Al Dente's Inferno by Stephanie Cole

Al Dente's Inferno by Stephanie Cole ISBN-13: 9780593097793 Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime Released: February 25th 2020

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
An American chef will have to serve up more than good eats if she wants to establish a successful farm-to-table cooking school in Tuscany, in this charming first installment in a new cozy mystery series set in Italy.

When Nell Valenti is offered a chance to move to Tuscany to help transform an aging villa into a farm-to-table cooking school, she eagerly accepts. After all, both her job and her love life in America have been feeling stale. Plus, she'll get the chance to work under the acclaimed Italian Chef Claudio Orlandini.

But Nell gets more than she bargained for when she arrives. With only a day to go until the launch dinner for the cooking school, the villa is in shambles, and Chef O is blissfully oblivious of the work that needs to be done before a group of local dignitaries arrive, along with a filmmaker sent to showcase and advertise the new school. The situation only worsens when Nell discovers that the filmmaker is an ex-boyfriend, and he’s found murdered later that night. Even worse, Chef O has disappeared, and accusations of murder could shut the school down for good.


My Review:
Al Dente's Inferno is a cozy mystery. Nell was often in awkward or mildly humorous situations (situational humor), but she didn't come across as incompetent. She needed to create a cooking school, but the murder was a major public relations disaster. She hoped that solving the mystery would give the school a chance. She and the son of the chef questioned the suspects together, and she made a timeline about who was doing what and when. They asked good questions, and the suspects were remarkably willing to answer their questions. I didn't like that she withheld evidence from the police. I was able to guess the murderer based on the clues, but Nell was so caught up in investigating that she didn't think over the pertinent clues until the very end. The characters were interesting. There was no sex. There was occasional use of bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this interesting mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.