The Da Vinci Cook: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

Description

Angie Amalfi is close to one of the biggest breaks of her rocky culinary career––a chance to co–write a cookbook with a famous chef. But as she scrambles to prepare for the impending interview, her realtor sister Cat is suddenly accused of a murder in a rich client's home. A priceless relic––an iron chain that was used to bind St. Peter while in a Roman prison––is missing from her wealthy client Marcello Piccoletti's home, and a murder was committed on the heels of the disappearance. The only person who can clear Cat's name is the client himself, and he's in Rome, tending to his restaurant, Da Vinci's.

Heedless to Angie's stern warning, the always unpredictable Cat insists on traveling to Rome to confront Picoletti, and Angie must drop everything to accompany her sister. The Roman restaurateur has the chain with him in Rome, and exonerates Cat of the murder as well. Unfortunately, the police in the states still suspect Cat and now Picoletti, the only witness, has disappeared. Angie takes a job as a cook at Da Vinci's, hoping to get to the bottom of this complex mess. And when bodies start piling up like balls of fresh mozzarella at an Amalfi family picnic, it looks like Angie and Cat's trip to their homeland may spell arrivederci Amalfis.

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Customer Reviews

Dysfunctional Families are a Bore!!!!!
If this is a sample of this series, I will not be reading any more. Angie's family is without redemption, she is totally inept, and I wouldn't allow her to fry balogna. I am tired of books that can only supply tension by allowing overbearing, rude, contemptible family members to browbeat each other.

2007-09-10 | avid reader (Horn Lake, MS USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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More like 4 1/2 stars....
Trouble seems to follow Angie Amalfi no matter where she goes. When her strict-laced sister, Caterina Swenson, calls her and says she is pursuing a witness to a murder, Angie rushes to help her. What follows is a madcap chase through Rome for Angie and Cat while Homicide Inspector Paavo Smith, Angie's fiancé, is back in America trying to sort out the murder scene and deal with the Amalfi family. Angie and Cat are determined to find the missing witness (who is also Cat's client), Marcello Piccoletti, locate a missing relic, and clear Cat's name.

What a delicious story! Ms. Pence writes such a delightful tale with very vividly drawn characters that it is hard not to immediately get wrapped up in the craziness surrounding the Amalfi family. The Amalfi family lives by the adage that family sticks together so once it becomes apparent that Cat and Angie are in trouble, the whole family swoops in to help. Sometimes, this leads to quite interesting and hysterical scenes. Perhaps Frannie's ordeal with bureaucracy is the best scene but there are numerous laugh-out-loud moments in this fantastic story.

It has been awhile since I have read one of the Angie Amalfi mysteries from Joanne Pence, and after reading this one I'm wondering why. Perhaps what made this tale much more enjoyable for me is that Angie's angst over her career and her continued mishaps weren't as apparent. Instead, we are treated with seeing the entire Amalfi family in action. Joanne Pence has created such a loving, richly diverse family in the Amalfis and I relished every moment spent with them in this book. There is never a dull moment as the action flows smoothly along. THE DA VINCI COOK is simply divine!

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES

2007-08-14 (Winter Haven, FL) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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Cooking up a good story
Not having read any of the other twelve Angie Amalfi mysteries, I may be at a distinct disadvantage to critique this one. That being said, I love Italy, I love food and I love a good mystery. So The Da Vinci Cook is three for three on my "what I love" top-ten list.

The authors' descriptions of Rome, though not poetically descriptive, located all the sights so accurately and with such detail, it felt like a walking tour of the city from the Forum to the Spanish Steps, from the Termini Station to the Vatican.

And the description of their first dinner in Rome, "an antipasto of caprese--tomatoes with mozzarella, basil, and spices--a primo of porcini mushroom risotto...and linguine with pancetta...veal scaloppine with green olives and for dessert...sliced melon and walnuts with...espresso." C'est magnifique!

However, I do have a couple small complaints. Even though Angie is the central figure in the series, I had some trouble keeping that straight because in this book Angie's sister Cat seems to command more attention. I assume that's simply because there are twelve other books in the series and the author assumes the reader are well acquainted with the characters and have no trouble following along.

My other issue may sound pathetically trivial but it really bugged me. The title of the book is The Da Vinci Cook. The front cover of the book shows Mona Lisa holding a wooden spoon covered in sauce. Loving all things conspiratorial (i.e., The Da Vinci Code), I expected some connection. Except for the tangential fact that Angie and her sister work a couple shifts in a restaurant called Da Vinci's, there is no connection. I felt duped.

Did I recover from my snit and enjoy the book, yes! Will it stop me from reading the others, no!

Armchair Interviews says: Italy, historical buildings and wonderful food--what more could you want.

2007-06-05 (Minneapolis, MN) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

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Another Gustatory Romp
Joanne Pence has continued her Angie Amalfi series with this engaging takeoff on all the "DaVinci" hoo-ha. I loved it. It's nice to see that Joanne's still able to write convincingly about San Francisco from her exile in Boise ID!

2007-05-24 (Kansas City, Missouri) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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The Da Vinci Cook
Another fun instalment in the Angie Amalfi series. Joanne Pence gives us a contemporary story that suits the history of the Angie Amalfi italian heritage and the inclusion of all her endearingly loopy family. It's an easy read for fans of this series and I look forward to the next instalment in the lives of Angie an Pavo.

