Cooked Goose

November 30, 1998
It's hard not to like Savannah Reid, a large woman with appetites, emotions and attitudes to match. The pseudonymous McKevett's fourth book about Savannah (after Killer Calories) raises some serious issues about the crime of rape and its victims--but the mix of this theme with Savannah's winsome character and the recipes included at the back of the book is uneasy. Savannah, working as a PI after being fired from the police force in the fictional California seaside town of San Carmelita, is hired by a shopping mall to catch the "Santa Rapist," a man wearing a fake white beard who has attacked six women in the mall's parking lot. The first man she disables with a hard kick to the ornaments turns out to be a legitimate store Santa, and the investigation goes downhill from there. Margie Bloss, the teenaged daughter of the odious police chief who fired Savannah, is a student in a self-defense class that Savannah teaches; when Margie is herself attacked and some of the town's cops begin to die, the identity of the rapist/killer becomes so obvious that readers may lose interest in a hurry. McKevitt has done better before and, hopefully, will again. Author tour.

December 1, 1998
Savannah Reid is a fortyish, comfortably sized single southern gal transplanted to California, where she is now a PI after being fired from the San Carmelita police force. It's December, and a rapist has been stalking women at the local mall, hiding behind a Santa Claus beard. When one woman is beaten nearly to death, and several cops investigating turn up dead in particularly ugly ways, Savannah ratchets up her efforts. It isn't easy: she hates the police chief who fired her but finds herself baby-sitting his teenage daughter after she is attacked; her sister Vidalia, hugely pregnant, is coming to stay with her terrible twins in tow; and her buddy officer Dirk (How could he be a boyfriend? No sex, and he's too cheap to take her out) has to tread softly at her unauthorized presence. Textbook glimpses into the rapist's mind alternate dizzyingly with chocolate fests and holiday decorating. None of the characters is more than two-dimensional, but the recipes at the back hold out some promise. ((Reviewed December 1, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)