Review by New York Times Review
Summer is no time to be virtuous. So before you pack those classic tomes you're determined to read on vacation, let me tempt you with a few guilty pleasures. The murder case John Glatt recounts in lurid detail in THE PRINCE OF PARADISE (St. Martin's, $26.99) is too bizarre for a work of fiction. In fact, it's a true crime story, originating at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach and harking back to the fabled era when stars like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra entertained the crowds at the front of the house while mobsters ran the show behind the scenes. Ben Novack Jr., the little prince of the title and one of the murder victims in this sordid story, was the son of the colorful entrepreneur who built the hotel and reigned over his fabulously vulgar empire for almost 25 years. Pampered but neglected, the child everyone called Benji had famous guests like Jerry Lewis and Ann-Margret for playmates, but no one for a friend. No wonder the kid grew up to be a thoroughly obnoxious man. "Every neighbor hated him," according to someone who knew him well. "They hated him everywhere." Novack's second wife, a former stripper, hated him enough to have him murdered - and his mother for good measure. But while Glatt does a professional job of covering the lonely life and violent death of this unhappy prince, his style is much livelier when he's writing about Novack's father, the king of glitz. If there's anything flashier than a murder in Miami Beach, it would have to be a murder in Las Vegas. LUCKY BASTARD (Tom Doherty/Forge, $25.99) is the latest in a breezy series of mysteries by Deborah Coonts set at the wonderfully named (and riotously decorated) Babylon hotel and featuring Lucky O'Toole, a brainy beauty whose public relations job makes her the establishment's "professional problem solver." Lucky's duties entail solving homicides executed in the ostentatious manner consistent with the Babylon's image as "Las Vegas's most over-the-top Strip casinoresort." That mandate is met when a lady cardsharp is found stretched out on the hood of a red Ferrari with a Jimmy Choo stiletto heel buried in her neck. This time out, Lucky wastes entirely too much energy chasing men and whining about the one who got away. But the oddball players checking in for the Sin City Smack Down poker tournament ("the Super Bowl of Texas Hold 'em") save the day by providing richer material for Lucky's snappy wit. "Sarcasm is my best thing," she modestly acknowledges while sizing up characters like Miss Becky-Sue, "that little bit of Texas trash," whose motto is: "The bigger the hair, the closer to God." Pulp fiction is great for the beach, but there's nothing like a good destination mystery to take you out of town for the summer. This category has two branches: the Enthusiastic American Abroad travelogue and the I'm a Native and You're Not procedural. Since the latter often take place in Italy, the square of revenge (Pegasus Crime, $24.95), by the Belgian author Pieter Aspe, is a welcome addition. Set in the splendid medieval city of Bruges, it stars Inspector Pieter Van In, a brusque cop with every bad habit you can think of. The story opens with an extremely vindictive crime: thieves have broken into an exclusive jewelry store, but instead of making off with the loot they dump it in a tank of corrosive chemicals. Van In's intuitive and often impulsive detection style can be disorienting, but his powers of observation are sharp and his insider's view of this ancient and grandly aloof city are priceless. The viewpoint of the awed American abroad is reflected in some of Katherine Hall Page's whodunits, which she refers to as "love letters" to the places visited by her amateur sleuth, Faith Fairchild, the wife of a minister and a successful caterer back home in New England. THE BODY IN THE PIAZZA (Morrow/HarperCollins, $24.99) finds the couple observing their wedding anniversary in Italy, which means we get enticing recipes at the back of the book and cooking tips sprinkled throughout. Faith and her husband start in Rome, so it's no surprise that their first stop is the food market in the Campo de' Fiori - or that the charming new English friend who helps show them around should be murdered before their eyes. The crime is solved satisfactorily, but not until the Fairchilds move on to Florence and find more mysterious goings-on at the culinary classes at Cucina Della Rossi that were supposed to be the highlight of the trip. Their sightseeing treks to Tuscan hill towns are less frantically paced than their whirlwind tour of Rome, but at least most of the participants emerge alive. And let's be honest: most of us came for the food. Although Canadian born, M. L. Longworth has lived in Aix-enProvence since 1997, so her picturesque mysteries feel rooted in the