Brooklyn is a young bookbinder who seems to have a habit of coming across dead bodies, to the point that she has the San Francisco Homicide deactivate on speed dial. Brooklyn’s work is amazing to read about and I get completely engrossed when she beings talking about her work. “A Cookbook Conspiracy” centers on Brooklyn’s sister, Savannah, and her chef friends. The new characters are interesting and reading about the masterly prepared food is fun. There is less attention paid to the book at the center of “A Cookbook Conspiracy”, but instead the focus is on the author and her story. It is quite interesting and takes a different approach than the other Bibliophile Mysteries. Overall, it was another cozy read and I look forward to tackling the next book in the series.

I was a little disappointed with “A Cookbook Conspiracy”. I found it lacking in comparison to the others I have read in the Bibliophile Mystery series. The characters were interesting, but not enough to make me want to learn more about them. They functioned as plot devices, but not much more. Savannah was fun to compare with Brooklyn, until she developed interest in Dalton. Then I lost all interest in her as a character. Shame. Dalton brought little to the story as well. He is a Derek look-a-like, which is to be expected from siblings, and he is a cryptographer for MI6. Nothing about him interested me. I like Inspector Lee. She keeps her spunk throughout the series. Oh, and Bootsie. Bootsie is awesome and perfect in every way.

I was upset when Brooklyn didn’t go into much detail about her work with Obedience Green’s cookbook. I would have loved to hear more about the condition the book was in and how she repaired it. Instead, it is given away and then Dalton uses photocopied pages to study code. Very disappointing. I hope that the next book has a lot more detail about Brooklyn’s work; it is my favourite part of the story.

“A Cookbook Conspiracy” was another cozy read, but I feel it is the weakest in the Bibliophile Mystery series, so far. I hope that there is improvement as the series continues because I am enjoying it and want to keep on reading.