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JOANNE
   PENCE

Even if there were nothing else in the book, the evolving intrigue in the character of the reverend would surge my interest through the book. Is he a good guy; is he a con artist? Is he a comical, off-brand, visiting deity, a spinnoff of little guy in the movie, with the cigar and the Brooklyn accent? Pence must have been giggling as she was typing, tweaking this character's fun fluctuations. I relished every flicker of sunlight and shadow, all the way to the end of the story, which sizzled with a more creative resolution of Reverend Hodge than many writers could have conjured.

In this plot, Paavo was forced to dredge the depths of his self-esteem sludge, plummeting to the hairy roots of his professional position, fighting like Serpico against internal corruption, presenting a foil against Angie's continued dedication to his soul balance. I particularly liked the scene around this quote from Paavo, on page 105 of this mass market paperback version:
"I'm foul-tempered, I have a season in hell for a job, I don't have the time to give you what you deserve or the money to spend on you that I'd like to. Now I'm even losing my good name around the hall-for whatever that was worth." The tempering prose surrounding that quote is exquisitely touching. It's worth taking time to note the wholeness of that scene when you read this novel. The scene exposes how a true author dramatizes sensitivity and charges emotions without being too gooey or too superficial.

Returning to the reverend and his Random Acts of Kindness mission, I'll note that I enjoyed the unique way Pence dealt with charity, and religious fads and foibles. Similarly to her sensitive exposure of various angles of New Age guru-ery in COOKING UP TROUBLE, she exposes here not only the preponderance of phoney cover-ups and criminally self-serving "charitable" acts; she also dramatizes how easy it can be for very normal people to want to be part of a soup kitchen type of giving. Angie's continued all-out support of Paavo, without losing a Quantum or Quark of her personal integrity, develops further in this plot as she chooses to remain within a bad situation in Hodge's program, going against Paavo's repeated demands that she stay away from there. The way both Angie and Paavo deal with this conflict and its resulting tension is creatively realistic.

If you want the cozy "same ole routine" which we all look for in genre expectations, you'll get satisfaction from Pence's series. But you'll get more than you hoped for, because Pence's talent pushes her to take the "norm," do justice to it, then spin it around in a fast circle in her mind until something uniquely, honestly refreshing takes shape in a slightly shifting surprise. This # 5 in the series does that slight surprise a bit more than the other books, especially in resolutions of ongoing questions about, is it/he/she "this way" or "that way" ... a good or bad guy or deal?

The twists are so numerous they become entertaining labyrinths, and sometimes the points become circles rather than zigs and zags. I'm in awe of the resolutions in this novel, especially the way Axel Klaw had planned his "final" exit, to the "T" ... bone.

But ... what about the numerous varieties of ultimates in gourmet chocolate slathering this plot? They made me hungry for the exPENSIVE, freshly original, leading-edge types of confection! "Chocolates are us" will never be the same.

October 22, 2005

This novel opened with a dramatic, brow-puzzling change in Paavo's character. The change was so perfectly etched into flawless syntax and so absolutely unexpected, it zapped the buzz whiz chaos of my reality, welded it into a reading focus, and snapped me into the book before I could get a clue on what hit me. I was glued to Paavo's every lifeless word and rare thought as Pence polished his presence as a lackluster blob of nothingness. Who was this guy dragging around a dead attitude of non-investment-in-anything-suspicious, shuffling around with a drool-grinning acquiescence of whatever slithered up to him?

Due to the effective hook of this Paavo puzzle, COOKS OVERBOARD was more fast paced than some of the other novels in Joanne Pence's Angie Amalfi series. I was compelled to surge my reading speed because I absolutely had to know what had caused Paavo to become to this lost soul, sleepy non-entity. Angie's antics sidestepping around and hot-footing into Paavo's dead-weight dullness was entertaining; her lively spirit was used well with poking, prodding attempts to re-connect to a Paavo who seemed to no longer be THERE. If I didn't have a feel for the outer limits of Pence's parameters for ozone travels into the paranormal realms, I'd have wondered if Paavo's body had ingested an alien being, or been possessed by an evil spirit. I was given just the right amount of access to Paavo's thoughts, in just the right amount of plot spacing to be strung along nicely without becoming impatient. In addition to be carried into the plot by curiosity about Paavo's personality switcheroo, I easily slid into the vicarious venue of being aboard a freighter rather than a cruise ship. Lacking the garish, boorish, carnival brightness of the typical cruise mood, the no-frills freighter developed quickly into a surprisingly full-bodied fictional world. Pence made good use of the ambiance variances of the freighter Vs cruise setting by detailing the dining locations, types of menu, cabin arrangements, passenger interaction, etc.

