GORGEOUS FOOD STORIES SAVE RUN-OF-THE-MILL MYSTERY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 21, 1993                   TAG: 9303210231
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: NAN SEAMANS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
GORGEOUS FOOD STORIES SAVE RUN-OF-THE-MILL MYSTERY
Bloody Roses: A Willow King Mystery. By Natasha Cooper. Crown. $20.
Willow King apparently has been involved in two previous mysteries. I haven't run across them but I'm tempted to look for them, if for no other reason than that Willow eats well.
Willow leads a double life. She is a dumpy British civil servant, living in a dreary flat in Clapham. But in her spare time, she is Cressida Woodruffe, successful and glamorous romance-novelist, living in Belgravia. And in her spare spare time, she solves mysteries.
If you can get past that, the mystery in "Bloody Roses" is OK (though to my mind secondary to the food): A former Willow/Cressida lover, Richard, is charged with murdering a co-workers, Sarah Allfarthing. Willow/Cressida is bright enough to figure it all out, and there are no glaring loose ends left untied.
But what really sets "Bloody Roses" apart from your run-of-the-mill dual-persona detective mystery is the description of what Cressida eats. (The Willow persona doesn't eat very well, I guess. Cressida more than makes up for it.)
In one day there are descriptions of eggs benedict for breakfast, lunch consisting of "artichoke bottoms stuffed with lobster, covered with smoked salmon and glazed with golden aspic, followed by champagne sorbet served in spun-sugar baskets" and tea, same day, of "crab and watercress" sandwiches. Better yet, Mrs. Rusham, the housekeeper, fixes it all, cleans up after, and cleans house in her spare spare time.
There also are some great descriptions of Cressida's gorgeous apartment and gorgeous clothes and her gold Cartier watch. And she spends so much time in her gorgeous bath that it's amazing she has any skin left. Still, the food descriptions are delectable and almost enough to save "Bloody Roses" from itself.

Nan Seamans is director of the Learning Resources Center at the College of Health Sciences.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB