The Trashy Gourmet

Adam Thomas Mystery #2

During his month-long sojourn in chef’s school in Georgetown, Texas, retired scientist and newspaper columnist know now as the Trashy Gourmet, Adam Thomas once again finds himself embroiled in the middle of a murder mystery. He is there when someone stabs Chef Elacroix with one of his customized carving knives and poisons him.

It is a crime in which Adam becomes a consultant to his friend Captain Roland Waits of the Georgetown Police Department in order to carve out clues that the police can’t. Together with his girlfriend Kathy Rossi, Adam sifts through facts, questions fellow students, and narrowly avoids becoming one of the increasing number of corpses.

Adam entangles the reader in a rapid-fire adventure, hashing through the worlds of cooking, drugs, forgeries, antique smuggling and sailing to uncover the hard-boiled truth and crack the case.

The story pacing here is superb; just fast enough to make the reader want to keep reading and turning pages to see what happens next without totally overwhelming the reader. Character involvement and plot layering techniques are good, with sharp dialogue and interesting subplots. It reminds me of Jack du Brul and early Clive Cussler.

— Barb Wilson