Thursday, September 8, 2011

Crunch Time by Diane Mott Davidson

Goldy is back and up to her usual mischief. Her new assistant and old friend, Yolanda, has left an abusive relationship and moved in with a friend, Ernest. When Ernest is found murdered, Goldy has to clear her friend's name. Filled with twists and turns and mistrust this story is sure a mix of humor and mystery with a lot of cooking.
The plot of this particular Goldy Shultz Mystery was not bad - it was suspenseful and interesting. There was a lot more mystery in this story than previous ones. There were things I didn't like -
Goldy took way too many showers. The plot covers less than a week and I swear she took ten showers. It got to be distracting. If it had been intentional then some comment should have been made about her showering all the time (she showered 3 times in one day). If it wasn't then someone should have caught it.
The other thing I didn't like was Goldy's relationship with Yolanda. Yolanda was a very closed person and in the beginning Goldy believed her. Then little things came out and it didn't take long for Goldy to doubt her friend. As I said the book only covered a few days so there should have been more to Goldy's suspicions. It just didn't feel right to me.
Maybe I'm confusing this series with others since this one has become so slow over the years but I really couldn't connect to Goldy like I wanted to. The story felt a little rushed and it was so long. I felt like it would never end - it was interesting but endless.
All in all, I like these books so I liked this one but had this been the first one I picked up - I probably wouldn't read another.
On an aside - I was disappointed with the recipes. There was some great cooking in the book and the recipes just didn't seem to work for me. Maybe it was because they are at the end of the book instead of at the end of the chapter so I am still craving that particular dish.

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