Review - Something's Cooking - Joanne Pence

[Gina Micale]

For those who prefer some romance with their mystery, Something's Cooking, the first in the Angie Amalfi series by Joanne Pence should please. Angie is writing a food column for a small weekly paper in San Francisco when some of the receipes she's been using get her mixed up with murder and gun running. Enter the hunky homicide inspector, Paavo Smith, who is handed the case. Glaringly neglecting any allusion to conflict of interest when a police officer becomes romantically involved with a witness in an ongoing investigation, Something's Cooking is better considered a romance than a mystery. The rest of the series has more of a mystery edge, and it moves to encompass more of the culinary instead of the romance aspects. It's recommended that the reader start here though to pick up important insights into the beginning of Angie and Paavo's relationship. The mystery aspects here are predictable, but the characters leave the reader wondering what will happen to them next.