What happens to old spies in retirement? Do they simply fade away, never to be heard from again? How do former covert agents accustomed to working clandestinely on a need-to-know basis reorganize their lives? Zach, a weapons expert and trained assassin, wondered from time to time what he was doing as deputy sheriff on Chipley Island. And then the body of a man he had thought dead for many years rolled up on the beach-on his beach at Pirate's Cove-out of the blue. Chipley Island is not just any island in Virginia. It is the brainchild of the body in the wetsuit. The man was second-in-command to retired U.S. Navy Adm. Jackson Lee Andrews. Together, the two men directed a top secret agency for the President, and when the group was dissolved, the admiral helped set them up on the island. Did he have an ulterior motive? Zach and his wife Josie, known for her eidetic memory and once a courier, gather the group and together they resolve to solve the case of the mysterious body on the beach, a spy of the old school, a legendary agent, and perhaps the best spy of all time. As Josie declares, "What was that old devil up to?
Zach asked Josie what she really thought of the present state of affairs. Im tempted to use that line from my favorite movie, Frankly, my dear, I dont give a damn. Okay, Scarlet. But surely you are concerned over whats been going on. That famous memory of yours must be putting what do you call them? Oh, yes, patches. Arent you putting two and two together and getting five? Thats what you usually do. It was Josies turn to laugh. Honestly, Zach, what Im putting together reads like a script for a bad spy movie. We have nothing but red herrings, a mishmash of motley characters from various parts of the globe, more spies than villains, an attempted kidnapping, a fistfight, a car chase, a car blown up, a car accident, an escape on a motorcycle, nefarious thugs, virtuous good guys, covert agencies falling over covert agencies, a safe house or hideout, as the case may be, drug smuggling, romantic intrigue, false passports, not to mention changing locales: an offshore bank, an Irish pub, a travel plaza, a small animal hospital, and marinas up and down the east coast. We even have a plateful of old ops: Seagull, Mulberry Bush, Polaris. Ive even had to revisit the Patches program. The inmates are running the asylum. So you think were being set up? Thats what bothers me. Just what are we doing in this particular script? Why Chipley Island? Why round up all these old spies? Why here?
More from the Amateur Gourmet is a continuation of The Amateur Gourmet, published in 2006. Like its predecessor, it strives to lessen the complexities of gourmet cooking for the everyday cook. It contains recipes that can be prepared just as easily in a small and limited cooking space as in a large state-of-the-art professional kitchen. A few are so effortless that one marvels at their actual simplicity. Again, as in the original, the section on Tips and Techniques provides shortcuts, making the complex dish eminently do-able. Each page offers the home cook an insight into the world of gourmet cooking, turns the kitchen into an art studio, and makes creative cooking an everyday event instead of a mundane boring same old same old. The discerning palate knows good food and really doesnt care if the food served is prepared by a rank beginner, a non-professional cook, or a highly paid chef. All that matters is that the dish taste good and provide the diner with pleasure. A French poet, Marcelin Pleynet, has written that each book always has one more page, and so it is with any cookbook. There is always one more recipe, one more tip, one more approach to the tried and true, one more twist to the old standby, one more dish to be attempted, one more food discovery to experience, one more technique to master. In a nutshell, Irma Bombeck was right. Cooking is a joy, and that is why there is More from the Amateur Gourmet.
Gini Anding and Amy Page first met in a pastry shop on the main street of the Ile Saint-Louis in Paris. It was a chilly, rainy evening, and both were wearing the same navy blue raincoat and carrying identical black umbrellas. At the counter, they both ordered two slices of quiche Lorraine and four small palmiers. Simultaneously, they burst out laughing. While one is slightly shorter and plumper than the other, both are blondes and also Americans. "We could be taken for sisters " one of them exclaimed. From this chance encounter came a magical friendship and The Amateur Gourmet. Sometimes in the world of fiction, a character takes off and the author loses control. So it is with Gini Anding and Amy Page in the Witness series of romantic mystery novels: Witness on the Quay (2005), Witness at the Bridge (2006), Witness in the Square (2006), and a work in progress, Witness by the Church. Amy is the protagonist in these novels, and she is writing a cookbook, a project that many of her friends thought she'd never finish because of her constant additions and revisions. Even her creator began to despair of having her find the last period. Fortunately, it just so happens that Gini shares Amy's love of cooking and interest in all things culinary. It was only natural that Gini take over and make Amy's cookbook real, proving once and for all that creations of the imagination exist in our concrete everyday reality.
