Book 10: Forbidden fruit

If you like cooking, cats and crime (three special things for me!), Kerry Greenwood's Corinna Chapman series is for you! Forbidden fruit (Allen & Unwin, 2009) is the fifth book in the series about Corinna, the baker and reluctant investigator, and the amazing group of people who live in her Insula in the Melbourne CBD. The book is redolent of smells of baking and other types of food and cooking and drinking and eating and I just love the cat characters, Horatio, The Mouse Police, Belladonna and the other minor cat players. The author obviously knows cats and I enjoyed finishing the last couple of chapters in bed this morning with Hecuba and Xena who had retired for post-breakfast naps. Serena the flower-selling donkey also plays quite a part in this story set in the lead-up to Christmas, as do other traditional (and nontraditional) crib animals.

The storyline may be a bit slight and I did work out part of the plot in advance, but it is a good cosy crime read set in a city I know and in places I enjoy recognizing such as the Abbotsford convent, the Collingwood Children's Farm and the old CUB site. As always with Greenwood novels, the sense of place this book conveys is an important part of my enjoyment. The scene is a sizzling Melbourne in the lead-up to Christmas: Corinna hates Christmas and the hype but carols, Christmas cooking, freegans, vegans, a crazy religious cult, gypsies and two young runaways all have a role to play as the plot unfolds and all ends happily on Christmas Day. Dion Monk is only a minor character in this book but I always savour his character and particularly the wordplay which creates his name. Vale ADP! The wordplay is such a fitting trigger to memories of one whose way with words was legendary.

And, of course, there are recipes included so you can try your skills. I always like the good press Kerry gives to public libraries and Forbidden fruit is no different. In the recipe section (p. 299) she advises: "Borrow an armload of vegie cookbooks from the library and see which one makes you hungry as you read." What great advice!

I've been slack about this series. I really enjoyed the first, Earthly delights, and loved Dion Monk there but I hadn't read any others until now when Forbidden fruit leapt out asking me to buy it while I was browsing on the Benn's Books stand at Sisters in Crime on Friday. I had better get on to the other ones and find out what some of the allusions in this one refer to. Don't be put off by that! This book forms part of a series but is perfectly able to be read as a stand alone story. Meanwhile, I have another three books to put on my "to-read" list: Heavenly pleasures, Devil's food, and Trick or treat!