Beat Until Stiff

Praise for Beat Until Stiff... "Not since Nero Wolfe and Faith Fairchild have mystery and food been yoked together so well as they are now in Claire M. Johnson's Beat Until Stiff. An authentic and fast-paced mystery novel." -Edgar winner John McAleer Cranky Mary Ryan has sunk a lot of time and talent into American Fare, San Francisco's trendiest restaurant spot...even while grieving over her broken marriage. Then she arrives at work very early one morning to find the dead body of one of her employees stuffed in a laundry bag. The investigation soon exposes all the dirty secrets that the food business would like to keep hidden: the philandering chefs, the silly whims of the dining public, the hiring of illegal aliens, and the subsistence-living pay scale. Events begin to spiral that, in time, take out the restaurant's celebrity chef and force Mary to use her unique skills to uncover a poisonous scheme.... Claire M. Johnson completed the California Culinary Academy's program for professional chefs in 1983 and worked as a pastry chef in San Francisco and Oakland for eight years. Beat Until Stiff, her debut novel, won the 1999 Malice Domestic Writer's Grant. She lives in California, with her husband and children. www.rouxmorgue.com