The vignettes of subplots off ship were woven into the ocean going machinations in a Sidney Sheldon like manner of kaleidoscopic alternation, in a style similar to that in TOO MANY COOKS, yet with an even deeper development of each alternate scene. With the freighter's ambiance being naturally gray and grim (no cruise-ship forced-color or pushed-pace), and with Paavo's focus being so off (more like lost in a fog), and with the sinister vignettes given more plot space than Angie's typically hilarious romps, the resulting gestalt was intriguingly darker than prior books. The cloudy, gray-scale worked fascinatingly to keep me anesthetized into the story. It almost felt like I lived the plot in an equal intensity as Angie and Paavo.

In addition to all the above, this mystery is a Russian-accented, spy-thriller. Yet, even with the humor and well done "v" lisps, COOKS OVERBOARD is too capturing, too gray-scale, too well-done to be called a spoof. Maybe what this work does best is prove Pence's ability to brain-dance through a repertoire of fast-steps (what she accomplishes is not mere wordsmith-ing) which choreograph into a plot complexity and character metamorphosis "to die for."

August 9, 2005

The reading capture in this one was so consistently smooth I forgot my habit of remembering exactly what grabbed my lapels and jerked me into the book. I wasn't grabbed or jerked; I was just there, and there, and there. Period. This is good!

This Time added levels of curiosity have been conjured, as the plot revolves around X-Files-type alien conspiracies, and I wonder how far Pence will go into UFO ozone, how much of the Mulder/Scully type of Truth she will seat into the reality of Angie and Paavo's world. Having read COOKING UP TROUBLE and BELL, COOK & CANDLE, I knew Pence would probably not just spoof & guffaw alien abduction believers, like many people do when beliefs stretch the norm. I anticipated that she'd give these believers their due, simultaneous to painting their comical caricatures. Even so, Angie's backbone and skeptical criticism seemed to have kicked in with this 7th book. Angie's no longer the wide-eyed, endearing puppy, warming entertainingly to every out-of-the-park scenario. This Time, she's scrunching her nose and darkening her judgments of the collection of "odd balls," as she silently terms them, at a meeting of UFO scientists. As much as I cherish Angie's spirited gullibility, I enjoy her maturing skepticism even more.

Of course, her reason for attending the meeting was delightfully driven by her usual ambitions. She's started a new business and is researching a UFO theme for a dinner she will be catering for her first live-wire customer. Loved Angie's compulsive chewing and chewing as she set her path investigating alien appetizers. Exactly what DO they eat? When she was finally handed the answer, the compulsion dropped dead in its tracks, never to rise again.

The contrasts between Angie and Paavo's worlds and the ways they were bridged were as entertaining as ever, and the scenes shifted from one to the other like veterans in a line dance. The resulting mood was strangely mesmerizing in a quiet, pensive way. This easy alternation between Angie and Paavo's worlds was accomplished in spite of the fact that the murders were darker and more gruesome than others have been, and that Angie was off in her own world as much as ever. Reader interest was still baited with anticipation of the two worlds crashing head on. How would this overlap happen, THIS time.

One of the most endearing, lighthearted male bonding scenes occurred in this novel, between Yosh and Paavo. Their exchange of shared angst, resulting in mutual confirmation that the loves of their lives were indeed still in love with them, was as real and warm as I've read anywhere. The scene was played very much as it should unfold between two males such as these. You won't want to miss it. Another "not to miss" in this offering was Pence doing an about face to stand up and cheer for in one of her characterizations. Instead of having this guy gradually gain in stature and personality intensity after she etched his caricature, he stepped into the plot hot, strong, heart-stopping, and eye-popping; then he deteriorated in seamless increments as Angie's new titanium backbone took no flack whatsoever from him. Loved it!

What also interested me was that this theme of The Millenium change's craving of info on the strange and unusual, which was so prevalent when this novel was released, is more interesting to me now, in retrospect, that it would have been then, in 2000.

