Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book; Audiobook
ISBN #: 9780062382276
William Morrow Mystery
368 Pages
$7.99; $1.99 Amazon
September 29, 2015
⭐
Life couldn't be sweeter for Tres Amigas Café chef Rita Lafitte, decorating sugar skulls and taste-testing rich, buttery pan de muerto in anticipation of Santa Fe's Day of the Dead bread-baking contest. That is, until her friendly landlord, Victor, is found dead next door.
Although the police deem Victor's death a suicide, Rita knows something is amiss. To uncover the truth, she teams up with her octogenarian boss, Flori, the town's most celebrated snoop. The duo begins to sift through long-buried secrets and to take full measure of duplicitous neighbors, but the clock is ticking and their list of suspects is growing ever longer. Just as the clues get hotter than a New Mexican chili, one of their main suspects winds up dead. Rita fears that the killer is dishing out seconds - and her order might be up.
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When Rita Lafitte moved to Santa Fe from the Midwest, it was in hopes of saving her marriage. But her cheating husband never changed, and she decided to call it quits. She and her teenage daughter Celia live in a mother-in-law cottage behind the large home of her landlord Victor. Rita and Victor are also friends, which makes it nicer for her.
While visiting Victor, she's witness to a dispute between his brother Gabriel - who lives in the other half of their sprawling home - and another neighbor, one with a gun and the other armed with a knife. When she convinces the neighbor to put down his knife, all returns to normal. But later that evening she hears her daughter screaming for her, and looking into Victor's window, they see him lying on the floor of his home, obviously dead.
The police are saying it's suicide, but Rita has questions, and she wants answers. That is, unless the killer gets to her first...
I really wanted to like this book and, hopefully, begin a new series, but it lost me shortly into it - right after the murder.
Rita's ex-husband is a tool. Manny states he'll take Rita's statement at the station - no, he won't. She didn't see anything related to the murder, and whatever she has to say can be done right at her home. Any information she gives him - including the aforementioned fight - she can give him right there. I suggest these authors watch Discovery ID programs for a season or two and see how real homicide detectives do it...and how they dress. If he's a homicide detective, he's wearing a suit and not a weapons belt. Street officers wear them - detectives wear shoulder holsters.
Manny also knows she's living in the casita and is the tenant of the owners, so to call her "that woman" to Gabriel is patently ridiculous. Who would do that? Yup, a tool. And then yelling at her to 'Open up!' was over the line. She wasn't under suspicion, so he needed to treat her with respect like he would any witness - knock politely and ask first if she was okay.
But her daughter Celia is an even bigger jerk - and obviously takes completely after her father. She brings the girlfriend of her dad's to her home? Regardless of the fact her mother wanted the divorce, did she ever hear of the word 'respect'? Did she ever ask her mom why she divorced her dad? She has very little intelligence if she thinks because her mom wanted the divorce that everything would be just hunky-dory with her. Actually, she shouldn't even be "besties" with her dad's girlfriend as long as she's living with her mom. She's an ass and I don't like her. Who does this? Just accepts that their dad is seeing someone almost their own age and that's fine with them? She doesn't resent her dad for his part in the divorce? Blames it all on her mom? Fine - she can go live with her dad and drive his car and let him put her through college if she wants to disrespect Rita so much. This alone was enough to make me dislike the book completely.
But I was done with this book when Manny just decided to take Celia home with him "after what she'd seen" and she went, not even caring that her mother had seen it too and might have needed some comfort and support that night. Two selfish, self-centered people that deserved each other.
FYI, any cop worth his or her salt would listen when someone tells them that the victim was left-handed and the gun was in their right hand. How did Manny become detective if he doesn't pay attention to details? Does he hate his ex so much he'd rather railroad an innocent person than pay attention to clues that are presented to him? He should have lost his job over sloppy investigating - or at least get a warning in his file of which the reader should be made aware of.
FYI, any cop worth his or her salt would listen when someone tells them that the victim was left-handed and the gun was in their right hand. How did Manny become detective if he doesn't pay attention to details? Does he hate his ex so much he'd rather railroad an innocent person than pay attention to clues that are presented to him? He should have lost his job over sloppy investigating - or at least get a warning in his file of which the reader should be made aware of.
Nope, I have better things to do than waste my time on a book that is seriously going to tick me off. Or spoiled kids who live off their parents but don’t care about them or their feelings - or ex-husbands who treat them like crap and the kids allow their dad to treat their mom that way. Bottom line: Manny treats her like garbage. Her daughter treats her like garbage. No wonder she's the way she is. She's been beaten down by her family. I didn't finish this book and won't read any more in the series.
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