Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780425271650
Berkley Prime Crime Publishing
285 Pages
$7.99; $2.99 Amazon
January 6, 2015
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With her husband, Spiro, gone for days on one of his trips, Georgie has her hands full running the restaurant and dealing with the crew of the TV show Ghost Squad, called in by Spiro to inspect the house for haunting. So when she has a chance to take a boating excursion on the St. Lawrence River with her friend Keith Morgan, she jumps on it. But their idyll is quickly ruined when they discover the body of rival restaurant owner Domenic "Big Dom" DiTomasso floating in the water.
When the police start asking questions, it doesn't help that Spiro can't be found -- and with Georgie on their suspect list, it's up to her to find her missing husband and find out who killed Big Dom before someone else's order is up.
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Georgiana "Georgie" Nikolopatos runs the restaurant Bonaparte House owned by her husband, Spiro, and his mother, Sophie. But Georgie's isn't a traditional marriage: Spiro is gay, yet they've stayed together for the sake of their now-grown daughter, Cal. Still, Georgie is afraid that her life is all going to disappear one day: that Spiro will leave her, and she'll be out of what she loves: her home, her restaurant, and even Sophie. Spiro, on the other hand, has done disappearing acts of his own, much as the one now -- he's been gone for days, and no one seems to know where he is.
But Georgie has other problems, too: the television show Ghost Squad is going to be filming at the restaurant tonight (because Spiro called them about the place being haunted) and Georgie and Sophie, who live on the second story in the old Victorian-turned-restaurant, need to leave. So Sophie heads to her cousin's home, and Georgie gets a ride with a friend, Keith Morgan, on his boat to take her across the bay to her friend's home. Before she can get there, however, she and Keith come across a body floating in the river -- Big Dom, the owner of a rival restaurant and Sophie's would-be suitor.
To make things worse, Spiro hasn't shown up yet, Georgie is receiving threatening emails asking her to deliver a ransom to get him back, the police are looking at her as a suspect, Spiro's new boyfriend -- a tattoo artist -- hasn't heard from him either, and she's definitely attracted to the man who claims to be a Coast Guard captain but might be something more sinister instead. So what's a girl to do? Try to find what it is the captor wants, get her husband back, and not let Sophie in on what she's doing. What could go wrong?...
This book grabbed me from the first sentence, and I was intrigued. Yet reading on, it began a bit slowly, but picked up soon enough and kept me reading. The dialogue was clever, the descriptions plentiful, and the characters endearing. I loved Georgie, because even though she was doing her darnedest to keep Sophie out of the loop, she seemed befuddled what to do at times, which actually worked without making her seem ditzy.
The entire plot works around Georgie and her machinations to get her husband back and keep everyone in the dark as to him being kidnapped. There is actually a very funny scene between Georgie and Spiro's boyfriend, Inky, the hulking tattoo artist, that takes place at a hippie commune and then being chased by a highway patrolman. It could have been campy, but it wasn't, which is a testament to the decent writing in this book.
Unfortunately, this series is one of those that received the axe from Berkley in their house-cleaning of cozy mysteries; and I would love to have seen it continue on. It has an unusual premise of a beginning cozy, there's no 'evil nemesis' to drag the novel down, and the writing, as I've stated above, is delightful. So while there are only two more books in this series, I will relish reading them both and hope I'm not disappointed. Recommended.
https://www.amazon.com/Feta-Attraction-Greek-Me-Mystery/dp/042527165X/ref=
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3259390841
More on Susannah Hardy's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/h/susannah-hardy/
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