ACIT definitely has a mesmerizing plot. The possibilities of dark paranormal events kept the edge of suspense and intrigue a bit higher than it would have been with only the "norm" of crime to anticipate, especially each time Angie wandered through the huge old warehouse/auditorium. The discovery of one of the bodies, after a bit of a breath holding during Angie's solitary explorations of warehouse rooms, nooks & corners, was particularly perfect for a classic scene in a murder mystery:

>> She stared at the liquid, a mounting horror stealing over her. A drop fell into the pool. A drop of blood coming from ... <<

The descriptions prior to and following the above sentences complete this scene, which is one you'll want to seat into your reading repertoire. It's not overly dramatic or "Oh My God" in intensity. It's just a ... Perfect. Classic. Scene. For a murder worthy of the revered early novelists in the genre.

As with each Angie book, this one has its unique feel, but I haven't quite pegged it. It's more silent, somehow, than the others. Its lighting is dimmer, as if continually preparing the reader to become privy to A Secret. A true secret, like an answer to Mulder's, "The Truth is out there." Okaaaay... So, what IS that Truth? What will Pence offer as her vision of something extraordinarily worth knowing, beyond routine, everyday trivia we hear and see repeated day after day after day. Pence's answer was dramatized, as it should be, throughout the novel; she didn't highlight it in one neon light statement. Pence threaded her theme though several scenes (especially the final one) which acted out the essence, like Spock clutching Jim Kirk's hand and whispering in a raspy, newly awakened voice of awe, "This." To fully realize Pence's answer you may have to allow it to surface, after finishing the read and asking yourself what it was. You'll get it, but it needs to be quietly given; too much drama would dissolve the potent essence.

Prior to finishing the book, though, as I continued reading, I anticipated something from Pence which wouldn't have fit into any of the other novels. After all, this was her offering for the shift into the New Millennium, a transition into a new world, one way or another. The conflict between the paranormal fanatics and the fringe UFO conspiracy scientists was well done, and just the right amounts of background detail in each camp was provided. This is the first time in the series in which Angie appears to be truly shaken from her steadfast, spirited, yet basically conservative view of reality. Even as maverick a spirit as she has been though all the "regular time" offerings which haven't leaped totally out of the reality box, this one slips almost out of Time. Entertainingly so.

This is what people used to call Mystery with a capital "M" in era's long past, when printed books were still a treasured novelty, when intrigue went worlds beyond shock, speed, noise, and gore, when none or only balsamic amounts of those gimmicks were necessary in order for entertainment to hold an audience captive. This quietly engrossing novel made me wonder what has happened to our Cultural Soul. Do we have one any more? As a young girl, a religious Italian Catholic (similar to Pence's background), when I first heard the statement, "God is Dead," I was shocked, puzzled, and disturbed. But that feeling doesn't hold a candle to a concern that the Spirit of Mystery may be either dead, or in the final gasp of its Last Chapter. If Pence wrote A COOK IN TIME and it got published, The Spirit of Mystery is still with us. As writers and readers, we're still in the game.

November 3, 2005

One of my favorite scenes in this series took place in this book. It was between Paavo and a 9 year old girl, after the murder of her grandfather, in a tenement building. The chapter containing that segment confirmed for me that Pence is not only an artist and an author, she's a master of her craft. On the subject of fav's, I'll quote two passages which ID, or expose the essence of Angie and Paavo better than any other I've found in the series.

Quoting Angie's comment to Paavo, on page 231 of the mass market paperback: "'I want so much to do interesting things ... I want to be accomplished, an achiever. I want to be a person who is independent and successful, and good at her job - not daddy's privileged little rich girl. Not that that's so tragic. But I'm more than that, aren't I?'"

Angie is a special character in many subtle and easy-to-see ways. I was annoyed by a reader's criticism that Angie is annoying. My first reaction to that comment was, "How wrong and how rude!" More than enough opinions weigh in favor of Angie being a capturing character in every nuance. In this novel, both she and Paavo continued to grow in warm, cozy, and realistic ways.

Paavo's personal pondering: "Home. He wished he didn't get a kick in the gut each time he thought about the cottage. He liked being there more than he ever dreamed he would, and more than he really wanted to admit. He had found a place away from the world's cruelty and losses where there was love and laughter, and he wondered how long he could accept it, or if he would soon want to retreat to his own quiet solitude once more." Yep. That's Paavo.