The Caf du Coin, with its view of the back of Notre-Dame, was teeming with police. Table No. 5 was still in shock. Jean-Michel Jolivet had seldom seen so many sad faces. Twelve in all, one of them dead, face down in his croissant. The retired inspectors bride of three weeks was sitting directly across from the deceased, General Sbastien Reboursier; Amy had quickly forgotten about her articles on cafs, cups, and salt and was now wondering how this could have happened with all of them at the same table. Witnesses and the police agreed that the manner of death was by poisoning. But why? The general had been primarily a desk general and had taught military history at Saint-Cyr. He was well liked and had no known enemies. Perhaps it was all a mistake. Maybe he wasnt the real target after all. Could it be a random poisoning by a deranged person with a grudge against society? Could the intended victim be someone else at the table? Wasnt one of them a former spy? Indeed, why were there so many retired spies on the Ile Saint-Louis? Why did the Ile provide them with a safe haven? With the help of Amy and colleagues, Jean-Michel finds out exactly what it is former spies do in retirement, if in fact they are retired, but neither Jean-Michel nor Amy could imagine what lay ahead.
Amy Page is trying to get her life back on track, back to writing her cookbook, back to strolling around her beloved Ile Saint-Louis in the heart of Paris. Her lover, Inspector Jean-Michel Jolivet, is on leave, recovering from gunshot wounds sustained in the course of their last adventure. How can they now possibly help the police solve the murder of the young woman found in the Square Barye? Clues abound, but are they red herrings? Is the victim an agent, an untrained operative, an art restorer, or something else? What do jewelry design, the color blue, a river goddess, a trumpet, wooden earrings, biometric identification systems, oil paintings, stamps, and the South Pacific have in common? Will Amy be able to connect the dots, as she has in the past? Danger awaits Amy and Jean-Michel once again, and their romantic relationship is certain to change because of it.
A late-night phone call awakens Inspector Jean-Michel Jolivet and his irrepressible American friend, Amy Page: a man has been found brutally murdered at the foot of the Pont Louis-Philippe. Curiously, the body has been posed theatrically, perhaps to send a message. Amy is surprised to discover that the victim is an acquaintance of hers and that she may have been the last person to see him. As she and Jean-Michel sift through codes, ciphers, and more violent murders, they uncover an international struggle for control of the new designer drug Bliss. Were it not for her deepening relationship with Jean-Michel and her enthusiasm for Paris-especially the Ile Saint-Louis and its unique characters-Amy would find it difficult to sustain what is about to engulf her and Jean-Michel.
A series of events lead American food critic Amy Page and French investigator Jean-Michel Jolivet into other mysteries that involve relics, lost treasures, an ancient church and tales of the Templars.
Amy Page, a middle-aged American widow and food columnist from Charleston, South Carolina, is in Paris to write a cookbook. Her lengthy stay in the City of Lights suddenly takes an unexpected turn when a cab driver is murdered in front of her building on the Ile St-Louis. Jean-Michel Jolivet, Inspector for the French Sûreté and Director of the International Bureau of Security, insists that Amy is essential to solving his ever-widening investigation that now involves several murders and an international plot. While interrogating Amy, Jolivet becomes increasingly annoyed with her incessant ramblings about cookbooks, cuisine, the Ile St-Louis, Paris, French history, culture, and architecture--distracting him from the investigation and from finding the killer. Much to Jolivet's surprise, he determines that Amy is much more complex than she seems and may possess an acute power of observation that is strong enough to assist him in his difficult homicide cases. Intrigue and desire may lead Amy and Jolivet to discover more than they bargained for in a passionate journey toward intimacy and joy on the enchanting Ile St-Louis.
