I was enjoying this story for the first 100 pages or so. Okay, chapters 2-4 had me wondering what they had to do with the plot. It’s mainly character building and background. Two things not usually found in cozy mysteries, not to that degree at least. But it was well written so I carried on.

Then in chapter 7 the story that I came for starts. The engagement party Dani Sloan is catering comes to a sudden end when a storm breaks out and tries to take off with the tent erected for the party. Apparently, weather in Illinois is so unpredictable that weather forecast sends out a 10 second (!) warning before a devastating storm breaks out. Surely, weather forecast can’t be that bad that it can’t predict ahead of time a storm that usually gets a name. It should have been all over the news for days and outdoor events would be cancelled for a storm of this proportion.

Though the bride-to-be probably would think her party more important than such an inconvenience as the safety of her guests.

In any case, storm happens, and police detective and part-time sous-chef Gray decides that the party must be evacuated. Dani is told to stay in the mobile kitchen. Which she doesn’t because she tipped the event-planner about the pianist. As if Gray and Spencer would only evacuate the party guests but leave the piano player be. It’s been a long time since the Titanic. These days ALL people are evacuated. Musicians are not expected to play on to calm the nerves of the guests.

I was enjoying the story up to that point, but stupid surprise storm and stupid behaviour by main character broke the spell. Though, in fairness, if a storm can pull an anchored tent from the ground, a mobile kitchen probably isn’t the safest place either.

As quickly as the storm came, it is gone, and while Gray and Spencer get on the phone to call emergency services, Dani dives into the wreck to try and find the piano player. She helps a few other people along the way, but the piano player is her main concern.

Then the body of Yvette, the bride-to-be, is found and the police decide to detain everyone that is still on site (many people have already left, among them Dani’s staff), tell them not to talk to each other and confiscate their phones. So they can’t even get some legal advice about their rights in a situation like that.

Apparently, these people are detained because they were helping people out of the wreckage. “Police do not trust altruism as a motive,” Spencer says. What a pessimistic worldview. Strangest about the reasoning that the killer can be found among the people that dove willingly into the wreckage is: police seem to think that someone did not only use this incident to their advantage (to kill someone), but after that decided to stick around until the place was crawling with police, rather than make a quiet exit at the earliest opportunity.

I’m not much impressed with the competence of the police. When Dani feeds Gray some gossip about the prenup between Yvette and Franklin, Gray says: ”Interesting that Mr. Whittaker never mentioned that to us.” Huh? Did he have reason to mention it? For instance, because you asked? And please, a little skepticism towards people discussing the contents of contracts they are not a party in. Not to mention, that Whittaker is probably so rich that a couple of million dollars doesn’t give him a motive.

This is the first book I read in the Chef-to-Go series. I’m not sure what to think of Dani. I know I don’t like Spencer. He got a page and a half to reflect on a fight between two students, which was about a page of synonyms for testosteron driven idiots more than I could stomach. But mainly, I don’t like his ethics.

Dani and Spencer discus the memorial service Whittaker is planning for Yvette. He was assured the body would be release in time. To which Spencer comments: If I was the officer in charge, I’d want to keep the vic until I had the perp. Well, it’s a good thing the police don’t get to decide when a body is released after autopsy, because keeping the victim until you have the murderer is unethical. Some crimes take a lot of time to solve (if they are solved at all) and all that time the bereaved are denied their right to make funeral arrangements for their loved one and morn properly. That simply isn’t right. Re-examination of the body after a suspect is found is not a good enough reason to keep a body. Perhaps if there were some doubts after the autopsy, but in this case the victim was killed by stabbing.

Ethics is the reason I’m not able to finish this story. When Gray is presented with a low quality film of the victim leaving a car with a man and that combined with some comments Dani overheard, he seems to think that is not enough to bring the man in for questioning. Rather, he goes ahead with a suggestion made by one of the others: that the victim’s fiancé should confront the suspected murderer and coax him into a confession. That too is wrong on so many levels, that I was not able to continue reading after that.

I read a ARC through NetGalley.