Beat Until Stiff: A Mary Ryan Mystery (Mary Ryan Series) - Hardcover

Johnson, Claire M

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590580400 ISBN 13: 9781590580400

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2002

Synopsis

Experienced pastry chef Johnson whips up an insider look at San Francisco’s cut-throat restaurant trade. Cranky Mary Ryan has sunk a lot of time and talent into the in-vogue American Fare, the town’s hottest spot, while grieving over her broken marriage. At work very early one morning, she steps on a laundry bag stuffed with the dead body of one of her employees. The investigation soon exposes all the dirty secrets that the food business would like to keep secret: the philandering chefs, the silly whims of the dining public, the hiring of illegal aliens, and the subsistence-living pay scale. Events begin to spiral that in time take out the restaurant’s celebrity chef and force Mary to use her unique skills to uncover a poisonous scheme....

Beat Until Stiff gives a frank view of the cooking/restaurant scene and explores why food has become theater, with all the waiters, the busboys, the chefs, and the dining public on stage, each with their own parts to learn and perform. Dessert is the last word, the amen of a meal. And Mary Ryan always has to have the last word. Hard edged, filled richly with restaurant lore, sharply characterized, this is a debut to savor.

About this title

About the Author

Claire M. Johnson completed the California Culinary Academy’s program for professional chefs in 1983 and worked as a pastry chef in San Francisco and Oakland for eight years. Set in the restaurant world, Ms. Johnson’s first novel, Beat Until Stiff, won the 1999 Malice Domestic Writer’s Grant. She lives in Lafayette, California, with her husband, two children, and numerous animals.

Review

"...a delicious culinary mystery that shouldn't be eaten on an empty stomach because the food descriptions will make the reader ravenously hungry. Despite being upset about her divorce, the audience will take the heroine into their hearts because she is really vulnerable and in "kneed" of kindness....Claire M. Johnson shows a lot of writing talent as she bakes a mystery epicure's delight." -Harriet Klausner

"Claire M. Johnson’s Beat Until Stiff deserves enthusiastic mention as a very special title which offers an unusually frank view of the cooking and restaurant scene in San Francisco. Herself a professional and experienced pastry chef, Claire Johnson presents the reader with a lively style that mixes autobiography with culinary and social insights. Highly recommended!" -Midwest Book Review

“Beat Until Stiff is a wonderful debut novel. Claire M. Johnson’s prose is original, crisp—Tupperware fresh.” —Crimestalker Casebook

“Mary Ryan, pastry chef in a celebrity San Francisco restaurant, finds the body of an employee. Meg has spent most of her life at the American Fare since her divorce. When she steps on a laundry bag holding a body, she begins investigating the celebrity restaurant business. The celebrity chef and owner of American Fare is found dead, and Mary finds herself a suspect.

You’ll love the lore of the restaurant business. But even more the excellent rendering of a young woman devastated when her husband leaves her for another woman.” –The Snooper

Two Poisoned Pen Press books recently made the Book Sense Mystery Top Ten list. Betty Webb s Desert Wives (2003, $2495) features Utah P.I. Lena Jones in a search for the killer of polygamist Prophet Solomon Royal. Jones discovers secrets from her own past when she infiltrates the Prophet s desert compound. Clarie M. Johnson won the 1999 Malice Domestic Writer s Grant for Beat Until Stiff (2003, $24.95). Pastry chef Mary Ryan finds a dead body in the pantry of a California restaurant. While cooperating with her ex-husband s policeman partner in the investigation, she discovers a link between the murder and forged wine receipts. Although Lena Jones is certainly the more troubled of the two protagonist, Webb s character bears a strikingly similarity to Johnson s Mary Ryan. Both are emotionally scarred women who rise above past traumas to confront uncertain futures. Desert Wives and Beat Until Stiff are excellent character driven novels, but they also feature tightly scripted plots that are sure to please fans of a good puzzle.

--Mystery Scene

"BEAT UNTIL STIFF is a delicious culinary mystery that shouldn't be eaten on an empty stomach because the food descriptions will make the reader ravenously hungry....Claire M. Johnson shows a lot of writing talent as she bakes a mystery epicure's delight."--Harriet Klausner

"Mary Ryan, feisty pastry chef at American Fare, a trendy San Francisco restaurant, finds murder on the menu in Johnson's delicious debut, which mixes an unglamorized, behind-the-scenes view of the upscale restaurant trade with a plot replete with well-timed shocks. Horrified to discover the battered body of one of her El Salvadoran employees stuffed in a laundry bag on arriving for work early one morning, Mary debates whether to call her ex-husband, Jim, a homicide detective with SFPD. As it turns out, Jim's former partner, Inspector O'Connor, takes on the case. Lonely and emotionally fragile in the wake of Jim's leaving her, Mary comes to rely on the tough, bullying O'Connor, whose job is on the line, as more than just a friend, while innate curiosity and love of justice propel her to investigate the crime and into grave danger. The down-to-earth Mary, with her keen sense of humor, casts a sharp eye on the novel's flashier characters: American Fare's showman of an owner, an egotistical chef, the suave maitre 'd in charge of the wine, the designer-clad, social-climbing manager. Assorted wives and mistresses, immigrants and a high-profile lawyer fill out the bill of fare. The restaurant business--its food, financing and philosophy--is here in all its complexity for discriminating mystery palates."--Publishers Weekly

Edition details

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1590580400
• ISBN 13: 9781590580400
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 300