The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook: Wickedly Good Meals and Desserts to Die For

By Kate White, Harlan Coben, Gillian Flynn and 2 more

Enjoy over 100 recipes and murderously fun facts from legendary mystery authors like Sue Grafton, Louise Penny, Harlan Coben, and James Patterson!

With art deco embellishments and stunning photos, this heirloom cookbook is the perfect gift for book lovers and mystery fans.

Whether you’re planning a sinister dinner party or whipping up comfort food for a day of writing, you’ll find plenty to savor in this cunning collection of recipes from bestselling mystery authors! Discover hard-boiled breakfasts, thrilling entrees, and cozy desserts, including:
 
• Mary Higgins Clark’s Celebratory Giants Game Night Chili
• Harlan Coben’s Myron’s Crabmeat Dip
• Nelson DeMille’s Male Chauvinist Pigs in a Blanket
• Lee Child’s Coffee, Pot of One
• Gillian Flynn’s Beef Skillet Fiesta
• Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone’s Famous Peanut Butter and Pickle Sandwich
• Charlaine Harris’s Very Unsophisticated Supper Dip
• James Patterson’s Grandma’s Killer Chocolate Cake
• Louise Penny’s Madame Benoît’s Tourtière
• Scott Turow’s Innocent Frittata
 
Featuring full-color photography and intriguing sidebars on the surprising—and sometimes deadly—links between food and foul play, this is the ultimate cookbook for crime fiction aficionados.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781594747779

Harlan Coben

With more than seventy million books in print worldwide, Harlan Coben is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of numerous suspense novels, including Don't Let Go, Home, and Fool Me Once, as well as the multi-award-winning Myron Bolitar series. His books are published in forty-three languages around the globe and have been number one bestsellers in more than a dozen countries. He lives in New Jersey.

Reviews for The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook

[aardvark2_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a nice job Quirk Books has done with this book: beautiful binding, thick pages, good layout, good type size, and an attached ribbon as a place marker. A LARGE number of authors are included (though many are not known to me). Each recipe is introduced, in a paragraph or two, by the author. Only a small number of the recipes have pictures, something I always like to see for every recipe. Let me recommend Thomas H. Cook's Past as Prologue (Vegetarian) Chili--a new favorite (but cut way down, or eliminate, the 1/2 tbsp. of red pepper flakes!!). I am looking forward to trying more recipes in this lovely book.

[readanon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful book! I hope to try each and every recipe in it. Wish there were more pictures of the meals, but the ones there are are quite nice.

[booboobad · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book with insight on some of my favorite authors. Filled with good recipes and bits about what the recipe means to each author. I didn't "read" this in one sitting, but it is something I will pick up over and over again.

[mysterymax_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This wonderful cookbook gets full marks at every level. The book, itself, is lovely. A hardcover book with a textured front, gold spine, gold and white lettering and decoration on the front, and a gold ribbon to use as a bookmark. The photographs of the dishes are top notch. There is a a real art to photographing food and these pictures and their presentation is excellent. This is probably the first cookbook that I have read cover to cover. You can't help doing so as the authors have penned short commentaries about their cooking and their recipes. Lee Child's instructions on how to make coffee, and the quips before each section had me in stitches. Kate White, the editor, has also penned interesting, short sidebars of information on food, poisons and murder. Each of these delights is amazingly easy to make. Harlan Coben's Myron's Crabmeat Dip directions, for example, is one line long: "Mix ingredients together while heating on stove. Serve warm." It can't get any easier! After all, if you are busy writing you don't want to spend the entire day in the kitchen. These are easy, tasty repasts. I was delighted to find Kinsey Millhone's Peanut Butter & Pickle Sandwich in here, as I have been enjoying this crazy sounding concoction for years. Frankie Y. Bailey's muffins and Brad Meltzer's chicken will be the first ones we'll try.Perhaps what is most enjoyable is that these short entries make the writers very human. Their personalities shine through. This book is for people who enjoy mysteries, beautiful, readable books and wonderful yummy food.

