Goldy Schulz Books in Order
Part ofDiane Mott Davidson Books in OrderSee the Goldy Schulz mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson in order, with summaries, series background, and tips on where to start this cozy culinary series.
Last updated: June 7, 2026
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).
Publication Order
17 books
Catering to Nobody
by Diane Mott Davidson
1990
Single mom and caterer Goldy Bear thinks she’s just feeding mourners at a schoolteacher’s wake—until her ex‑father‑in‑law is poisoned and she becomes the prime suspect. To save her business and protect her son, she has to uncover a small‑town tangle of grudges and lies.
Dying for Chocolate
by Diane Mott Davidson
1992
Fleeing her abusive ex-husband, Goldy takes a live‑in cooking job at an upscale country club and tries to rebuild her catering business. When her new boyfriend, a psychologist, dies in a bizarre car crash after eating her brunch, she digs into his secrets and discovers a recipe for murder.
The Cereal Murders
by Diane Mott Davidson
1993
Hired to cater a college advisory dinner at her son Arch’s elite prep school, Goldy ends the night by finding the valedictorian beaten to death. As pranksters target Arch and her assistant Julian is eyed as a suspect, she uncovers ruthless academic rivalries and very unscholarly crimes.
The Last Suppers
by Diane Mott Davidson
1994
On the morning of her wedding to detective Tom Schulz, Goldy gets a call: the ceremony is off because the priest has been shot. When Tom disappears from the crime scene, she puts the cake on ice and hunts a killer whose obsession could make her a widow before she’s a wife.
Killer Pancake
by Diane Mott Davidson
1995
Goldy is serving a low‑fat luncheon for a cosmetics launch at a crowded mall when animal‑rights protesters swarm the event and a company employee is killed by a hit‑and‑run driver. Torn between grief and suspicion, she probes the victim’s tangled love life and the ugly side of the beauty business.
The Main Corpse
by Diane Mott Davidson
1996
A lucrative catering job for a high‑flying investment firm draws Goldy into the reopening of an old gold mine—and into trouble when a key partner disappears along with company money. As more violence hits, she scrambles through mountain storms, missing millions, and bad investments to clear her best friend’s name.
The Grilling Season
by Diane Mott Davidson
1997
Goldy is hired to cater a hockey party for a woman planning to sue Goldy’s abusive ex-husband and his HMO for malpractice. When his new girlfriend is found murdered and he’s arrested, her son begs Goldy to prove his father innocent, forcing her to revisit old trauma while chasing a new killer.
Prime Cut
by Diane Mott Davidson
1998
With her kitchen wrecked by a crooked contractor and a rival caterer stealing clients, Goldy takes a gig assisting her mentor at a fashion shoot in a remote cabin. When the contractor later turns up dead and rare cookbooks go missing, she must connect sabotage, theft, and murder before her business is ruined.
Tough Cookie
by Diane Mott Davidson
2000
A broken drain line shuts down Goldy’s kitchen, so she agrees to host a PBS cooking show at a posh ski resort. Live television brings slapstick disasters, but the real crisis comes when an old boyfriend dies on the slopes and a series of “accidents” suggests someone is using the mountain for murder.
Sticks & Scones
by Diane Mott Davidson
2001
Goldy lands a dream job catering Elizabethan‑style feasts at Hyde Castle, an imported English manor above Aspen Meadow. After a sniper’s bullet shatters her window, she, Tom, and Arch move into the castle, where a body in a nearby creek, a family feud, and her newly freed ex-husband turn the assignment into a siege.
Chopping Spree
by Diane Mott Davidson
2002
Business is booming when Goldy caters an exclusive shopping‑club party at the local mall—until a truck nearly runs her down and she later finds an old friend stabbed among the sale shoes, one of her own knives in the body. As suspicion falls on those closest to the victim, she must carve through mall politics, drugs, and jealousy to catch a killer.
Double Shot
by Diane Mott Davidson
2004
Goldy’s ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman—the Jerk—has just had his prison sentence commuted, and someone immediately starts sabotaging her new catering shop. When Korman is found shot to death and Goldy’s own gun looks like the weapon, she has to investigate a maze of grudges, gossip, and church politics to keep herself out of jail.
Dark Tort
by Diane Mott Davidson
2006
Arriving before dawn to deliver breakfast to a law firm, Goldy literally trips over the body of a young paralegal with a troubled past and a suddenly bright future. Drawn in by the woman’s grieving mother, she uncovers questionable deaths, disputed art, and dangerous secrets hiding behind polished legal offices.
