Dark tort

Review by Booklist Review

Caterer Goldy Schulz firmly believes that food is sustenance for the soul as well as the body. She has proved her theory in 12 previous mysteries, but she puts it to the test again in this delectable read. Arriving at a local law firm to ready breakfast for clients of one of the attorneys, she trips over the body of 20-year-old Dusty Routt, a young employee who lives down the street from Goldy. When Dusty's distraught mother, who has no faith in cops, begs Goldy to find out who killed her daughter, Goldy's curiosity kicks in, and she cobbles together a list of clues that lead back to the law firm and to paintings of food by artist Charlie Baker that decorate the firm's walls. The identity of the killer is a nice surprise, but a lot of the fun comes from the food. As usual, Davidson does more than just describe Goldy's yummy dishes; she gives us recipes (the Strong-Arm Cookies are exceptionally good). In the subgenre of foodie mysteries, Davidson remains the master chef. --Stephanie Zvirin Copyright 2006 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

At the start of bestseller Davidson's delicious 13th culinary adventure featuring caterer Goldy Schulz (after 2004's Double Shot), Goldy stumbles over the body of neighbor Dusty Routt, a paralegal at Hanrahan & Jule, a boutique law firm in Aspen Meadow, Colo., with which Goldy has a lucrative contract to provide breakfasts and occasional lunches for its attorneys and well-heeled clients. By all accounts, Dusty's future was bright, no longer overshadowed by a tragic, poverty-stricken past. Her untimely death shatters her mother and grandfather, still reeling from the death of her brother while in police custody. When Dusty's mother, who distrusts the police, asks Goldy to investigate, the caterer feels she can't refuse. Between catering jobs, teaching son Arch how to drive and assuaging her own grief, Goldy chases down clues with the help of her policeman husband, Tom, and her catering partners. Though a few stones remain unturned (perhaps intentionally), Davidson delivers another entertaining whodunit with delectable recipes. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

