Della Carmichael is a delightfully witty and smart young woman who charms the public on her cooking show. Once a week Della demonstrates her deliciously simple dishes promising that anyone can prepare these impressive meals at home. Della reminds all viewers that she is not a trained chef, just an ordinary young woman cooking ordinary food using the simplest of techniques which she happily passes to her public.
Just as in her other two gastronomic crime novels Wells gets her heroine into a mess. This time Della is set to judge a celebrity cooking contest. There are over a dozen star talents cooking their specialties. The winner will have $100,000 donated to his or her favorite charity The first indication that things might not go smoothly arrives in the form of Big John O'Hara, a detective and close friend of Della. John marches up to one of Della's fellow judges and punches him in the mouth. Then a bit later a smoke bomb is set off in the ballroom and while everyone is in a panic over the possibility of a fire that same punched judge is stabbed in the neck, his jugular vein punctured spewing his blood all over the place, including all over Della's borrowed designer evening gown when she tries to administer first aid.
One of the hundreds of guests has to have been the killer and Della must figure out who because her friend Big John the detective is now the prime suspect. Making matters worse the detective put in charge of the case is a man who hates Big John for showing him up on a previous case. The man is a narrow minded bully who has decided John is guilty and only needs to find the evidence to get him brought to trial. John would be ruined and as far as Della is concerned she is the only one who can clear him.
The dead cooking contest judge also happens to have been a womanizer who secretly filmed his antics in bed with each female conquest. One of his conquests included Big John's daughter Eileen which would have given the bully detective a whopping motive for Big John attacking and killing the judge.
Della knows John is not guilty and of course wants to protect Eileen's reputation so she breaks into the man's home and steels the CD with the video of Eileen on it. She destroys the video but leaves a bloody fingerprint in the process and becomes a suspect in the murder investigation herself.
As you can probably tell by now this is story with a tangled plot woven by a talented author. If you like a great mystery that is difficult to figure out ahead of the author then this is a story for you. If you also like to read a cozy mystery with love interest and a sprinkling of great recipes there is even more reason to get this one.
A great book, "The Proof is in the Pudding" rates a 9 of 10 on the Weaver meter.
