BARBARA RIXSTINE / For the Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, May 27, 2006 7:00 pm
("Patterns in Silicon" by Maureen Robb, Drake Valley Press, 301 pages, $14.95 paperback.) Murder on the menu? Not if restaurateur Lea Sherwood has anything to say about it.
When Silicon Valley executive Keith Whitten collapses at his table in Panache and dies shortly after his exit on a hospital stretcher, Sherwood decides lending a hand to the police investigation can help her clear both her restaurant's sullied name and that of current squeeze Paul Boyd, whose software business was just acquired by the late Mr. Whitten.
A possible vendetta, the bugs in a new software release, a second murder and prospective buyers looking at her not-for-sale restaurant as a new night club all convince Sherwood that — her own danger aside — this is one very messy dish best disposed of quickly.
Maureen Robb creates a new culinary entrée that deftly mixes real danger, suspense and lively characters in the first of what's sure to be a successful series.
Robb is in Omaha as a panelist in the 2006 Mayhem in the Midlands mystery conference that runs May 25-28, put on by the Omaha and Lincoln public libraries. A Fordham University graduate, she made the move to California several years ago as a journalist and editor and stayed, in part, for the food.
“Going out to dinner in San Francisco is like a religious experience,” Robb said in a phone interview. “People plan weeks ahead. And the next morning at work it's all about where they went and what they ate. Papers track what chefs are at what restaurants. And all this is followed by ordinary people. It's like theater in New York."
Robb's currently finishing the second book in the series, which focuses on the subculture of environmentalism, and she is thinking about a third, which would focus on the Chinese experience in San Francisco.
"With every book in the series I want to explore a different subculture.… I love getting into these different subcultures and subworlds and exploring them," she said.
Barbara Rixstine is a communications specialist who regrets not living in Paris in the 1920s.