From Publishers Weekly
In her sixth mystery featuring Kansas City chef Heaven Lee, Temple (The Cornbread Killer, etc.) serves up fare more short-order than gourmet. Heaven agrees to help an old friend, the wife of coffee importer Truely Whitten, in New Orleans with a benefit for the Sisters of the Holy Trinity, but receipt of an anonymous letter accusing her staff of infecting the food almost puts this plan on the back burner. Heaven travels to New Orleans to confer with other committee members before what promises to be a major fund-raiser. Then news anchor Amelia Hart arrives uninvited to sour the proceedings, while the theft of an 18th-century crucifix and the appearance of graffiti on the sisters' convent walls provoke further consternation. This is too much of a coincidence for Heaven, who voices her suspicions before leaving this pot of trouble to simmer and heading home to hate mail and pastry shells. The week of the benefit, she's back in the French Quarter, plating salads and overseeing the dessert course. When an explosion rocks the neighborhood and the dust clears, Truely is discovered dead in a tub of dishwater. Heaven must find the culprit before she becomes the chef's special. A complex story line that fails to hold together, undeveloped characters, events that contribute nothing to the story the ingredients of this mystery never set properly. Even the descriptions of restaurant specials fail to appetize. (Aug. 20)Forecast: Food mystery fans will want to send this one back to the kitchen and there will be no run on this plat du jour. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Redhead Heaven Lee runs a restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri; she was a lawyer once and has a number of ex-husbands, along with a boyfriend 20 years her junior. In this adventure, Heaven has gone to New Orleans as one of the cooks for a benefit honoring an ancient order of nuns in the city. An old school friend of Heaven's, also a lawyer, gets back in touch, and suddenly there's a theft at the convent; there's poison in the herbs; and the lawyer's husband, a coffee importer, ends up dead. The attraction in this overstuffed story is the Big Easy: landmarks, well-known chefs and restaurants, and local color abound. A conniving (and retired) madam, some double-dealing friends and colleagues, and a sleuth who thinks nothing of rifling through a friend's desk or laptop keep it lively. You'll be longing for beignets by mid-murder. GraceAnne DeCandido
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Review
"[Heaven Lee] is a charming heroine."--Chicago Tribune
Review
"[Heaven Lee] is a charming heroine."--Chicago Tribune
Review
"[Heaven Lee] is a charming heroine."--Chicago Tribune
Book Description
Heaven Lee has come to the Big Easy to get some much-needed vacation time away from her bustling Kansas City restaurant and cook up some dishes worthy of her name for the Sisters of the Holy Trinity's annual benefit diner. But when the Sister's prized crucifix goes missing and a local coffee importer turns us dead, stabbed with Heaven's knife, not only does the famous chef find herself in hot water with the local police, but someone seems to be stalking her as well. Now, embroiled in a mystery as hot as New Orleans' Cajun cooking, heaven must prove her innocence, catch a killer, and whip up some recipes that will save the Sisters from financial ruin before she becomes the main course in a murder trial, or worse yet, ends up as fish food at the bottom of the Mississippi River..
About the Author
LOU JANE TEMPLE is an adventurer. She has taken on the food world, cooking and catering, being a restaurateur, writing about food and wine, and authoring five previous culinary mysteries featuring Heaven Lee. She has also been a guest chef at the Culinary Institute of America and at the famed James Beard Foundation. Lou Jane lives in Kansas City, Missouri.
Red Beans and Vice FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Chef and restaurateur Heaven Lee has gotten into plenty of scrapes in her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. This time around, she's cooking up trouble in New Orleans while on a visit to help the Sisters of the Holy Trinity hold their annual benefit dinner. The convent is having financial problems and only Heaven Lee's culinary creativity can offer hope." "Unfortunately, before she can really get cooking, coffee importer and native New Orleanian Truely Whitten, husband of Heaven's old friend Mary, is found murdered by Heaven's own knife. To make matters worse, the convent's sacred cross simultaneously turns up missing. When she becomes the prime suspect, Heaven has no choice but to put her pots and pans aside and pursue the real villian in order to both clear her own name and get dinner on the table in time for the big benefit." "Heaven's smart, saucy attitude spurs her on in the search for the vicious murderer as well as the perfect New Orleans dish to serve the Sisters. When all else fails, she finds the answers to both puzzles right under her own nose, saving the day and serving up a new signature Heaven Lee dish, Nola Pie. The delectable dessert is guaranteed to tantalize readers' taste buds, and the satisfying mystery will leave them begging for seconds."--BOOK JACKET.
FROM THE CRITICS
Kirkus Reviews
Cutesy, red-haired, five-times-married Kansas City chef/restaurateur Heaven Lee (Bread on Arrival, 1998, etc.) is invited to New Orleans to participate in a fundraiser for the Sisters of Holy Trinity. But she barely has time to write out her recipe for Nola pie, a mouthwatering concoction of pralines, berries, and enough butter to clog every Zydeco band in town, when some nut is writing hate-mail to her, she's being choked on a park bench, her rental car is pushed into a ditch while she's still in it, her rear window is shot out, and a really beefy gent is following her everywhere. Then the Sisters' precious ancient crucifix is stolen and coffee-bean importer Truley Witten, the husband of Heaven's old friend Mary, is murdered just before the fundraiser's dessert course-and that's Heaven's deboning knife sticking out of him. Was there something more than beans in the Colombian coffee Truley imported-something like drugs or emeralds? And does Mary know that Truley was having an affair with beautiful television reporter Amelia Hart? For that matter, did he know that Mary was probably playing footsie with his best friend, realtor Will Tibbets? Using retired madam Nancy Blair as a sounding board and lunch partner at the tastiest cafes in town, Heather finally separates Truley's murder from the Sisters' theft and heads back to Kansas City for a cuddle with her current beau. Wacky plotting, but that madam is well worth spending an evening with-and the cuisine will have readers salivating.
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