rich local soil, good for both wine-growing and burying bodies. DEATH IN THE VINES (Penguin, paper, $15) opens with a crime that calls for severe punishment in this region - the theft of some rare vintages from the cellars of a family-run winery. As if thai weren't sacrilege enough, a woman is found dead in the vineyards. Judge Antoine Verlaque, the sleuth in this civilized series, discharges his professional duties with discretion. But we're here to taste the wines, which are discussed by experts like Hippolyte Thébaud, a former wine thief, and served in beautiful settings like a 300-year-old stone farmhouse. So many bottles, so many lovely views. A reader might be forgiven for feeling woozy. Be it true crime or flashy fiction, summer vacation reading should never be seen as virtuous.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 2, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
Most of Page's 20 Faith Fairchild mysteries have taken place in the small Massachusetts town where she has a catering business, but this time she's enjoying the sun-drenched Tuscan hills. Faith and her husband, Reverend Tom, are in Italy to celebrate an anniversary and attend a weeklong cooking seminar at the home of an old friend, who has opened a tourist culinary school. The couple's first night is in Rome, where they meet a charismatic travel writer, Freddy, who, unfortunately, is killed before their eyes. Once they are ensconced in the cooking school, it becomes apparent that the reasons for Freddy's murder haven't stayed in Rome and that any one of the other school attendees could have had a hand in the malevolent events. Although there is certainly a mystery here, it gets lost, perhaps happily so, in the book's lush surroundings as well as in the flavors of the wine, pasta, and panna cotta that will have readers heading for their nearest Italian restaurant not that it can compare. Perhaps the recipes at the book's conclusion will help. La dolce vita only soured a bit by murder.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Page's delightful 21st Faith Fairchild mystery (after 2012's The Body in the Boudoir) takes the Aleford, Mass., caterer and her husband, the Rev. Thomas Fairchild, to Italy to celebrate a special anniversary-and to attend the cooking school of Francesca Rossi, a Tuscan friend whom they last saw on their honeymoon in Northern Italy years before. While in Rome, the couple meets the charming Freddy Ives, a British travel writer. Soon after, while enjoying a romantic stroll in the Piazza Farnese, they have the misfortune to witness Freddy suffer a mortal knife wound in a scuffle with a man who flees. The wonderful food at Francesca's cooking school in Tuscany can't distract Faith and Tom from trying to solve Freddy's murder. Hungry readers will rush to the kitchen if not to their travel agent to book tickets to Italy. Agent: Faith Hamlin, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The Fairchilds celebrate their 25th anniversary in a Tuscany cooking school complete with wine, olives, secretive companions and homicide. Caterer Faith Fairchild and her pastor husband, Tom, have a few days in Rome before heading for the outskirts of Florence for the inaugural week of her former assistant Francesca's Cucina Rossi cooking program. They're befriended by Freddy Ives, who reveals few personal details but knows the best restaurants, cafes and tourist vistas in town. To the Fairchilds' horror, he's stabbed to death in a Roman piazza, grasping for his pen and saying, "They're going to ki...." The police seem uninterested, and the Fairchilds, who barely caught a glimpse of the attacker, head for the Tuscany hills, where Francesca's cooking students are gathered. There are a bickering couple, possibly contemplating divorce; a goth girl with facial piercings; a British couple who find fault with everything; a pair of lovebirds; some Southern ladies; and Francesca's neighbor Luke, who owns a grand palazzo and the surrounding vineyards. The group has barely warmed up the oven when Francesca's assistant quits, decapitated snakes are left in all the bathtubs, Faith is locked in an Etruscan tomb, Tom is kidnapped, Freddy's notebook is discovered in the palazzo, and his pen turns up too, startling one and all. It will take a call to Faith's sister back in the States to get the British Embassy involved and separate an assassination plot from the shenanigans of a jealous local, but not to worry: The cooking school is a major success, and the participants leave with a nice set of recipes. Tuscany food markets, extra virgin olive oil and historic sites are all rendered with Page's typical gusto and charm (The Body in the Boudoir, 2012, etc.), but, again typically, the plot collapses since logic and reason remain missing ingredients.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
