Author: Maria DiRico
Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781496725363
Kensington Publishing
304 Pages
$8.99; $6.99 Amazon
October 26, 2021
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Astoria, Queens, is decorated within an inch of its life for the Christmas season, and Mia Carina is juggling her job at the Belle View catering hall with a case of murder...
Mia's busy with a full schedule of events at the family business -- among them an over-the-top Nativity-themed first birthday party and a Sweet Sixteen for a teen drama queen. But her personal life is even more challenging. Her estranged mother has returned -- and her lifelong friend Jamie has discovered a shocking secret about his past. He's so angry that he starts hanging out with Lorenzo, who claims to be his long-lost brother -- even after it becomes clear that Lorenzo's story is as fake as a plastic Christmas tree.
Then a body turns up among the elves in a Santa's-workshop lawn display, and amateur sleuth Mia has a buffet of suspects to choose from. Amid the holiday celebrations, she intends to find out who's the guilty party...
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Mia Carina returned home to Astoria, Queens, after her husband disappeared in a boating accident in Florida. Since then, she's been managing the Belle View Catering Hall as an event planner, working for her father Ravello, who's finally in a legitimate business for the powerful Boldano Family, whom he works for.
She, along with her employees Shane and Cammie (who pretends to work but is priceless to Mia in other ways), are planning a first birthday party based on the Nativity, and a Sweet Sixteen party for an angst-ridden teenager who's slowly bonding with Mia.
But the real problem comes when the Boldanos call Mia to their home. Donny Senior and his wife Aurora are worried because their youngest son Jamie has been approached by a man claiming to be his half-brother. What the Boldanos think is that this con artist is just looking for a way into the family. They want Mia to be with them when they talk to Jamie, and she agrees. But the plan backfires, and now she's in the middle of their problems.
But things get worse -- her mother, who lives in Italy, shows up out of the blue and tries to get Mia to forgive her for leaving. But Mia doesn't know how to handle it, and her grandmother Elisabetta, with whom Mia lives, isn't buying any of it. Also on hand is the fact that Elisabetta is trying to get her block to win a trophy for best Christmas display, and she's got a Tony Benne-Santa (don't ask) to beat. Things are heating up for Mia.
Just when things can't get any worse, a body is discovered in one of the displays, its feet sticking out from a Santa's workshop. Now Mia finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation, trying to prove the innocence of people she loves like her own, and in doing so, she just might ring some bells that would rather she didn't...
This is the third book in the series, and I think it is the best of the three. Mia is really in the middle of it this time, and she's lucky she doesn't have a nervous breakdown with everything that's happening: planning two events, the reason her mother returned, her best friend Jamie's problems, and the problems between his family, her grandmother's attempts at winning a trophy. In between there are other things happening, and the root of a lot of the humor in the book (and some are so funny that I had to read the passages to my husband). There's one scene that takes place between Mia and her mother over at Mia's friend Phillip's home that's practically hilarious, in its own way.
But even the body takes second place to how it got there and who put it there: Mia is trying her best to find the killer, even if it causes her (very) personal pain (another funny scene). She's lucky to get out in one piece, in my mind. Anyway, she goes through a series of challenges as she's trying to keep the Boldano family members out of jail.
It's a wild ride over the Christmas holidays, and almost like being at a county fair, watching the antics go on. Especially fun is her grandmother and her neighbors as they try and out-Christmas-design each other's lawns and homes. Let us not forget the constant strings of Italian thrown in here and there, some invectives (hey, I'm slowly learning the language! When I get mad at my husband, he won't know what I'm saying -- ha!). And, of course, some delicious recipes at the end which I plan to make...
When the ending comes and the killer is revealed, it's a twisted tale of threads that were merely one at a time in the beginning, but slowly began to come together in a tapestry of lies, intrigue, misunderstandings, and secrets. What ends up is a wonderful tale that I wish didn't end at all. I love Mia and everyone around her and truly can't wait for the next in the series. Highly recommended.
More on Maria DiRico's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/d/maria-dirico/
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