2007-05-07 | Mystery lover (East Geelong, Victoria Australia) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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Something's Cooking: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780061080968
• Notes: BUY WITH Assurance, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and worship army to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Proviso: New

Description

The Heat Is On

For sassy food writher Angelina Amalfi, life's a banquet -- until the man who's been contributing unusual recipes for her column is found dead. Suddenly Angie's being stalked by a killer. Not one to simper in fear, instead she simmers oner the delectable homicide cop assigned to the case. Then two more deaths follow, and Angie is on the run.

Ever resourceful, Angie cooks up a scheme to catch the muderer. The stakes are high, for she's up against deadly arms smugglers and lethal food fanatics. Although it's a case that looks to hot to handle, if anyone can keep her cool, Angie can.

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Customer Reviews

Best of the Lot
It's all down hill from here. Angie Amalfi tumbles through life and always comes out ahead...it gets annoying after a bit. Every man wants to date her, every woman wants to be here. Petite, rich, and ready to face the world??? No, ok so she's still looking for her niche, but honestly this is the only book in the series where she didn't annoy me so badly that I had to put it down. Life is TOO easy for her. Every thing ALWAYS works out. Come on!

She gets herself into stupidly dangerous situations, and Paavo always comes in the nick of time. Then does she learn from the mistake? Nope, there she is the next chapter or book doing the same thing. It gets old fast.

I gave this one three stars because I didn't actually mind the read. Quick and light. It's what made me at least try the second (also not a bad read) and third books in the series. I gave them both a chance (along with one other randomly picked from the set) All fell flat in comparison and even this one wasn't a keeper. I wish I would have gone to the library for it instead.

2005-05-03 (Wisconsin) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 3

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Cinnamon & Spice Omelet With Capers & Cheese.
Loved the "Don't call the bomb squad; call a plumber" introductory chapter. Was definitely drawn into the "Wish List" of a gourmet kitchen. A cherry red stove? Wow.

If Jill Churchill's mystery series collection provides cherished, refreshing entertainment (which it does - see my Listmania & reviews), Joanne Pence's "cook" books are exquisite mainstream novels under the cover of cozy clothing.

Pence gleefully grabs reader attention in chapter one with Angie's disaster loadstone magnetized on all angles. The "... don't bother to send a bomb expert. Send a plumber" was a perfect opening for a promising series.

I read those chapter ending lines to my husband as he was clutching his Ford diesel pickup to pull out from Murdock's parking lot onto a busy highway. Oops. My timing for interjections is atrocious. He handled the dual duty of focus okay, but I was ashamed of myself when I realized I should have waited for a less precarious time.. But, I was so struck by the fun in that chapter's ending lines, I had to share it "right now."

That's a compliment to Pence's writing skill, and a warning to me that I STILL have to work on timing awareness (especially pausing prior to blurt). When enthusiasm gets hold of me, you'd think I was 5 instead of 57. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever learn.

In chapter two Pence opens with a narrative setting which could cajole Joseph Conrad to leap out of the grave and compete. In a fun contrast to the eternal perk of Angie's catastrophe-prone personality, the love of her life is introduced through a leisurely, macho Sunday afternoon as Pence's sensual syntax sets the scene:

"The San Francisco Hall of justice, a massive, grey, granite structure, cold and intimidating, stood quiet without the chaos that routine police business brought during the week."

The uncannily realistic setting descriptions following the above statement indicate that Pence has been on the inside of a police precinct, to have seen so clearly the rare but real quiet moods of "letting the hair down" during the lulls between chaos of heavy crime scenes. Outsiders wouldn't be allowed to experience this vulnerable silence in the crime fighters' den. I've been there to know, previously married to a Deputy Sheriff of Multnomah County Oregon, and employed as a crime prevention officer with both that Sheriff's office and the City of Portland.

Pence's portrayal of Inspector Pavo Smith is more realistic than any other human side of a police presence which I'm able to recall at the moment, with the possible exception of Serpico.

Then you have Angie's "mouthy-ness" as Pavo terms it, which is hilarious. It's amazing how Pence can slip such giggle-inducing humor (even guys would have to chuckle) within true drama without having it slip headlong into comedy. Angie. Is. Funny. Period. She has dialogue wit without wan.

The slip into this novel was so seamless I didn't have time or inclination to analyze (past the first couple chapters) what was drawing me in. I was just there, though I did periodically surface to notice the awesome talent of a true novelist at work behind the scenes.

The entertaining weaving between the spontaneity of Angie and the sensual precision, pausing thoughtfulness, and holding-back hesitance of Paavo continued throughout the novel, with realistic emotional dances and endearing relationship machinations tossed helter-skelter into plenty of action, mayhem, and candor.

Angie possesses a repeating character "flaw" which is spicy and fun, as well as scarey for those who come to care about her. She pauses, rests, and plays a bit within any protective prison she's been contained within. She rambles around the cage, dutifully and sensibly. Then a spark from the ozone (or from somewhere over the rainbow?) surfaces and she leaps into crazy, chaotic situations most of us would maybe consider cautiously in a conquering hero day dream, but wouldn't have (wouldn't WANT) the chutzpah to ever, ever act upon. Yet, that makes Angie a perfect fictional heroine, instead of an every day person dancing with drudgeries outside the pages of a book.

