Not recommended

This was slow moving and quite frankly, boring. Takes too much time to set seen. She is, apparently quite fat phobic by what she says about others. As someone writing a food mystery how can you never have seen avocado or hearts of palm? Grandad is a particularly unlikable character. Anyway BORING! ( )

Val Deniston has returned to Bayport, Maine, to live with her uncle and run the café at the local fitness club. She's settling into her new life after a tragic accident left her with no memory of the night it occurred. She's gaining new friends and working on creating a cookbook in her spare time.

Her grandfather is a crusty curmudgeon who, though gruff on the outside, loves his granddaughter. He's also suddenly mysteriously interested in learning to cook, although his specialty might be trying to burn down their old Victorian home. Still, Val is willing to teach him (as long as there are no more than five ingredients as he tells her); although she wonders why the sudden interest.

She's also given an opportunity that might never come again: one of the club's members, Nadia Westrin, has offered her the chance to cater the club's big party, and she's not one to turn down something this plum. The only problem is her cousin Monique. Monique's husband Maverick has had a recent affair with Nadia, and Val doesn't want to get involved. But now it seems she'll have to stay on Nadia's good side, and part of that is when Nadia asks her for a ride home she agrees. However, when they arrive, there's an old wooden tennis racket burning from a tree in Nadia's yard.

Even though Val tells Nadia she should call the police, Nadia refuses, telling her she knows who did it. And when Val arrives at Nadia's a few days later to go over the proposed menu for the party, she finds the woman dead - in a most gruesome way. Now the police chief has asked her not to reveal it, and not to answer any questions regarding the murder. But when Monique becomes the prime suspect, she wants Val to look into the murder and find the real killer. But will doing so put her life in jeopardy, and will she be able to find the truth or will she wind up the next victim?...

While this is an older book, I'm very glad I took a chance on it. Val Deniston is a rare bird in the cozy genre: she doesn't walk up and accuse people outright of murder, she doesn't overtly question them about the murder, and she doesn't walk into dangerous situations without thinking of the consequences.

While she does question people, she does it under the guise of writing a memorial about Nadia for the club's newsletter. There's nothing in her questioning to make people suspicious, (or they shouldn't be), and she's not so stupid as to walk out into her yard in the dark when she hears noises at night.

I also love the fact that she doesn't withhold information from the police. The police chief is a friend of her family's, so he doesn't treat her like the enemy, and when she garners a piece of information she thinks is valuable, she shares it, and even if he thinks it's not, he still listens to her, althought it did bother me that the rest of the police force acted like she was hallucinating and treating her like she'd done things wrong.

Val is a wonderful character, and I'm glad I got the chance to know her. While there were a couple of things that I didn't like - I felt that both her grandfather and her cousin were a tad selfish in their own wants instead of thinking about Val - and I didn't like the fact that she never confronted Chatty, who was actually committing fraud.

I'm still on the fence about Gunnar; while I'm glad he was there for Val all the way, I can't see an accountant becoming an actor. (Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it seems the life he's lived was a bit more exciting than waiting around for an agent's call that he got a bit part); and also about her grandfather. While he obviously cares for her, he's secretive and it turns out he actually steals her recipes and passes them off as his own. His reason for doing this doesn't hold water. He can't boil water without her help, yet when people start congratulating him, he doesn't even mention how helpful she's been and what a wonderful cook she is - he doesn't even say that they developed the recipes together! This doesn't endear him to me. I get why he does it, but I don't think it's right. He's just a little too curmudgeonly toward her. She shows her love by giving him a very nice gift, and this is what he does to repay her.

Other than this, I found the book to be delightful. The plot was intriguing, and even though the clues were there, we discovered them right about the same time as Val, and that was a good thing. The murderer came as a surprise, which was also nice, and I felt that the writing was very well done, making for an enjoyable read all around. I've discovered a new author, and I hope this series goes on for a very long time. Highly recommended. ( )

This is the first book in "A Five-Ingredient Mystery Series". The protaganist, Val Deniston has lost her job as a publicist for cookbooks and chefs after a serious car accident, so she has come home to Chesapeake Bay. She has been asked by her mother to assist her grandfather in fixing up his old Colonial House so that he can sell it. She gets a job as the manager of the Cool Down Cafe at the local tennis club. Managing the cafe and playing on the local tennis team, Val quickly gets to know a lot of the people in the small town. Most small towns are the same when it comes to eveyone's business. When Val's cousin, Monique gets an anonymous letter that her husband Maverick is having an affair with local real estate agent and tennis club member Nadia, she loses it in front of many tennis club members. When Val goes to Nadia's home to meet her about a catering job, she finds her dead, stabbed by a sharpened wooden tennis racket. When Val realizes that Moniqe will be the prime suspect, she starts to investigate the murder on her own. Val puts herself at risk and accidents start to happen.

Val's grandfather is a hoot. When Gunnar, a tourist who might be moving to Chesapeake Bay starts to show an interest in Val, he tries his best to keep them away from one another in his not so subtle way. When he applies for a job as a columnist for the local paper writing a food column, he gets the job. He calls himself the "Codger Cook" and uses Val's recipes, with some minor changes for his column. There are many other characters introduced in this book that I hope will play a larger role in future books.

There are eight recipes are at the back all made from five ingredients. Enjoy! You know you'll want to cook them because they look simple and delicious. A cozy mystery lover, who also loves food in their stories will really enjoy this book. I am looking forward to the next one in this series. This is a solid 4.5 star read for me. ( )