|
The Nantucket Diet Murders (Eugenia Potter Mysteries) | 
 enlarge | Author: Virginia Rich
Publisher: Dell
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $6.98 (100%)
New (14) Used (136) Collectible (8) from $0.01
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 372005
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0440162645
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780440162643
ASIN: 0440162645
Publication Date: April 1, 1986
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Warm memories and good food greeted Mrs. Potter's retum to her beloved Nantucket, but so did a chilling surprise. Her old friends had a dangerous new look: dangerously thin and dressed to kill!
Was something sinister going on? A handsome new diet doctor had won over the richest widows on the island with his weight-loss secrets -- and his very personal attention. But when sudden death was seved up along with delightful Down East dishes (try sinfully rich Scrimshaw Inn Rum Pie or tangy Nantucket Cranberry Cup Pudding!), the inimitable Mrs. Potter knew it was time to stir the pot and come up with a devilishly clever culinary killer.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Great Potential but Curious Follow-Through June 3, 2006
Lisa Shea
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I really love the island of Nantucket; I've been out each summer for the past 10 years for the deliciously relaxing wine festival they hold by the beach. I also love mystery stories, especially those with unorthodox characters. It seemed a natural for me to give The Nantucket Diet Murders a try.
Virginia Rich was in her later years when she wrote this series - in fact she only finished 3 books before she passed away. Her main character - Eugenia Potter - is a grandmother who is widowed but still quite active and self sufficient. You can feel the realism and warmth that Virginia embued into this character from her own experiences. Genia, as she is known to her friends, maintains an active social life, a keen intellect and a well rounded sense of humor. She understands why one of her friends would want to remarry, but scoffs at the idea that a mature woman "needs" a man to make her complete.
As the name indicates, the book is all about women on diets and the murders that spring up. I am certainly an outspoken foe of the ridiculous body image messages that women are foisted, and I appreciated the basic concept of the book - that being a healthy weight is fine, but to drive yourself to anorexia can quickly lead to death. The main characters schedule in daily walks, exercise sessions, and salad bar lunches to keep themselves as healthy as they can in their not-young bodies. I do appreciate all of that.
However, the book goes a bit overboard on this. The main character - who is generally portrayed as the voice of wisdom and common sense - goes on and on about how "thin!!!" her friends are and how amazingly wonderful this is. She puts down her own weight several times, even though she'd previously been happy with herself. After a while the poor anorexic girl who died seems more to have been a plot device than a real rounded-out situation with depth. In fact the father of the girl dies on page 4 and that's pretty much the last you hear of her. Ironically, at the end there's a soliloquy about how the group of women would incorrectly be portrayed as shallow, rich, beautifully thin people by the media. It's as if the book, while launching itself as against unhealthy body image, then focusses on that topic as integral to every female's life for the entire rest of the book. Genie is constantly examining the looks and bodies of her friends, looking down on the unattractive clothing of another woman, and at times being quite snarky.
On to the characters. Genia's group of friends are for the most part women she grew up with on Nantucket, as they raised their families together. You get Dee the fashion editor. Beth the "pudgy one". Gussie the best friend. Leah the martyr. Mary Lynne the southerner. Mittie the local. Helen the midwesterner. The problem is that all of these women are thrown at you immediately, and are barely distinct from each other beyond their stereotypes. There are many other characters as well, and it becomes a person soup, trying to keep track of who is who and how they are all related. All of them are obsessed with being thin and talk quite a lot about their dead husbands. You get occasional comments about one being in real estate - but apparently she's a leech. Another is working on charity promotions - but she actively bad-mouths her daughter. I am very much for real characters with dimension. However, we ended up with stereotype cut-outs that have flaws that make them in some cases quite unlikeable.
One of the characters I adored, though, was the island herself. Nantucket is an amazing place. It's not a "recreation". It is the real thing. These houses have been there for centuries, built to survive the test of time. The weathered brick, the soft grey shingles, the winding country lanes and long, quiet beaches are an amazing pleasure to visit. I myself love to go there "off season" when you really feel like you are living back in the days of whaling and simpler times. This is the Nantucket the book describes - the quiet lanes, the gentle snowfalls, the stately beauty of the homes. That environment and comfort helped me to overlook some of the other issues with the characters and plot.
It's always hard to talk about the actual plot of a murder story without giving it away. Let me just say that a fair amount of it revolves around all of the women becoming addicted to the men in their lives - which was supposedly what Genie was standing against. It makes out both older women and younger women as becoming silly and brainless as soon as a suave guy came along. It also claims to be for women's financial independence - several of the elderly widows complain about being stuck with a trust fund - but then promptly has almost every one of those women making incredibly unwise financial decisions and explicitly states in several cases that having the "wise benevolence" of the trust was what saved them from financial ruin. Some of the end-book revelations were completely left field, more deus ex machina than wrap-up.
Again, I really enjoyed the premise, I loved the location and I appreciated the elder set of female characters. I thought all of these things had great potential. I just felt that while the book talked the talk, it did NOT walk the walk, and a lot of what they claimed to speak out against was actually woven insidiously into the plot in a completely opposite manner. With Virginia Rich having passed away, I am curious to see if Nancy Pickard (who took over the character in subsequent novels) handled this differently.
