Cookbook
author and Real Simple magazine food editor Jenna Helwig has combined
her love of food and her love of mysteries in this fiction debut set in
post-war Paris of 1949. Life is slowly coming back to something approaching
normal in the City of Lights. Rationing has finally come to an end but an
influx of U.S. expatriates has contributed to the changes in the city’s
culture. And the war is not so long ago that French citizens have forgotten who
collaborated with the Germans and who was part of the Resistance Movement. The
tension between the two groups is still strong if covert. Being outed as a
collaborator has real consequences in every way.
Committed
journalist Kat Kelley lost her job when the men began coming back from the
front and claimed their pre-war careers. Pushed out of her chosen field, she’s
looking around for something to do while her husband continues as a hotshot
news reporter. She decides to take a French cooking class in order to teach
cooking to the American wives in Paris. About a month into the course, she
finds the bloody body of her classmate in the pantry of the school building.
The French
police do not strike her as capable or dedicated so Kat exercises her
investigative journalistic skills to look into Toby’s death. Then a second
death occurs, seemingly related to the first but maybe not, and the French
police are convinced someone close to her is the killer. Kat’s journalist
husband thinks the two deaths are somehow linked to an unsolved crime ten years
old. He’s being pressured to drop his investigation which only encourages him
and his editor to move forward with the story.
Well researched and written, this book captures the sense of the time. The post-war rebuilding of Europe was an intriguing period full of plot potential. The actual mystery is convoluted and takes awhile to unravel. It would move faster if the text were tightened. As usual with amateur sleuths, a certain amount of happenstance plays a part. Fans of culinary mysteries will want to take a look at this one, as the characters are forever dining out in sidewalk bistros and elegant restaurants.
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Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
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Publication date: October 20, 2026
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Language: English
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Print length: 336 pages
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ISBN-13: 979-8892427050
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4jrXL82
Aubrey Nye
Hamilton ©2026
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
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