Grab the Lapels

Just Desserts by G.A. McKevett

Just look at this cover —

Could anyone blame me for thinking it was a cozy mystery? The food pun, the murder, the start of a series in which an unconventional woman solves crimes? In fact, Just Desserts starts out as a hard-boiled detective novel in which an actual police detective is assigned to a murder of the local councilwoman’s estranged husband.

Savannah Reid is forty, a little fat, single, and a southern belle. Her partner, Dirk, is balding, eats fast food in his car for most meals, single, and a California native. The novel is set in San Carmelita, California, where Savannah has moved (for reasons I missed) to be a police detective, leaving behind a large family in Georgia. In author G.A. McKevett’s opening scene, we get the comfortable bickering between Savannah and Dirk, but also how skilled they are as a team. Here they are in Dirk’s car staking out a perpetrator:

Dirk shook his head. “Sometimes your Southern heritage just comes shining through, Reid.”  
“Like the top of your head when you don’t get all of them itty-bitty hairs lined up just right, darlin’?”

However, when Savannah is assigned to investigate a high-profile murder and Dirk isn’t, things get tense. As she follows leads and talks with witnesses, Savannah learns something about the murder victim’s wife (the aforementioned councilwoman) that doesn’t look good, and the local police chief takes action. Not only does he fat shame her, he removes her from the case.

Here is where it starts to get more cozy mystery; Savannah continues to make inquiries, meeting new characters that create red herrings in her investigations. Meanwhile, a family member from Georgia shows up just in time to make trouble, thinking she knows her own sixteen-year-old mind while standing out as a naive kid from the south — perfect to attract human traffickers.

Early in Just Desserts, G.A. McKevett expertly made me doubt everyone with a single look, gesture, or word. I couldn’t tell who the main suspect was. Furthermore, the main characters — Savannah and Dirk — have unique personalities. For instance, Dirk is so cheap that Savannah can’t tell if he has romantic feelings for her or just enjoys her big screen TV. Savannah has a great sexual presence. At forty, she’s still looking for someone to be around or be in her bed, but she’s not a “plump vixen” stereotype. She’s a human with healthy sexuality, which we often don’t get in characters of her age.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Just Desserts and following Savannah’s story. As someone who doesn’t regularly read mysteries, I can’t tell you if it was well-plotted. Honestly, it doesn’t come together until the very end, which may be convenient, and we do end on a saccharine wrap-it-with-a-bow scene, but the novel was an easy page turner.

Books of Fall 🍂🎃🍵

  • Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls
  • Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  • Just Desserts by G.A. McKevett
  • Slewfoot by BROM
  • The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
  • Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
  • The West Passage by Jared Pechaček
  • Quest for the Unknown: Bizarre Phenomena by Reader’s Digest
  • The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson
  • Icebreaker by Hannah Grace
  • A Life in Letters by Zora Neale Hurston
  • Ask Elizabeth: Real Answers to Everything You Secretly Wanted to Ask about Love, Friends, Your Body — and Life in General by Elizabeth Berkley
  • Homing by Sherrie Flick
  • No Good Deed by Allison Brennan (#10)
  • Bitter Thirst by S.M. Reine (Preternatural Affairs #8)
  • Deaf Eyes on Interpreting, edited by Thomas H. Holcomb and David H. Smith
  • She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall by Dave Newman
  • Compassion, Michigan by Raymond Luczak
  • Submerged by Hillel Levin
  • Fat! So? by Marilyn Wann
  • Syd Arthur by Ellen Frankel

23 comments

  1. If you enjoyed it and it was a page-turner then I’d say it was well plotted 🙂

    I thought “Just Desserts” would be the perfect name for a cafe that only serves dessert and of course some internet searching reveals there is a place in South Carolina, but they also serve sandwiches, which belies the name of the place. There is also a San Francisco company that just makes desserts and sells to retailers but that is even more disappointing than the cafe that sells sandwiches even though some of the SF company desserts are vegan.

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  2. I already like Savannah from your description. I’d never read cozies before, but then it was a selection in my book club, and I enjoyed it. It’s not a genre I’d read regularly, but it was nice for a change and a lighter read.

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    • There are a few I’ve enjoyed, though but many, and another blogger for me watching Murder, She Wrote. I enjoyed the show until the old lady started having a “hunch,” and that’s how she caught the bad guys. It was much better when she explained all the clues that led to her accusations. They must have run out of plots or good writers.

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  4. I’m with Laila – any book cover that features a piece of pie must be a cozy mystery! I love that this author created these unique characters though, the partnership between the two detectives interests me. I think it’s quite common for older men to just hang around women until their friendship blossoms into something more, even if it starts as a big screen tv kind of interest…LOL

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    • I think once you find yourself being awfully comfortable with someone of the gender you’re attracted to, and then you start seeing how good looking they are, the jig is up, you gotta date, lol. Interestingly, there were no small town vibes, no little old lady getting involved in a local murder, no pie puns, nothing. Maybe this author is trying to lure in the cozy mystery demographic and giving them something more detective. The ol’ switcheroo.

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  5. I’m baaaack! Actually, I commented on a post a few days ago via my phone but it disappeared before I posted it. This happens a bit when I comment via Jetpack on my phone. I was so frustrated. I’ve decided to work back from the most recent one, and see if I remember what I wanted to say when I get to it!

    Meanwhile, what I great cover, and I enjoyed your review. I liked your comment that “She’s a human with healthy sexuality, which we often don’t get in characters of her age”. I read a novel a year ago about two lonely people – 49 and 54 – and they were like this too. Just ordinary older humans wanting human connection.

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