Calypso, corpses, and cooking

Raquel V. Reyes

Book - 2022

"Fall festivities are underway in Coral Shores, Miami. Cuban-American cooking show star Miriam Quiñones-Smith wakes up to find a corpse in her front yard. The body by the fake tombstone is the woman that was kicked out of the school's Fall Festival the day before. Miriam's luck does not improve. Her passive-aggressive mother-in-law puts her in charge of the Women's Club annual gala. But this year, it's not canapes and waltzes. Miriam and her girlfriends-squad opt for fun and flavor. They want to spice it up with Caribbean food trucks and a calypso band. While making plans at the country club, they hear a volatile argument between the new head chef and the club's manager. Not long after, the chef swan dives to... his death at the bottom of the grand staircase. Was it an accident? Or was it Beverly, the sous chef, who is furious after being passed over for the job? Or maybe it was his ex-girlfriend, Anastasia? Add two possible poisonings to the mix and Miriam is worried the food truck fun is going to be a major crash. As the clock ticks down and the body count goes up, Miriam's life is put in jeopardy. Will she connect the dots or die in the deep freeze? Foodies and mystery lovers alike will savor the denouement as the truth is laid bare in this simmering stew of rage, retribution, and murder"--Dust jacket flap.

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MYSTERY/Reyes Raquel
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Subjects
Genres
Cozy mysteries
Detective and mystery fiction
Published
New York : Crooked Lane 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Raquel V. Reyes (author)
Edition
First edition
Item Description
Includes recipes.
Physical Description
327 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781639101061
Contents unavailable.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Reyes's enjoyable if uneven sequel to 2021's Mango, Mambo, and Murder finds cooking show host Miriam Quinones-Smith just wanting peace as she prepares for her second baby at her home in Coral Shores, "a village within Miami," Fla. But then the words Help Murder are painted on her house, and an almost-dead woman turns up in her front yard. Even planning for the tedious Women's Club gala turns treacherous when the executive chef is found dead. As the attacks and body count pile up, Miriam's friend Ana is brought in for questioning by the police. Intrepid Miriam doesn't trust the investigation and sets out to unearth the truth to protect her friends and family. Too much everyday minutiae slows the complicated plot, which builds to a rushed conclusion full of explanations of various motives, though the untranslated passages of Spanish lend color, and readers are sure to savor the delectable recipes at the end. Fans of Mia P. Manansala's Arsenic and Adobe will want to check this out. Agent: Saritza Hernández, Andrea Brown Literary. (Nov.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Trouble seems to follow Miriam Quinones-Smith, a Cuban American cooking show star, wherever she goes. The morning after her son's school fall festival, Miriam finds a woman passed out in her yard among Halloween tombstone decorations. Miriam's husband knows all the woman's family problems, but Miriam has her own. Her hateful mother-in-law volunteered her to head up the Women's Club gala and menu. It's usually a stodgy affair, but Miriam recruits friends so that this year's gala features Caribbean food trucks. When the committee meets at the country club, they overhear an argument, and the new chef takes a header off the stairway. Because she fears her best friend's assistant might be a suspect, Miriam starts poking around, but she has other things on her mind: she's three months pregnant, and she's a little slow to realize she's a threat to a killer. VERDICT The first "Caribbean Kitchen Mystery," Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking, won the 2022 Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery, but Reyes's sequel is somewhat convoluted and ends abruptly. Add this title, with its varied cast and a great deal of Spanish dialogue, where the first was popular.--Lesa Holstine

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A food anthropologist stirs a messy pot of murder. After earning her doctorate in New York studying the foodways of the Caribbean, Miriam Quiñones is happy to be back in her hometown of Miami, though the gated enclave of Coral Shores has little in common with the Cuban community where she grew up. But much as she misses the sights, sounds, and colors of Hialeah, she enjoys the sense of security Coral Shores affords her husband, Robert, her preschooler, Manny, and the new little arrival she expects in May. So she's more than a little disconcerted to find the words HELP MURDER scrawled on the side of her house. More disconcerting yet is finding socialite Lois Pimpkin the next day lying in Miriam's front yard with a severe wound to the head. A few days later, Miriam has a front-row seat when Sebi Malkov, chef at the Coral Shores Country Club, takes a header off the second-floor balcony and dies. By now, Hialeah is looking pretty tame. Between prepping for her two cooking shows--Cocina Caribeña on UnMundo and Abuela Approved on YouTube--and doing advance work for the charity gala her snooty mother-in-law roped her into, Miriam has no time to investigate. But as the corpses pile up, she feels she must, if only to restore the sense of peace and security her growing family deserves. A mind-boggling combination of Byzantine motives and oddball coincidences is required to solve this one. Reyes serves up a variety of Caribbean treats that maybe should not all be on the same plate. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.