Barb's Book Reviews: Review of "Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking: A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery" by Raquel V. Reyes

Monday, November 14, 2022

Review of "Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking: A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery" by Raquel V. Reyes

This is the second book in the 'Caribbean Kitchen' mystery series, featuring a Hispanic amateur sleuth and her circle of friends and relatives. Miriam Quiñones-Smith and Robert Smith, both natives of Miami, met and married when they were at NYU in New York. The couple and their now four-year-old son Manuel (Manny) recently returned to Miami, where they live in a toney enclave called Coral Shores.

The Smiths have a lovely home, the major downside being that they reside near Robert's mother Marjory - a snobby racist/classist who looks down on LatinX people, including her daughter-in-law.

Marjory is always sniping at Miriam, and insists on calling Manny by his middle name Douglas....which irritates Miriam no end.

Robert works for a land acquisitions and development company (which seems to involve a lot of playing golf with clients 🙂), and Miriam - a Cuban-American with a Ph.D. in food anthropology - does two cooking shows, a Spanish version called 'Cocina Caribeña' on the morning program UnMundo, and an English version called 'Abuela Approved' on YouTube. Miriam shares recipes from all over the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamacia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Mexico.

As the story opens, Halloween is approaching and Miriam and Robert are decorating their home and preparing the family's costumes. Soon afterwards, at a Halloween festival sponsored by little Manny's preschool, Robert is assailed by a socialite named Lois Pimpkin, who blames the Smiths for her daughter being in jail. Things go from bad to worse when Lois is later found unconscious and badly injured near a Halloween tombstone in the Smiths' yard. A bolt from Robert's 'Frankenstein' costume is nearby, and he (briefly) becomes a suspect in Lois's assault.

Though amateur detective Miriam has helped police investigations before, her assistance in the Lois Pimpkin case is discouraged by Detective Frank Pullman, who jokingly calls Miriam 'Veronica' (for Veronica Mars) or 'Jessica' (for Jessica Fletcher).

Miriam is able to get a bit of inside information anyway, because Robert's cousin Gordon is a cop, and he often drops by the Smiths' home.

Right now, though, Miriam has little time to investigate crimes. She's the primary caregiver for Manny, has a job, AND her mother-in-law Marjory has 'volunteered' Miriam to organize the annual Women's Club fundraiser at the Coral Shores Country Club. Miriam recruits her friends to assist, and they arrange for food trucks that serve Caribbean fare, a calypso band to provide music, and appearances by famous Latin singers.

While Miriam and her amigos are making arrangements at the country club, the facility's head chef is pushed off a balcony, and dies from the fall.

To add to the string of casualties, Miriam's neighbor is poisoned, and a shady dentist is murdered. Miriam believes all these unfortunate events are related, and makes up her mind to find the perpetrator, endangering her own life along the way.

This is a multicultural cozy, with some Spanish dialog sprinkled throughout. This didn't bother me because the meaning is usually clear from the context.

Miriam is a bold, appealing character who (usually) takes the high road with her difficult mother-in-law; prepares delicious Caribbean dishes; sticks up for her friends; and deftly bridges Miami's multiethnic culture.

I like that the author sprinkles scenes of the Smiths' everyday life between the mystery elements of the story. My major quibble with the book is the overcomplicated solution to the crimes, which requires too much explanation and doesn't quite gel.

A fun aspect of the novel are the many food references and the recipes at the end. Numerous delicious-sounding dishes are mentioned, including Soup Joumou, Tomato Medley Salad, Caldo Gallego, Ackee and Saltfish, Pollos San Marcos, Pumpkin Flan, Senorita Pastry, Pastelitos de Guayaba y Queso, and more.

Soup Joumou

Tomato Medley Salad

Caldo Gallego

Ackee and Saltfish

Pollos San Marcos

Pumpkin Flan

Senorita Pastry

Pastelitos de Guayaba y Queso

Thanks to Netgalley, Raquel V. Reyes, and Dreamscape Media for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars

No comments:

Featured Post

It's summer 1987, and in the New England town of Swift River, sixteen-year-old Diamond Newberry is troubled as usual. Ever since Diamond's father, Robert Newberry, disappeared seven years ago, she's the only Black person in town. Diamond is lonely and overweight, and she observes, "I am so fat I can't ride my bike anymore, so I let it get stolen on purpose....The bruises and stinging raspberries all over my body from weekly falls are constant reminders that the bike doesn't want me anymore." Diamond lives with her mother, a White woman named Annabelle (Anna), who's very loving, but inept and addicted to prescription pills. Since Anna's husband Robert has been gone for seven years, she hopes to get a death certificate, for the insurance money. Anna has a police report saying Robert's shoes, wallet, and keys were found beside the fast moving Swift River, but Anna hasn't filled out the proper papers, doesn't have witness statements, hasn't put a death notice in the papers, etc. So Anna has to go back and get her ducks in a row. It's not clear whether Robert is dead or alive, but he vanished after being accused of theft, and after the police had taken to constantly driving by the house. Many people have reported seeing Robert here or there, but Diamond puts it down to racism - to White people being unable to distinguish one Black man from another. Diamond and her Ma live in a dilapidated house with Robert's battered car still in the yard, but Anna doesn't drive and she and Diamond have to hitchhike or walk everywhere - including the Goodwill store where they buy their clothes.....

Featured Post

Lewis Sinclair and his band are about to finish their U.S. tour with an appearance at the biggest country music festival in the country. In a couple of days, 'Lewis Sinclair and the Gentlemen Cowboys' will take the stage at FallsFest, near the Twin Cities in Minnesota. The fly in the ointment for Lew is the fact that his beautiful girlfriend, Ann-Dee Phillips, just broke up with him. To add insult to injury, Lew's agent, Archie Grant, is now representing Ann-Dee, and has even shoehorned the aspiring singer into a spot at FallsFest. Lew and the band were already planning to get rid of their lazy useless agent Archie. So after the clod makes a nuisance of himself when Lew is making his cement handprint on the Country Artist Walk of Fame, Lew punches Archie in the stomach and fires him. Afterwards, Lewis Sinclair and the Gentlemen Cowboys are a big hit onstage, with a Ghost Riders medley and a rollicking cover of Hank Williams' Move It On Over......

Featured Post

I'm not quite sure what to make of this book. Set in South Korea, the story is divided into three parts, each narrated by a different character. The first narrator is Mr. Cheong. Mr. Cheong is a dull, reserved office worker who wants an ordinary life that doesn't rock the boat. Thus he marries a quiet, average-looking, unambitious woman named Yeong-hye. Yeong-hye's only fault seems to be her refusal to wear a bra, a quirk that Mr. Cheong (more or less) puts up with. After a frightening blood-drenched dream Yeong-hye abruptly decides to become a vegetarian. This is very unusual in South Korea and has immediate negative consequences: Mr. Cheong is annoyed about the new food regime at home and embarrassed when he and (bra-less) Yeong-hye attend a dinner with his bosses and their wives. Yeong-hye - whose garb is (not so discreetly) eyeballed by the guests - refuses to eat and several wives make disparaging remarks. Yeong-hye's family is also appalled by her refusal to eat meat. They're critical because she won't knuckle under to her husband's wishes and are concerned about her weight loss and declining health. This leads to a violent scene where Yeong-hye's overbearing father tries to force meat down her throat...an act which ultimately results in Yeong-hye being committed to a mental institution. Part two of the book starts three years later. Yeong-hye's husband has divorced her and she's now living a quiet life in a small apartment. This section of the story is narrated by Yeong-hye's brother-in-law, the husband of her sister In-hye, a businesswoman who runs a cosmetics store. In-hye is 'grateful' that her husband - a not-too-successful visual artist - 'allows' her to work, take care of the home, and raise their young son while he futzes around and has no income. ......