I might add a note here that, for me, retreating into quiet solitude is as much, possibly more, a part of what I need in a home as love and laughter. With intuitive wisdom, Angie gives Paavo all of this, a safe, comforting place to rest or hide when a cocoon is needed for a time, and a safe place to play. The first she gives in sensitivity but not easily; the second she gives with easy, natural relish. This was one of my favorite books in the Angie series, mainly because the mystery of Paavo's childhood was so intriguingly and realistically dealt with. Is it somehow the true essence of Mystery that Pence is so good at capturing? I can say that no matter how convoluted your brain, you could never imagine the history Paavo has been given in this book. And, yet it fits every other piece in the puzzle of this series, in not only the books which came before TO CATCH A COOK, but also in the ones to follow. Twists? Pence has a corner on that market. She tied this plot into so many interesting knots I'm surprised she was able to get out of the Gordian herself. Of course she did it. It almost felt as if she danced her way through a family labyrinth, then hopped onto the kitchen table to finish the footwork.

Never say life isn't symbolic. Never say fiction doesn't reflect life. Here's why, to me, Angie is a life-blood refreshing character: As a prior teacher of English Lit, I've tried to understand the reverence of Literary Novels, "Classical Literature." Could rarely get into most of the stuff because it was too depressing. I was seldom (if ever) in the mood to voluntarily depress or deflate myself. But sometimes I tried to read those hefty tomes, like HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad, Graham Green's novels, F. Scott Fitzgerald's GREAT GATSBY. I read enough to see and appreciate the masterful use of the language; I drooled over the exquisite beauty of the syntax, plots, and character complexity. But I began to feel disgusted, angry, and betrayed at these truly great authors who seemed to believe they had to write (probably in an alcoholic or drugged haze) with such graceful severity about the bowels of the Earth, always ending with a spirit leaching, evil panache. I felt like jumping off a cliff to get away from the doom of the no win life they portrayed. It appeared to me that to write great literature was to be ugly serious and to travel through beautifully executed words, but to use them only within the down sides of life. The words themselves must have felt trapped in hell. Or executed. After I've exposed that opinion, would anyone wonder why I like Angie?

There are ways to write about the deeper, darker sides of life without steeping the reader's psyche into the sourest soups of reality, and committing him there for eternity. Is our cultural heritage sick or what, to believe so strongly in that type of literary curse? The term, "crying in your soup" is trite, but it fits too many of the "classics" too well. What I'd like to see in addition to these types of Pulitzer Prize offerings, is more Great Literature with the type of mood catharsis Joanne Pence accomplished in the urine touched tenement scene in TO CATCH A COOK, when the well set stench transformed with a single sentence describing the clean aura of the apartment in which a 9-year-old girl sat. Pence gave that apartment a feel of purity, a distance from tenement soullessness, even with the girl's grandfather lying dead in the next room. Yet, Pence had spared no odor in the detailed painting of the ugliness of life in that world. She painted it as it should be exposed. Then, in that single sentence, with a few carefully chosen words about the lack of leftover food cartons, she lifted the hopeless despair into something still truly sad, but somehow refreshingly healing and quietly cathartic, even as the girl was dealing with that gut wrenching situation.

The author moved the plot further into this emotional purity within the simple exchange between Paavo and the girl. He knew how she felt; he had lived it. He also knew how to be with her, what to give her, yet to avoid breaking her difficultly maintained composure, to avoid dishonoring who she was and how she had come to deal with her life with a loved but un-pampered child's simple and serious dignity. That scene was so powerful, I was heavily reluctant to leave it. As the story moved forward, I found myself wondering about the little girl, but the continued shifting of plot was more than enough to keep me busy and fueled. The girl's return in a few potent vignettes artistically and satisfyingly concluded her part in the story, as one of the symbolic links to Paavo's past.

August 21, 2005

In COURTING DISASTER Angie frets over an engagement party Serefina (her mother) is planning in high profile secrecy. Angie is consumed with desperation to discover the diddly details of her mother's choices of color schemes, etc., related to this upcoming party. From the first page to the last, this mystery was more sophisticated that most offerings in this genre. The burgundy complexity sneaks up on a reader who's been fooled into feeling he's in the book only for the exquisitely executed "let's party" escapism. All within the justification of escorting a villain to his or her payment of karma, of course.