Being an every-day person is my job (when I'm escaping into fiction instead of writing it). That's why I was able to relish Angie's surging leaps, even as I cringed and skidded on the breaks of the ottoman upon which my feet were resting, with an afghan covering them cozily.

I'm still not certain if Pence's Amalfi series is a cozy culinary, a crime novel, a romance, or a mainstream offering. Honestly, I don't care about its precise category; I care that I have 10 more novels in that series to read. Yum!

I love the colorful gingham checks on the gorgeously graphic-ed covers of the early books in the series, yet I also appreciate how the cover art progresses into artistic styles attempting to capture the exact essence of Angie, as she wrestles with Paavo and her exuberant Italian family, who could be called caricatures if they weren't so lively and real.

Wonderful job, Pence, of following the dictates of your soul, and evolving a fantastic series of novels.

I'm more than ready for TOO MANY COOKS, but I'm committed to pause a short while, and make a couple dents in my waiting collection of unread and unreviewed books. Too many books? Oh yeah! Also have to keep something cooking in regular intervals for my husband who's supporting my writing career.

Please, Joanne, keep up the good work!! Too Many Cooks coming soon. And how's RED HOT MURDER doing in that red stove of Angie's??

Linda G. Shelnutt

2005-04-24 | Author (Hotchkiss, CO USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Disappointment
The series starts out with an interesting mystery and characters that switch around the usual typecasts- this time the heroine is the rich one (though not self-made- she's more an heiress) and the hunky love interest is the cop with a dark past. [....] Having a somewhat ditzy woman to lighten up a loner guy could work... [...]For this book though, Angie is still tolerable. If you're looking for anything culinary from the series, look somewhere else- its something Angie only dabbles in.

2005-02-10 | food lover, mystery lover (Chicago, IL United States) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 2

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Curiously anticipating next in series
I have read Diane Mott Davidson's Culinary Mysteries and was left "wanting more " after I finished her 11th book . Pence was also reccomended and this book was quite entertaining ...but did not tie together well in my opinion . I still couldn't put it down and eagerly await next in series.

2005-01-09 | Puppy (Pownal, VT USA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 3

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Fun, fast-paced Cozy
Although very predictable (I had it figured out by page 50), this mystery is fun to read and hard to put down.
Joanne Pence finds just enough balance between a hard-boiled criminal investigation and sizzling romance to turn this book into a nice, fast-paced cozy that would otherwise be a complete disappointment to cozy mystery fans.
However, Angie Amalfi's character needs a little work. Although she wears her emotions on her sleeve and seemingly has a heart of gold, she still comes across as slightly spoiled and oblivious to anything that goes on in the "real world".
I'm looking forward to reading the next mystery in the series to see how things develop.

2003-09-15 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Bell, Cook, and Candle: An Angie Amalfi Mystery

Description

A Dash of Darkness

For once Angie Amalfi's newest culinary venture, "Comical Cakes," seems to be a roaring success! There's nothing funny, however, about her homicide detective boyfriend Paavo Smith's latest case. Paavo's investigating a series of baffling murders that may be rooted in satanic ritual. And when Angie is called upon to deliver a humorous confection to the mysterious owner of a decadent after-hours goth club, the inquisitive gourmet baker suddenly finds herself up to her neck in the demonic business. it gets harder to focus on pastry alone when strange "accidents" and desecrations to her delectable, fresh-baked creations begin occurring with frightening regularity. And if Angie can't help Paavo track down a maniacal serial killer with an obsessively unhealthy interest in her, she might end up as devil's food of a different kind.

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Customer Reviews

Ebony Candles Flicker In Eerie Night Breezes
The first several pages were riveting. They read like a true mystery with gutsy horror-implants.

Then Angie staged in with her shining silver Mercedes, spitting through an argument with her friend, Connie, all the while dripping blood-spiced words here and there which subliminaled the reader with flashes to the rat crunching, blood-spewing, opening scene. Oh my!

Definitely workable as entertaining fiction, BELL, COOK and CANDLE, a paranormal/culinary with astrology in its plot, delves into the demonic, ugly side of witchcraft. As the back flap on BC&C says, its plot has a "Dash of Darkness."

While the whole book was great, the second half was an absolute, relentless capture, with the plot machinations rolling well and the characters growing deeper. How did Pence do this so adeptly, within the boundaries of a paranormal culinary?

Possibly I should mention, though, that if a reader is craving a cozy with drool-inducing food references, and recipes woven sensually, mouth watering-ly into the plot, this title does not do a depth charge there. The main character, Angie Amalfi, is testing an ingenious new business called COMICAL CAKES, and three recipes are included at the end of the story, but the cooking/eating process does not overwhelm 95% of the plot (to "fix" those obsessive/compulsive, nuance-lush, needy, needy taste buds).

However, the richness of the intrigue developed from the paranormal undercurrents in this work gives more than enough sensual intrigue to provide a very successful, entertaining read, with the characters developed with a myriad of machinations to moisturize the cerebral dryness which some readers can't seem to get into in certain types of classic mystery fiction.

