Prime Cut

In the markedly lighthearted eighth outing (after The Grilling Season, 1997), Aspen Meadows, Colo., caterer Goldy Schulz is ousted from her kitchen. Bilked, like many other residents, by local contractor Gerald Eliot, her workplace in a shambles, she agrees to help her old teacher, Chef Andre, as he caters a Christmas catalogue fashion shoot. On the way home from the acrimonious set, she stops by to visit her friend Cameron Burr, whose house has also been ravaged by Eliot. Searching for a coffee pot, she discovers Eliot's dead body. At the scene, the police find one of four cookbooks that had been stolen from the museum where Eliot was a part-time guard. Goldy's husband, Tom (a cop), has a confrontation with his rude and politically ambitious boss and is suspended from the force while charges of insubordination are investigated. Compounding Goldy's problems is an aggressive new local caterer who seems bent on stealing Goldy's clients. When Andre is killed, Goldy slips into her super-detective mode to find out who murdered two such disparate victims and why the antique cookbooks were stolen. Despite the accumulation of bad news, Goldy retains her optimism. Davidson laces her frothy tale with 11 calories-be-damned recipes likely to keep readers satisfied on the gustatory front as well as the narrative one. Simultaneous BDD audio; author tour. (Sept.)