Featured Post

Author Marion Gibson, a historian of witchcraft and magic, writes about ancient and modern witches and witch-trials. In this book, Gibson hones in on thirteen trials that span Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Author Marion Gibson In modern times people often associate witches with characters in television shows like Bewitched, Charmed, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Mayfair Witches, etc., where the witches are funny or helpful or heroic....protagonists we root for. Elizabeth Montgomery played witch Samantha Stevens in 'Bewitched' In the real world, however, witches have generally been thought of as evil beings who use magic to do harm. In the Bible, witch stories extend back hundreds of years BCE, but witch hunts really took off during the medieval period, with the study of demonology by Christian clergymen. Christian clerics persecuted witches in the Middle Ages According to Gibson, clerics believed witches were committed to wickedness, and "the imaginative world of the 15th to 18th centuries was crammed with curses and blessings, angels, devils, ghosts, sprits that could invade bodies, fairies, and elves." Belief in demons and other supernatural beings was common in the Middle Ages Witches, thought to be empowered by Satan, caused fear and terror, and had to be rooted out of society. Gibson writes that most witches were thought to be female, and many of them were poor and uneducated. Gibson goes on to say, "Christian priests were all male....[and some] were obsessed with the regulation of women: their sexuality, conduct, and thought." Often, women (and a few men) accused of witchcraft were perceived as wanting revenge for some slight, so that something happened to the offender: their cow died, their wife couldn't conceive, their ship sank, their crops failed, their business lost money, their child took sick, and so on......

Featured Post

Prior to the 1917 Russian Revolution, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov was one of Russia's elites - a wealthy, erudite aristocrat who mingled with other sophisticates. Rostov spent his time reading, listening to music, traveling, dining on fine food, drinking expensive wine, writing the occasional poem, and so on. After the Revolution, in 1922, a Bolshevik Tribunal declares the Count a 'Former Person' and sentences him to life imprisonment in Moscow's luxurious Metropol Hotel - where the rich nobleman has been living for the past few years. Rostov can go anywhere in the hotel....but one step outside and he'll be shot. The Count is moved from his large opulent 3rd floor suite........ to a cramped attic room, and begins his life as a political prisoner. The Metropol Hotel is a far cry from a Siberian Gulag. The Metropol contains the upscale Boyarsky restaurant; the Shalyapin Bar; a barbershop; a shoeshine service; a florist; a seamstress; and so forth - all the accommodations needed by wealthy foreigners and visiting Bolshevik apparatchiks.......

Featured Post

In this second book in the '6:20 Man' series, former U.S. Army Ranger Travis Devine investigates the murder of a CIA agent in rural Maine. The book works fine as a standalone. ***** As the story opens, secret government operative Travis Devine, who has MEGA SKILLS from his previous Army Ranger training, encounters three assassins on a train from Geneva to Milan. Travis kills two men and leaves one woman unconscious but alive, thinking she might change her ways. As things turn out, this isn't the best possible move. In any case, once Devine is back on American soil, his handler, retired two-star general Emerson Campbell, gives Travis a new assignment. A CIA operative called Jennifer (Jenny) Silkwell was shot to death while visiting her hometown of Putnam, Maine. To make things even worse, Jenny's government computer and phone were stolen. The electronics may contain sensitive information, and mustn't fall into the wrong hands. General Campbell gives Devine a credentials pack that identifies him as a special investigator with Homeland Security, and sends Travis to Maine to find Jenny's killer and retrieve the computer and phone......

Featured Post

In this 24th book in the 'No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series - set in Gaborone, Botswana - Mma Precious Ramotswe and her colleague Mma Grace Makutsi address a variety of concerns, including a shady nightclub, an American woman looking for family connections, and a red dress. The book can be read as a standalone, but familiarity with the characters is a bonus. ***** When Mma Ramotswe visits her old friend Mma Potokwane - the director of the Gabarone orphan farm - Mma Ramotswe hears a distressing tale from a housemother called Mma Ikobeng. It seems that Mma Ikobeng's 30-year-old daughter Alice went to the Cool Singles Evening Club, hoping to meet an eligible bachelor. Alice met a man, but he turned out to be married, and Alice was heartbroken. Worse yet, it seems the nightclub PURPOSELY caters to married men looking to cheat on their wives. The discovery incenses Mma Potokwane, who observes, "I think somebody should do something about this club....People just stand by and let this sort of thing happen. Well, I say we should fight back."

