Below is the complete list of Diane Mott Davidson books in order. For each series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Goldy Schulz Books
Publication Order of Goldy Schulz Non-Fiction Books
About Diane Mott Davidson
Diane Mott Davidson is an American mystery writer best known for helping popularize the modern culinary mystery through her long-running series about Colorado caterer and amateur sleuth Goldy Schulz. Beginning with Catering to Nobody in 1990, Davidson combined traditional whodunit plotting with recipes, professional cooking, family life, and the pressures of running a small catering business. The series ultimately grew to seventeen novels, making Goldy one of the most recognizable protagonists in food-centered mystery fiction.
Davidson graduated from Stanford University in 1970 after earlier attending Wellesley College. She came to novel writing relatively late compared with many career authors, completing multiple manuscripts before Catering to Nobody found a publisher. That debut immediately established several elements that would define her fiction: a Colorado setting, domestic and community relationships, food as an integral part of daily life, and an amateur investigator whose proximity to murder arises naturally from her work rather than from any formal connection to law enforcement.
Goldy begins the series as a divorced mother trying to support herself and her young son through Goldilocks’ Catering in the fictional Colorado community of Aspen Meadow. Her former marriage has left emotional damage that Davidson does not simply discard once the mysteries begin. Goldy’s difficult relationship with her abusive ex-husband, her responsibilities as a parent, financial uncertainty, friendships, romantic life, and eventual marriage to homicide investigator Tom Schulz develop across the series. That continuing personal history gives the books more cumulative weight than a sequence in which the detective’s private life resets after every case.
Food is equally important, but Davidson rarely uses it merely to decorate the mystery. Catering jobs provide believable reasons for Goldy to enter private homes, weddings, schools, parties, holiday gatherings, wealthy social circles, and community events where tensions can surface. Preparing menus also remains part of her livelihood even while she is investigating murder. Recipes associated with dishes in the stories became a signature of the series; the earlier books placed them within the narrative, while later installments collected them more conventionally at the end.
The fictional Aspen Meadow reflects Davidson’s familiarity with Colorado, and the landscape, weather, affluent enclaves, mountain communities, and local institutions give Goldy’s cases a consistent regional identity. Davidson has also drawn on law-enforcement expertise when developing the investigative side of the books, balancing Goldy’s amateur curiosity with Tom’s professional police perspective. A 2026 author appearance described all seventeen Goldy novels as Colorado-set mysteries and noted Davidson’s continuing attachment to the state even while dividing her time between Colorado and Florida.
Davidson also wrote short fiction, winning the 1993 Anthony Award for “Cold Turkey.” Her first Goldy novel had earlier been nominated for the Anthony Award for Best First Novel. In 2015 she published Goldy’s Kitchen Cookbook, combining recipes associated with the mysteries with material about cooking, writing, and family life.
Davidson’s lasting contribution lies in making the culinary element feel inseparable from the detective’s identity. Goldy is not simply a sleuth who happens to enjoy cooking; catering determines where she goes, whom she meets, how she supports her family, and why she repeatedly gains access to the social worlds in which crimes occur. That integration of food, domestic life, Colorado community, and murder became the defining character of Davidson’s work.