 Is Bare Bone Beauty to Die For? May 6, 2005
Linda G. Shelnutt (Hotchkiss, CO USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
When I first picked up NANTUCKET DIET MURDERS and set in to begin reading, I felt a "duh" when suddenly noticing the significance of the word "diet" in the title.
As I continued reading, I was drawn in by the deft (though too-close-to-home) descriptions of an arthritic, elderly man easing himself into a deep tub of steaming, soothing water. A bit later, I was saddened by a heartbreaking situation of anorexia, and intrigued by a bad guy diet pusher being situated in a culinary cozy. It didn't take long to realize the rich potential of poaching these simmering themes. Thankfully, a spicy, seasoned author like Rich knows the difference between poaching and pounding.
Pounding on political issues in fiction can bruise the flavor for me. And, yes, I know that pounding on raw beef tenderizes it. As sensitive as I am, I don't need tenderizing, thank you. In the case of fiction, only a delicate touch can tastefully interpose issue investment ... or should I say, palatably?
Virginia Rich's pen (wooden spoon?) has a delightfully delicate touch and deals with touchy themes with succulent taste. Definitely no pounding points problems here. Quite the contrary.
Bear with me a minute, though, while I sidetrack to hammer a hair which I will later tenderize sagely into THE NANTUCKET DIET MURDERS.
Sometimes I've been forced to quit reading novels of really great authors for two reasons.
-- One is the beat-into-the-ground political agenda which dramatizes every which way that US Capitalism is the Arch Evil of "Humanity" (a humanity which is repeatedly presented as evil itself, by pseudo science raving, because it's screwing up the planet and bothering moles in holes).
Please. Enough of this nonsense poked and prodded into otherwise good stories!
This currently pervasive political agenda repeatedly designs Big Business as the polluted, polluting Bad Guy. It is a horrific twist of irony that so many novels offered by US publishing houses (many of which are owned overseas) dramatize our economic system as the ultimate evil.
Yes, this is the system called Capitalism, which allows and encourages free-spirited give and take, ownership of private property, and the right to earn and own profit as individuals or private sectors, the system founded here by our wise forefathers who had hoped to solidify and protect a natural, healthy way for the spirit to live incarnated in a physical world.
-- The other reason I've quit reading a few really great authors is that they push their plots with too much high level tension at a too fast pace. It keeps me riveted, yes. But. I feel like I'm having a heart attack all the way through the book, and am compelled to hurry to get, not to the end of the book, but OUT of it, to the other side of it.
Of course, what better place to bash a political-economic system than from within the minds of the people being honored and sustained, body and soul, by it?
And what better place than inside a mind being enthralled and entertained within a world designed by an author of fiction.
"Man," as Ayn Rand might quip from the grave, sipping espresso in dual demitasse with Virginia Rich, "What a perfect program for brainwashing."
And we have been. You'd think our economic system would already be a has been. But, how amazing is a system which is so healthy and strong, it survives the most insidious, constant leaching and battering by the intellectuals which it serves.
And, what better place to deal with killer diets than in a culinary cozy mystery? In this case, it's a good thing, highlighting the toxic parts of dieting obsessions.
Replacing the soap box into its cubby hole and returning to the reading of this mystery, as promised above, I noticed early on that the cast of Eugenia's friends were consistently called by their first names or familiar nicknames by the story's Omniscient Observer Narrator, whereas Eugenia was habitually referred to as "Mrs. Potter."
I had wondered if Rich had a conscious intent in that habitual reference to "Mrs. Potter"; a somewhat sneaky ploy to set the main character's maturity, perspective, and stability a slight step above her group of Nantucket friends, "Les Girls."
This is an intriguing technique which gives The Omniscient Narrator a subtle presence, due to his respectful, somewhat "nose-in-the-air" view of his "Mrs. Potter," a view which gives the impression of a butler who holds the utmost approval for his employer, and feels just a tad bit that she is lowering herself to be chummy with these other grandmothers who seem to have taken up permanent residence in adolescence. Yet, Genia herself comes across as an egalitarian, level-nosed lady, and seems to truly see herself as "one of the girls."
Rich does have a different writing style than Nancy Pickard, who took on Eugenia's continuance after Rich entered the open gateway into higher realms where to write would be to literally create a new reality
Interestingly, in each of Pickard's later two novels in this series (BLUE CORN MURDERS and SECRET INGREDIENT MURDERS), the omniscient narrator always refers to "Genia" instead of to "Mrs. Potter." In the transition novel between the two authors, 27 INGREDIENT CHILI CON CARNE MURDERS, Pickard followed Rich's established pattern of referring to "Mrs. Potter" (rather than to "Genia") in narration reference. I'd love to know if Pickard made this change purposely or unconsciously.
To me it's apparent that Rich was very like her Mrs. Potter character, a woman who had grown gracefully and graciously (as well as grittily) through each day of her life, and fully earned the maturity of every year of her age. Pickard is also an admirable woman, but a subtly different one, from a different generation. Rich grew through the cultural time frame of strong women feeling free and feisty by rebelliously indulging in the "vices" of cigarettes and alcohol. Pickard entered the world in a time-frame enough beyond that phase to be unable to fully portray in Genia's character the essence of having lived that era.