Featured Post

Dr. Sloan Hastings, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, just finished a clinical pathology residency and is entering a two-year program to become a medical examiner. During the first year of her training Sloan will be required to assist with autopsies and complete a research project. Sloan's project, assigned by program director Dr. Livia Cutty, is forensic and investigative genealogy. Forensic and investigative genealogy works something like this: law enforcement officials send the DNA of an unknown perp (perhaps from a rape kit) to a national DNA database; if there's a hit, that person is related to the perp. This technique was used to catch the notorious Golden State Killer. Twenty-nine-year-old Sloan has always known she was adopted, but never considered sending her DNA to a site like Ancestry.com to find her biological parents. As part of her research project, though, Sloan decides to send in her DNA, and the results are shocking. Sloan is actually Charlotte Margolis, who disappeared nearly three decades ago. Sloan learns that her biological parents are Preston and Annabelle Margolis, who - along with their baby Charlotte - vanished from Cedar Creek, Nevada in 1995......

Featured Post

This loosely autobiographical memoir from humorist David Sedaris is divided into essays, many of which are laugh out loud funny. The topics include Sedaris's childhood rebellion against speech therapy, unwanted guitar lessons taught by a midget, drug fueled (and extended) college years, weird presentations as an untalented performance artist, amusing interactions with his family and friends, living in France with his boyfriend Hugh, and more. I listened to the audio version of the book, narrated by the author, and enjoyed it immensely. Little David Sedaris with his sister Lisa and mother Sharon School age David Sedaris with his sister Amy College age David Sedaris Sedaris's stories may stretch the truth on occasion, but they're very entertaining. For example: As an art major in college, Sedaris took a pottery class: "With their thick clumsy bases my mugs weighed in at close to five pounds each. The color was muddy and the lips rough and uninviting." Sedaris's mother used these 'gifts' as pet bowls until "a cat chipped a tooth and went on a hunger strike." ********** After Sedaris graduated from The Art Instutute of Chicago in 1987 he was offered a job teaching a writing workshop. Having no idea how to prepare lesson plans, Sedaris divided the twice weekly, two-hour class into a series of discussion periods including: Celebrity Corner - during which pupils presented gossip about rock bands and movie stars; Feed Bag Forum - where students brought in one-pot recipes (Sedaris had a new crock pot); Pillow Talk - during which students could discuss their private sex lives - or failing that - watch the soap opera 'One Life to Live.'.....

Featured Post

Homer Hickam Jr. is an American author, a Vietnam War veteran, and a former NASA engineer. In this memoir, Hickam describes his coming of age in Coalwood, West Virginia. ***** When Homer Hickam Jr. (nicknamed Sonny) is a boy in Coalwood, West Virginia in the mid-1900s, it's a 'company town.' Coalwood is run by a coal mining outfit that provides homes for the miners, as well as a church, pastor, doctor, dentist, and Big Store (general store). Boys in Coalwood grow up to join the military or work in the mine.....except for the occasional high school football player who gets a scholarship to college. Outside view of coal mine in Coalwood, West Virginia Coal miners in Coalwood, West Virginia Coalwood in the 1930s. From left to right: doctor's office, clubhouse, post office, company store, offices, school Sonny's father, Homer Hickam Sr., is the superintendent of the coal mine and spends most of his time at work. Hickam Sr. is intensely loyal to his employer despite the fact that mining is a terribly dangerous occupation. Sonny recalls, "Back then, I thought life in Coalwood was pretty ordinary, even though men died or were horribly maimed in the mine all the time. My grandfather, run over by a careening shuttle car, lost both his legs and lived in pain until the day he died. My father lost an eye to a snapped cable while trying to rescue trapped miners, though he kept on working for fifteen years afterward. He would eventually die of black lung, which is a polite way of saying he suffocated to death, his lungs choked with coal dust."......

Barb's Book Reviews

Monday, November 14, 2022

Review of "Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking: A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery" by Raquel V. Reyes

No comments:

Post a Comment

Blog Archive

Netgalley

Netgalley Challenge

Goodreads

Contact Form

Netgalley

Netgalley

Blog Archive