Dishing Up Death: A Gourmet Pet Chef Mystery, featuring Kitty Karlyle

By Marie Celine

Book Overview

Kitty Karlyle is a young and pretty gourmet pet chef. But she does not prepare meals for the rich and famous. Oh, no, Kitty prepares meals for the pampered pets of the rich and famous. Kitty lives in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1892339951
• ISBN13: 9781892339959
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Beachfront Pub
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Kozy Fun!

I love cozy mysteries and am always thrilled to find a new series and this is one of the best new series I've come across in a long time. Kitty Karlyle is a great pet chef protagonist and I love her relationships with her clients, their pets and her erstwhile boyfriend, Jack, who is a detective on the LAPD. And I like the way the author has combined the mystery with cooking and pets. If you are a mystery lover and/or a pet and cooking lover, you should give this book a try!

Eccentricity makes this book a thoroughly delightful read

What could be more "Hollywood" than a gourmet pet chef? Marie Celine, who loves animals and food, has seen fit to include both in her first mystery. While we don't get the old Valley Girl language per se, Celine still manages to create the aura of Hollywood to perfection. Kitty Karlyle has managed to begin a business post chef school by cooking delicious meals, complete with cute little recipe cards, for a few select animals in the Hollywood area. Naturally the pet owners all have their idiosyncracies, whether it's an aging rock star with a little too much sexual energy or an old woman with a mysterious past. But when one of Kitty's well intentioned meals kills the stoned rock star, the hunt is on. In the meantime, the major investigating detective has decided that even as Kitty is still a suspect, he's going to marry her. Kitty reacts by concluding that she'd better investigate the rash of odd suspects herself, even as the suspects have evil plans for her undoing: "Angela went on. 'We keep Kitty Karlyle occupied. And if she is occupied, she will be too busy to ask questions. It's that simple. Ask your friends to hire her to cook for their pets, Fang. I've already begun doing the same. We'll make Kitty Karlyle the most successful pet chef in the business. She'll be too busy making money to make trouble.' Angela smiled at her own wit." Kitty Karlyle is a darling detective, and her frantic efforts to avoid the amorous Detective Jack only serve to make her a more endearing character. She chases around Los Angeles serving her meals and trying to make sense of a diabolical plot that almost ensnares her at the end. DISHING UP DEATH is a very cute, well plotted mystery with lots of flair. Marie Celine seems to know her subject well and dishes up characters with enough evil intentions and weird lifestyles to please even the most critical mystery reader. The Los Angeles "thing" permeates the novel, and eccentricity makes this book a thoroughly delightful read. Marie Celine has done a smash-up job on her first novel and has a great idea with the pet chef business. We'll expect to see more mysteries from this very promising new writer. A great job! Shelley Glodowski Senior Reviewer