Catering to Nobody (Davidson)

Catering to Nobody (Goldy Culinary Mystery series #1)
Diane Mott Davidson, 1992
Random House
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553584707


Summary
Catering a wake is not Goldy Schulz’s idea of fun. Yet the Colorado caterer throws herself into preparing a savory feast including Poached Salmon and Strawberry Shortcake Buffet designed to soothe forty mourners. And her culinary efforts seem to be exactly what the doctor ordered...until her ex-father-in-law gynecologist Fritz Korman is struck down and Goldy is accused of adding poison to the menu.

Now, with the Department of Health impounding her leftovers, her ex-husband proclaiming her guilt, and her business about to be shut down, Goldy knows she can’t wait for the police to serve up the answers. She’ll soon uncover more than one family skeleton and a veritable stew of unpalatable secrets—the kind that could make Goldy the main course in an unsavory killer’s next murder! (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—March 22, 1949
• Where—Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University; M.A. Johns Hopkins
• Awards—Anthony Award from Bouchercon (World Mystery
   Convention)
• Currently—Evergreen, Colorado


Diane Mott Davidson is an American author of mystery novels that use the theme of food. Several recipes are included in each book, and each novel title is a play on a food or drink word.

Mott Davidson studied political science at Wellesley College and lived across the hall from Hillary Clinton. In a few of her novels (particularly, The Cereal Murders), she references a prestigious eastern women's college that her sleuth, Goldy Schulz, attended before transferring to a Colorado state university. In real life, Mott Davidson transferred from Wellesley and eventually graduated from Stanford University.

The main character in Mott Davidson's novels is Goldy Schulz, a small town caterer who also solves murder mysteries in her spare time. At the start of the series, Goldy is a recently divorced mother with a young son trying to make a living as a caterer in the fictional town of Aspen Meadows, CO. As the series progresses, new characters are introduced that change Goldy's professional and personal life. It has been noted that Aspen Meadows closely resembles a real Colorado town, Evergreen. Evergreen is where Mott Davidson currently resides with her family.

The series has now reached 15 books, with Fataly Flakey (2009) as the most recent. The first 12 books interwove recipes with the novel's text. When a dish is first described in the novel, the relevant recipe followed within the next few pages. Double Shot, the 12th novel, marked a change in the publishing of these recipes. In that book all recipes are compiled and printed at the end of the novel.

She was the guest of honor at the 2007 Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave in Manhattan, Kansas. (From Wikipedia.)

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Book Reviews 
Chef Goldy Schulz's life is a medley of murder, mayhem, and melted chocolate.
New York Post

Diane Mott Davidson's culinary mysteries can be hazardous to your waistline.
People

Davidson's debut is as embarrassing as a fallen souffle would be to her narrator, divorced culinary artist Goldy Korman of Goldilocks' Catering in Aspen Meadows, Colo. Goldy, in business to support herself and her 11-year-old son, Arch, caters the gathering after the funeral of Arch's teacher, at which her former father-in-law, gynecologist Fritz Korman, drinks from a poisoned cup. While the police make sure that Goldy is now "catering to nobody," she begins her own investigation to clear herself. As amorous detective Tom Schulz courts her, Goldy courts danger, seeking connections among the recovered Fritz, the teacher and nearly everyone else in the rustic town, including her teenage lodger, Patty Sue. The only rewards of the mystery are recipes for tasty dishes and the endearing Arch, who outwits the killer and is the sole credible character in the overstuffed cast.
Publishers Weekly

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Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Catering to Nobody:

1. Talk about Goldy as a character. How would you describe her? Some readers find her strong or spunky, others see her as whiny and unlikable? What do you think of her as the book's heroine?

2. What do you make of the other characters? There's John Richard, "The Jerk"—Goldy's ex-husband. Is his abusive behavior and his string of affairs handled realistically? And what about Marla—what does she bring to the party?

3. What is the reason that Goldy initiates her own investigation into the attempted poisoning of her ex-father-in-law, Fritz Korman?

4. What does Goldy learn about Fritz...why do people seem to have grudges against him?

5. How does Goldy's son Arch cope with the death of his favorite teacher, Laura Smiley? Are his coping mechanisms typical of young people who experience the death of someone close? Did you find it odd that Goldy doesn't demand more from the school regarding Arch's black eyes?

6. Laura supposedly committed suicide, but when Goldy begins to examine Laura's life...she suspects something else was at play? What, in particular, prompts Goldy to doubt the official cause of death?

7. Talk about the red herrings—the techniques the author uses to lead readers astray, causing us to wrongly suspect various neighbors in Aspen Meadows? Were you taken in by the false clues?

8. What about the real clues? Does Davidson disguise them well enough? In other words, were you surprised—or were you able to figure out who the culprit was early on?

9. Does this book deliver...as a mystery? Did it hold your interest, did you find yourself quickly turning pages to learn what happened next? Were you satisfied, or surprised, by the ending? Was the writing fresh? Or did you find the writing cliched...and the ending predictable?

10. If you've read others in the Goldy series, how does this one stack up to the others? If this is the first Goldy book you've read, are you inspired to read more?

11. Talk about the recipes—have you tried them? Are you serving them at your book club meeting? Why does Davidson include them as part of her novel? What part do they play in the plot? Is there a symbolic significance to the use of recipes, the fact that an entire series is based around a catering business? Or are they just for fun?!

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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