The opening of the novel does a moody-blues, literarily stylish, sensitive step-in as Angie's seemingly superficial friend, Stanfield Bonnette, drags his psyche through a self-pity soliloquy, moaning with such gregarious gusto that temptations of Prozac would be magnetically repelled before they could find an ozone hole for access to mental persuasion. After a few pages of this, Stan has taken the reader into a submarine dive into the murky depths of his unusual character; there's more to him than even he would admit. The Classic opening scene of antique detective fiction describes with sensual sleaze the quintessential dumpy motel room's open window on a red-neon-light blinking to a slow-two-step, keeping rhythm with the hero's nearly dead heart ... beat. The essence (sans motel room ambiance) of that type of urban-fringe, jazzed-up-depression, turning downtrodden into a sought-after art form, is captured in Stan's sensitive soliloquy. Thumbs up for a great Act One, Scene One, Pence!

And kiss my joined fingertips in salute for the performances of the generous collection of characters reeking in "Perfecto" personality quirks, and the read-aloud-and-share dialogue dances. Of course the women in the plot are delightfully or dingily feisty and varied in temperament, depth, and essence; but the coup beyond coups in this novel is that every male in the plot is an unusually rich, complex example of that gender of the species. Each is potently, yummy male, yet uniquely one-of-a-kind. The contrast of enlightened-macho-styles between Angie's fiancé, Paavo, and her father is especially well done. I was absolutely entertained by every word, gesture, and action exchanged between those two as they bungled from antipasto antipathy into side-glancing, no-admitting-it thoughts of, "maybe-I'm-gonna-like-you-after-all ... or ... then-again-maybe-not" intimacy.

There are too many sub-intrigues and character sets to begin to describe the multiplicity of duplicities woven into one of the tightest, densest, most luxurious carpets of Persian (Excuse, Italian) perfection to be found metaphor-ed into fiction:

- There's Stan and his truly varied (and insightful) relationships with several women, including Angie, and none of these connections come close to superficiality, except maybe the wise avoidance of "tap-dancing" with Nora.
- There's the sensitively and realistically explored social issue of baby's born, sold, or delivered to unworthy or incapable parents, contrasted to a fresh look at true parenting, out-of-the-box but in the ball park of "Yes, that'll work," providing the contented conclusion, "This child's lucky."
- There are issues of intimacy, approach/avoidance complexes therein, along with "how-to"s on getting there between friends of either gender combos, between parents and children, between heterosexual partners, among every-which-way of one-on-one dances through life.

How does Pence deliver this amount of intrigue and intensity through a legitimate mystery, filling in the blanks of that genre, yet using it as a cover for a literary mainstream novel? She does it with the pizzaz of light, fun humor and the panache of a visceral awareness of how spirited people get "up close and personal"; how they relate and grow satisfyingly close, simultaneous to working the kinks out of life's hard-lines and hardships.

March 31, 2005

>> On a bridge midway over the Colorado River, Angie Amalfi read the Welcome to Arizona sign. Her heart palpitated, her breathing quickened, and her feet tingled as a feeling of warmth, well-being, and certainty filled her. Above her head like a bubble in a cartoon strip, she was sure the words "Destination Wedding Locale" danced in red neon letters. << - Thus reads the first paragraph of RED HOT MURDER.

The natural flow of the opening of this novel gives the effect of setting out into a fresh, colorful story, even more than the sense of settling into a complex novel, though this 13th offering in the Amalfi series accomplishes both at grand prize levels. For me, a story offers all that is high magic in fiction; it goes beyond what a novel is, into realms of wonder & rainbows, like being in Oz instead of KS, without losing KS. There's something special about this book. The cover is almost too gorgeous for the mundane, dreary drudgeries of daily bread this planet (yes, that's a GOOD thing, Martha Stewart, and thank you for saying that, and for warming the sometimes drudgery of kitchen duties into the high art of home entertainment).

