Cozy in the Kitchen: New Mysteries-With-Recipes for Relaxing

Crossing off items on a holiday list? Baking and freezing for the upcoming party? Pick up a "cozy" mystery for relief, especially for that feeling of being burnt-out as the year wraps around its shortest days, and spring seems a loooong way off ... The "cozy killers" that Kensington Books brought out in the past few weeks are just plain fun to read: mysteries with amateur sleuths whose passion for life -- and for justice -- somehow entangles them in snooping, sleuthing, and solving.

Lee Hollis -- pen name of a brother and sister team -- started the "Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery" series with Death of a Kitchen Diva. And a couple of years ago, I enjoyed Hollis's Death of a Country Fried Redneck. DEATH OF A CHRISTMAS CATERER, this year's treat, is actually the fifth is this cheerful series. Hayley Powell has her own newspaper column, food-focused of course, a favorite part of the gutsy little publication in her Maine town, the Island Times. This year her editor boss is in a personal crisis, and dumps the office holiday party in Hayley's lap. She books a great caterer -- but when she and the caterer find out that the newspaper's party budget is miniscule, the caterer drops the job. And soon drops dead (not Hayley's fault!). Hayley makes some awful choices about her own private life while scrambling to solve the murder, and the suspense about finding the criminal is almost equaled by wondering whether she'll pull her life together in time, as well!

Tucked among the chapters are some of Hayley's flavorful columns, each one wrapping up with both a beverage and a food recipe ... like Crock-Pot Christmas Stew, and Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie. I wish Hayley lived next door! Meanwhile, after galloping through her adventures, I'm motivated to head to the kitchen. And while I'm cooking, I'll be mulling over the unusual and clever mode of death that Hollis's book involves. Somebody did some startling research for this one!

Equally enjoyable is Maya Corrigan's first "Five Ingredient Mystery," BY COOK OR BY CROOK, where Val Deniston is still adjusting to the drastic change in her life after a car accident -- no longer promoting chefs' cookbooks in New York City, she's come home to her grandfather and the family house near the Chesapeake Bay. Her new job isn't exactly high end: She's running the Cool Down Café at the local fitness club and taking part on a tennis team. But when her cousin Monique is the lead suspect in the death of one of the tennis players, Val becomes determined to find the real killer, and get her cousin out of trouble. Meanwhile two would-be suitors on hand are tangling with her grandfather, and the "cooking codger" himself is sneaking into Val's recipe collection, with ulterior motives.

Each book of Corrigan's series will include five suspects, five clues, and some five-ingredient recipes (Val's grandfather thinks anyone can handle five ingredients!). My choice from BY COOK OR BY CROOK is going to be the potato recipe, which looks terrific ... then again, so does the one for a strata ... and those macaroons ... The recipes all show up during Val's sleuthing, too. Mmm!

I have two more of these kitchen cozies to review in a couple of days. Meanwhile, next up: a college professor tackles employment research among California porn stars! And then some international titles. Come on back for more.

Reading the Recipes First? DEATH OF A COUNTRY-FRIED REDNECK by Lee Hollis

Joanne Fluke has neatly tied up the major market in "cozy" mysteries with a cooking twist -- her Hannah Swenson series includes a bakery in the plot, so cookie, cake, and other dessert recipes about in the volumes. I believe it's thanks to Fluke that I now thumb through the recipes first, when one of these mysteries arrives at Kingdom Books!

It's not a new approach -- Virginia  Rich (with eventual collaboration from not-yet-famous Nancy Pickard) gave us The Nantucket Diet Murders and The Baked-Bean Supper Murders. And in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series, although there aren't recipes in the actual books (they are given later in a cookbook), cooking and kitchen maneuvers make up a large part of the background to gourmand Nero Wolfe's part-time labor as a crime solver.

But there's always a new twist, and Lee Hollis -- actually the brother-and-sister team of Rick Copp and Holly Simason -- brings us the "Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails" mystery series, set in coastal Maine, where Hayley's job as food columnist at the Island Times gives her a chance to jump desks and join the hunt for a killer. In DEATH OF A COUNTRY-FRIED REDNECK, Hayley fits the classic role of an "amateur sleuth" (the best definition of what are often called cozy mysteries) by stumbling into a crime when she tags along after her favorite country music star, Southerner Wade Springer. Inspired to seek a catering slot in order to meet the legendary performer (who is comfortably single!), she brushes off her country-fried chicken recipe, among others. And each time the narrative pauses to give one of Hayley's columns, there are recipes -- not just for cooking but also for refreshingly different cocktails.

Hollis focuses on plot twists and recipes, and not much on depth of character -- Hayley's eventual solution of the murder mystery in her lap depends mostly on trying out every possible combination of blame and suspicion until she stumbles onto the actual killer and motive. But it's a cute ride, with an unusual combination of New England atmosphere and displaced dishes, as well as some entertaining friction between Holly and her teenaged daughter Gemma. For a light read, stack this one on the bedside table or even in the kitchen.

But -- no, no, no -- clipping out the recipes from a real book is absolutely not allowed. Either work on them directly from the book pages, or copy them out somehow. And if you need a few more, especially for the outrageous cocktails, check out the author's very relaxed blog at www.leehollismysteries.com.