 "I Enjoyed This Fun Book So Much!!!" | 2008-10-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1P2XYD265YE21 |
Jane and Shelley, who are best friends, camp out at a camp resort that has invited several people. The "camp" atmosphere is very cozy. I thoroughly enjoyed the camp activities, and Jane and Shelley's friendship.
This book is full of food, fun, adventure, coziness, interesting people, murder, and a very interesting plot. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves cozy mysteries.
Although I probably say this about every book in this series, but I think this book is one of the best in the series. Actually, this whole series is so fun and cozy. And some of them have really "fun" atmospheres, such as this "camp" atmosphere. |
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 "Have No Fear, This Book is a Great Way to Pass a Few Hours" | 2007-11-26 |
| - Reviewed By jamesnsimpson |
Fear of Frying is a very light easy to read mystery. The downside is the story is very predictable which hard core mystery fans might find disappointing. Also although the main plot is wrapped up the minor side plot involving the evil environmental extremist group and the resort is never resolved, although one could argue this makes the book a lot more realistic. The fact remains though that this story is very enjoyable and has characters many will be able to familiarise with from those they come across everyday in the real world. A short read only 206 pages in large print, if you've got a few hours to kill you won't be disappointed by picking this up.
In Fear of Frying a couple of middle aged women set off for a rural resort in the Wisconsin Woods. They are one of a number of couples assessing the resort and its programs as to its suitability to be an external educational facility for leadership camps and the like. They can't get enough of the high quality food and luxuries but when they search for a missing watch at a rural cookout site they are shocked to discover the body of one of their fellow assessors with a frypan beside it. When they go to inform the lodge and the police they are further shocked when the sheriff tells them there's no dead body there. Insisting there is they are further humiliated when the corpse walks through the door without the frypan head injuries they described. Embarrassed they sneak off to their cabin but after a nights sleep are determined to discover what really happened and restore themselves in the eyes of their fellow assessors and the resort owners. |
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| "Light Bulbs & Kerosene; ... a Few of My Favorite Things. No Bee Stings." | 2005-11-25 |
| - Reviewed By arzel |
The opening scene, a journey to a wilderness camp, captured my interest instantly, especially following Jane's angst about whether she would have to resort to "peeing in the woods." Would this truly be a resort to relish, as Shelly was working too hard to promise? Loved the way, upon arrival at the camp, Jane's angst was suddenly soothed by the actual nature in "nature," simultaneous to Shelley's greater fears being augmented.
Jane's spirits began their sap rising routine when she saw the fresh coat of paint on the camp's welcome signs. Her spirits continued the upward surge as the birds, bees, flowers & trees began randomly staging their magic.
Shelley's spirits were fried like a finger in a light socket when, arms bundled with beauty enhancements dangling electrical cords, she discovered the cabin's kerosene lantern sans electrical accouterments.
I won't say more about that; wouldn't want to spoil the fun of your discovering in-plot the interesting ambiance of this unusual camp's arrangement of just the right luxuries couched within an almost Amish austerity. With the joys of both maximist and minimalist tendencies mixed chust so, I could make-do with this setup, especially within the pages of a book.
Rubbing my virtual fingers together, I willingly showed up for the breakfast "continuum" of offerings, along with Jane & Shelley, drooling for crisply fried bacon, scrambled eggs and Velveeta (that rich brand would be my cheesy addition to the plot), balanced with a cantaloupe slice and molasses-bran toast from the health side of the food group. I like to mix health business with spiritual pleasures, as long as I'm not being fooled by the fake food fru fru.
What I wonder is what will pseudo-science do when Mulder and Scully finally place Truth into a Common Knowledge medium, as a last-ditch message to save the health of humanity on its last legs and breath, after that pair of rogue FBI agents join forces with Marshal McCluen (Marshall McLuhan), and conglomerate his clues within the Truth Track, on the wrack in the Village Green for all to see.
Okay. All right already. I'll untie the above syntax knot.
A fear of frying is what it's all about all right.
And what I really want to know is HOW did that fear get so built up to fly in everyone's face when they were chust trying to eat a good Amish, farm fresh, hearty-for-the-heart breakfast.
While I'm on this, "And-what-about..." track, what about the French, who do all sorts of fries, super sauce meat drippings by adding BUTTER (they're too smart to "buy" plastic goo), and have the grace of gall to not die of collective heart attacks?
Huh? Huh?
What about that???
Why don't they die like flies on the vines of cholesterol?
And, do NOT copy out and use "DUH" as an excuse.
McDonald's is "to die for"; it is NOT to die from.
When are we Americans going to get. A. Clue. Maybe a Coke, too.
Guilt is the USA's most abundant commodity, and we're selling the heck out of it, as non-profit agents, of course. Wouldn't want to earn a buck then be told to give it away, instead of spending or saving it for ourselves.
We use that self-replicating commodity (guilt) like super glue to stick every pseudo-science tenant to our foreheads. We carry on by forcing a habit of looking in the mirror at the stupid tenants, avoiding the shame of seeing the eyes of that starving soul looking back at us, sadly wondering why we believe that to be Good we're supposed to kill the flavor in life.
And what would we see in that mirror if we looked beyond the false-god tenants (which are very difficult to read, not just because they're smudged full of Sacred Fertilizer, but because they're reversed by being reflected through a mirror)?