The first few pages of RED HOT MURDER ooze a mood immediately; I slipped from my world into the entertaining gambits of RHM in less than a split second, riding on a fresh sunbeam from sky to sand, as Pence described the scene:

>> The sky was a brilliant turquoise and the desert stretched out like a butternut sea of rolling sand and gravel, dotted with saguaro, barrel cactus, sage, and scrub. Precariously balanced red and granite rock piles, high crags, and jagged ridges of low-lying hills touched the horizon.<<

Exquisite syntax! Brilliant descriptive prose. This is what makes a story zap to life in a reader's mind.

It was easy to settle into Angie's peaceful pondering as she and Paavo began their journey to Jackpot Arizona. I may have actually sighed as Angie touched Paavo's arm in gesture of sympathy for his return to childhood angels and demons via this journey; and I may have levitated above my easy chair when Paavo accepted the sympathy with a simple, sensual glance away from the highway to sizzle a few-second-gaze on Angie sitting beside him in a Mercedes SUV.

As the journey pulled a halt in the gravel parking lot of a small-town diner, a few of Pence's legend, classic caricatures were already well on their way to being electrically-enhanced with Joanne's Frankenstein-jolt-wand, jump starting them off the pages and into my brain. A sleazy "La Verne" eased away from the diner counter, opening her scene as owner-operator (waitress) of the only cafe in town.

Angie's Point-of-View was stronger and more prevalent in this one. I see what Pence has done with POV as being just right for this story. I liked Angie's heated spiciness, which, to me translated into an appealing snarly-ness, and her spirited, kind, supportive, open-to-life-and-adventure self has come through again.

Loved the delightfully garish, designer Western outfit, and Angie's belief that she was truly "outdoor-sy." The continued play on the cowboy hat was well done, bringing it into focus here and there, especially noting its red straw attributes in perfect plot placements.

Each snippet of Pence's descriptive prose of the desert was crisply right on. This sentence was beautiful:

>>The sky was high and bright blue, the land quiet with the watery flicker of elusive mirages always just ahead.<<

The vivid desert descriptions reminded me of a strangely mesmerizing nonfiction book, almost poetic in its "waxing" about the magic, beauty, and essence of the desert. The author was Joseph Wood Krutch, but I don't recall the title. He gave the desert such a spiritual intensity I was in awe of it, craving to experience it that way, but fearing I wouldn't be able to quite get there outside the pages of his book (or without chewing Peyote Buttons).

I was intrigued and enthraled by the development of the historic Waldorf chef machinations intertwining to the Jackpot historic intrigue of ghosts from stagecoaches doing Bermuda Triangle dips, with all that connected to Angie's current work on her menu for the upcoming annual event in Jackpot. It should go without saying that this situation would connect with the murders, which made Paavo's relaxation a "we know different" deal between reader and author, about the innocence of Angie's being involved in historic research and current celebration preparations in Jackpot. Paavo thought that involvement would keep Angie safely away from the murder investigation. Uh huh. Sure. Within the pages of well-wrought fiction? I didn't think so.

Pence's style in this book seems to have turned to a rich butterscotch, compared to previous offerings. That flavor allowed a more sophisticated & fascinating interweaving of subplots around main plot. The intense style flavoring also allowed the characters to come forth even more naturally and intensely than in prior books. This observation does not diminish anything I've raved about prior novels in this series. I'm certain that when I reread them I'll notice and feel even more engrossing elements than I reviewed from original readings.

Loved RHM's deeper intertwining of multiple-machinations of characters and plot, and the setting had become a true home away from home. In contrast to Jackpot, San Francisco was almost feeling too cold, dreary, gray, damp; though SFO will always be a heart city for me. Enjoyed Angie's "Yes or No" conclusion of Jackpot as a wedding destination (read it to see which). Absolutely loved Angie's kicked up, spicy personality heat, food catastrophe hilarity, shoot out scene, Sheriff & La Verne character conclusions.

The resolution of the gourmet notebook was fantastic. That side of the real gourmet world, in the ultra-strange tastes and entrees, was well presented; I don't recall ever seeing this dark side of gourmet brought into a culinary offering before. Another great coup!

                                                                                                            January 23, 2006

(NOTE: The complete body of Linda Shelnutt's reviews of a number of different books can be found on Amazon.com in both the Customer Review and Spotlighted Review categories. The reviews above have been condensed to better fit the webpage format. You can contact Linda at LGShelnutt@aol.com)

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