Review: 'The Dead Husband Cookbook' by Danielle Valentine
Pub. Date: 07/08/2025
Publisher: Serpent's Tail; Viper
She has the recipe for the perfect murder... Maria Capello is a celebrity chef like no other. A household name with dozens of cookbooks and a weekly television show, not to mention her line of bestselling supermarket sauces. Once just the timid wife of famous chef Damien Capello, she stepped into the spotlight after his mysterious disappearance, an event she's never spoken about publicly... until now. Why is Maria willing to break her silence? When editor Thea Woods is invited to Maria's remote farmhouse to work on the manuscript of her tell-all memoir, Thea spots an opportunity. She could be the one to finally learn whether the rumours are true. Did Maria kill Damien for his recipes and the legendary 'secret ingredient'? Or is the truth even darker?
One of the things thrillers and crime/detective novels can be very good at is to sharpen your critical reading skills. Admittedly not every thriller novel does so, or does it well, but I think the genre as a whole nonetheless sharpens your awareness regarding who is telling you what. This is why, I think, many thrillers switch back and forth between different POVs, allowing you to see a problem from different angles, to consider the different personalities at play and what they bring to the table. In the current climate I think developing the skill to question a narrative is extra important. It is not that diverging versions of a single event can't be true. In fact, that is quite often the case because we all see things in different ways, even if we witness the same thing. It is what gets highlighted in different versions, which details are important and which are ignored, how we tell what happened and to whom, all of this is relevant and important to look out for. In The Dead Husband Cookbook, we are dealing with the publishing industry, with a main character who is an editor and so is trained to look out for a voice, for details, for consistency, and for readability. Is the best story also the one that is most true? And can the editor herself properly differentiate between the story written and the truth? While The Dead Husband Cookbook isn't necessarily revolutionary in how it approaches this, it is a fun element of the story which I enjoy.
Thea Woods made a massive mistake while editing her last book and this mistake has haunted her every since. On the edge of being fired, Thea is amazed when the Maria Capello requests her as the editor for her memoir. Maria Capello is a household name, a beloved celebrity chef, who managed to reach unprecedented levels of fame after the disappearance of her husband, Damien. Rumours about her husband's death have followed Maria for decades and it seems that now she is willing to reveal all in a memoir, but only if Thea is the one to edit the book under some rather special circumstances. And so, Thea finds herself at Maria's farm, without her cellphone and without internet access, reading a chapter at the time while surrounded by Maria's rather odd family. As Maria's memoir unspools, so does Thea's grip on what is going on. What really happened to Damien? What is happening right now? And can she risk finding the answers to these questions, if her life and career are on the line? I did quite like Thea as a main character because she is clearly on the edge already when the novel starts. Her life is in shambles and she is willing to do (almost) everything to get it all back on track, so it makes sense she goes along with Maria's odd demands. Valentine works in Thea's background throughout the novel, so that by the end you have a kind of understanding as to why she does what she does. Maria is also an intriguing character and having the little snippets of her memoir to contrast against Thea's impression of her is quite fun. The surrounding characters are a little flat, but have the necessary background to make them serviceable to the plot.
This is my first book by Danielle Valentine and she definitely brought all the necessary twists and turns to the table. One thing that worked really well was the switching from Thea's perspective to Maria's memoir chapters. The switch in tone was subtle, but worked to make you feel you were reading someone else's words. One thing that didn't really work for me, however, was the pacing and the way time passed. I was never entirely sure how much time had passed exactly, as in, how much time Thea had spent at Maria's farm. There was one moment specifically where someone referred to something happening that morning and in my mind that had happened at the very least the previous day. Maybe this was uncareful reading on my part, but there was too much happening for one day. This is an issue I have generally with thrillers though, that the action gets ramped up to the point that there aren't enough hours in the day. However, this uncertainty regarding time did also feed nicely into Thea's growing paranoia, so perhaps it is on purpose. Also, this thriller is definitely going where you think it is, based on the cover and blurb, but how we get there contains an extra twist or two which means it remains a fun read. The recipes, which are worked in to Maria's memoir, also worked well here, because they served a purpose for the plot, and the general food descriptions will make you hungry, despite feeling in your bones where this is going.
I give this novel...
3 Universes!
I had good fun with The Dead Husband Cookbook and it definitely made me hungry. Despite having some issues and not being necessarily surprised by its elements, I can definitely recommend this book to those looking for a fun ride and those without squeamish stomachs.
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