The Golden Spoon: A Novel

by Jessa Maxwell Narrated by Andrea Emmes, Andy Garcia-Ruse, Graham Halstead, Kitty Hendrix, Kamran Khan, Jackie Sanders, André Santana, Emily Tremaine

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

It’s all fun and gameshows until a body is discovered, a DEAD BODY that is…and everyone is a suspect in this debut by Jessa Maxwell. As with one of our Monthly Pick’s for Mystery/Thriller, The Appeal, the victim is as unknown as the suspect. Therein lies the secret ingredients to this baking competition themed mystery!

“This delicious combination of Clue and The Great British Bake Off kept me turning the pages all night!” -Janet Evanovich, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Only Murders in the Building meets The Maid in this “deliciously entertaining whodunit” (Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author) where someone turns up dead on the set of TV's hottest baking competition-perfect for fans of Nita Prose, Richard Osman, and Anthony Horowitz.

Every summer for the past ten years, six awe-struck bakers have descended on the grounds of Grafton, the leafy and imposing Vermont estate that is not only the filming site for “Bake Week” but also the childhood home of the show's famous host, celebrated baker Betsy Martin.

The author of numerous bestselling cookbooks and hailed as “America's Grandmother,” Betsy Martin isn't as warm off-screen as on, though no one needs to know that but her. She has always demanded perfection, and gotten it with a smile, but this year something is off. As the baking competition commences, things begin to go awry. At first, it's merely sabotage-sugar replaced with salt, a burner turned to high-but when a body is discovered, everyone is a suspect.

A sharp and suspenseful thriller for mystery buffs and avid bakers alike, The Golden Spoon is “as addictive as bingeing your favorite culinary competition and as satisfying as a piece of your favorite cake” (Kellye Garrett, author of Like a Sister).

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2023 - AudioFile

Jessa Maxwell's engaging debut novel, narrated in individual sections by a talented ensemble, will especially appeal to those who love reality cooking shows. "Bake Week" is an American spin-off of "The Great British Baking Show," tent and all. The show's star, Betsy Grafton, "America's grandmother," has run the show for nine successful seasons, but the producers have hired a famously nasty male chef to co-host the tenth season. As the show is filmed at Grafton's Vermont home, listeners get the personal backstories and secret motives of all six competitors and cohosts. With behind-the-scenes insights and highly personal revelations of breakdowns, abuse, sabotage, and murder, there's never a dull moment. Exceptional performances by each narrator deliver delicious recipes and devious plots. Appetizing listening. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/13/2023

Byzantine chicanery seasoned with a dash of revenge greets six contestants gathered for Bake Week on the property of a crumbling Vermont manse, in Maxwell’s outstanding debut. Tantalizing backstage backstories include those of an ex-journalist from Brooklyn, a pie prodigy from Minnesota, a Bronx math teacher, a wealthy former CEO tech from Boston, a retired Rhode Island registered nurse, and a restorer of old buildings from New Hampshire. Hosting the competition’s 10th season is the heir to the manor, Betsy Martin, joined for the first time by an award-winning baker, Archie Morris, along with regular lead coordinator, Melanie Blair. Sabotage starts slow but early. A refrigerator door is left open; salt is replaced with sugar; a burner is turned up to high; gasoline replaces orange essence in a pie. By day three, it’s clear someone isn’t playing by the rules laid out in a “behemoth spiralbound packet.” Everything escalates to an extremely dark and stormy night (including a blackout), leading to startling revelations and a jaw-dropping confession. Sweet and savory turns deadly sour in this fast-paced, entertaining romp scheduled for a Hulu miniseries. Maxwell is off to a great start. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM Partners. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

"Fans of The Great British Baking Show, rejoice! This cozy whodunit is for you." —NPR

“Two things I love are great food and a great mystery—and The Golden Spoon has both. This delicious combination of CLUE and The Great British Bakeoff kept me turning the pages all night!" —JANET EVANOVICH, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Recovery Agent

"Clever, atmospheric, and creepy, with a spooky mansion, the kind of quirky, reality-TV-ready ensemble you can't help but adore, and storylines as expertly interwoven as a blue-ribbon challah. I can't wait for whatever Maxwell bakes up next." —ANDREA BARTZ, New York Times bestselling author of We Were Never Here

“The Golden Spoon is as addictive as bingeing your favorite culinary competition and as satisfying as a piece of your favorite cake. It’s a complex, layered mystery featuring an unforgettable cast of characters who could be either America’s next great baker or its next most famous cold-blooded killer. Jessa Maxwell has crafted a debut that’s mouth wateringly good.” —KELLYE GARRETT, Agatha, Anthony, and Lefty Award winning author of Like a Sister and Missing White Woman

"Jessa Maxwell's debut is a deliciously entertaining whodunit—charming characters, baking mishaps, and a mouthwatering murder mystery. Readers and baking enthusiasts will savor every bite of The Golden Spoon." —SARAH PENNER, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary

"At last, a baking show with a murder; cleverly constructed so we not only wonder who is the murderer, but who will be the victim. A delightful bake." —CHRISTOPHER MOORE, New York Times bestselling author of Lamb, Noir, and A Dirty Job

