The Butter Did It: A Gastronomic Tale of Love and Murder - Hardcover

Richman, Phyllis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060183705 ISBN 13: 9780060183707

Publisher: Harper, 1997

Synopsis

Washington's finest French chef, Laurence Levain, is dead, and all of D.C. thinks the culprit was too much foie gras. All, that is, except for Chas Wheatley, the city's most famous restaurant critic. Still carrying a torch for Levain after having had a passionate romance with him years before, she's convinced that his death was more than a simple case of too much cholesterol -- it was a case of murder. Enlisting the aid of detective/gourmand Homer Jones, she launches an investigation into this fiendish crime and soon finds herself in more trouble than she bargained for.

A delicious entry into the increasingly popular culinary mystery genre, The Butter Did Itÿ is a fun, fast-paced whodunit by a true insider of the restaurant and newspaper worlds. With numerous menus sprinkled throughout the book, this culinary extravaganza is just the thing for readers hungry for some intrigue with their dinner.

About this title

About the Author

Phyllis Richman has been the Washington Post food critic for more than twenty-two years. She's the author of the Agatha-nominated Washington bestselling dining books including The Washington Post Dining Guide. She been an award-winning syndicated columnist and food editor and serves on the executive committees of the James Beard Restaurant awards and the Julia Child awards. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

A debut novel set in the competitive world of upscale restaurants in Washington, D.C. Chas Wheatley, a food critic for the Examiner, is shocked and unbelieving when her long-ago lover and longtime friend Laurence Levain, a master chef, is found dead in his apartment on the eve of the City Tastes gala, an annual event he founded. Heart attack is pronounced the cause, supposedly brought on by a sexual encounter with a hooker. But Chas knows from her brief, years-back affair with Laurence that he would never entertain a woman before a major food event. She presses Det. Homer Jones to look further, and it's soon proved that an overdose of Digoxin, Laurence's heart medication, was the culprit. Now Chas turns detective, seeking motive and killer among Laurence's friends and enemies: Chas's own ex-husband Ari, now in the catering business with his lover Paul; Laurence's older sister Jeanine; his newest girl friend Bebe; chef-restauranteurs Marcel and Marie Claire, who were scheduled to open a New York establishment with Laurence; and others galore. Eventually, Chas herself becomes a target of the poisoner, but makes it through to see her mission fulfilled. Writing with practiced assurance, the author has a fresh, blithe, sometimes raunchy style far beyond the talent needed for her real-life food critic's job at the Washington Post. A stronger editorial hand, however, would've helped tighten the plot and stem the flow of recipes, romances, and gossip that deadens suspense and threatens coherence. Altogether, then, a flawed but intriguingly different and readable first outing. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A terrific and stylish first mystery by the Washington Post's restaurant critic. Her heroine, Chas Wheatley, is the restaurant critic for "Washington's newest and fastest-growing newspaper, the Examiner" and is a type beloved of both writers and readers of cozies: in her late forties, with a fascinating job she loves, a charming (and exasperating) grown child, a divorced spouse, lovers past and present, and a taste for sensuous description. Richman's Chas is all these things and more, a vivid presence who responds with pain and grace to the death of a famed local chef she once loved. Chas immediately suspects murder and enlists an elegant detective gourmand, her daughter, and her best friend, the paper's theater critic, in a quest for the killer. The goddess lurks in the details here: Richman describes food, clothing, and objects with precise, lush but not overripe prose; she captures wonderfully the sound and sense of a contemporary newspaper office and shows how e-mail can tie office mates together far more closely than sitting next to one another might; she effortlessly conveys how much fun (and how much work) eating for a living is. How can you not love a writer who includes a reference to the wry and passionate folksinging McGarrigle sisters? Four stars for a stunning debut. GraceAnne DeCandido

Richman, a Washington Post restaurant critic, makes her bid for fans of the cooking and/or catering mystery subgenre. The narrator and protagonist here, Charlotte Sue "Chas" Wheatley, serves as restaurant critic for a D.C. newspaper. Suspicious about the sudden death of her former lover, an eminent French chef, she cries murder and begins sleuthing. Richman certainly knows the food territory?a nongourmand may need a dictionary?but the mystery set-up seems a bit frantic, complete with close calls, secret lover, and multiple culinary descriptions. For larger collections.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060183705
• ISBN 13: 9780060183707
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320