Cooking the Books

A Corinna Chapman Mystery, Book 6

By: Kerry Greenwood

Narrated by: Louise Siversen

Corinna Chapman, talented baker and reluctant investigator, is trying very hard to do nothing at all on her holidays. Her gorgeous Daniel is only intermittently at her side (he's roaming the streets tracking down a multi-thousand-dollar corporate theft). Jason, her baking offsider, has gone off to learn how to surf. And Kylie and Goss are fulfilling their lives' ambition auditioning for a soapie. It should be a time of quiet reflection for Corinna, but quiet reflection doesn't seem to suit her - she's bored. Scenting a whiff of danger, Corinna accepts an offer from a caterer friend to do the baking for the film set of a new soap called Kiss the Bride - the soapie in which Kylie and Goss have parts. Twists and turns and complications that could only happen to Corinna ensue, involving, bizarrely, nursery rhymes and a tiger called Tabitha.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a young woman is being unmercifully bullied by her corporate employers - employers who spend a lot of time cooking the books.

©2011 Kerry Greenwood (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

"To the usual delightfully quirky characters, lovingly detailed descriptions of food and surprising mystery, Greenwood adds several appended medieval recipes." ( Kirkus Reviews)

"As with all of Greenwood’s work, there is a very satisfactory final answer to the problem and it’s not the obvious one. This is well structured crime fiction with an idiosyncratic bent. While the bad guys never win, and justice is definitely served, it happens in such a fundamentally fitting manner that the reader is always left wanting more." ( Australian Women Online)

So many mysteries! Loved most of them!

An old school chum prevails on Corinna to abandon her time off (her vacation with Daniel is delayed because of a case) and provide catering on a movie set. Jason is away on his first ever holiday. Daniel's case concerns finding missing bearer bonds before the girl who was reponsible for them loses her job; a homeless man has apparently stashed all but one, which was cashed, but the man has mental issues and won't tell -- although he does provide a series of clues involving nursery rimes.

There are mysteries on the movie set as well. Someone has been playing very mean pranks on the famous lead actress. There are a lot of suspects in the dog-eat-dog entertainment world.

Another wrinkle: The school chum provides Corinna with a helper because Jason is away. Kylie and Goss thoughtlessly (and erroneously) text Jason that Corinna has replaced him, which Corinna fears will spiral him back into drug addiction. Another mystery pops up when the star of he movie hires Daniel to find her long lost child, given up for adoption many years before.

As usual, everything works out with Corinna providing what seems like most of the mystery solving. She even faces down an escaped tiger on the set -- just a big pussycat like her darling Horatio, right?

Better and better!

Australia, mental-illness, TV-film-industry, fraud, friendship, family-dynamics, punny, snarky, verbal-humor

***** Excellent! Once again Corinna has one set of mysteries and Beloved Daniel has another but the problems entwine as they help each other. Corinna's most obvious relates to her ceding her vacation for a week or two to help out as the baker on a TV film set and the other is a misunderstanding with her apprentice, Jason. Daniel's assignment is to locate a million dollars in bearer bonds found by a mentally ill street person who sets up an elaborate treasure hunt and keep the downtrodden young woman responsible for their loss from suicide. But then there's the puns, snarks, and other verbal humor that not only keeps it all from being a downer but had me chortling and guffawing!
Louise Siverson is the fantastic Aussie narrator!

Another great entry

Corrina, a former accountant, is a perfect size 20 and lives over the bakery that she owns in Melbourne, Australia. She is surrounded by a wonderfully eccentric assortment of neighbors and when not whipping up something fabulous to eat, she helps her gourgeous, private detective boyfriend solve cases.

Please read these books in order.

My only complaints are:
1. She makes a nasty remark about George Bush in every story. Why? She lives in Australia!
2. She talked about making a Hollandaise sauce in this book and mentioned adding cheese. If there's cheese in it, it's not hollandaise!

Fun!!!

I love Kerry Greenwood's style. Once again, she has entertained me for hours and hours on end.

Cooking the books

I thoroughly Enjoyed this book. It is part of a series about a young woman baker, and all her various friends old and new,. Shr has many and various mysteries to solve in each book , Most entertaining are the many senarios she encounters while going about her daily tasks.
The reader keeps the story moving along at a nice pace.
I have read many of this authors books , I am never disappointed in anything I have read so far. I loved her Phryne Fisher books, don't miss any of those.

Drama ,secret ,tiger

New setting new characters with TV drama and a tiger thrown in for good measure mystery also included

A heroine for the rest of us

Corinna is in a second career, has a failed marriage and deals daily with her many shortcomings - how refreshing after too many preternaturally perfect young leading ladies in mysteries. While managing her successful bakery and the handsome boyfriend who has stolen her heart, Corinna solves a bunch of mysteries that astonishingly come together at the end like an unraveling watched in reverse. Hold your skepticism in reserve for this one! There are a lot of peripheral characters who are hard to keep track of and the ending does come pretty much out of thin air. It is a bit of a cheat when the sleuth knows something the reader does not.

Not a particularly edifying series which borrows quite a bit from the stronger Phryne Fisher series, this is still a lot of fun with endearing characters and a romp through Corrine's Melbourne. I would love to stop by Earthly Delights to see what muffin Jason has been testing. I will listen to more in the series because they are fun!

Most of the tine Louise Siversen is a fine narrator but some of her ethnic or eccentric characterizations are over the top and difficult to listen to.

Very enjoyable

Great little story. So much fun to get lost in this community of people. Kerry Greenwood is especially talented at painting a picture of a setting/place and making you feel you are there too.

More Good Fun

A well-turned change of pace after the two previous more serious books. Recommended. “Ring Around the Rosie” is not about bubonic plague, however.

Love the Corina mysteries

Another great book full of fun and excitement and all the characters I’ve come to love.