While reading THE NANTUCKET DIET, my first dip into Virginia Rich's three novels, I had wanted to be especially attuned to the differences in Genia as portrayed by each of her two excellent authors. I was surprised and intrigued. I noticed more of differences than I had anticipated. The variations, though, do not diminish Eugenia's appeal. That character works beautifully through both authors.
In this plot, through Mrs. Potters stream-of-consciousness, Rich has amazingly exposed the evolution of the cultural mind set which feeds Anorexia within the vulnerable minds of young women compelled toward health and beauty. Rich uses a Rainbow's End scenario of the pot of gold always one more step, one less bite away from a last gasp, a clutching, clinging grasp of the hour glass.
In human life on Earth, Time takes prisoners only for a while prior to setting them free.
Maybe one of the purposes of the "imprisonment" of embodiment is enlightenment:
See this? See what you were doing? See where it leads? See where it ends?
Maybe another of the purposes is experiencing the high entertainment value of TOUCH, through each of the senses, including most essentially, the sense of taste.
Here we have an author who is literally in the final phases of divesting herself from a physical world, a world in which possibly one of the main gifts of that unique existence is the sensual pleasure of eating. In those final phases of life in that existence, that author is exploring the essence of food and its nurturing facets to body, emotions, mind, and soul.
It is true that compulsive overeating is likely more unsatisfying, more lacking in experiencing the true pleasures of sensuality, than under eating is. But how sad it is to be able to eat only within severe limitations of one sort of another (usually all falling under the profane word, "diet"). How sad it is to be able to eat only with the accompanying anti-appetizers of guilt, anxiety, and downright fear, which have been culturally instilled into every bite.
Rich has treated these issues amazingly gracefully, bringing an enlightenment to the surface, but not pounding any angle or investing feverishly in any prescription. She has merely given nurturing food for thought without forcefully or overly limiting the parameters of possible conclusions.
Virginia Rich was a gracious, wise lady who has successfully infused those qualities into her mystery series, especially in this unique story and character set.
It's intensely satisfying to read a book by an author who doesn't radiate terror in every chosen word, terror that she'll be boring if her pace is pleasantly methodical; an author who doesn't overuse speed and shock as ready pills to counter artistic insecurity. Of course everyone who writes to entertain probably has artistic insecurity in some quantity. It can be used to hone an edge of true skill, or to sharpen the fluctuations of flash-and-run chaos, offering them as pablum to the foolish foibles of a youth terrified of true transformation.
In my conclusion of this very special offering in the culinary crowd of the mystery genre, I'll note my preference for the eating styles listed by Rich; by doing so, I will not be spoiling the soup or giving it away:
In the epilogue-like wind-down of plot, after the culprit is deftly handled with a few subtle surprises, the author displays her ladies loosely discussing various types of diets which their generation has lived through. For my tastes, Dee had the sanest lifetime habits of a "dieting" which is liberating rather than limiting to the spirit.
Yet, once in a while, a crazy fad diet can be fun, as well as fueling if it lifts a few pounds off a body tired of lumbering and limping along, a recalcitrant body which has been forever trying and trying and trying to finish that jigsaw puzzle picturing how to enjoy the spice in life through an unpadded skeletal framework.
The eternal, all consuming focus on being "too revoltingly fat"; that focus and revulsion is the key, stated in the last words of a young girl dying of Anorexia. Rich exposes this key perfectly in the enlightening ease of this slow, sensual, satisfying novel, written by a woman in her last chapter of life.
With Awe,
Linda G. Shelnutt
"The Nantucket Diet Murders" is a must on a Rich menu January 27, 2000
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
I was first acquainted with the fictional sleuth Eugenia Potter through Nancy Pickard's "The 27-Ingredient Chili Con Carne Murders". Ms. Pickard was continuing the character that Ms. Rich had begun. Eager to backtrack, I discovered that Ms. Rich had written only 3 Eugenia Potter mysteries (in addition to the notes for "Chili") before her death. I was delighted to find this one still in print. Obviously carefully researched in the manner of Jane Langton, this book sketched a vivid portrait of a Nantucket winter, offering a range of characters to cheer for and despise. It was refreshing to see an older woman portrayed as the heroine, and what's more, anything but a reclusive widow. She keeps you guessing until the end, then throws in a little drama for good measure. I did not find the other two books, but did read "The Blue Corn Murders", the second Eugenia Potter book by Nancy Pickard, in which Ms. Pickard improves on her style and familiarity with Genia, exhibiting the same flair for research and complex character situations as did Virginia Rich.
Likable character. You want to get to know her better. September 13, 1999
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Very good book. Sorry that this writer did not get to get on the bandwagon of recipe/mystery stories. Very pleased that Nancy Pickard has begun writing about Eugenia Potter. Would like to read the Cooking School Murders and the Baked Bean Supper Murders just to see how Virgina Rich was developing this character and if Nancy Pickard is keeping true to her form or is she developing a whole new persona for this character.
|
|
|
. | |
