Weekend Cooking (15): Review and Giveaway

COOKIE DOUGH OR DIE by Virginia Lowell

My rating:  4 of 5 stars

As the holidays approach, I always seem to up my consumption of food-related books, and this year is no exception.  This past week I discovered another new cozy mystery series that I can recommend to all looking for a light, entertaining read with a slight twist. Unlike the usual bake-shop owning sleuth books, this entry includes neither recipes nor excessive discussions of baked goods.  The "hook" to this series is the collectible cookie cutter phenomenon.

Olivia Greyson is the thirty-something owner of The Gingerbread House, a store featuring all kinds of cookie cutters, from run of the mill plastic flower shapes, to antique metal cutters that fetch hundreds of dollars.  Olivia runs the store with the help of her best friend, Maddie Briggs, an exuberant redhead with a real spark of creative genius.  Early on in the story, Olivia's mentor and friend, the elderly Clarisse Chamberlain, is found dead under questionable circumstances and Olivia is certain that there is more to Clarisse's death than meets the eye.  When a nosy mailman who delivered an important letter to Clarisse shortly before her death ends up in the hospital after eating cookies from Olivia's shop, Olivia takes it upon herself to discover exactly how and why Clarisse died.

Cookie Dough or Die features the usual panoply of suspects, including Clarisse's two sons, Edmund and Hugh, who are vying for control of the family business, Hugh's fiance Tammy whom Clarisse despised, and Hugh's ex-girlfriend Jasmine who suddenly disappeared from town years earlier.  Olivia herself becomes the object of rumor and innuendo after Clarisse's will leaves her a substantial monetary bequest as well as a vintage cookie cutter collection worth more than $30,000. 

Several things struck me about this first installment.  First, Lowell does a wonderful job with the characterizations, from Olivia and Maddie, to the lesser characters of Olivia's aging hippie mother and Clarisse's warm-hearted housekeeper, Bertha. Even the requisite love interest for Olivia, Sheriff  Del, is an authentic, no-nonsense figure, the antithesis of the bumbling small town sheriff.   Cozy mysteries often suffer from thin or over-the-top characterizations, but Lowell has adeptly avoided that trap here.

Second, I was taken with the cookie cutter angle to the story.  I loved how Lowell made the cookie cutters vital clues in solving the mystery of Clarisse's murder. I thought this was a unique and engaging way to decipher the murderer's identity.  I have read a good number of caterer, baker, and chef mysteries, but Cookie Dough or Die is my first foray into the world of cookie cutters.  Usually, in these type of cozies, the food descriptions and recipes provide the comfort and homey atmosphere, but here, it is the discussion of the cookie cutters that serves that function, and it does so effectively.

I was also interested to learn that there is a real organization known as the  National Cookie Cutter Collectors Club, and that it has it's own newsletter, Cookie Crumbs.  Lowell makes reference to a number of collectible types of cutters in the book, and one in particular rang a bell with me:  vintage Peanuts cookie cutters from the early 1970's.  I distinctly remember having cookie cutters from the Peanuts comic strip during those years.  Of course, I no longer have them, yet another casualty of my mother's cleaning efforts, right alongside my older brothers' comic book and baseball collections that would undoubtedly fetch a small fortune on e-bay today.

If you like getting in on the ground floor of a cozy series, I urge you to pick up Cookie Dough or Die  soon so that you will be ready for the December release of the second installment, A Cookie Before Dying.

A COOKIE BEFORE DYING by Virginia Lowell

From the publisher's website:
On a stormy night, Olivia Greyson and her Yorkie discover the body of a man stabbed to death—which looks suspiciously like the intruder seen fleeing the local health food store The Vegetable Plate. Charlene Critch, owner of The Vegetable Plate, has a grudge against Olivia’s cookie cutter shop, but could Charlene be hiding a secret serious enough to kill for?



Thanks to the generosity of Berkley Prime Crime, I have one copy of A Cookie Before Dying to give away to one lucky reader of this blog.  Enter by leaving a comment on this post stating that you wish to participate in the giveaway. Followers of this blog will receive an additional entry. All entries must include an e-mail address either in the comments section or by e-mailing me at Bookgirlblog@hotmail.com. Entries limited to US residents only, and no P.O. Boxes please.   Book will be mailed by the publisher.  Contest ends at 11:59 p.m. e.s.t. on December 2, 2011.   
 

Weekend Cooking is a fun event hosted by Beth Fish Reads in which bloggers share food-related posts.  Stop by and see what's cooking this week!