Maybe we'd see someone blessed to not be starving (because he's living in a wealthy country), who's been cursed to eat only food with the flavor religiously leached out.
It's not the fear of frying, precisely, which has us brainless and clueless. BTW, my friend Dr. BJ Ferrell noted that the brain is 90% cholesterol. Cholesterol is not only a GOOD thing; it's vital to the health of the nervous system, including the backbone, which we have less and less of.
It's the fear of ...
Lost my train of thought again. Forgot to put enough butter on that molasses bran toast I mentioned above, so my thoughts got off track and took on a tangent. Then one of my prime soap box collections slipped under my feet. That's my excuse for spouting off at the mouth when I might not know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, this novel caught my attention instantly and held it like super glue throughout the subplots, machinations, schemes, and dreams coming true about luxury bathrooms in the wilderness.
But, the real question is, did Jane have to pee in the woods?
In conclusion I might note that I felt a healing force work its way back in time, through my early history, as I skated through the mystery menagerie with Jane & Shelley within the scrumptious setting of this particular summer camp. My personal experiences with summer camps were all literal nightmares, which made this vicarious adventure such a deeply enthralling read that it chust may have erased the scars from that ugly history.
Can you beat that? Probably.
But I'm thankful for my new well-being which arrived at the conclusion of living through this story (which in a Jane novel is always a sunny-side-up or over-easy treat).
What a gift for the price of a paperback.
Maybe if more people regularly read the escape fiction of their tastes, the medical profession might have to worry. There's something very health shoring in the sensual process of reading a good novel with the heavy head cushioned atop a few cozy pillows feather-touched and fluffed by butter-colored lamplight.
Before I close my mouth and eyes on the last page of FEAR OF FRYING, I should mention that there's a book in the Jane Jeffry series which opens more directly along the lines of my above diatribe on unfair food bashing. That book is THE CLASS MENAGERIE. Need to get it. For my health.
Linda Shelnutt
P.S. Marshall McLuhan wrote THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE (implying more than "message"). I visited the Amazon buying page for that book to check spelling of his name. The 15 customer reviews there were amazingly insightful as well as delightfully (and crisply) worded. Even the slight criticisms felt clean, clear, and honestly helpful. Without reservation, I voted "Yes" on each of the 15 reviews. They told me more about the book than I "got" when I read it in college, umpteen Ages ago, and returned to memory and life what I did get. Borm in 1947, I'm in the Baby Boomer crowd. (Maybe I should go post this P.S. into a review?)
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 "Another Book in the Jane Jeffrey Series" | 2004-03-18 |
| - Reviewed By nancyk18 |
| Jane Jeffrey, suburban housewife and sometime detective, accompanies her friend Shelley to learn more about a summer camp for their community's students. What they never expected though was the remote campsite, interesting guests and murder. Fear of Frying is the 9th book in the Jane Jeffrey series which I first began reading in 1998. The series began with the recenly widowed Jane as she helps to solve the murder of a local housekeeper in Grime and Punishment and has continued with other murders and personal events. Note the clever titles based on other well known book titles. For the most part I have enjoyed all of Ms. Chruchill's books and Fear of Frying is no exception. I am also in the process of reading the author's second series, the Grace and Favor series which began with Anything Goes. If you enjoy light and cozy tales of murder and mayhem, consider reading either of these series and enjoy. |
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| "A real favorite in this 9th of the Jane Jeffry's series..." | 2001-12-03 |
| - Reviewed By highlandprincessmum |
| Jane and Shelley are going to check out a summer camp for kids. Camping is NOT Jane's idea of fun and she and Shelley certainly were not prepared for a murder in the process! Then, before anyone can check out the crime scene, the murdered corpse disappears! This is really a bad moment for Jane and Shelley as they're the ones that discovered the body to begin with! Great, fun mystery. |
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| "Great read for a weekend" | 2001-06-28 |
| - Reviewed By kathrynlively |
| For a light and quick weekend read, Jill Churchill's Fear of Frying fit the bill. For those of you unfamiliar with Churchill's Jane Jeffrys series (of which this is the ninth installment), amateur sleuth Jane is a single mother who likes to cook and/or eat, and has a detective boyfriend (a no-show in this story) and a best friend named Shelley. Despite the title, Jane doesn't do much cooking here, though it does give a hint with regards to the murder weapon of choice. Along with various other people in their social circle (including two car dealership execs and their wives, a high school principal and her complacent husband), Jane and Shelley volunteer to spend a few days to evaluate Camp Sunshine, a wilderness resort which owner Benson Titus hopes to contract to the area school district for summer programs. Shades of Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" are evident during this trip as a bit of heavy rain spoils the atmosphere for Jane and Shelley, but not so much as the lifeless body of car dealership owner Sam Claypool which they discover lying by a doused campfire. When Sam turns up alive later that evening, and the rest of their working vacation is marred by environmental activists, a washed-out bridge leading to freedom and a grumpy sheriff, Jane and Shelley are hardly happy campers. All the same, it's fun to read. I hated camp, I sympathize entirely. Fear of Frying may be predictable for some, but as a cozy read it works: I enjoyed being introduced to Jane and Shelley and hope to become more familiar with them in the future. They play off each other with good humor, they seem like real people and their ability to rely upon observation rather than blatant snooping is reminiscent of Christie's Miss Marple. A good read to take to the beach. |
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