More from the Amateur Gourmet is a continuation of The Amateur Gourmet, published in 2006. Like its predecessor, it strives to lessen the complexities of gourmet cooking for the everyday cook. It contains recipes that can be prepared just as easily in a small and limited cooking space as in a large state-of-the-art professional kitchen. A few are so effortless that one marvels at their actual simplicity. Again, as in the original, the section on Tips and Techniques provides shortcuts, making the complex dish eminently do-able. Each page offers the home cook an insight into the world of gourmet cooking, turns the kitchen into an art studio, and makes creative cooking an everyday event instead of a mundane boring same old same old. The discerning palate knows good food and really doesnt care if the food served is prepared by a rank beginner, a non-professional cook, or a highly paid chef. All that matters is that the dish taste good and provide the diner with pleasure. A French poet, Marcelin Pleynet, has written that each book always has one more page, and so it is with any cookbook. There is always one more recipe, one more tip, one more approach to the tried and true, one more twist to the old standby, one more dish to be attempted, one more food discovery to experience, one more technique to master. In a nutshell, Irma Bombeck was right. Cooking is a joy, and that is why there is More from the Amateur Gourmet.
Amy Page, a middle-aged American widow and food columnist from Charleston, South Carolina, is in Paris to write a cookbook. Her lengthy stay in the City of Lights suddenly takes an unexpected turn when a cab driver is murdered in front of her building on the Ile St-Louis. Jean-Michel Jolivet, Inspector for the French Sûreté and Director of the International Bureau of Security, insists that Amy is essential to solving his ever-widening investigation that now involves several murders and an international plot. While interrogating Amy, Jolivet becomes increasingly annoyed with her incessant ramblings about cookbooks, cuisine, the Ile St-Louis, Paris, French history, culture, and architecture--distracting him from the investigation and from finding the killer. Much to Jolivet's surprise, he determines that Amy is much more complex than she seems and may possess an acute power of observation that is strong enough to assist him in his difficult homicide cases. Intrigue and desire may lead Amy and Jolivet to discover more than they bargained for in a passionate journey toward intimacy and joy on the enchanting Ile St-Louis.
Zach asked Josie what she really thought of the present state of affairs. Im tempted to use that line from my favorite movie, Frankly, my dear, I dont give a damn. Okay, Scarlet. But surely you are concerned over whats been going on. That famous memory of yours must be putting what do you call them? Oh, yes, patches. Arent you putting two and two together and getting five? Thats what you usually do. It was Josies turn to laugh. Honestly, Zach, what Im putting together reads like a script for a bad spy movie. We have nothing but red herrings, a mishmash of motley characters from various parts of the globe, more spies than villains, an attempted kidnapping, a fistfight, a car chase, a car blown up, a car accident, an escape on a motorcycle, nefarious thugs, virtuous good guys, covert agencies falling over covert agencies, a safe house or hideout, as the case may be, drug smuggling, romantic intrigue, false passports, not to mention changing locales: an offshore bank, an Irish pub, a travel plaza, a small animal hospital, and marinas up and down the east coast. We even have a plateful of old ops: Seagull, Mulberry Bush, Polaris. Ive even had to revisit the Patches program. The inmates are running the asylum. So you think were being set up? Thats what bothers me. Just what are we doing in this particular script? Why Chipley Island? Why round up all these old spies? Why here?
What happens to old spies in retirement? Do they simply fade away, never to be heard from again? How do former covert agents accustomed to working clandestinely on a need-to-know basis reorganize their lives? Zach, a weapons expert and trained assassin, wondered from time to time what he was doing as deputy sheriff on Chipley Island. And then the body of a man he had thought dead for many years rolled up on the beach-on his beach at Pirate's Cove-out of the blue. Chipley Island is not just any island in Virginia. It is the brainchild of the body in the wetsuit. The man was second-in-command to retired U.S. Navy Adm. Jackson Lee Andrews. Together, the two men directed a top secret agency for the President, and when the group was dissolved, the admiral helped set them up on the island. Did he have an ulterior motive? Zach and his wife Josie, known for her eidetic memory and once a courier, gather the group and together they resolve to solve the case of the mysterious body on the beach, a spy of the old school, a legendary agent, and perhaps the best spy of all time. As Josie declares, "What was that old devil up to?
