Book 6, 2020

[chez_jae]

One Taste Too Many by Debra H. Goldstein

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



It's stopped snowing, but it's still blowing. As a result, I stayed in this morning instead of venturing into town to run errands. That enabled me to finish reading One Taste Too Many by Debra H Goldstein. It's the first book in the "Sarah Blair" mystery series, featuring divorced cat-mom, Sarah Blair.

Married young and divorced ten years later, Sarah is now living in a small, studio apartment and working as a receptionist for a local lawyer. The only bright spot in her life is RahRah, the Siamese cat she inherited from her late mother-in-law. On the other hand, Sarah's twin sister, Emily, is an up-and-coming chef at a local restaurant, called Southwind. Emily is excited for the upcoming expo at the Civic Center, because there will be a cooking contest, and she aims to win. Sarah is excited for her sister, but the euphoria comes crashing down when Sarah's ex-husband, Bill, dies at the Civic Center, late at night, and the only other person there was Emily. Determined to prove her sister did not kill her ex, Sarah starts looking into things, much to the dismay of police chief Peter and Harlan, the attorney Sarah works for. Not helping matters is when Jane, Bill's latest main squeeze, outright accuses Emily of killing Bill, then insists that RahRah belongs to her. Sarah soon learns that her mother-in-law left a sizable stipend to whoever was the caretaker of the cat--a stipend she hasn't seen a penny of since adopting RahRah.

Things get really messy when another person is murdered, and Emily is once again the only one discovered at the scene, someone else tries to sabotage the Southwind chefs by cutting the cord to their refrigerator at the Civic Center, and the restaurant itself catches fire. Sarah is at a loss, wondering whom she can trust. The only thing she knows for certain is that her sister is not a murderer, and that Jane doesn't deserve RahRah.

The story had a lot going on, and the narrative wasn't very smooth. All of the action takes place over the course of a long weekend, so things certainly clipped along at a fast pace. Characterizations weren't as realized as I would have liked, but it's the first in a series.

Favorite lines:
♦ "He could take the shirt off your back and make you believe you'd given it to him."
♦ The deeds obviously were drafted by someone with legal knowledge. Hallelujah to that!

Not a bad book, but nothing exceptional about it, either. Average score.