Drop Dead Delicious: A Maggie and Odessa Mystery

by Jill Brock

Best friends since high school, Maggie and Odessa are working hard at their new careers, Maggie as a P.I. in-training and Odessa as a dessert chef. A pixie redhead, with more curiosity than common sense, Maggie wants to do more than the dishes and coaching her son's soccer team. Once, Odessa wanted to be as rich as Oprah, now she dreams of winning first place on a televised Bake Off, if she can just find a killer cake recipe. As a mother and wife, Maggie's knack for finding things and people motivates her to try her hand at sleuthing. Armed with a certificate from her Adult Education Class, Private Investigation for Idiots, and a job working for a retired New York City detective's failing P.I. business, she wants to give it a go. Despite, protests from her husband, a hyperactive eight year old son and the family dog. In between PTA meetings and doing the laundry, Maggie thinks she could be the next Sam Spade. For Odessa, after a tumultuous year, finally she is back on track, with her growing cake making business. Despite having to work with her demanding sister, Candace at their family restaurant The Blue Moon, things are looking good. Until her embezzling ex-boss comes back to town. Burke Peterson was a nightmare Odessa would sooner forget, but he won't let her. His return to New York City brings back bad memories, especially the one where Odessa gets tossed out of her high paying job. With Peterson's return, Odessa has to contend with her overwhelming desire to kill him with a poison pie, dealing with her new boyfriend's sudden jealousy and finding the recipe for the perfect cake! While Maggie tries to help her best friend, she has problems of her own. Her first stake out brings her too close for comfort to a deranged oversexed mistress and her accident prone husband's penchant for power tools. Despite all their efforts, Peterson drags Odessa and Maggie reluctantly into dirty money, codes, the FBI, Las Vegas and murder.

Genres: Mystery

319 pages, Paperback

First published December 11, 2008

About the author

Jill Brock, a native New Yorker began writing poetry and short stories in high school. She has been an avid reader since childhood.

Majoring in Fine Arts and psychology, she turned toward the creative arts therapies for her career. Later, when she returned to her love of books and writing she decided she wanted to write a book. Several attempts and manuscripts later, she had written her first, Pennywise, loosely based on her experience of running a restaurant, being one of three sisters and growing up in Queens, New York.

She began the Maggie and Odessa Mystery series because she wanted to reflect the multicultural world that surrounded her, her sense of humor and her love of mysteries. Four books into the series, she is starting a new series, she starting a New series, The Thursday Night Killer's Book Club.

She is a member of Sisters In Crime/New York Chapter.

Reviews

[Kim G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 2 of Maggie and Odessa Mystery a fun read I am starting to like cozy reads. Odessa is finally getting her anxiety under control. Maggie is finding her notch in becoming a private investigator. I love the sisterly rivalry between Odessa and Candace. The plot was kind of easy of figure out. I am so loving at how Jill Brock can make a character mean and dreadful but still find that humor to make you laugh. I did not like the word pocketbook used a lot; it just made the women sound so old. It also dropped a notch in hysterics from book one but still funny.

[Butterbean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to warm up to Odessa since some of her antics are cringy, but Im enjoying this series so far.

[Cozy Reader Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Drop Dead Delicious: A Maggie and Odessa Mystery" bu Jill Brock is for sure a good mystery. I would say its borderline cozy mystery as it can get a bit more intense violence and romance wise then a truly cozy mystery but is by no means a thriller or romance mystery. For how short of a book it is, it packs A LOT in. I'm on the fence for if it was just right or a bit too much for one book. There are a couple subplots I'm not sure really fit into the overall story. Maybe if they'd been part of a separate solo story they could have been fully explored.

Odessa and Maggie are great. I feel like Maggie should be pushing Odessa to get her PI license as well. Then she could be a baking PI since she seemed to do at least as much PI work as Maggie did. She was the force behind Maggie subtle.

[LiteraryMarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

DROP DEAD DELICIOUS BY JILL BROCK

Odessa Wilkes and her best friend, Maggie Swift, are back in another hilarious mystery. Odessa has recovered from her anxiety attacks and started a new life. Comfortably baking desserts at her family’s restaurant, The Blue Moon, and settled into her new romantic relationship, all seems well and calm. Then Odessa’s embezzling ex-boss from Eastman & Kendrick, Burke Peterson, comes back. Did he make some kind of deal? Why is Burke back in town? Is Odessa going to kill him like she always planned?

Much to everyone’s surprise, Odessa has the opposite reaction. She greets Burke Peterson with a huge warm hug. Maggie is confused. Lee goes into crazy boyfriend mode and shows a jealous streak. Candace just wants everyone to stop making a scene in front of the customers. Burke soon obliges the crowd and makes an exit, leaving behind his wallet. Its not long before Maggie & Odessa try to find out why Burke has returned and if he’s really guilty of embezzlement.

Meanwhile, Odessa has entered a Bake Off contest. She needs to determine the best recipe ever in order to win. If only her Aunt left behind the recipes to her delicious cakes like she left behind handmade quilts.

This book is filled with comedic adventures of the amateur detectives. Author Jill Brock’s sequel is a fast, great weekend read. The plot has multiple storylines, but very easy to keep up with. The characters are just as memorable and hilarious as when we first met them in PENNYWISE. I look forward to more adventures with Maggie & Odessa.

November 30, 2009

♠ L Marie ♥

[Darcy Odden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cake maker/dessert chef Odessa Wilkes is infuriated when Burke Peterson, her former boss at Manhattan advertising agency Eastman/Hendrick, returns to New York City after embezzling charges against him are dropped. Odessa lost her job due to her business relationship with him and is still carrying a grudge.

When the head of Eastman/Kendrick is found murdered, fingers point to Burke as the killer. Burke maintains his innocence and enlists the help of Odessa and her friend Maggie, a mother and private investigator in training.

Odessa must juggle a jealous boyfriend, a former boyfriend, a menacing sister, two FBI agents, a bake-off and more in her attempt at vindicating Burke.

Jill Brock's "Drop Dead Delicious" is a fun who-done-it. Odessa and Maggie are colorful and engaging characters with a lot of chutzpah. I especially enjoyed their escapades in Las Vegas. I would recommend this to anyone who loves a humorous mystery. However, the book would benefit from a round of copy editing.

[TinaNoir · Rating 3 out of 5]

More wacky hijinks from PI in training Maggie and her best friend, cake baker and ex. Ad Exec Odessa Wilkes.

I enjoyed this one as a quick, easy read. The mystery element was almost non-existent as Maggie and Odessa 'detective work' was more the result of serendipity and people who just liked to tell them things than it was any real work on their part.

But these two are engaging and the humor, while not as laugh out loud as the first one, is still very much evident.

[Charlie Moody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good second book in the series

But it needed a human proofreader to catch problems with word usage like never mine or you have got to be serious etc. The editing problems were distracting.