After Maddy’s apartment was blown up (an incident alluded to from a previous book, but not really explained) she finds herself staying with friends who have made Maddy feel more than welcomed. After the events that led to the destruction of Maddy’s worldly possessions, she feels the need to regroup and decompress. She is just beginning to come back to life, thinking about replacing things such as a car, a phone and a more permanent living situation.

All this makes her start thinking about her short lived marriage to rising star chef Braydon Gauthier. While they were married, Braydon was a chef in the then less trendy area of Brooklyn, Bed-Sty. After their divorce, his restaurant closed and Braydon returned home to Vancouver where he launched an Emeril-esque cooking empire. Now he’s dead, an apparent suicide over one of his restaurants losing a star in an annual guide.

Maddy doesn’t believe it, but then maybe Braydon had changed in the ten years since they were married. Braydon’s sister doesn’t believe it either and what’s more, she doesn’t trust Braydon’s widow and her brother who have just inherited the empire and asks Maddy to check out the company and see who might have wanted Braydon out of the way.

Maddy agrees and while the company is a mess financially, she doesn’t see anything pointing to murder - until she hears the last meal Braydon used to deliver the poison: duck a l’orange and barley risotto. Braydon had always felt duck a l’orange was a trite dish and too pedestrian and held contempt for any grain other than rice that was made into risotto. Now Maddy thinks there may have been foul play and puts her life on hold and on the line to look into the murder of a man she left ten years ago.

The reasons for Maddy’s investigation beyond Braydon’s sister’s request are unclear. Maddy had apparently moved on easily from her life with Braydon and doesn’t seem to have given him much of a second thought even though as a new media darling it would have been easy for her to follow his life. If she harbors any feelings of guilt for leaving Braydon she doesn’t show them and it appears to be the first time she has thought of him in years. Maddy is very closed off and though it is easy to see she is good at what she does, there is not much else to like about her.

The players in Braydon’s death are easy to spot and the motives as shallow as the murderers. Not enough exposition is given, leaving readers who have picked this book up without reading previous entries at a disadvantage as to where and why Maddy is at this point in her life.

Calculated Loss will be appreciated most by those familiar with the earlier Madeline Carter novels.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry