The international artisan breadmaking organization ARTOS (Greek for bread) has chosen Kansas City for the site of their annual convention. Included in their itinerary is a tour of the Milling and Grain International Studies Laboratory, a tour of the Grains Research Institute (GRIP), a tour of BIG BREAD, a plant where everyday, grocery store white bread is made, a trip to a Mennonite’s working farm, along with several lectures focusing on the various methods of sourdough bread making and visits to local restaurants, including Café Heaven.

As if the conference wasn’t full enough already, Irwin Mills (General Mills to his friends) from the Laboratory has an announcement to make about a joint venture with BIG BREAD to produce a wheat clone. This will be a perennial wheat plant to replace wheat which researchers are concerned is stripping farmland of vital nutrients in the earth. This enrages Walter Jinks from GRIP who has just announced their research into using alternative grains and grasses as flour for bread, in an attempt to solve the same problem.

While performing a demonstration of their milling process, the general rides an elevator up the side of a grain silo and steps off into mid-air, falling into a silo of grain and essentially drowning in the grain. No one could have pushed the general, but how could the elevator have malfunctioned to cause such an accident? To Heaven and her friends, it appears as if the general thought he could fly, but why would he think that?

When a German baker turns up dead in a vat of dough, Heaven knows the two deaths must be connected but can’t put her finger on why, until the coroner’s report comes back that both men had a significant amount of LSD in their blood.. Heaven and her 27-year-old boyfriend Hank, who is an emergency room doctor, trace the problem to the bread.

Bread on Arrival is overall a fun mystery. It does occasionally get bogged down with the technical aspects of wheat growth and flour production. In addition, all the various labs and acronyms sometimes blend together, confusing the reader further.

There are recipes at the end of many chapters, although I was disappointed there were not more bread recipes since bread was the main focus of the book. A short bibliography of bread books in the introduction is a nice addition. Bread on Arrival is a good edition to the list of culinary mysteries and will have readers seeking out Heaven’s three earlier adventures and eagerly awaiting her next.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry