What do you think?
Rate this book
Gepfefferte Weihnachten oder: Wer hat die Gans gekillt?
24 kulinarische Krimis zum Fest der Liebe. Ein krimineller Adventskalender mit festlichen Rezepten zum gefahrlosen Nachkochen.
254 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2010
1 person want to read
About the author
Regula Venske
68 booksRegula Venske is a German author and literary scholar.
She lives in Hamburg.
She lives in Hamburg.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 21, 2015
Reviewing in English for consistency with my review stream.
I received this little collection as a present several years ago and somehow managed to keep passing it over until this year. It didn't seem fitting for a Summer read! I was pleasantly surprised to find that I ate through it in a couple of days, and polished off by trying out one of the recipes that terminate each little murder story. (Kalle's Poffertjes, a kind of leavened buckwheat pancake from Friesland or Holland not dissimilar to Russian blinis. Well worth a try.)
The book consists of 30-odd short murder stories of about 20 pages in length, each featuring or mentioning some typically German Xmas dish, with or without Arsenic and poisonous flora or fungi. All were highly digestible and read in an hour or so. The German grammar and vocabulary would not be severely challenging for a student of German at university entry-level. All seem to feature some cynical and acquisitive protagonist, or occasionally beaten spouse, who opts to show a friend or acquaintance the Final Door, with or without rebound effects. One exception was a group of female fitness freaks who surprise a Santa-camouflaged burglar in the commission of a murder.
My favourite was the discussion between two would-be killers of how they would let the water out and dispatch their victim while the master of the house slept drunkenly, as usual each year on Xmas Eve. The victim, it transpires, is the carp in the bath, and the assassins are the two cats. Or perhaps the three murder victims who each consume the two poisons served up by the others before all dying in a house fire because the tree catches light once they are unconscious.
An entertaining, light-black read at Xmas for Krimi fans or German-language students.
I received this little collection as a present several years ago and somehow managed to keep passing it over until this year. It didn't seem fitting for a Summer read! I was pleasantly surprised to find that I ate through it in a couple of days, and polished off by trying out one of the recipes that terminate each little murder story. (Kalle's Poffertjes, a kind of leavened buckwheat pancake from Friesland or Holland not dissimilar to Russian blinis. Well worth a try.)
The book consists of 30-odd short murder stories of about 20 pages in length, each featuring or mentioning some typically German Xmas dish, with or without Arsenic and poisonous flora or fungi. All were highly digestible and read in an hour or so. The German grammar and vocabulary would not be severely challenging for a student of German at university entry-level. All seem to feature some cynical and acquisitive protagonist, or occasionally beaten spouse, who opts to show a friend or acquaintance the Final Door, with or without rebound effects. One exception was a group of female fitness freaks who surprise a Santa-camouflaged burglar in the commission of a murder.
My favourite was the discussion between two would-be killers of how they would let the water out and dispatch their victim while the master of the house slept drunkenly, as usual each year on Xmas Eve. The victim, it transpires, is the carp in the bath, and the assassins are the two cats. Or perhaps the three murder victims who each consume the two poisons served up by the others before all dying in a house fire because the tree catches light once they are unconscious.
An entertaining, light-black read at Xmas for Krimi fans or German-language students.
Displaying 1 of 1 review