Final Taste (Kate Stark Thrillers #1) by M L Buchman Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure, foodie fiction, romantic suspense, thriller
Series: Kate Stark Thrillers #1
Pages: 398
Published by Buchman Bookworks on March 31, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads
Ex-Secret Service agent Kate Stark owns the #1 cooking network on television. When a chef and a guest judge are poisoned on her show, all fingers point to Kate—except she’s nowhere to be found.
Drugged, kidnapped, and loaded into a shipping container, Kate’s next port of call? North Korea.
From New York TV studios and her Chrysler Building penthouse suite to the Panama Canal and a DPRK smuggling ship, Kate desperately recruits her team as she races to stay a geek, a Marine, her con-man twin brother, and a very handsome chef. It will take all their skills to survive.
My Review:
“Death by Chocolate” is a common dessert on restaurant menus – one I’ll never look at it the same way again after reading this book in spite of how much I really do love chocolate. Because this one begins with a literal death by chocolate, as chefs start dropping dead in the middle of filming the latest episode of a hit celebrity chef competition, Kate’s Kitchen from Hell.
The chefs that couldn’t resist the chocolate ganache die on camera – the ones that don’t get drugged and kidnapped even as the cameras fade to black.
It’s not an ordinary kidnapping for an ordinary motive. No one is going to be sending ransom demands for either of the two chefs who have been thrown into a shipping container and shipped away.
Then again, Kate Stark isn’t exactly your average kidnap victim – or even your average celebrity chef. As a decorated former Secret Service agent, Kate Stark knows just how to save herself IF she can get just a bit of leverage on someone. Or at least someone’s arm. Literally.
But escaping from one cargo container near the top of a pile of cargo containers isn’t enough when said pile is on a whole ship full of containers headed for parts unknown. Or North Korea – which will equal the same thing if her kidnappers manage to get her all the way there.
Which they won’t, as Kate’s cavalry is riding to the rescue for the first of what will turn out to be many rescue missions. Because in order to foil the crazy plot in which she has become embroiled, save her friend AND protect both of their former identities, Kate will have to put herself and her ‘Scooby gang’ back into harm’s way over and over to get away with all of all of their limbs still attached.
Leaving herself with an ally on the inside of one of the world’s most secretive organizations AND with the fire of an adrenaline junkie awake and roaring in her belly.
Escape Rating A-: This was the right book at the right time. Seriously. Nothing I had intended to read this week looked like I actually WANTED to read it – at least at the moment – so I went looking for something I knew would drag me straight in. Which leads directly to most of this week’s reviews, especially this one. I picked this up initially because this is an author whose work I always love, and somehow I skipped the whole series in its initial publication under a different title which looked a bit more cutesy than thrilling.
This time around it’s definitely thrilling. So don’t go into this expecting a cozy foodie mystery. DO, absolutely DO go into it expecting a thrill ride like the author’s Miranda Chase series or even his military romantic suspense – possibly thrown into a blender with some of Anna Hackett’s romantic suspense series (Norcross Security would be an excellent place to start) for a bit of extra spice – and spices!
There are two things that make this author a special treat for this reader. One has to do with the thrill ride of this thriller, in that he somehow manages to make the political aspects of his thrillers – in this case the reason for the original kidnapping and the subsequent shenanigans – seem both grounded in the real and up-to-the-minute, if not occasionally downright prescient. While the reason for the initial kidnapping is pretty much over-the-top in this one, all of the negotiations and maneuvering that happen after that are crazy but feel real – if still crazy.
The other thing is that, particularly in his Miranda Chase series but notable here as well, is that he does an excellent job of putting together the TEAM, particularly the “Five Man Band” of this series opener, with Kate as ‘The Leader’, her twin brother Paul as her contrasting, con-artist foil, retired Force Recon Marine Sam as the brawn, Rikka as the geeky brains and Harold as the heart. That the heart in this particular case is Kate’s fellow celebrity chef and future boytoy if not love interest leads to the other thing I enjoy about this author’s work.
All the relationships are equal. Or in this case, Kate may be a little more equal than Harold, and that’s fascinating all by itself. So I’m definitely looking forward to reading the next book in this series, Ice Burn, the next time I NEED an author to whisk me away to their world and away from my own!