[book58lover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have to note that I purchased this book because I didn't win it in the Early Reviewers program. And I am delighted. As another reviewer noted, the physical appearance is splendid; I almost don't want to put it in a greasy kitchen. I thoroughly enjoyed the information by and about the authors, even if I never make any of the recipes. Great addition to my library.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My favorite fiction genre is the mystery. My favorite non-fiction books tend to be cookbooks. When you throw the two together, it is like magic. This volume, edited by Kate White, includes recipes from many American mystery writers. I've heard of many of them; others I had not. The recipes are organized in much the same manner as a traditional cookbook, but each is prefaced with a story or comment by the author about the recipe. Each recipe also includes a short biography of the author. There are many photos in the book but not all recipes were photographed. There are many additional pages that explore things like "red herrings", tips on writing bestsellers, or a character's love of food. Most of these were written by the editor, but a few come from other writers. There are several recipes that I want to try in the pages. The binding is nice. The book has a very nice ribbon bookmark to keep your place. This is a great book for all mystery fans who like to cook and for cookbook collectors. I received the book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers with the expectation that a review would be written.

[edgoldberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm a mystery fan and cooking fan, otherwise I wouldn't be reading The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook: Wickedly Good Meals and Desserts to Die For, right? So, I thought I'd have a passing knowledge of the writers in this book. Well...let me tell you, there are more well known mystery writers than I had a passing knowledge of. Sure, some of my favorites are included in this book, such as Thomas H. Cook, Sue Grafton, Laura Lippman, Louise Penny and Karin Slaughter. But there are a heck of a lot more that I haven't heard of, such as Beth Amos, Alison Gaylin, Rita Lakin and L. J. Sellers...which of course, now adds to my mystery reading list.Some people have called me obsessive. When I get ahold of something, I don't let go until I've exhausted the topic (for those of you who read this, you might have gotten a sense of that from all the pulp mysteries I've written about). And, I could have sworn I've previously read a cookbook with recipes by mystery writers. But looking through my looseleaf binder of recipes, I couldn't find it. So, I used my resources to try to find it and lo and behold, mystery author/character cookbooks are a hot topic (no pun intended). There's a Lord Peter Wimsey Cookbook, a Murder She Wrote Cookbook, a Cop Cookbook. There's The Cat Who Cookbook by Julie Murphy, a Food to Die For cookbook by Patricia Cornwell, and Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes, which I'm putting on my reading list. Of course, none of these are the cookbook I was thinking of. So, I've requested A Taste of Murder: Diabolically Delicious Recipes from Contemporary Mystery Writers, A Second Helping of Murder: More Diabolically Delicious Recipes from Contemporary Mystery Writers and Writers' Favorite Recipes because I'm hoping one of these is the cookbook I was thinking of. I vaguely remember an Ed McBain recipe in the book.Finally, my thoughts on The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook. It's definitely worth looking at. If you're not a sophisticated chef (which I'm not), the cookbook is great because all the recipes are easy, such as Bill Pronzini's Nameless's Italian Garlic Bread and Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone's Famous Peanut Butter and Pickle Sandwich. The recipes run the daily eating range from breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert with a section on drinks. There are also recipes that sound intriguing such as Karen Harper's Zucchini Bread, Brad Meltzer's Italian Chicken, Greg Herren's Greg's New Orleans Slow-Cooker Meatballs and Bill Fitzhugh's Spicy Beans.To spice up the book (yes, pun intended), each section begins with a photo of an old fashioned typewriter with a page from a manuscript. Interspersed with the recipes are pages about various authors' writing such as PD James using poison as a means of murder, Nero Wolfe on Food, Poe Waxes Poetic on Food, and Lee Child's Recipe for a Delicious Best Seller.Since the recipes are based on mystery characters who like cooking or recipes mentioned in books, there's a short intro preceding each recipe telling the reader what book or character it comes from. There's a short author bio at the end of each recipe.This book has everything a mystery lover, cooking aficionado would want. Information, recipes, pictures and more. Be sure to get a copy for your bookshelf.P.S. I also found a new blog to subscribe to...Mystery Fanfare by Janet Rudolph, which is where I found the names of all these cookbooks.

[maref_17 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book I will never finish reading. Not only is this book chock full of delightful recipes each author shares a personal bit so even when you've prepared the food and are awaiting the finished dish there is still plenty to amuse the reader. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mysteries, food, and just a touch of chat.