The escalating plot and character development in the final quarter of the book kept me flipping pages through those times when I would have normally temporarily retired my ongoing paperback and slipped into a bout of wordless day dreaming, or picked up the RC for the TV.

This was actually the first novel I had read in in the Amalfi series, and I had read it years ago (August 2002). At the time, I was contrasting a collection of culinary, recipes-included authors, seeking for more, more, more FLAVOR, and disappointed if the in-plot cooking was minimal.

Yet, as I dove into that collection, I found gems like this one, which surprised me by providing other types of reading satisfaction which worked as well or better than what I though I was craving. Still, at that time I was a definite gourmet junkie without the ambition to do any great guns cooking in my own kitchen.

At that time of culinary desperation, I noted:

"I will definitely be tempted to read another Joanne Pence mystery with Angie Amalfi; I'll be curious to see if her other offerings include more cooking details within the plot. Are Diane Mott Davidson (with her Goldy-the-Caterer series) and Phyllis Richman (WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA HAM) the only culinary authors who actually COOK, with any regular, drawn-out, sensual detail, in their books?"

I plan to reread this book, in sequence with the rest of the series, to refresh my memory on some of these details.

In closing, I'll quote something I wrote during the time I was reading BELL, COOK, and CANDLE:

Back in Augst of 2002, I was doing a very quick shop in Wal Mart. Rushing by a stack of 3 pound coffee cans, I flashed on an ad which said something like "catch the difference."

Without a single countering thought, I grabbed the can.

As a Libra I can pro and con any choice to death. I did notice that the price was under $4, which is my demarcation for the "easily affordable in my budget" for that item. I also noticed that the brand was something legitimate and established, like FOLGERS. But mostly I noticed the phrase "catch the difference" and its uncanny connection to my recently published editorial on the spiritual-barometer-quirkiness of the elusive flavor in coffee.

With renewed hope in my heart, I grabbed the can and settled it securely onto the shiny-wire-mesh floor of the shopping basket.

The next morning I made the first pot of coffee from that can, waiting to open it just before dipping the scoops. The coffee, even in my fourth cup, was "nice & nutty." It didn't descend to bitter, sour, burned old weeds (like my coffee usually does after the first sip, sometimes before). It held its flavor. I even poured a bit of the fresh from the carafe over a remainder in the bottom of the cup, which had grown cool and been micro-waved (the flavor held!).

Houston, we have a launch! (Who could launch a culinary cozy without the caffine Energizer Bunny having a lucky foot in it.)

The surprised satisfaction expressed in the above, true coffee story is how I felt about Pence's BC&C when I finished reading it, even without its being packed to the brim with juicy culinary tidbits for me to stumble over and get my fix but miss the point altogether.

Each author has his/her own draw, and Pence has more than PLENTY!

Salute! Tipping the champaign goblet,

Linda G. Shelnutt

2005-06-02 | Author (Hotchkiss, CO USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Angie and Paavo keep getting better and better!
After the last book in this series, I was ready for Angie and Paavo to start talking marriage. Well, so was Paavo! But Joanne Pence skillfully keeps us in suspense about that as well as about the identity of the ritualistic killer who seems to be targeting Angie for his ultimate victim until the exciting climax. I look forward to the next mystery in this series because with Joanne's talent, she's bound to keep readers in suspense about pulling off a wedding while scaring the daylights out of us with a clever mystery. She has another winner on her hands!

2002-03-24 | BookcraZ (Florida USA) | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 5

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Angie Amalfi meets a vampire
Angie Amalfi's new Comical Cake business is very time consuming, yet successful. It however is putting a definite strain on her friendships and social life. Paavo wants to propose, but she is too busy. And to top it off, a really creepy Baron, who runs a Goth club wants her to bake him a cake. Paavo is engrossed in a series of grisly ritualistic murders.

This is a pretty entertaining mystery. Amazon recommended it and I gave it a try. The characters are a bit bizarre and fit in excellently with the story line. There are many twists and turns in the plot and I enjoyed it a great deal.

2002-02-26 (New York USA) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 4

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humorous novel that has cross-genre appeal
After numerous false starts, plenty of failures, and several times quitting out of boredom, Angle Arnolf has finally found a business that she performs well and that people appreciate. "Commercial Cakes" is doing so well that Angie barely has time to sleep. This frustrates her boyfriend homicide detective Paavo Smith, who after much deliberating, has finally worked up the courage to ask her to marry him.

Every time Paavo begins to propose, Angie is distracted, called to the phone or falls asleep. She ends up hiring two employees who are into the Goth scene while Paavo happens to work on a serial killer case involving Goths. He doesn't know how, but based on experience with his beloved, Paavo expects Angie is going to become involved in his case though he hates it when she places her life in danger.

Joanne Pence writes an ingenious mystery that is both hilarious and deadly serious, sometimes at the same time. The proposal scenes are hysterical while the action scenes involving the Goth cult are frightening even as they seem otherworldly. BELL, COOK AND CANDLE is a humorous novel that has cross-genre appeal.

Harriet Klausner

2002-01-09 | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 5

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Cooks Overboard: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

Description

A Taste For Murder

Food writer Angie Amalfi's long-awaited vacation with her detective boyfriend Paavo Smith has all the ingredients of a romantic getaway'-a sail to Acapulco aboard a freighter, no crowds, no homicide department worries, a red bikini. It's the perfect scenario for a proposal.

