch and Gus. A couple of paragraphs later, Goldy is turning into the parking lot...but I thought Marla was driving??? I hope that this book was a fluke and Diane Mott Davidson will come back with a mystery of the same caliber that all of her fans have come to expect and enjoy.

I had looked so forward to Mott-Davidson's latest book. It just wasn't as good as the others. I see that there are many other reviews that agree with me. What in the world happened? Has she perhaps, 'passed the torch'?

It just doesn't seem like her usual style. It was disjointed, there were a couple of really huge mistakes. She introduced two new characters, insinuating, they had always been there. It was a mess. I can only hope that the next one, if there is a next one, is better. C'mon Diane, don't let us down!