May 1, 2023
Buchanan has shown she can concoct a spicy ragout out of some unlikely ingredients--witness last year's Iconoclast--and she's done it again. Readers who tear into the opening chapter might think they've stumbled into a cozy to a factor of four. The setting is a writers retreat with a gourmet kitchen, and much is made of ""wild sockeye salmon drizzled with serrano aioli."" There's so much more that one hopes a corpse turns up soon. It does, and with grim conviction Buchanan morphs her novel into another genre, the hard-boiled crime story. This one is striking because it's led by a dirty cop who happens to be a woman. Readers will have to decide if mixing grape tomatoes, sage, and coriander with exploding heads is their cuppa, but Buchanan makes it easy to get with the program. Like the reporter who lurks inside most novelists, she's bursting to tell us stuff. Did you know Hemingway contributed a booze recipe to a 1935 drinks book called So Red the Nose? And a gathering of alligators is called a ""congregation""?
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