Over-Baked – The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell

I had high hopes for this book, as it sounded like such fun: a contemporary mystery about a TV baking contest called Bake Week (like The Great British Baking Show), set in a Gothic-like estate in a remote northern Vermont, but it quickly devolved as it is absolutely stuffed with extremely quirky and clichéd characters, and so many of the major plot points were easy to guess very early on. Despite that, I give the author, Jessa Maxwell, kudos for her efforts, and hope to see something stronger should she publish another book. She certainly worked hard to produce something that was structurally well-organized.The six contestants, Stella, Peter, Lottie, Hannah, Gerald, and Pradyumna, each have a particularly unusual backstory that they bring to the event. Then there is its originator, Betsy, the long-time host and contest judge, who is also the owner of the estate, the production lead, Melanie, and a new co-host/judge, Archie, who has been brought in from another cooking show, much to Betsy's irritation.

The novel is told from the points of view of each of the contestants and Betsy, each having a chapter to introduce them, then additional ones as the plot unspools. While we all have a past, with periods of good and bad, and high and low spots, and our own peculiarities, these characters are so overdrawn in their eccentricities or histories that when they are all shoehorned into one book, disbelief is inevitable.

Well-drawn, though sometimes eccentric characters make up the most successful and recognizable mystery books, TV shows, and films: Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, Nancy Drew, Phryne Fisher, and so many more. I couldn't help thinking of the recent clever and comedic mystery films, Knives Out and The Glass Onion, starring Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, and how effective such characterizations can be when written well. Unfortunately, The Golden Spoon and its characters are a long way from any of those.

Coincidentally, when I was checking some details for this review, I came across a South Korean TV series by the same name. It sounds interesting: a poor young man exchanges identities with rich young man and lives a different life...something like a spin on Trading Places with Eddie Murphy, Dan Ackroyd, and Jamie Lee Curtis? Or reaching way back to Charles Dickens: maybe the inspiration was Great Expectations?