Laurie Anne Marie

Ashley Crane was a 31-year-old cook at the Gratitude Café in the small West Coast town of Comfortville. We met her as her boyfriend is in the process of walking out on her, complaining that she has gotten too fat. The real story was that he had gotten involved with one of the servers at the café. Her friends attempted to cheer her up by going to a bar where she proceeded to get hammered.
The next day was her day off and she spent it nursing her hangover. In the afternoon when she checked her telephone, she discovered several messages from Darren, the café manager, telling her they were short on help and she had to come in and immediately. She called the café but he had already left.
The café was very popular because of the good food and good service. But things were going downhill because Darren refused to hire adequate help and everyone was stressed. Ashley was tired of getting called to come in on her days off, splitting duties between cooking and serving tables, and being yelled at. When she saw Darren, she told him that he needed to hire more people. Although he became very angry, the rest of the staff congratulated her for speaking up.
As she left work, she heard Darren and Chris Durtz, the other head, cook, having major argument outside. Later that evening, Darren was killed. The dishwasher was arrested but Ashley was sure he was not the killer. The police seemed to be going for him so she decided she had to help prove his innocence.
I found a lot of problems with this book.
The title of the book implied that a cat would be involved in solving the crime. It doesn’t happen. Charlie provided comfort to Ashley mostly by placing his paw on her arm when she was upset.
She talked a lot about gaining too much weight and being stressed but overindulges on rich pastries and coffee.
The book claimed “She had created a great menu with the other head cook, Chris Durtz.” But we never learn what they are. The two recipes in the back are for chocolate chip cookies and mac and cheese and are credited to the author.
She moved in with her parents and her mother’s decoupage group decided they have read a lot of mystery stories and should help with the investigation. There is no way their craft skills have any bearing on the story. Her mother’s dinner menu is very repetitious.
At one point she saw two of the servers away from the restaurant and wondered if they still worked there and if they had the same day off. She had been at the restaurant and should have known the answers.
The was a new, extremely good looking detective at the Police Department who was in charge of the case. She reacted to him as if she was an adolescent especially after he winked at her.
And, possibly most importantly, the plot was unrealistic. I don’t see how she could have worked there for so long and been unaware of everything that was going on.… (altro)