Murder by Death

A good read, though not as good as the previous four books.  This time Olivia is dealing with a conspiracy tied to a foreign delegation of chefs as well as a government sequester that has left her short a couple of chefs.

I really enjoy Ms. Hyzy’s writing; she doesn’t write to formula and she has interesting ways of changing up her characters’ lives.  She’s dropped a bomb into Olivia and Gav’s marriage that I can see massive possibilities for taking the series in a whole new direction at some point in the future.  I liked that a lot.  I can see Cyan’s future dovetailing nicely with this change as well.  Nothing might come of any of it but at least she has a veteran cozy reader speculating about the “what if?”’s instead of yawning and thinking “yeah, yeah, cozy plot #4”.

I suspect I didn’t love this one as much as previous books because a lot of it centered around a country that the author necessarily had to fabricate and she did such a good job of creating it without aping any existing countries that it made it rather hard for me to invest myself in it.  But the ending was great - I loved that final scene at Blair House (although Olivia’s final scene with the President wasn’t much of a surprise to me; it seemed the only plausible scenario).

The series started off slow for me, but exploded onto my top 10 list at book four, and this book only solidifies my attachment to Olivia, Gav and the rest of the crew.  I’m looking forward to the next book.