A Slice of Murder

June 1, 2009
Pizza lovers will relish the pseudonymous Cavender’s delightful first in a new cozy series, which introduces Eleanor Swift, owner of A Slice of Life, a pizzeria in Timber Ridge, N.C. When late one winter night Eleanor delivers a pizza (“one of my specials decked out with pepperoni, sausage, ham, bacon, hamburger, and little bits of sliced sirloin”), she finds her customer, Richard Olsen, lying dead on the floor with a kitchen knife in his chest. Kevin Hurley, the surly local police chief who pursued her back in high school, responds to her 911 call. Suspecting Eleanor is guilty, Kevin does his best to make her life difficult. Olsen’s dotty sister thinks so, too, but once she’s convinced of Eleanor’s innocence, she asks Eleanor’s help in solving the murder. Eleanor’s occasionally married sister, Maddy, assists in the sleuthing. A lively pace and a thrilling climax more than compensate for some distracting chatter and not always relevant sibling spats.

July 15, 2009
Pizzeria owner Eleanor Swift is making a delivery when she finds her customer dead in this series debut. It happens that Eleanor had threatened the man, and she is now suspect No. 1. Only her sister believes she is not a murderer, so they begin to investigate. VERDICT The camaraderie of the Timber Ridge, NC, sisters is reminiscent of Nancy Martin's Blackbird siblings.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2009
Heres a new entry in the cozy-mystery-with-recipessubgenre. Cavender sets his tale in small-town Timber Ridge, North Carolina. Pizzeria owner Eleanor Swift is a young widow still mourning the loss of her husband in an automobile accident. She is helped by her free-spirit sister, Maddy, a divorc'e still looking for Mr. Right after multiple tries at matrimony. Obviously, the ladies are very different, but they are devoted friends all the same. The action starts quickly as El discovers the body of a customer to whom she is delivering a pizza. The customer turns out to have a lot of enemiesincluding El herself, whorecently had a very public argument with the victim, making her a suspect and prompting the sisters to investigate. The pseudonymous Cavender (apparently a veteran mystery writer under his own name) introduces a promising cast of characters, including police chief Kevin Hurley, who will likely be fleshed out in subsequent books. The real attraction here will be the pizza recipes and tips; the mystery itself is formulaic but perfectly serviceable for readers more interested in the food than the crime.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)