Truffled Feathers is the second Carolyn Blue culinary mystery. Carolyn is a novice cookbook author who combines her love of gourmet food with travel. She is currently struggling through the writing of her first cookbook, Eating Out In The Big Easy. The recipes of which were gathered throughout the first book of this series, Crime Brulee

. In this book, Carolyn is taking a break from writing to join her husband Jason on a trip to New York City where he is being interviewed for a consulting job at chemical company Hodge, Brune & Byerson. Carolyn is also using this opportunity to meet with her agent and publisher, as well as gather recipes for a possible second book, Eating Ethnic in the Big Apple. It looks to be a fun and productive trip.

But things go down hill from the moment they step off the plane. It seems Max Heydemann, Hodge, Brune & Byerson’s director of research and development and the man who’d recruited Jason, has been murdered. With Jason’s sponsor dead, things look grim for the consulting position, but the firm goes through the interviewing process anyway. Giving Carolyn (and Jason) an opportunity to do a little sleuthing.

The more sleuthing they do, the more evident it becomes that there are tons of suspects. Max had a deranged ex-wife, spoiled children, competitive colleagues and there’s even evidence of possible industrial espionage. It appears Carolyn, Jason and even the local authorities have their work cut out for them.

The author switches point of view back and forth between Carolyn and Jason, using the character’s name at the chapter heading to alert the reader as to who’s POV is being used. Seems pretty straight forward, although I was forever confused as to whose head I was in at the time.

Since this is a culinary mystery, food certainly takes center stage. There are lots of descriptions of mouth-watering foods, many with recipes listed. Definitely not the book to read if you’re struggling on a diet.

While the book takes place in New York, I never really got a feel for the city. Other than mentions of the opera at the Met, I couldn’t get past the feeling that this could have been set in any city with a subway system. The New Orleans that the author described in her previous book had a much richer feel.

As to why I felt this was such a tedious read probably stems from the fact that all the action takes place "off stage." The murder happens before Carolyn and Jason ever arrive in the city and the clues are unveiled in discussions with the secondary characters. Carolyn and Jason are rarely part of the action. The resolution of the mystery is done by the police "off stage" yet again, with a detective sharing the details with Carolyn and Jason, after the fact.

Since I enjoyed the first book in the series and I’m curious to see how Carolyn will progress with her cookbooks, I’ll probably give the next book a try. Although Truffled Feathers wasn’t an entirely successful read for me, I think I’ll keep it around. It might come in handy when I have trouble getting to sleep.

--Karen Lynch