But it isn't long before Angie's Love Boat fantasies are headed for stormy seas-'the cook tries to jump off the ship, Paavo is acting mighty strange, the fellow passengers are an odd lot, Angie's luggage is rifled through, and the meals are terribly unimaginative. She's willing to help out in the kitchen, but when murder is added to the menu, Angie thinks maybe the cook had the right idea.

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Customer Reviews

Avid Reader - Disappointed
Cooks Overboard was a disappointment compared to other Angie Amalfi Mysteries. There were very few cooking references along with a half-cooked plot. The characters were under developed, and yet overly simplistic in their predictable actions. I had the "bad person" of this book figured out way to early to truly enjoy it.

I was looking for another quality mystery and found little more than an exercise in reading.

2008-01-19 | Barb T (Edwardsburg, MI, USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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Brain-Dancing With Grey Cloud Finesse
This novel opened with a dramatic, brow-puzzling change in Paavo's character.

The change was so perfectly etched into flawless syntax and so absolutely unexpected, it zapped the buzz wizz chaos of my reality, welded it into a reading focus, and snapped me into the book before I could get a clue on what hit me. I was glued to Paavo's every lifeless word and rare thought as Pence polished his presence as a lackluster blob of nothingness.

Who was this guy dragging around a dead attitude of non-investment-in-anything-suspicious, shuffling around with a drool-grinning acquiescence of whatever slithered up to him?

Due to the effective hook of this Paavo puzzle, COOKS OVERBOARD was more fast paced than some of the other novels in Joanne Pence's Angie Amalfi series. I was compelled to surge my reading speed because I absolutely had to know what had caused Paavo to become to this lost soul, sleepy non-entity.

Angie's antics sidestepping around and hot-footing into Paavo's dead-weight dullness was entertaining; her lively spirit was used well with poking, prodding attempts to re-connect to a Paavo who seemed to no longer be THERE. If I didn't have a feel for the outer limits of Pence's parameters for ozone travels into the paranormal realms, I'd have wondered if Paavo's body had ingested an alien being, or been possesed by an evil spirit. I was given just the right amount of access to Paavo's thoughts, in just the right amount of plot spacing to be strung along nicely without becoming impatient.

In addition to be carried into the plot by curiosity about Paavo's personality switcheroo, I easily slid into the vicarious venue of being aboard a freighter rather than a cruise ship. Lacking the garish, boorish, carnival brightness of the typical cruise mood, the no-frills freighter developed quickly into a surprisingly full-bodied fictional world. Pence made good use of the ambiance variances of the freighter Vs cruise setting by detailing the dining locations, types of menu, cabin arrangements, passenger interaction, etc.

The vignettes of subplots off ship were woven into the ocean going machinations in a Sidney Sheldon like manner of kaleidoscopic alternation, in a style similar to that in TOO MANY COOKS, yet with an even deeper development of each alternate scene.

With the freighter's ambiance being naturally grey and grim (no cruise-ship forced-color or pushed-pace), and with Paavo's focus being so off (more like lost in a fog), and with the sinister vignettes given more plot space than Angie's typically hilarious romps, the resulting gestalt was intriguingly darker than prior books. The cloudy, grey-scale worked fascinatingly to keep me anesthetized into the story. It almost felt like I lived the plot in an equal intensity as Angie and Paavo.

If I were to conclude that Pence's storytelling talent is multifaceted in mood management, I would be making such an understatement, the conclusion might cartwheel into a kaleidoscope.

(If you can make sense out of that statement you may be a literary Black Belt. I've gone overboard in desperation to prove my own writing skill, and seem to have made a splash in the pan of discontentment. But, hey. I've got steam. Wanna hear me hiss? My mood is so sour sugar has gone on strike. Or maybe it was vinegar that made the vignette off the scene.)

With the above conclusion about Pence's multifaceted mood management having fallen into the miasma of my dysfunction, I'll conjure another wrap by mentioning the bonus in this novel:

In addition to all the above, this mystery is a Russian-accented, spy-thriller. Yet, even with the humor and well done "v" lisps, COOKS OVERBOARD is too capturing, too grey-scale, too well-done to be called a spoof.

Maybe what this work does best is prove Pence's ability to brain-dance through a repertoire of fast-steps (what she accomplishes is not mere wordsmith-ing) which choreograph into a plot complexity and character metamorphosis "to die for."

Jaw open-and-shut in chirping amazement, I'll always be ready for more engrossing twists of sentiment, or even "more of the same" from Joanne Pence.

Linda G. Shelnutt

2005-08-09 | Author (Hotchkiss, CO USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Ridiculous!
I actually read the books previous to this in the series- but this book I had to resort to skimming because so much was farfetched. Having Angie randomly spout theory about science... which so conveniently happens to tie to the mystery? I appreciated the attempt to actually have Angie to the rescue instead of Paavo, as usual, but it was so ridiculous that this book made me wonder how much Pence thinks readers can suspend our disbelief and just swallow all this craziness. She again tries to draw out some other characters but they are shallow and forgettable. And Pence must realize it- the next book is A Cook In Time which is when she begins adding a couple of Angie's recipes at the end of the book to try to make up for how full of holes her stores are starting to become. Maybe she was trying too hard to go the Evanovich path. This book is probably one of the worst in the series.

