I've long since wanted to visit Washington D.C., see all the different memorials and perhaps take a tour of the White House. These books, by Julie Hyzy, are the next best thing...if one is stuck clear across the country. While delivering a non-stop action-packed mystery with delightfully three-dimensional characters, the reader gets a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the White House and glimpses of what life is like in the nation's capital. I'm close to finishing the second book, Hail to the Chef, and so far I've enjoyed the series IMMENSELY. I have to say, out of the four "cozy" mystery series I've collected over the last two, three years--the Chocoholic Mysteries, the Booktown Mysteries, the Psychic Eye Mysteries, and now the White House Chef Mysteries--the White House Chef Mysteries is my second favorite series--the Chocoholic Mysteries by JoAnna Carl still being my favorite...Here's what my current book is about: White House executive chef Ollie [Olivia] Paras has a lot on her plate, what with holiday meals to map out, the First Lady's matchmaking plans to deflect safety classes to take, and terrorist plots to avoid. Oh, and a senator's assistant has been begging Ollie to rig the countrywide gingerbread-man-making contest in favor of the senator's kids...
Then a cautious, kindly electrician is electrocuted, and the First Lady's nephew dies in an apparent suicide when not twenty-four hours before he was happily cleaning shrimp with Ollie. Ollie suspects there's something going on that's fishier than shrimp cocktail. Now, she'll have to watch her back--and find a killer unlikely to be pardoned...
It's a really good mystery, one that's got me stumped. Where the mystery in the first novel was well-written and pretty straight forward, this second one--though still well-written--seems to be all over the map. But I know the events are connected somehow! And that they have to do with the First Lady's (who's from Idaho originally, by the way) business venture, Zendy Industries. Unless...there are two separate things going on...which I highly doubt. No, I'm pretty sure the two bomb scares, the electrician's and Sean's deaths--which were made to look like an accident in the former's case and a suicide in the latter's, but are really murders--the attack on Ollie and the potential sale of Zendy Industries are all connected; I just don't know where to connect the dots yet. It has been one tricky mystery.
Afterward, I'll start on Eggsecutive Orders, which takes place at Eastertime. Which will be almost perfect timing because soon it will be Easter in reality.
