Goldy Schulz

About the Goldy Schulz series

Goldy Schulz (later Goldy Bear) is a divorced single mother turned professional caterer in Aspen Meadow, Colorado, whose gigs — country-club luncheons, church socials, ski-town society events — keep putting her at the scene of the crime, usually with a body cooling next to the canapes. Goldy cooks her way through every investigation, quite literally: each novel is packed with real, tested recipes tied to the story's menus, and her sharp tongue and hard-won independence (her first husband, referred to throughout as 'the Jerk,' is a controlling ex she escaped) give the series real edge under the culinary charm.

Diane Mott Davidson is widely credited with popularizing the recipe-laced culinary mystery format that Laura Childs, Cleo Coyle and dozens of others later built on. Her mysteries lean grittier than most cozy contemporaries — domestic abuse, small-town corruption and genuine physical danger show up alongside the food — while Goldy's remarriage to police investigator Tom Schulz gives the series an unusually well-integrated procedural thread. It's the series for readers who want the culinary-mystery format at its origin point: real recipes, a genuinely resourceful and hard-edged heroine, and mysteries with more bite than the cozy label usually implies.