Sweet Revenge
by Diane Mott Davidson
2008
As Christmas approaches in Aspen Meadow, Goldy is catering a library breakfast when the disgraced former district attorney is found dead among the stacks. His obsession with rare maps and a vanished antique chart sends her into a world of collectors, ex-lovers, and old cases where revenge may be long delayed.
Fatally Flaky
by Diane Mott Davidson
2009
Goldy is drowning in weddings, especially one for a demanding bride who keeps changing menus and venues. When a beloved local doctor dies in a car crash on his way to the ceremony and Goldy’s godfather is attacked, she goes undercover at a luxury spa to find out who’s willing to kill to protect its secrets.
Crunch Time
by Diane Mott Davidson
2011
After a fire and a murder force chef Yolanda Garcia and her formidable great-aunt Ferdinanda out of their home, Goldy takes them in—and quickly realizes their troubles are tied to a slain private investigator’s messy caseload. From stolen Cuban jewels to a brutal puppy mill, she must untangle overlapping crimes before the danger reaches her own kitchen.
The Whole Enchilada
by Diane Mott Davidson
2013
Goldy and her son Arch are cohosting a Mexican‑themed birthday party when Holly, a fellow member of their support group for doctors’ ex-wives, collapses and dies in the driveway. Attacks, break‑ins, and another death suggest Holly’s carefully curated life hid dangerous financial and emotional secrets that someone is desperate to keep buried.
Series background & context
The Goldy Schulz mysteries follow a Colorado caterer whose work life keeps intersecting with crime. Goldy runs Goldilocks’ Catering—“Where Everything Is Just Right!”—in the fictional mountain town of Aspen Meadow, juggling menus, school schedules, church events, and, far too often, sudden death. The books are cozy in feel but not sugar‑sweet; they’re grounded in the stresses of making a living, raising a kid, and rebuilding a life after abuse.
When the series opens in Catering to Nobody, Goldy Bear is recently divorced from her violent gynecologist husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, whom she and her best friend Marla call “the Jerk.” She’s supporting her young son Arch with a fledgling catering business in Aspen Meadow, a ski‑adjacent community in the Colorado foothills that looks a lot like nearby Evergreen. A poisoning at a funeral reception shuts down Goldilocks’ Catering and forces Goldy to investigate to save both her reputation and her income.
Across the early books—Dying for Chocolate, The Cereal Murders, and The Last Suppers—you watch Goldy slowly build a new life. She moves her operation to a country club, caters high‑pressure school events, and even tries to cater her own wedding, only to have murder derail the big day. The mysteries tend to spring from catering jobs: a wake, a brunch, a hockey party, a church fundraiser. Every gig comes with its own mix of demanding clients, fraught family dynamics, and someone who would rather keep the past buried.
The series is also about community. Aspen Meadow is full of recurring faces—Marla, the sharp‑tongued realtor with a big heart; Arch, who grows from anxious kid into a more confident teen; Julian, the young assistant who becomes part of the family; and Tom Schulz, the patient homicide detective who eventually marries Goldy. Their friendships and fights matter as much as the puzzle in each book, and Davidson lets those relationships evolve over time instead of snapping back to a reset button after each case.
Food isn’t just a background detail; it’s the engine that drives the stories. The titles are all culinary puns—Killer Pancake, Prime Cut, Dark Tort—and each novel is studded with recipes Goldy is cooking for clients or her own household. In the early books the recipes appear right after the dishes are mentioned; beginning with Double Shot, they move to the back of the book, but they still echo the plot, from low‑fat banquets to elaborate holiday menus. Readers can literally cook along with the story, which is part of the fun.
As the series goes on, the stakes widen beyond individual murders. Goldy’s cases touch on HMO scandals, mining schemes, puppy mills, stolen art and antique maps, and the fallout from long‑buried family secrets. Books like The Grilling Season, Fatally Flaky, Crunch Time, and The Whole Enchilada push her into conflicts involving healthcare, corrupt businesses, and complicated friendships, all while she’s trying to keep her business afloat and her family safe.
The overall tone stays warm: there’s violence, but most of it happens offstage, and Davidson leans into Goldy’s wry narration, her faith, and the comfort of a crowded kitchen. If you pick up a Goldy Schulz book, you can expect a satisfying mystery, a cast of regulars who feel like neighbors, plenty of talk about coffee and chocolate, and a few recipes you may actually want to try when you close the cover.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.



































Comments
Did we miss something? Have feedback?
Help us improve this page by sharing your thoughts