The Grave Gourmet

I got this ebook as a Free Friday title on my Nook back in 2013 (it sounded at least marginally interesting, and hey, it was free), then it sat unread until now. Let's just say I am glad I didn't spend any money to get this book, and I would really like about half of the six hours I spent reading it back. It wasn't absolutely terrible, but I felt a fair amount of disappointment when I was done.

From the cover art and cover copy I was expecting a cozier sort of police procedural with a foodie bent, which is why I picked up the book in the first place. Well, there is a police procedural type thing going on, and there is foodie stuff, but they did not play well together in creating a satisfying narrative. Rather it felt that the novel lurched and jerked from one narrative line to the other with very little to connect them apart from overlapping characters (and the victim being found in the walk-in cooler of a French restaurant).

French words are sprinkled haphazardly throughout the novel, but instead of helping to set the tone they were mostly just annoying to have to puzzle through. On top of the seemingly random French sat a plethora of “author words” (more obscure words that basically show the author knows how to use a thesaurus, chosen without regard to characters and tone of the story) alongside a hefty dollop of casual profanity/vulgarity.

I was invested enough in the story to want to know how things ended, but when we do find out who stuffed the victim into the walk-in cooler of the fancy French restaurant we are told in probably the most boring way possible, and the culprit and motive feel practically random. There was no real foreshadowing, no information trail for the reader to follow. Poirot and Holmes may be able to get away with being the smartest person in the room and revealing the train of thought they used to solve the mystery; looking back on their stories you can see the clues laid out for the reader to pick up on. Capucine uses off-page information to “cleverly” pull everything together, and it just falls flat.

I did learn some things about French cuisine while reading this novel, but the main thing I learned is that I doubt I will pick up any more books by this author.