As Goldy Schultz knows, the catering business is full of hazards-like murder. More recipes in the 13th of the series. Davidson lives in Aspen Meadow, CO. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Watch your step. Goldy Bear Schultz, of Aspen Meadows catering (Double Shot, 2004, etc.), has tripped over a body at the law office of one of her best clients. Dusty Routt, an ambitious young woman who had a tough life until her Uncle Richard, a partner at the H&J law firm, took her under his wing, has been strangled. Now her distraught mother begs Goldy to find Dusty's killer. It could have been a robbery gone wrong, but as Goldy picks up gossip from her network of friends and clients, she begins to see motives for murder. Dusty had been helping settle the estate of Charlie Baker, a chef whose paintings of food have made him rich. When a cache of his work turns up in Dusty's house with two very different inventory lists attached, Goldy suspects that Charlie, a terminal cancer patient, did not die from an accidental fall. Dusty's mysterious lover, a suspicious bishop, lawyers with shaky marriages and filthy lucre all provide additional possibilities. With help from her policeman husband Tom, her able assistant Julian, her son Arch and her wealthy pal Marla, Goldy solves the crimes, saves herself from being next on the murderer's menu and whips up more of her trademark scrumptious meals. Goldy and her coterie always provide some enjoyable moments, although the mind-boggling dénouement may send you to the kitchen to try the 11 appended recipes. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Dark Tort A Novel of Suspense Chapter One I tripped over the body of my friend Dusty Routt at half past ten on the night of October 19. At first I thought it was a joke. Loaded down with bread-making supplies, I had just pushed through the heavy wooden door of Hanrahan & Jule, the boutique law firm in Aspen Meadow where I'd been catering breakfasts for several months. My foot caught and I stumbled forward. I thought, Those H&J clowns are up to something. Again. The bag of flour I was carrying slid from my hands and exploded on the carpet. Two jars of yeast plummeted onto the coffee table, where they burst into shards and powder. My last bottle of molasses sailed in a wide arc and cracked open on the receptionist's cherrywood desk. A thick wave of sweet, dark liquid began a gluey descent across the phone console. My steel bowl of bread sponge catapulted out of my arms and hit the wall. I wasn't sure I'd be able to change my own trajectory toward an end table. It was one of two rough-hewn, cabin-style monstrosities that the decorator had thought necessary to make Hanrahan & Jule look like what it claimed to be: "your Rocky Mountain neighborhood law firm!" I hit the end table, ricocheted over to the desk, cried out, and finally landed on my stomach. I had tripped over I-knew-not-what in a spectacular manner, and now I was prone on an imitation Native American rug. I shrieked, "Very funny, fellas!" But the lawyers who pulled these pranks didn't appear. I wiped flour out of my eyes and waited for the guys to reveal themselves. When they didn't, I tried to focus on what I could see of the small lobby space. Lamps made of elk horns sat on the clunky tables. The bentwood couches, which were placed beneath homey paintings of food, were empty. I was lying on a sponge-soaked picture of a tepee. The pain assaulting my tailbone was excruciating. Gritting my teeth, I figured I was about as upset as any caterer could be, when the bread for the following morning's breakfast has been wrecked the night before. I still hadn't seen what had caused my fall. Nor was there any telltale noise. In fact, the law firm of Hanrahan & Jule was completely quiet. I'd ended up on the far side of the massive coffee table, a thick column of wood carved, I'd been told, from the trunk of an ancient blue spruce tree. I rubbed my behind and stared at the dark lacquered bark. Had I just stumbled over my own feet? No, I was sure the small cadre of lawyers who were not in Maui this week, ostensibly engaging in continuing education, was responsible for this mishap. I heaved myself onto my back, wondering if the guys -- and that's what all ten H&J lawyers were, guys -- would think this was more funny than when they'd put green food coloring into the cheddar omelettes. Or how about the live moths that had fluttered out of one of my folded tablecloths? And then, oh Lord, then -- there was the gin-switched-for-water in my espresso machine. Soon after that trick, I'd seen one of the partners pouring vodka into the very same machine's water well. I'd used my tray to whack him from behind -- accidentally, of course -- and spewed forty dollars' worth of Stolichnaya across the firm's huge kitchen. Staring at the ceiling, I sighed. Now that my flour, yeast, molasses, and sponge were kaput, was the partner who'd ordered the breakfast going to run out and buy freshly baked loaves for his Friday-morning meeting with clients? I doubted it very much. I wrenched my body around to survey the damage. And there, sprawled on the far side of the coffee table, was Dusty Routt. In addition to being a friend, Dusty was our neighbor. She was also in training to become the firm's second paralegal, and she often got drafted into playing a part in these high jinks. At the very least, she was sometimes pressed into trying to cover them up, as I'd discovered after the spiked-coffee affair, when I'd caught her disposing of a plastic bag holding two empty gin bottles. "Orders from King Richard," Dusty had whispered conspiratorially. "He says I have to get rid of the evidence. Without you catching me, that is," she'd added with a characteristic giggle as she slammed the Dumpster lid shut. Since King Richard was Dusty's uncle, Richard Chenault, the same partner whose Stoly I later disposed of, I knew a confrontation was out of the question. Just this past August, Richard's secretary had been summarily fired when she'd had the audacity -- or stupidity -- to send a locket engraved for Richard's mistress to his, uh, wife. Richard's wife, a doctor named K.D., had promptly filed for divorce. I stared at Dusty's back, waiting. I couldn't see her face. Still, I knew it was Dusty. There was her highlighted-at-home hair; there was the like-new beige Calvin Klein suit she was wearing. I'd actually found the suit for her at Aspen Meadow's secondhand store. Now I wanted to hear her high, joyful voice as she jumped up to cry, "Surprise!" I anticipated a trio of attorneys leaping out from behind the receptionist's desk and squealing, "Gotcha!" But I still couldn't hear anything at all. "Dusty!" I whispered hoarsely. "Get up. Gag's over." She didn't move. I did finally hear something, but it was only the steady plink plop of beaten egg dripping onto one of the end tables. My gaze shifted from Dusty to where the sponge liquid had first landed, on Charlie Baker's painting of peach pie, one of three of his famous pictures of food that adorned the lobby walls. The frame was broken. Had I done that to dear, departed Charlie Baker's artwork? Charlie Baker. I swallowed. Don't go there, I ordered myself. But then I squinted at some splotches and drips that had stained the painted pie, with its list of ingredients meticulously penned underneath . . . Dark Tort A Novel of Suspense . Copyright © by Diane Davidson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Dark Tort by Diane Mott Davidson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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