Diane Mott Davidson. The Cereal Murders (1993)

     Diane Mott Davidson. The Cereal Murders (1993) Another formula book, this time a mystery whose ‘tec is a single mother (survivor of an abusive marriage) who makes her living in Aspen Meadows, Colorado, by catering to those who pay more when the menu is written in French. However, unlike Baldacci, Mott Davidson can write.
     Goldilocks Bear (yes, that’s her name) is a pleasant person with enough self-respect to get good and angry when necessary, and enough self-knowledge and confidence to fall in love when the right man (Tom Schulz, a cop, whom she met in a previous book) presents himself. Tom is a bit too good to be true, being both a superb lover and a good cook, and deeply respectful of Goldy’s feelings. The perpetrator is a bit too monomaniacal and psychologically twisted for credibility. Three people die because he wants his daughter to go to Harvard, which requires that she rank first in the graduating class. At least Mott Davidson has the sense to let the Denver police express the incredulity the reader must feel, and so defuse it.
     The schtick in this series is the food: Goldy not only describes food in vivid detail, she also gives us her recipes, which I (despite my culinary dunciness) could understand, and which seem more than feasible. A pleasant read, which with its two predecessors could make a pleasant season of TV. **½ (2008)