Golden Age of Detective Fiction

In Jessa Maxwell’s gripping mystery The Golden Spoon, published in 2023, we delve into the intriguing world of a renowned culinary baking show, Bake Week. Here, we uncover a web of dark secrets that culminate in a shocking murder, shattering the tranquility of the iconic television show. As the show’s future hangs in the balance, some will be destroyed, while others will rise from the ashes, their hunger for truth and justice unquenched.

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The Story

Welcome to the tenth season of the widespread American baking show phenomenon, Bake Week, where six contestants must bake their way through a series of increasingly complex challenges each day until the final and best baker is awarded the coveted prize: the Golden Spoon from Britain’s culinary grandmother, Betsy Martin.

Bake Week is Betsy Martin’s brain-child, which she uses to expand her brand, and is set on her family estate, Grafton Manor. However, the tenth season isn’t shaping to be all cakes, pies, and breads. The network feels like Betsy Martin is getting stale and has added a new co-host, Archie Morris- whose charm radiates under the glare of lights and oozes a definite sleazeball attitude when the cameras are off. Clearly, he wants to outshine Betsy and isn’t afraid to cozy up to female contestants.

The contestants, each with their own unique quirks and secrets, are a fascinating bunch. Their individuality and the mysteries they carry make them compelling to follow:

• Gerald, a math teacher, uses precise measurements to ensure the correct chemical reactions make a perfect bake. Neurotic and highly strung, he doesn’t adapt well to the “making of the show” with cameras, constant noise, and having to interact with silly ribbing from Archie Morris. He’s a powder keg waiting to explode.
• Lottie is this season’s eldest baker, who bakes old-fashioned treats. When she’s not baking up magic, she’s wandering Grafton Manor, searching for something.
• Stella, a former journalist who recently suffered a sexual assault by her boss and was then fired, is a prime example. To help cope with the profound loneliness and shame, she started baking. Her struggle with panic attacks and blackouts adds a layer of empathy to her character.
• Hannah, a twenty-two-year-old pie maker from rural Minnesota, is another contestant with a compelling story. She uses this opportunity to escape her small-town life and hopes Bake Week will propel her to fame. Her ambition and the lengths she’s willing to go to achieve it add a sense of tension to the competition.
• Peter is a genuinely lovely guy who loves to bake for his partner and adopted child. A sweet man with no ulterior motive besides the love of the bake.
• Pradyumna is a tech millionaire who tried out for the bake-off for the experience. He has no real love of baking but wants to conquer that competition. A constant thrill seeker who numbs himself with alcohol when bored. He almost quits the competition when a grisly murder enraptures him.

As the cameras start rolling, the competition heats up, and more than just delicious treats are baked. Each chapter is a window into the character’s inner world, revealing their petty jealousies, thirst for revenge, and their true motivations as they navigate the competition. But are these motivations as straightforward as they seem?

When Gerald’s orange essence is replaced with Gasoline, causing him to have a mental breakdown filmed for television, Betsy starts to suspect that the production crew is ramping up the drama and tinkering with her staid, genteel product. She’s not going to let anyone taint Bake Week.

As the week progresses, the cast begins to bond over heavy drinking. Inhibitions lowered, and they explored the forbidden wings of the manor. With the contestants running amok in the manor the production crew causing mayhem on set, it’s not long before a dead body is found splayed out on the Bake Week tent.

Deception is the name of the game as everyone scrambles to protect their secrets- secrets in coming to Bake Off, their secret pasts, their true character, and most of all, who will kill to get what they want.

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My Review

The Golden Spoon is a real treat for Great British Bake Off fans like myself. The early chapters of the book are sprinkled with the cozy, gentle atmosphere of the show, from the pastel-colored kitchen aids to silly mishaps with the unfamiliar cookware to the overly bright and cheery hosting, so it’s evident that the author, Jessa Maxwell, based her setting for the story on the iconic baking show.

Maxwell, however, dares to ask, what if we peel away the sugary sweet veneer and find a rotten, stinking center.?Betsy Martin, all sugar and spice for the cameras, is a hard woman using every inch of her cunning to keep Bake Week on air because she needs it- to feed her ego and subsidize her large manor house, which is crumbling around her.

Grafton Manor, a beautiful manor house with long grassy courts, lulls watchers of Bake Off into pining for a bygone era, full of grandeur and beauty and wealth, but as we, the reader, learn, Grafton Manor holds its secrets. The house is not like the one it plays on TV; it’s founded on betrayal, lost love, and unrepentant rage- all bubbly to the surface during Bake Week. Grafton Manor, a beautiful manor house with long grassy courts, lulls watchers of Bake Off into pining for a bygone era, full of grandeur and beauty and wealth, but as we, the reader, learn, Grafton Manor holds its secrets. The house is not like the one it plays on TV; it’s founded on betrayal, lost love, and unrepentant rage- all bubbly to the surface during Bake Week.

Betsy Martin, a woman who needs to keep an iron grip on everything and everyone around her- lest secrets come tumbling out has met her match in the oily Archie Morris, who loves fame, loves young, naive women, and has found a steady supply of both is he plays his cards right during Bake Week.

Maxwell also cooks up a real conundrum with the character of Archie Morris. The young conniving Hannah sees him as a fantastic meal ticket and an abject predator by the more world-weary Stella. When Stella sees Hannah and Archie entering a relationship, she worries that Archie Morris might be taking advantage of Hannah. Soon, however, the three of them are on a tangled web, and it’s hard to know who is taking advantage of whom.

Again, Maxwell masters letting her characters operate in a morally gray area. They lie, manipulate, take advantage, and deny that they are doing anything wrong; I mean, really bad.

Some denials are only harmful to themselves, like Pradyumna’s lie that his increasing alcoholism is due to boredom- not lack of fulfilling direction and others deny their actions to the rewriting reality, and others to justify murder.

There are some truth-tellers- poor friendly Peter, who loves baking just like the contestants on the real GBBO, gets the axe first. He’s too pure for this tale. However, he isn’t the only truth-seekers. Lottie’s childhood is intricately intertwined with Betsy Martin and Grafton Manor, and she will find out the truth about a death decades ago. When Pradyumna stumbles into her investigation, a genuine friendship blossoms- which, given how much deceit is interlaced into this book, is lovely to watch.

Even when he is removed from the pressures of the competition, Gerald returns to Grafton Manor to unmask who was tampering with the production of Bake Week. His zeal is played in black comedy, and he goes from pawn to savior of Bake Week’s legacy.

Again, Maxwell plays with our perception., Bake Week’s legacy is markedly different after its ill-fated tenth season than its predecessors, but it’s no less manufactured. Back in front of the cameras in a documentary, the contestants are still putting on a show; there’s the truth and the palatable lie that some of them use to their advantage.

At the end of the book, justice has been served, yet some real villains get to live on in front of the cameras. It ends in that same grey area that Maxwell seems to find home. Part of me yearns for a sequel, where everyone gets their just desserts, and a more significant part of my hunger is that there isn’t a sequel and that they don’t.

The Golden Spoon is a darkly comic mystery that starts in the familiar territory of a cozy culinary mystery and ends with a murky reflection on what a person might do to satiate their deepest desires.

It asks: what do we crave? What will we do to stop the hunger?