Gini Anding and Amy Page first met in a pastry shop on the main street of the Ile Saint-Louis in Paris. It was a chilly, rainy evening, and both were wearing the same navy blue raincoat and carrying identical black umbrellas. At the counter, they both ordered two slices of quiche Lorraine and four small palmiers. Simultaneously, they burst out laughing. While one is slightly shorter and plumper than the other, both are blondes and also Americans. "We could be taken for sisters " one of them exclaimed. From this chance encounter came a magical friendship and The Amateur Gourmet. Sometimes in the world of fiction, a character takes off and the author loses control. So it is with Gini Anding and Amy Page in the Witness series of romantic mystery novels: Witness on the Quay (2005), Witness at the Bridge (2006), Witness in the Square (2006), and a work in progress, Witness by the Church. Amy is the protagonist in these novels, and she is writing a cookbook, a project that many of her friends thought she'd never finish because of her constant additions and revisions. Even her creator began to despair of having her find the last period. Fortunately, it just so happens that Gini shares Amy's love of cooking and interest in all things culinary. It was only natural that Gini take over and make Amy's cookbook real, proving once and for all that creations of the imagination exist in our concrete everyday reality.
A late-night phone call awakens Inspector Jean-Michel Jolivet and his irrepressible American friend, Amy Page: a man has been found brutally murdered at the foot of the Pont Louis-Philippe. Curiously, the body has been posed theatrically, perhaps to send a message. Amy is surprised to discover that the victim is an acquaintance of hers and that she may have been the last person to see him. As she and Jean-Michel sift through codes, ciphers, and more violent murders, they uncover an international struggle for control of the new designer drug Bliss. Were it not for her deepening relationship with Jean-Michel and her enthusiasm for Paris-especially the Ile Saint-Louis and its unique characters-Amy would find it difficult to sustain what is about to engulf her and Jean-Michel.
Amy Page is trying to get her life back on track, back to writing her cookbook, back to strolling around her beloved Ile Saint-Louis in the heart of Paris. Her lover, Inspector Jean-Michel Jolivet, is on leave, recovering from gunshot wounds sustained in the course of their last adventure. How can they now possibly help the police solve the murder of the young woman found in the Square Barye? Clues abound, but are they red herrings? Is the victim an agent, an untrained operative, an art restorer, or something else? What do jewelry design, the color blue, a river goddess, a trumpet, wooden earrings, biometric identification systems, oil paintings, stamps, and the South Pacific have in common? Will Amy be able to connect the dots, as she has in the past? Danger awaits Amy and Jean-Michel once again, and their romantic relationship is certain to change because of it.
The Caf du Coin, with its view of the back of Notre-Dame, was teeming with police. Table No. 5 was still in shock. Jean-Michel Jolivet had seldom seen so many sad faces. Twelve in all, one of them dead, face down in his croissant. The retired inspectors bride of three weeks was sitting directly across from the deceased, General Sbastien Reboursier; Amy had quickly forgotten about her articles on cafs, cups, and salt and was now wondering how this could have happened with all of them at the same table. Witnesses and the police agreed that the manner of death was by poisoning. But why? The general had been primarily a desk general and had taught military history at Saint-Cyr. He was well liked and had no known enemies. Perhaps it was all a mistake. Maybe he wasnt the real target after all. Could it be a random poisoning by a deranged person with a grudge against society? Could the intended victim be someone else at the table? Wasnt one of them a former spy? Indeed, why were there so many retired spies on the Ile Saint-Louis? Why did the Ile provide them with a safe haven? With the help of Amy and colleagues, Jean-Michel finds out exactly what it is former spies do in retirement, if in fact they are retired, but neither Jean-Michel nor Amy could imagine what lay ahead.
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