Product DescriptionStranded at a country inn during a snowstorm, vacationing sleuth Angel Cardoni goes into action after French chef Olive Souffle+a7 is found dead in the inn's walk-in freezer, and Angel must use scientific experimentation and deduction to solve the crime.From School Library JournalGrade 7 Up. Found brutally stabbed in her own freezer, Olive Souffle, a famous chef, is a seemingly innocent victim of a vicious crime, and Detective Angel Cardoni must figure out who killed her before she becomes the next target. Trapped by a snowstorm at a country lodge two days before it is scheduled to open and surrounded by a bevy of suspects who have more motives for murder than she first realizes, Angel dives into her task of unraveling the clues. Using modern science and nothing more complex than a gas stove and common kitchen utensils, she does her best to uncover the evildoer in this unique glimpse into the more mundane life of a police detective. Though the suspects are more one dimensional than clever, the introduction of scientific crime-investigation techniques to solve the case adds a certain amount of depth to this murder mystery. Readers will hardly be able to resist the urge to repeat Angel's simple, step-by-step experiments, just to see if they really do work as the author predicts. An increased interest in science is a given for any reader. This entertaining whodunit is fast-paced crime drama in the best Dick Tracy fashion.?Linda Bindner, Athens Clarke County Library, GACopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Kirkus ReviewsAs this entry in the Crime Files series opens, homicide detective Angel Cardoni (who seems to be in her mid-20s) is driving through a blizzard with her faithful dog, Miro. She swerves to avoid a deer in the road and ends up with her car nearly buried in a huge snowbank. Luckily, a nearby country inn is two days from opening for ski season, and Angel and Miro take refuge there at the invitation of the inn's award-winning French chef, Olive Souffl‚. Angel's exhausted sleep is interrupted by the sound of screams; an employee and a delivery man have just found Olive's body on the floor of a walk-in freezer, surrounded by heads of cabbage. Although there's a dearth of evidence--no murder weapon, little blood, no hint of a struggle--and the medical examiner can't get there until the roads have been cleared, Angel resolves to find the killer. She does, in spite of numerous red herrings thrown in her path, and with enough brio to satisfy readers who figure out the mystery first; as Angel pursues her investigation with an ad hoc laboratory made up entirely of kitchen equipment, a variety of simple science lessons become clear. Despite the ages of the players (all adults, some middle-aged) and simplistic plotting, there is plenty to involve readers who like their mysteries fairly straightforward and refreshingly gore-free. (Fiction. 11-13) --Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.From the Back CoverCook up a crime-stopping recipe with hardboiled Detective Angel Cardoni! Stranded in a snowstorm, Detective Angel Cardoni finds shelter in a country inn and restaurant, not yet open for the ski season. Cardoni and her dog Miro are just settling in when a scream pierces the air-and Olive Souffle, the inn's French chef, is found dead on the gritty floor of the walk-in freezer. Who flattened Souffle? Was it Walter, the lodge manager? Employees Patty Bordeaux, Norm Adams, Sam Burnie? Or Caesar, the commanding sous-chef? You, the reader, and Detective Cardoni must set to work finding out whodunit, with the only forensic tools available: the inn's kitchen supplies!