"A delicious confection—in this multi-character CLUE meets the British Bake Off everyone is suspicious, and the solution will surprise you. I ate it up." —CATHERINE MCKENZIE, USA Today bestselling author of Have You Seen Her

"Who knew that the one thing to make me love the Great British Bake-Off even more was to add a (fictional) dead body? Take a cozy setting like Grafton, add in a diverse cast with their own hopes and dreams and hidden agendas, and toss in a couple of hosts who are not as perfect as they'd like you to think, and you've got a foolproof recipe for a great read. If you're a fan of character-driven mysteries and delicious bakes, you absolutely have to check out The Golden Spoon" —MIA P. MANANSALA, author of the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Award-winning Arsenic and Adobo

"Sweet and savory turns deadly sour in this fast-paced, entertaining romp...Maxwell is off to a great start." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A fantastically fun mystery with a perfect setting. It's Knives Out meets Agatha Christie. I was delightfully surprised throughout." —SARAH LANGAN, author of Good Neighbors

#1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich

This delicious combination of Clue and The Great British Bakeoff kept me turning the pages all night!”

Library Journal

★ 12/01/2022

DEBUT A delectable tour de force of baking and mayhem, Maxwell's debut mystery is one to savor. Change is in the air for the popular TV show Bake Week, starring "America's Grandmother," Betsy Martin. For the first time in the show's history, Betsy will be joined by a cohost, fellow award-winning baker Archie Morris, whose bulldog personality contrasts with her approachable image. Betsy is livid about the change, but the show funds her sprawling estate, Grafton Manor, where the series is also filmed, so she agrees. Tensions are already high when the six contestants arrive, all ready to wow their idol with their tasty pies and perfectly formed breads. Things quickly go awry as ingredients are mislabeled and temperatures are fiddled with in the flawlessly manicured kitchens. Through unfolding narratives by each of the bakers and Betsy herself, readers come to realize that not everyone at Grafton Manor is there to compete. Past traumas and the manor itself come into play, culminating in a horror-filled evening. VERDICT With meticulous plotting and the grand backdrop of a country home, this is a thoroughly entertaining, well-crafted read. Highly recommended for all mystery collections and for those who appreciate an ensemble cast in their whodunits.—Amy Nolan

MARCH 2023 - AudioFile

Jessa Maxwell's engaging debut novel, narrated in individual sections by a talented ensemble, will especially appeal to those who love reality cooking shows. "Bake Week" is an American spin-off of "The Great British Baking Show," tent and all. The show's star, Betsy Grafton, "America's grandmother," has run the show for nine successful seasons, but the producers have hired a famously nasty male chef to co-host the tenth season. As the show is filmed at Grafton's Vermont home, listeners get the personal backstories and secret motives of all six competitors and cohosts. With behind-the-scenes insights and highly personal revelations of breakdowns, abuse, sabotage, and murder, there's never a dull moment. Exceptional performances by each narrator deliver delicious recipes and devious plots. Appetizing listening. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2022-12-14
Six contestants. A big white tent on the grounds of an aging estate. It’s a bake-off...in Vermont? And the winner might just be the one who survives.

Hannah. Gerald. Pradyumna. Lottie. Peter. Stella. These six bakers are selected to compete in the 10th season of Bake Week, a TV show filmed in the mountains of Vermont at Grafton Manor, the family estate of cookbook legend Betsy Martin. Betsy has been successfully hosting the show and judging the baked goods of amateur American bakers for 10 years; this year, however, a few things are different. First of all, the producers have insisted on appointing a co-host designed to appeal to a younger audience, a male chef known for his hard-as-nails critiques on another cooking show as well as his million-dollar smile. Second of all, at least one of the contestants is not who they say they are. Once a body is found, dripping blood into a cake—don’t worry, no one eats it—it’s clear that someone has taken the competition a little too far. There's a delightful balance of baking details and intrigue as the bakers compete through different challenges and we become privy to their secret motives and how far each is willing to go to win. The contestants hit all the character types: the beautiful ingénue, the neurotic scientist, the fluffy old woman, the bored millionaire, the anxious newbie, and the rustic craftsman. We are treated to their backstories and to some of their internal dialogue, but this is a novel that also rests comfortably, nostalgically, in its sense of formula. Despite the American setting, it’s not hard to imagine these characters creeping around the halls and grounds of a moldering British manor in the tradition of the best locked-room mysteries.

A delicious concoction: two shakes Agatha Christie and a cup of Great British Bake Off.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940174943872
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Prologue: Betsy Prologue BETSY
Betsy presses her cell phone to her ear, trying to hear. The wind and rain howl at the windows, rattling the glass. “We’re stuck out here. We won’t be able to come back for a while,” Melanie’s voice crackles with static. “This weather has taken down a bunch of trees. We’re waiting for emergency services to get them out of the road, but there’s no sign of them yet. We won’t be—”

“You’re cut off from Grafton?” Betsy can feel the panic rising in her chest. The whole crew has already left for the day, packing up quickly and going into town to avoid driving in the storm, and now it’s just her and Archie and the contestants alone in the manor. The thought fills her with dread. She shudders and pulls her thin cashmere sweater closer around her.

