Dial M for Meat Loaf (Sophie Greenway)

I read this Sophie Greenway mystery right after the previous book (Slice and Dice). As a former Twin Cities' resident, I savored reading known Minnesota places she uses as settings. The recipes are an added bonus though they reinforce the local preference for blander/whiter food in that part to the US. Long live the Hot Dish!

I enjoy mysteries with a heavy dash of WHY-done-its, surprise revelations along the way, and psychological profiling. I enjoy reading things that make me think "Oh Yes! I knew that" and "Oh yes, I have known people like that" and "Oh yes! I can see how that would happen!" I also love getting so enmeshed in a story that I need to keep reading, and eating can wait, sleep can wait, bathroom breaks can wait-LOL That doesn't often happen to me, but it happened with THIS book. I had read one other book in the series, and that explained a bit about the characters, however this book certainly could stand alone as a first read. I like getting so enmeshed that as the story goes along, I already know who I DON'T want to die at the end, even though I think they MIGHT. I enjoy having opinions on characters and happenings as they go along, without the author having to laboriously explain them. I enjoy characters that are multidimensional and aren't all-good or all-bad. (that mirrors real humans LOL) I enjoy seeing into characters that aren't exactly as they want to portray themselves to the world...along with the smattering of what-you-see-is-what-you-get.

Sophie Greenway is the new restaurant review editor at the Times Register. She shares the job with her son Rudy. Her husband Bram Baldric is a radio personality. Bram interviews Bernice Washburn, author of the forthcoming All That Glitters, a study of café society in America. She is also the food editor at the Times Register. She would not agree to do the interview unless Sophie agreed to come too. Bernice was terrified of radio interviews.During the interview, Bernice announced that the Times Register was holding a statewide competition and asking everyone to send in their favorite meat loaf recipe.Cora Runbeck, recently widowed when Kirby's truck blew up in the garage when he started it, new she had the best meat loaf recipe. She'd recently had catarac surgery and hadn't used her recipes for ages. When she went looking for her recipe box, she found Kirby had moved it. After much searching, she found it. But inside were a couple surprises Kirby had hidden there.John Washburn, former mayor, had a stroke and was near death. In the hospital he finally regains consciousness and writes a cryptic note to his family. Unfortunately he is confessing to a murder and his doctor happens to be standing there and sees the note. So, the police are called. The family keeps saying he didn't know what he was writing. They wouldn't let him write any more notes.Bernice is John's son. Sophie gives her a ride to the hospital one day and ends up spending the night due to a terrible storm. Through some information she finds, she starts questioning John's identity. As she begins looking into it, things are definitely not what they seem. What should she do with this information.Sophie and Bram own the Maxfield Plaza and live in an apartment there. Her parents sold it to them for $1 when they decided to retire. I like this series because Sophie always gets herself into some situations. Bram doesn't play a major role in the investigations, but is always an integral part in the story. Their relationship always adds to the story line. Then there's her gay son Rudy and his grown daughter Margie. Both play important roles in most of the stories.This story was well crafted. She had enough people involved to keep you wondering which one did it. I wasn't disappointed with the ending, nor could I figure it out too early.The Minneapolis setting is interesting too. I like the fact they live in the hotel. It really adds character to the story.I highly recommend this book and series. If you like food, you will like this fun series.

Anyone who thinks coincidence has no place in fiction has obviously not read the books of Ellen Hart. She uses coincidence to trigger the plot in several of her books, but none better than the totally believable set-up here. Sophie Greenaway is now, in addition to general manager and owner of the Maxfield Plaza Hotel in Minneapolis, the restaurant reviewer for the Star-Tribune. Her immediate supervisor, the food editor, Berniece Washburn, is also a friend. When Berniece needs to go home to Rose Hill to visit her father, ill in the hospital from a severe stroke, Sophie offers to drive. A sudden summer storm results in her having to stay the night in the home of Berniece's parents. There, Sophie stumbles over a photo of a young couple, dating from years earlier. Obviously, the photo is of Berniece's parents, but-wait! Sophie recognizes the man from her own youth, and his name then was not John Washburn. From this ordinary beginning, a tale of multiple lies begins and takes over the waking hours of Sophie and her son, Rudy. Not to mention several of the inhabitants of Rose Hill, and other towns scattered through the upper Great Lakes area. Throughout is the back story of the newspaper's contest for the best meatloaf recipe--the top three are included in the book, and look delicious!Unfortunately, the ending of the book and solution of the mystery, while tying up all the loose ends, etc., seems awfully rushed. The epilogue almost doesn't even belong to this book, it's so 'out-of-left-field' in content. And that's the only reason for the four star rating, as this author is usually 5 stars, just like the very best restaurants!

Having grown up in Minneapolis, I've always enjoyed the way in which Ellen Hart capitalizes on what I think of as the uniquely Minnesotan mindset to provide a logical albeit somewhat locally-skewed rationale for her characters' attitudes and behaviors. That's why I found it not at all unusual that irascible Cora Runbeck...her ne'er-do-well husband's sudden demise from a car bomb starts the plot action of the book off with a bang!...would take time out from her own somewhat nefarious plans for blackmail and mayhem to sit down and submit her special "No-Nonsense Meatloaf" recipe to the Minneapolis Times-Register's contest. Like the dish that this delightful read celebrates, it's exactly that kind of marvelous mixture of off-beat humor and action-intense realism that makes Ellen Hart's novels such fun! Series heroine Sophie Greenway (wife of radio personality Bram Baldric, owner of the historic Maxwell Plaza hotel in St. Paul and recently-appointed restaurant critic for the Times-Register) together with her friend, Bernice Washburn, its food editor, are supposed to serve as judges for this event, but tasting takes a backseat to detecting when (spoiler). Plato, his son, is especially distraught, but it is Bernice who begs Sophie to draw upon her talents as an amateur sleuth to try and unravel the why's behind this unlikely scenario and uncover the real murderer. Her only starting point? A series of puzzling letters that (spoiler). Ms. Hart's ingenuity and clever plotting provides clues aplenty, but unraveling former Mayor Washburn's past almost leads to another tragedy before the trail leads Sophie to the heart of the matter and justice can be served up piping hot! As always, character-driven plotting and a tight, suspenseful pace kept me happily involved in the lives of Sophie and her family and friends, and the included recipes are pure lagniappe. Meatloaf may be plain cooking, but Ellen Hart dishes up haute cuisine in cozies.

Sophie Greenacy owns St. Paul's Mansfield Plazza and writes a restaurant review column for the Minneapolis Times-Register. The newspaper is currently sponsoring a favorite meatloaf recipe contest with the grand prize being a weekend at the Plazza. Helping Sophie with this enormous endeavor is Bernice Washburn, the food editor at the paper. When Sophie learns that her friend's father is ill, she offers to drive Bernice to the hospital to visit him. When John Washburn regains consciousness, he immediately admits that he killed handyman Kirby Rinbeck, an individual allegedly blackmailing him. Sophie decides to investigate only to stunningly learn that John is a multiple bigamist, but finds no evidence that her friend's father killed anyone. Working with Bernice's significant other Angelo Falzone, Sophie searches for the real killer. DIAL M FOR MEATLOAF is a witty sophisticated who-done-it with a serpentine story line that takes readers on quite a meandering ride that works. Ellen Hart serves up quite a dish with one of the best amateur sleuth novels of the year because of that strong plot and likable but eccentric characters with fan appeal.Harriet Klausner