Topped Chef

Key West Food Critic, Book 3

By: Lucy Burdette

Narrated by: Laura Jennings

Hoping for some good publicity, Hayley’s boss at Key Zest magazine signs her up to help judge the Key West Topped Chef contest. Stakes are high as the winner could be the next cooking-show superstar.

Hayley shows up for the filming nervous but excited, until she sees who’s on the judging panel with her: Sam Rizzoli, big shot businessman—and owner of the restaurant she just panned in her first negative review. When Rizzoli turns up dead, the police assume his killer is one of his business rivals. But Hayley wonders whether someone is taking the contest a little too seriously. With the police following the wrong recipe, it’s up to Hayley to find the killer before she’s eliminated from the show…permanently.

©2013 Lucy Burdette (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

Zesty performance with red herrings, though the romance drags

Third time out with Hailey Snow and Co. Enjoyable as always, though the will they won't they between her and Nathan Bransford kinda made me want her with someone else (Detective Torrance perhaps?). But the inclusion of a reality food competition was well done, and I will say that the murderer's attempt to mislead the police was a tad obvious. Still, I am eager to see what happens next. The narrator delivers as always. All in all, not a complete drag though there moments I did do a slight face palm.

love this series!!

this series has great escape quality to it, and I love the continuation of characters throughout the series. relationships progress and change, and the mystery keeps you guessing. doesn't fall into predictable pitfalls of some cozies. I love they kept the same narrator.

Quotes on each chapter

The quotes at the begining of each chapter are very anoying, the rest is okay.

Not as satisfying as usual

I love this series and the characters, but this one was less than satisfying. I dislike the quotes at the beginning of chapters. They are distracting and often have very little to do with the chapter to come. But here, she is not only quoting herself, but is even supposedly quoting things her characters wrote. Just plain weird.

I don’t want to give away the ending, but it felt rushed, slapped together and was deeply dissatisfying. I listened to the last few chapters several times as I kept falling asleep. Ending seemed more like a brief outline of the ending rather than an actual climax, conclusion and explanation of the logic and deductions.

Do love the series, location and characters, but the “mystery” in this one played 2nd or 3rd fiddle.