- Paperback: 220 pages
- Publisher: St Martin's Press; Reissue edition (31 Aug 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312958919
- ISBN-13: 978-0312958916
- Product Dimensions: 17.1 x 10.6 x 1.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,546,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
At Cafe Heaven, the souffles don't fall, but the bodies do.
Heaven Lee is sassy, brassy, and street-smart. She's also one of Kansas City's premier caterers. With a string of failed careers and stalled marriages behind her, Heaven's finally found her true love-Cafe Heaven, a trendy restaurant on midtown 39th.
Open-mike night at Cafe Heaven gets pretty hairy, but Heaven is shocked when lovely lawyer Tasha Arnold drops dead from poisoning med-dinner. With the law and word-of-mouth threatening to close her down, Heaven does what any chef worth her salt would-she turns sleuth.
But asking questions on a mean street like 39th gets Heaven into hot water. Somewhere out there is a killer who would turn Kansas City's favorite caterer into Kansas City's freshest corpse!
Featuring original recipes for such tempting treats as risotto with mushrooms and asparagus, gingerbread upside-down cake and pumpkin piccadillo.
Heaven Lee is sassy, brassy, and street-smart. She's also one of Kansas City's premier caterers. With a string of failed careers and stalled marriages behind her, Heaven's finally found her true love-Cafe Heaven, a trendy restaurant on midtown 39th.
Open-mike night at Cafe Heaven gets pretty hairy, but Heaven is shocked when lovely lawyer Tasha Arnold drops dead from poisoning med-dinner. With the law and word-of-mouth threatening to close her down, Heaven does what any chef worth her salt would-she turns sleuth.
But asking questions on a mean street like 39th gets Heaven into hot water. Somewhere out there is a killer who would turn Kansas City's favorite caterer into Kansas City's freshest corpse!
Featuring original recipes for such tempting treats as risotto with mushrooms and asparagus, gingerbread upside-down cake and pumpkin piccadillo.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Heaven Lee sighed and wiped the sweat off her brow. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Heaven Lee sighed and wiped the sweat off her brow. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a fine little read and an excellent first book. Kansas Citians,especially us expats, will be delighted with the venue and the well crafted characters, many of whom seem so familiar. Lou Jane is really a woman for all seasons and her writing certainly reflects it. It is rather unique the number of well defined characters she manages to insert into her "stew". The plot line works well; she fooled me right up to the end. I bought all the copies they had at Borders yesterday (sorry amazon) to send to friends as far away as Cairo, Bali, NY and LA. Did I mention that I know this fine lady from many years back? That's why I couldn't give her a 10 which she rightly deserves for a very tasty and well written piece of fiction. Lou Jane has a three book deal with St. Martins which means at least one more after "Revenge of the Barbeque Queens" then, what next Lou Jane?
Format:Paperback
Heaven Lee, what a character. Lots of yummy recipes interspersed with a tasty mystery.
Lou Jane Temple does a good job with the Kansas City area and with her characters. Having lived in the Flint Hills and the area she describes when referring to Kansas for over twenty years I really enjoyed this book. Hank, Jumpin Jack, Murray, Chris Joe, Bonnie, even Harry Stern are all charcters I want to learn more about. Heaven herself as depths which should take many books to explore.
I recommend this book to all who enjoy this genre.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
11 reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Let's Go to Dinner
12 Jun 2000
Format:Paperback
DEATH BY RHUBARB, by Lou Jane Temple, is a good example of write what you know. Lou Jane is a red-headed chef from the midwest who writes about a red-headed restauranteur in Kansas City, Heaven Lee who has several ex-husbands, two of which meet in her restaurant the night the date of one of them dies of poison.
The characters and setting are authentic. Lou Jane was a caterer to Rock groups and fashion shoots in her other life, so she certainly knows food and eccentric people. The open-mike night at Cafe Heaven is a hoot, as are the members of the local anti-everything group. Lou Jane has a keen eye and a sassy tongue, but I think the inclusion of recipes in the body of the story slows things down a bit too much
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
This Is Not A Cozy Mystery
30 Dec 2003
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I received this entire series as a gift and will be reviewing each one as I read them. Although it looks like a cozy mystery, I don't consider it to be one for several reasons, the top three are:
1. The liberal use of the F* word by both the main character and other's in the story.
2. The main character - 4 time divorced - 1 widowed - Heaven Lee, who is about 45 - sleeping with a 25 year old.
3. Heaven Lee - A former stripper and disbarred lawyer who says she was disbarred for "doing what all lawyers do, putting together a drug deal for their clients." I'm sure there is a story behind that but it's not told in this book and I think I think it should have been, because I don't think it casts Heaven in a good light.
It's Open-mike night at Cafe Heaven. Unfortunately, the evening ends early when lawyer, Tasha Arnold drops dead. Since Tasha is dating and sleeping with two of Heaven's ex-husbands and dies of poisoning after eating dinner at the Cafe, Heaven becomes the top suspect.
The problems with this book starts with the fact that I don't like Heaven Lee. There are so many characters in the book, but they are so undefined that I had a hard time following who they were, and what they were doing.
I think the only people that I got to know were Chris, who works at the restaurant and was the victim of gay-bashing hate crime in the past. Murray - a former New York City Crime reporter and Sandy - a lawyer who is one of Heaven's ex-husbands.
All of the other characters, I thought were so lacking in personality that they don't really stick out.
Then there's the recipes. They are flopped right in the middle of the pages. The story just stops for a recipe and then continues after the recipe. Usually on the same page as the recipe. (I'm sure this is an editing problem and not the author's, but it is irritating.) And I can honestly say I would never try any of these. For one thing, I don't even know what a Jicama is or what wheatberries are or where to find them.
However, the mystery was and characters were just interesting enough that I will read the second book. I know a lot of mystery series I read seem to have problems with their first book and don't really hit their rhythm until the 3rd or 4th book.
With the character's I enjoyed and the mystery which was ok, and a nice surprise killer are enough that I want to go onto the next book and hope for improvements in the future.
23 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Not recommended
22 Sep 1999
Format:Paperback
I only got through the first two chapters of this book, and I couldn't finish it. I'm an avid mystery reader, so I know what it takes to "hook" a reader. This book didn't have it. The setting was depressing, the characters uninteresting and unlikable, and I honestly didn't care about the storyline. If the main heroine turns you off, there's not much incentive to keep reading. Heaven Lee, a many-times-married former stripper, has no positive personality traits that make the reader care about her. I regret buying all the books in the series before reading the first. I will not read the others.
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