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Add this copy of Mango, Mambo, and Murder (a Caribbean Kitchen Mystery) to cart. $5.53, very good condition, Sold by spellbound rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from McKeesport, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2021 by Crooked Lane Books.
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Very Good Condition-May show some limited signs of wear and may have a remainder mark. Pages and dust cover are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting.
Miriam Qui�±ones-Smith was happy in New York. Then her mother-in-law bought her son and grandson a house in Coral Shores, Florida, 3 blocks away from her house. Miriam, a food anthropologist, had been in line for a professorship. Now her career is on hold and she is attending a Womenâ��s Club luncheon at the country club, and Alma, her best friend, is trying to get her to accept a job on a Spanish-language morning TV show as a Caribbean cooking expert.
Well, the luncheon takes a tragic turn when socialite Sunny Weatherman, sitting next to Miriam, passes out and plants her face into her plate of chicken salad. She dies later at the hospital. Then another woman dies and it is thought the herbal remedies Dr. Fuentes is peddling may be the cause. The theory gains traction when he appears on a morning talk show and the host interviewing him crumbles on the set. But Detective Pullman is focusing on Miriam�s friend Alma. Miriam decides she needs to help her friend which makes the good detective a little crazy. Then he admits he could use her help. She has access to places he doesn�t and she speaks Spanish fluently.
Miriam may take the detectiveââ?¬â?¢s request too far even though knows she is getting close to the truth about the deaths. But due to her ââ?¬Å"investigation,ââ?¬Â? she may find herself in hot water with the killer ready to strike.
I liked Miriam, she is well-educated, a great mom to her son, Manny, and an excellent cook, but she allows her very pushy mother-in-law to walk all over her. Her husband really pushed my buttons as well with his secrets and not standing up to his mother for the way she was treating his wife. I felt sorry for the woman as she tried to deal with the abuse on her own. Alma is a good friend to her but she has a lot on her plate being a murder suspect. Miriam is a bit stronger at the end of the story which gives me hope for future installments.
The mystery was well-plotted with several suspects. Miriam is almost consumed with solving the murder mystery all while starting a new job, taking care of her child and home, and jumping every time her mother-in-law demands it. She asks good questions and ruminates on the answers and clues. She follows leads sometimes when she shouldn�t but it does get Detective Pullman�s attention. He quickly nicknames her Veronica Mars even though she has no idea who that is. All the clues came together for Miriam and she was delighted when the arrest was made. I solved the case before Miriam but the way everything played out was quite entertaining.
Miriam is a Cuban American and slips easily into Spanish. She speaks almost exclusively in Spanish to her son Manny while her husband speaks to him in English to raise him bilingual. This is great and I fully support how they live their lives but I am not fluent in Spanish. I do know some words but not enough to instantly translate. Fortunately, I was reading on my Kindle which allowed me to highlight and request the translation but that really messed with the flow of the story. I wish the translation had been right there in the text.
Mango, Mambo, and Murder has laid a great foundation for this series. I feel invested in Miriam and Manny and want to see how their lives in Coral Shores develop and grow. Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking is calling from my Kindle. I hope most of the translations are in the text or I may have to sign up for a Babbel course to learn more Spanish.
Kristina
Nov 3, 2021
A cute cozy mystery
Mango, Mambo, and Murder by Raquel Reyes is the debut of A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series. I liked Miriam and her son, Manny as well as Alma. There are a couple of other friendly secondary characters. Miriam has a doctorate in food anthropology, and she is also an excellent cook. Her cooking along with her food knowledge lands her job at UnMundo doing cooking segments. I was frustrated with Miriam�s mother-in-law, Marjory Smith who treats Miriam terribly (likes she is dirt on her otherwise pristine shoes) and Miriam�s husband, Robert. He does not listen to Miriam, does things without consulting her, and believes his mother is just wonderful (talk about wearing blinders). The mystery followed the standard formula. Sunny Weatherman is killed early in the story, but there is little action until the second half of the book. Miriam asks good questions and uncovers clues that help her investigation. Detective Frank Pullman is your standard detective. He asks questions, arrests the wrong person, and appreciates Miriam�s help (the information she uncovers) while telling her to keep her nose out of his investigation. I ended up liking the detective more by the end of the book. I like how he calls Miriam Veronica Mars. The mystery can easily be solved early in the story. As clues were revealed, it reinforced my decision. They why took longer to figure out. I liked how the mystery came together at the end. The biggest problem I had with Mango, Mambo, and Murder was the Spanish dialogue. Miriam is Cuban and I expected there to be some Spanish in the story. There is a significant amount of Spanish dialogue with no translation (I tried to learn Spanish, but I was not successful). There is plenty of cooking in this cozy that will have you hungering for Cuban food. There is humor scattered throughout the story that I enjoyed, and I loved little Manny. Mango, Mambo, and Murder is a cute Cuban cozy with a monster mother-in-law, a mysterious murder, a key conundrum, a television triumph, an unhelpful husband, and shrewd sleuthing.
