DOUBLE SHOT

Once again, an attack on Goldy Schultz precipitates a cascade of calamities that disrupt her home life and her catering business.

Goldy, the victim of sniper fire in Sticks and Scones (2001), is knocked down and beaten up on the way to the Roundhouse, where she’s preparing a funeral luncheon for Dr. Albert Kerr, former colleague of her ex-husband, John Richard Korman. That was way back before Kerr got religion and shipped off to do missionary work in Qatar, and Korman hit a subsequent girlfriend and landed in the state pen. Now, Korman, newly freed, visits the luncheon just long enough for a knock-down-drag-out with Goldy over visitation with their son, Arch. But when Goldy brings Arch to the upscale rental Korman shares with stripper Sandee Blue for the disputed visit, she finds her ex dead in the garage, his body alongside a gun that looks suspiciously like her own .38. Her best friend Marla, Korman’s other ex, hires hotshot attorney Brewster Motley to represent Goldy when she’s questioned by the police, and Goldy’s detective husband Tom investigates other leads on his own. Still, it’s touch and go whether she’ll end up serving her signature pork chops brined in kosher salt (one of 13 appended recipes) to guests at Nan Watkins’s retirement party—or to fellow inmates.

Keeping the spotlight trained on so-familiar Goldy prevents Davidson from developing the other characters and plots she sketches in so intriguingly.