Beat Until Stiff: A Mary Ryan Mystery

By Claire M. Johnson

Book Overview

Experienced pastry chef Johnson whips up an insider look at San Francisco's cut-throat restaurant trade. Cranky Mary Ryan has sunk a lot of time and talent into the in-vogue American Fare, the town's hottest spot, while grieving over her broken marriage. At work very early one morning, she steps on a laundry bag stuffed with the dead body of one of her employees. The investigation soon exposes all the dirty secrets that the food business would like to keep secret: the philandering chefs, the silly whims of the dining public, the hiring of illegal aliens, and the subsistence-living pay scale. Events begin to spiral that in time take out the restaurant's celebrity chef and force Mary to use her unique skills to uncover a poisonous scheme.... Beat Until Stiff gives a frank view of the cooking/restaurant scene and explores why food has become theater, with all the waiters, the busboys, the chefs, and the dining public on stage, each with their own parts to learn and perform. Dessert is the last word, the amen of a meal. And Mary Ryan always has to have the last word. Hard edged, filled richly with restaurant lore, sharply characterized, this is a debut to savor.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590580400
• ISBN13: 9781590580400
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A great first mystery!

What a fun book! Great characters, great locations, great everything! This is a quick read, I couldn't put it down! Please please please Ms. Johnson, write more....quickly!

Not typical of "light mystery"

I gave this book a five star rating because I am a big fan of light mysteries, the characters being thrown into a homicide investigation, the books with cooks, store owners, moms.....but this one I felt was really different. It was actually a little darker than most, a light mystery with an edge. Everything wasn't so wrapped up, no pat ending.I look forward to the next in the series.

Fabulous first mystery -- culinary too!

Mary Ryan, pastry chef at American Fare -- the hottest restaurant on the West Coast, is 34, recently divorced from Jim, a San Francisco homicide inspector, and cranky. Getting a chef's jacket and apron from the laundry room of the deserted restaurant, she steps on a laundry bag. It feels hard, not spongy like a bag of dirty laundry. She opens the bag with her chef's knife and finds Carlos Perez, one of her pastry assistants, beaten to death and neatly folded into the laundry bag. After she throws up and hides in the bathroom to make sure whoever killed him has left, she calls 911.O'Connor, Jim's partner and a friend, is assigned to this case. Mary disobeys O'Connor and puts herself in danger time and time again. But she also helps uncover what has been going on under her nose. Many secrets of the food business at American Fare are uncovered. I found Mary Ryan to be a likeable character even though her life is dysfunctional at best. If you like food and mysteries, you will like this debut novel. I am looking forward to reading future books.

An unusually frank view of the cooking and restaurant scene

Claire M. Johnson's Beat Until Stiff deserves enthusiastic mention as a very special title which offers an unusually frank view of the cooking and restaurant scene in San Francisco. Herself a professional and experienced pastry chef, Claire Johnson presents the reader with a lively style that mixes autobiography with culinary and social insights. Highly recommended!