State of the Onion

State of the Onion
Julie Hyzy
325 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Source: PaperBackSwap.com
★★★☆☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

White House assistant chef, Ollie, is on her way to work one day when she witnesses something strange on the White House lawn - a man being chased by the Secret Service.  When the Service can't catch up, Oliie whacks him with a fry pan to stop him.  Soon a killer is on the loose and after Ollie!  All while she's trying to deal with an extremely important state dinner and a potential promotion, that is if the job doesn't go to her arch nemisis.

While it seems like Julie Hyzy did her research while writing this novel (it was nice to learn about presidential china patterns, for example) the book doesn't get points for being realistic.  Granted, cozy mysteries are never that realistic, but this one was kind of out there.  The Secret Service would never be so off the ball that the White House assistant chef would be solving mysteries, but it's these strange things that make for a good cozy mystery, in my opinion.

I gave State of the Onion three stars because, while I liked it, I didn't feel much chemistry between any of the characters, in particular Ollie and her boyfriend, and there wasn't anything extra awesome about this cozy.  I would definitely recommend it to other cozy fanatics, though.