Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780425262412
Berkley Prime Crime
279 Pages
$7.99; $2.99 Amazon
October 1, 2013
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Romance is supposed to be the spice of life. But Maxie Pierce is so done with bad relationships -- well, almost. She just has to get rid of the latest loser, Roberto. Besides, she has more important things to worry about. Her daddy, Texas Jack Pierce, king of the chili cook-off circuit, has been missing for nearly six weeks now. In his place, she must team up with her irritating half sister, Sylvia, to promote the family business at the Taos Chili Showdown, to be judged by celebrity chef Carter Donnelly.
But when Maxie discovers Roberto's body in the chef's trailer -- only hours after publicly breaking up with him while wearing a giant red chili pepper costume -- she suddenly finds she's the one in the spotlight as the police pepper her with questions. Now this Chili Chick needs to kick up the search to catch the real killer and get back to finding her father...
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This is my first foray into Ms. Logan's books, and I can't tell you whether I'll make another one or not. Later on in the review, I'll inform everyone why.
Maxie Pierce and her half sister Sylvia have taken over their father's business -- which is to go from place to place selling his chili ingredients and making chili so that customers will try it and purchase items. They belong to a group of people who travel from town to town doing this. Maxie's job is mainly to wear the Chili Chick costume and dance around to draw attention to their trailer. Sylvia mainly does everything else.
But it seems Maxie had a bad date the evening before with a man named Roberto, where he got into a bar fight and ignored her the entire evening, so when he shows up wanting to see her again, and pretty much telling her it's because she has a reputation on the circuit for being "easy." she has a very public fight with him. Then, when hotshot television chef Carter Donnelly shows up, she tries to get him to try some of her father's chili that she had already made, but her sister Sylvia tries to sabotage her by getting him to try some of her own creation. What ensues is a very childish scene in which Maxie accidentally spills her bowl of chili on Carter while trying to get around Sylvia; and when she opens Carter's RV to get a towel for him, the body of Roberto tumbles down on her.
Later on, she finds that Sylvia's been arrested for Roberto's murder, and Maxie decides to help her by finding out who killed him. She's also hoping for help from the hot security guard Nick -- whom Sylvia also has her eye on -- but he wants her to leave it to the police. So Maxie's working on her own, and trying to stay away from a killer...
This is the first in this series, and unfortunately it's going to be the last one that I'm going to read. First off, Maxie and Sylvia are downright nasty people. Sylvia is self-centered, selfish, mean, and an out-and-out horrible person, while Maxie is just annoying. We never get to find out why they hate each other. From what we're told, Sylvia is two years older than Maxie. So Jack left Sylvia's mother when she was younger than that to marry Maxie's, so it can't be memories of him leaving her, because there wouldn't be any. We also find out that he spent every summer with both his daughters, so it isn't because he never spent any time with her. So what's the reason? Her mother poisoning her against her father? Yeah, that's healthy.
Then we find out that Sylvia doesn't care whether her father is found or not. She's only in it for what she can get out of it (and I'm not explaining that any further). Maxie, however, loves her father and is in it so she can figure out where he is and bring him home.
But when Sylvia is arrested, she's on her own, and her personality doesn't get any better, either. We never find out what makes either of them tick, nothing about their personalities. We don't find out about Nick's background either. There just wasn't anything to bring us into the characters, to liven them up, to make them a little bit human. They were just words on a page.
When Sylvia was exonerated -- which we knew she would be, so no surprise there -- is she grateful? Nope. She goes right back to being the nasty person she is -- which should have made Maxie pack right up and go back to her home, wherever that is (we have no idea, of course).
Which means that the murder mystery wasn't interesting. If you can't invest in the characters, why invest in the mystery? In fact, when the book was finished, I turned the page and thought: where's the rest of it? Yep. That pretty much sums it up. Where's Jack? Who does Nick like? Why do the women hate each other? I absolutely detest books that give us cliffhangers. I always feel like we're being "held hostage," in other words, being forced to purchase the next book in order to find out what happens next. I abhor them. Because of this, I won't be reading any more in this series.
More on Kylie Logan's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/kylie-logan/
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