[kmartin802_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

These recipes run the gamut from three ingredients found in every kitchen to a dozen that I swear I'd have to buy over the internet. I liked the introductions of each recipe by the author who linked the recipe to one of their books or to a family memory. While I'm going to pass on Sue Grafton's Peanut Butter & Pickle Sandwich, I think I might give Louise Penny's recipe for Tourtiere a try some day. I liked the nice assortment of recipes from appetizers to desserts and drinks. Mamma's Pimento Cheese as given by Susan M. Boyer sounds great even though I haven't heard of some of the cheeses she calls for. I'm also a little intimidated by the idea that it makes 3 quarts. I don't think I know enough people to share that amount with. I can't wait to try David Housewritght's Corn Chowder recipe. I liked the variety of authors whose recipes were included. I've read many of them including Charlaine Harris, Carolyn Hart, Diane Mott Davidson, Laurie R. King and Catherine Coulter. I was also encouraged to try books and series by other authors because I liked the recipes they included and want to meet their characters.People looking for a cookbook to go with what they're reading would be the perfect audience for this collection.

[brokenteepee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thought this was an interesting conceit for a cookbook. After all, so many of the books we all read have passages that circle around food. There are several cozy series that are built on baking or different types of cooking - say Italian for example. This book gathers recipes from different authors; they are either from the protagonists in their books, drawn from the spirit of the book or personal to the author. It's broken down into conventional sections with cocktail recipes tossed in here and there.The recipes for the most part don't break any new ground but there were some that intrigued me. You'll see one below. I think most people will enjoy this more for the connection to their favorite authors. It was fun reading the intros to the recipes; each one gave a little history behind the meal.

[blbera · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an entertaining cookbook for mystery lovers. Each recipe has a preface written by the author, explaining the origin of it. Some of the writers write in the personna of their characters. The recipes are laid out in an easy-to-read manner, and most of them seem pretty simple. There are some pictures of the meals as well as fun, factoids about things like the origin of "red herring" and food on Baker Street. I tried Margaret Maron's baked French toast and it was good.

[tmtrvlr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This cookbook is a collection of the favorite recipes of some well-known mystery writers. The hardbound book is very nice and even has a ribbon bookmark. The photo doesn't do it justice! Each recipe begins with a short note from the author that explains the origin of the recipe or just some personal information.The recipes are a wonderful variety of recipes from gourmet to family fare. The first recipe I tried was Gillian Flynn’s Beef Skillet Fiesta. She started her paragraph with “Be warned: I am no gourmet.” Her recipe was certainly not gourmet, but it was just what I was looking for that night. It was a good, easy, fast, and delicious family meal. This cookbook is now filled with bits of paper making all of the recipes I want to try. Not ever recipe has a photo, but quite a few have nice full-page photos. This one has earned a place on my permanent cookbook shelf.

[librarian1204 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An absolutely perfect book for the foodie/mystery lover! And, I fall into that category! I was delighted to receive this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewer. Many of my favorite mystery writers have recipes among the 100 in this book. The recipes are grouped in the usual format; breakfast, appetizers, soup and salad, entrees, side dishes, desserts and cocktails. Each recipe is introduced by the author as either one that is a family favorite. A book character favorite or is written about in the author's books. Following the recipe there is a short intro to the author. Interspersed are little mystery lovers tidbits like "What exactly is a red herring?"There are some color photos, a metric conversion chart and index. After reading through I have already marked recipes I want to try. Louise Penny's Madame Benoit's Tourtière served at a Christmas reveillon in her book Fatal Grace. Sara Paretsky's Chicken Gabriella named after VI Warshawski's mother and Nelson DeMille's Male Chauvinist Pigs in A Blanket ( which is very funny). There are so many more just waiting for the right occasion. A book to read for enjoyment and then to read as a cookbook. Bon Appetite.

[aliceap-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've marked several recipes to try for my next party and I've learned heaps of trivia about food and famous mystery writers (and characters). For instance, did you know that you can use milk as a kind of invisible ink? (You know I'm going to have try this out now.) Fans of Agatha Christie won't be surprised to learn that the author used poison in over half of her 66 novels as the murder weapon. These were usually hidden in food or drinks such as coffee, marmalade, and even curry. Each of the recipes contains a short blurb about the author, a famous mystery character, and the food item itself. There are some really hilarious ones such as Sue Grafton's 'Kinsey Millhone's Famous Peanut Butter & Pickle Sandwich'. It was so funny that I'm determined I'll try it at least once. The best one, however, might be the last one of the book: Lee Child's 'Coffee, Pot of One'. Now THAT is a recipe I can get behind. ;-) Bottom line: If you're a foodie and/or a mystery enthusiast then The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook is the one for you. It goes on sale March 24th! :-)