2005-02-10 | food lover, mystery lover (Chicago, IL United States) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 1

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Have to love Paavo and Angie
While not my favorite of the series, still a good book. I really like how the characters are developing and the sense of reality you get from reading the book. Particularly Paavo. Joanne's ability to make you understand and feel for him increases with each book.

2001-06-28 (Houghton, MI United States) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 4

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Author overboard
Witless and unrelievedly dreadful. So bad it could have been the basis for a late 70's Disney movie. I've found more convincing plots and more compelling characters on the backs of cereal boxes. Even a "no-star" rating would be too high -- Amazon should have a "black hole" rating for books like this one.

2000-02-27 | kayobee (New Haven, CT United States) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 1

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Cook's Night Out: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

Description

Foodie Angie Amalfi has decided to make her culinary name by creating the perfect chocolate confection: angelinas.Donating her delicious rejects to the Random Acts of Kindness Mission in San Francisco, Angie meets the jittery minister in charge. Soon she volunteers to help organize their first fund-raiser, despite the fact that her beau, police detective Paavo Smith, has warned her away from the place. Before Paavo can stop her, he finds himself facing charges that he's a murderous cop on the take. He suspects a "reformed" sinner at the mission is setting him up but Angie refuses to believe it. Then, faster than you can beat egg whites to a peak, she discovers that the mission harbors more than the needy, and that it's up to her to save not only Paavo's reputation--but his life, too.

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Customer Reviews

Baffling Betrayal; Paavo/Serpico; Angie/Chaplin
Even if there were nothing else in the book, the evolving intrigue in the character of the reverend would surge my interest through the book. Is he a good guy; is he a con artist? Is he a comical, off-brand, visiting deity, a spinnoff of little guy in the movie, with the cigar and the Brooklyn accent? Pence must have been giggling as she was typing, tweaking this character's fun fluctuations. I relished every flicker of sunlight and shadow, all the way to the end of the story, which sizzled with a more creative resolution of Reverend Hodge than many writers could have conjured.

In this plot, Paavo was forced to dredge the depths of his self-esteem sludge, plummeting to the hairy roots of his professional position, fighting like Serpico against internal corruption, presenting a foil against Angie's continued dedication to his soul balance. I particularly liked the scene around this quote from Paavo, on page 105 of this mass market paperback version:

"I'm foul-tempered, I have a season in hell for a job, I don't have the time to give you what you deserve or the money to spend on you that I'd like to. Now I'm even losing my good name around the hall-for whatever that was worth."

The tempering prose surrounding that quote is exquisitely touching. It's worth taking time to note the wholeness of that scene when you read this novel. The scene exposes how a true author dramatizes sensitivity and charges emotions without being too gooey or too superficial.

Returning to the reverend and his Random Acts of Kindness mission, I'll note that I enjoyed the unique way Pence dealt with charity, and religious fads and foibles. Similarly to her sensitive exposure of various angles of New Age guru-ery in COOKING UP TROUBLE, she exposes here not only the preponderance of phoney cover-ups and criminally self-serving "charitable" acts; she also dramatizes how easy it can be for very normal people to want to be part of a soup kitchen type of giving.

Angie's continued all-out support of Paavo, without losing a Quantum or Quark of her personal integrity, develops further in this plot as she chooses to remain within a bad situation in Hodge's program, going against Paavo's repeated demands that she stay away from there. The way both Angie and Paavo deal with this conflict and its resulting tension is creatively realistic.

If you want the cozy "same ole routine" which we all look for in genre expectations, you'll get satisfaction from Pence's series. But you'll get more than you hoped for, because Pence's talent pushes her to take the "norm," do justice to it, then spin it around in a fast circle in her mind until something uniquely, honestly refreshing takes shape in a slightly shifting surprise. This # 5 in the series does that slight surprise a bit more than the other books, especially in resolutions of ongoing questions about, is it/he/she "this way" or "that way" ... a good or bad guy or deal?

The twists are so numerous they become entertaining labyrinths, and sometimes the points become circles rather than zigs and zags.

In one of these twists Pence solved a problem which I gave one of my characters in my mystery pilot, which my character couldn't solve without breaking through paranormal barriers between life and death. Pence's ingenious solution required and used the dark essence in her character; my solution, limited by my character's bright old soul, had no way out (or in) but to stretch & borrow time, by a means which I believe we'll all achieve, in time.

The problem was:

How does one fake one's own murder without presenting one's dead body as proof. And, WHOM does one set up falsely for the fall?

"Regular" type death is easier to fake than murder, as has been done many times and ways in works of fiction as well as in reality. But, in order to do this, a person has to break at least a few moral and spiritual codes, has to hurt a few innocents, has to have a certain amount of darkness in his character. My character, Ruth, a ninety-year-old sprite, couldn't accomplish her goal in any normal, "right" way, so she broke a metaphysical barrier most New Age gurus don't know about, though Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan exposed a Way of Knowledge which came close.

Given this info, possibly it will be more clear why I'm in awe of the resolutions in this novel, especially the way Axel Klaw had planned his "final" exit, to the "T" ... bone.