“What? The line keeps cutting out. Someone is going to have to go check on the tent. There’s a ton of camera equipment out there. I know the tech stuff isn’t your domain, but could you just go outside and make sure the flaps are sealed? I am just praying that tent is sturdy enough to make it through the storm. They’re saying it’s going to get worse tonight before it gets better. I’m sorry to ask you but there’s no one else. I tried calling Archie, but he didn’t pick up. Maybe you could—”

“I’ll do it,” Betsy snaps. There is no way she is going to ask anything of that man after what he’s done. “But this is really... unacceptable.” She feels a surge of anger as she hangs up. In the ten years she has been the host of Bake Week, she has never had to do any of the grunt work. Checking on the tent in the dark in the middle of a torrential downpour is not in her job description. She takes a deep breath. It was partly her fault, she realizes, for making the crew stay in town. She could never bear the thought of them traipsing through Grafton Manor with all their equipment and dirty shoes.

There’s a flash of lightning at the window followed by a violent bang of thunder. Betsy goes into her walk-in closet and reaches for her father’s heavy yellow rain jacket. As she slides her arms into it, she is disappointed to find it no longer smells of his cigars, only of the slightly mildewy musk that comes with neglect. It’s a smell and a state she is constantly battling at Grafton Manor. She feels a pang of guilt. Richard Grafton would be devastated to see this place so down at the heels. He was always devoted to the manor. He’d have found a way to keep it going, no matter the cost. She sighs, stretching to get an old metal flashlight off the shelf.

Betsy makes her way through the corridor and out into the main stairwell. Rain taps frantically on the two floor to ceiling windows in the foyer. She hurries down the steps to the front door, already feeling vulnerable. She pulls her hood up and forces the heavy wood door open, struggling against the wind. The tent is only ten feet away at most, but the rain is so heavy it appears as a white blur. She steels herself and steps outside. The wind drives the rain sideways, nearly blinding her as she descends the front steps, flanked by two stone lions. Their heads rest wearily in their crossed paws, as if they’ve given in to the storm. She crosses the short patch of gravel drive to the lawn, the rain pelting her in sheets. As soon as her feet hit the lawn, the heel of her right shoe descends into the fresh sod. It sticks there, making her nearly lose her balance. She hops on one foot, pulling the shoe up from the mud with a sucking sound and shoving her wet foot back inside. She is already drenched. She angrily anticipates the cleanup they’ll have to do before filming resumes. It will delay everything. It will cost money, lots of it. This season is turning into a horrible mess.

“Their chemistry is lacking,” that’s what The Post wrote recently after the footage from the first day was leaked. It was under the headline “What Will Happen to Bake Week?” As if somehow the press believes that the problem is both of them. No one ever complained about her chemistry before he got here. There was no problem with anything until he got here.

Angrily, she pulls open the flap at the back of the tent, switching on her flashlight. The rain hits the tent in noisy bursts drumming at the peaked canvas ceiling. She sweeps the flashlight around the open space. Each table is immaculately arranged, as is usual after the crew cleans them at the end of the day, before the bakers will return in the early morning to dirty every surface imaginable with dustings of flour and gobs of dough. Now every stand mixer is perfectly aligned with the next, each carefully arranged colander of baking utensils on display. It’s an optimistic scene of pastel colors and light woods. One that lends itself well to the show’s folksy niceness. And generally it’s true that the bakers, chosen and vetted to within an inch of their lives, are also nice. Betsy makes sure of it. Some of them can be a bit curmudgeonly. But they try so hard, they want so desperately to be perfect, to win, so you have to give them that. Betsy knows she hasn’t ever had to work so hard as some of them. This group is no different. Sure, there have been... challenges. It certainly hasn’t been easy this time around.

There’s another crack of lightning, a violent bang as it connects to something nearby. Betsy shudders and makes her way up to the bank of cameras on the right. They look secure enough. The ground around them is dry.

She swings the flashlight around the tent one last time, ready to go back inside and warm herself up with a glass of port. To try to forget today ever happened. But then she notices something at the front of the tent. There is an object sitting on the judging table. She trains the flashlight on it, approaching slowly. It looks like a cake. Someone must have left it there from today’s baking challenge, which is odd. Usually everything is cleaned up after filming. As she moves forward, she can see that it’s already baked, a slice cleaved neatly from it. Cherry red liquid dribbles from the stand, down the back of the table where it mingles with a deep puddle of water. The rain has found its way inside. She steps closer, her heart sinking. A mess this big will cause a delay in filming. It will be expensive and taxing.

A drop of water lands on her face and she jumps. She reaches her hand up to wipe it away. The liquid feels smooth and slippery. Reaching her fingers in the beam of the flashlight, she is shocked to find they are streaked with bright red. It feels like—

She turns her flashlight up. Its spotlight trails into the peaked roof of the tent until it stops on something. Before her eyes even make sense of the horror above her, she starts to scream.

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