But ... what about the numerous varieties of ultimates in gourmet chocolate slathering this plot? They made me hungry for the exPENSIVE, freshly original, leading-edge types of confection! "Chocolates are us" will never be the same.

Lifting my goblet, swirling a dark red Merlo, please allow me to toast a master of gently stepping the toe of a high-heeled sandal through the ultimate barriers of intrigue,

Linda G. Shelnutt

P.S. I also appreciated the way Pence's characters were sorted so cleanly by their responses to the tarnishing onslaughts to Paavo's professional integrity.

2005-10-23 | Author (Hotchkiss, CO USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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A nice read, but nothing really to write home about
Since I got this book as a present, I could not start with the first book in the series (as I would normally do with any series) and had to jump right in the middle. Although it is already the fifth book in this series, I don't feel that I have missed much not having read the previous four books. Don't get me wrong: it is an entertaining read after a hard, long day (because you don't have to use your brain much), but the villain was simply too obvious, Angelina's attempts at becoming a chocolatier were half-heartedly (at least to me) and there are too many attempts in this book to make it seem like a Diane Mott Davidson-novel....without any recepies and without much success, however. At times I had the impression that Paavo Smith is the main-character of this book and not Angelina Amalfi. Angelina seemed more like a supporting character to me. If you are into Mystries including recipies better get the Goldy Schulz-series by Dianne Mott Davidson (far better) or the PennDutch-series by Tamar Myers (hilariously funny).

2003-08-04 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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Very Entertaining
I'm not quite finished the book, but I couldn't wait to do a review of it. It was very good. It kept you going with trying to find out what was happening and how. It also kept you entertained with some of the things that happened with Angie and Connie. I am thoroughly enjoying this book (the first I have read from this author). I will definitely be picking up her others.

1998-02-25 | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 4

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Another delightful work in this exciting and humerous series
Gourmet chef Angelina Amalfi is tired of her cooking career going nowhere. She decides to remedy that problem by creating the most irresistible chocolate the world has ever tasted, the angelinas. However, her experiments result in many delicious but rejected chocolates that she donates to the Random Acts of Kindess Mission. She also agrees to help with the mission's upcoming charity auction.

As Angelina's career hopefully takes off, her lover, San Francisco police officer Paavo Smith, watches his own vocation fall apart. On one case, murder evidence mysteriously disappears leading to the freeing of an obvious killer. This is followed up with the murder of a numbers runner who carries Paavo's phone number on him. The internal affairs department begins to wonder if they have a dirty cop to deal with. However, residing at the mission is a lifetime enemy of Paavo, who plans to destroy the cop by starting with his reputation. It is up to Angelina to not only save her lover's professional credibility, but his life as well..

The fifth novel, THE COOK'S NIGHT OUT, in the delightfully delicious Angelina Amalfi series is a reader's gourmet delight due to the escapades of the lead female protagonist. Paavo is a great character and San Francisco is always a star attraction. The romantic suspense story line is filled with intrigue. The four previous books in Joanne Pence's collection are being released one at a time, starting in February and any fan of romantic suspense needs to read them because they are some of the best books of the nineties.

Harriet Klausner

1997-11-23 | Helpful Votes: 13 | Rating: 5

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Courting Disaster: An Angie Amalfi Mystery

Description

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Customer Reviews

Strikingly obvious time-waster
There was little to recommend this book except that it reads easily. Pages fly by like hours in an airport. The mystery was dead predictable in form, although the other might keep us guessing as to the exact details, and the characters are so wooden one worries about a fire hazard. The recipes were great, but I get the feeling the authors and readers who prefer this kind of book do not have much in common with the real world. I would not recommend this to anyone who is not stranded in an airport and wealthy.

2006-02-17 | Chris Blanc (Houston, TX) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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oddly entertaining
This series is hard to describe, in that the "heroine" is so stupid that you can't really like her, but the other characters more than make up for her. Is the reader supposed to like Angie and identify with her, or dislike her, or what? She's irritating in that she can't hold a job but acts like the world owes her something. She sponges off her parents, but thinks she deserves to live in luxury. It's impossible to imagine that any man would put up with her for long. But Paavo is an appealing character, as are Angie's family members, her neighbor Stan, the other police officers that Paavo works with, and Angie's friend who owns the gift shop. This book is an improvement on others in the series: it has less Angie and more of everybody else.

2005-04-28 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

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Amusing, some romance, and welll-plotted
The detective of this San Francisco-set mystery (and that is a big part of the charm) is Angie, a woman with enough money that she doesn't need to work, which is a good thing because she's not very good at holding down a job despite her ability as a cordon bleu cook. Angie is engaged to a homicide detective. Her mother is planning their engagement party, and the fact that the party is a secret from Angie is driving her crazy -- she's trying to find out where the party is, the theme, etc. But the real mystery plot involves what's going on in a Greek waterfront restaurant. Angie's neighbor and friend Stan "discovers" the restaurant and falls in love with a pregnant woman associated with the restaurant. She turns to Stan for help and Angie gets involved. Before they know it, they're involved in some puzzling things going on at the restaurant, including trouble coming from the baby's father. THen there's Angie's father, who is being stalked by an employee but doesn't want his wife or daughter to know -- so the father seeks out the help of Paavo, Angie's fiance.

As you can tell, there's lots of stuff going on in this book, enough so that the reader moves around among multiple plot lines. It's not difficult to follow, however, in part because the characters are such...characters. Larger than life and likeable, except for the villains.

I intend to read more in the series -- although there are enough in the series that I will be busy for a while.

2005-04-03 (Decatur, GA USA) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 5

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Burgundy Complexity; A Fine Red Wine With Surefire Finish
Joanne Pence's Angie Amalfi continues delighting this reader with variations on plugging in her talent as a trained (trapped?) gourmet chef, and through humorously portrayed angst on this-and-that, especially around her mother's interjections of suggested direction.

In COURTING DISASTER Angie frets over an engagement party Serefina (her mother) is planning in high profile secrecy. Angie is consumed with desperation to discover the diddly details of her mother's choices of color schemes, etc., related to this upcoming party.

I was absolutely taken by surprise and overwhelmingly impressed with the way Angie's well-fed angst over the perfection of her party's ambiance, carried on entertainingly throughout the novel, was concluded in the denouement. Do check out how everyone's Dressed To The Nines? But, from which base number system are they making their debuts? That is the question. Or, one of the many which are answered absolutely.

From the first page to the last, this mystery was more sophisticated that most offerings in this genre. The burgundy complexity sneaks up on a reader who's been fooled into feeling he's in the book only for the exquisitely executed "let's party" escapism. All within the justification of escorting a villain to his or her payment of karma, of course.

The opening of the novel does a moody-blues, literarily stylish, sensitive step-in as Angie's seemingly superficial friend, Stanfield Bonnette, drags his psyche through a self-pity soliloquy, moaning with such gregarious gusto that temptations of Prozac would be magnetically repelled before they could find an ozone hole for access to mental persuasion. After a few pages of this, Stan has taken the reader into a submarine dive into the murky depths of his unusual character; there's more to him than even he would admit.

The Classic opening scene of antique detective fiction describes with sensual sleaze the quintessential dumpy motel room's open window on a red-neon-light blinking to a slow-two-step, keeping rhythm with the hero's nearly dead heart ... beat. The essence (sans motel room ambiance) of that type of urban-fringe, jazzed-up-depression, turning downtrodden into a sought-after art form, is captured in Stan's sensitive soliloquy. Thumbs up for a great Act One, Scene One, Pence!

And kiss my joined finger tips in salute for the performances of the generous collection of characters reeking in "Perfecto" personality quirks, and the read-aloud-and-share dialogue dances. Of course the women in the plot are delightfully or dingily feisty and varied in temperament, depth, and essence; but the coup beyond coups in this novel is that every male in the plot is an unusually rich, complex example of that gender of the species. Each is potently, yummy male, yet uniquely one-of-a-kind.

The contrast of enlightened-macho-styles between Angie's fiancee, Paavo, and her father is especially well done. I was absolutely entertained by every word, gesture, and action exchanged between those two as they bungled from antipasto antipathy into side-glancing, no-admitting-it thoughts of, "maybe-I'm-gonna-like-you-after-all ... or ... then-again-maybe-not" intimacy.

There are too many sub-intrigues and character sets to begin to describe the multiplicity of duplicities woven into one of the tightest, densest, most luxurious carpets of Persian (Excuse, Italian) perfection to be found metaphor-ed into fiction.

- There's Stan and his truly varied (and insightful) relationships with several women, including Angie, and none of these connections come close to superficiality, except maybe the wise avoidance of "tap-dancing" with Nora.

- There's the sensitively and realistically explored social issue of baby's born, sold, or delivered to unworthy or incapable parents, contrasted to a fresh look at true parenting, out-of-the-box but in the ball park of "Yes, that'll work," providing the contented conclusion, "This child's lucky."

- There are issues of intimacy, approach/avoidance complexes therein, along with "how-to"s on getting there between friends of either gender combos, between parents and children, between heterosexual partners, among every-which-way of one-on-one dances through life.

How does Pence deliver this amount of intrigue and intensity through a legitimate mystery, filling in the blanks of that genre, yet using it as a cover for a literary mainstream novel?

She does it with the pizzaz of light, fun humor and the panache of a visceral awareness of how spirited people get "up close and personal"; how they relate and grow satisfyingly close, simultaneous to working the kinks out of life's hard-lines and hardships.

Well done, Pence!! You appear to be one of those alfalfa type authors who taproots her work 40 feet into the earth, and grows along with her talent in mineral rich soil.

With Respect,
Linda G. Shelnutt

2005-03-31 | Author (Hotchkiss, CO USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Slow start.
Meet Angie Amalfi, chef and freelance food critic. With her "surprise" engagement party around the corner, Angie is in a whirlwind of motion trying to figure out the details. Then a mysterious woman appears at her neighbor's door.

Angie's neighbor is named Stan. He has just been drawn into the life of this woman and her baby. Now Angie must help the woman and Stan out of a murderous baby smuggling ring.

**** A slow start but by the end it was a worthwhile read! Angie and Stan's antics are enough to capture any reader's attention. ****

Reviewed by K. Blair.

2005-01-05 (United States) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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