The Tell-Tale Tarte (A Five-Ingredient Mystery #4)

Author:  Maya Corrigan
Genre:  Mystery

Hardcover; Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781432840457; 9781496709172
Kensington Publishing
304 Pages
$26.20; $7.99; $5.99 Amazon
June 27, 2017

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The last thing Val needs in her life is an unsolved murder, especially when the victim, an actor famed for impersonating Edgar Allan Poe, happens to be dressed exactly like her Granddad.  To keep an eye on Granddad, whose latest job takes him to the home of Rick Usher, a local author inspired by Poe, Val gets herself hired as a cook in Rick's House of Usher.  When she discovers the actor wasn't the only one doing an impersonation, separating the innocent from the murderous becomes a real-life horror story.  But Val must decipher a killer's M.O. sooner rather than later...or she can forget about finding poetic justice.

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Val Deniston lives with her grandfather in Bayport, Maryland and runs a cafe in the local fitness club, and does catering on the side.  While helping her friend Bethany search for a wedding dress, they see a man who resembles her grandfather's new look - black coat, beard, tinted glasses - and thinks it might be him.  When the man falls in front of a car, she dashes toward him, relieved her fears were unfounded, but still helping give him CPR.  Unfortunately, no amount of CPR could save the man, still unknown to her and the people nearby.  Later that night she she finds out from her boyfriend Gunnar the man's name - Emmett Flint, an actor in the same troupe as Gunnar.

When Val goes to her latest job, a book club, it's when she's serving dessert that she sees the "noted author" invited is not only not the author, it's her grandfather Don who, for some unknown reason, is impersonating Rick Usher, the author in question.  Rick has made a career of writing in the style of Edgar Allan Poe and has quite a group of followers himself.  But when she questions his assistant Clancy, also attending the dinner, she discovers only that 'Rick' is supposedly hoarse from an ailment and Clancy is answering all questions.

As time progresses it is discovered that Emmett may not have died from natural causes, and Val is worried for her boyfriend Gunnar, who is the main suspect, and also her grandfather, who is now spending time with Rick himself.  So when Val is offered a job catering dinners at Usher's home, she agrees in order to try and find out who killed Emmett and why.  Will there be another murder or will poetic justice prevail?  Val will have to move fast to find the answer...

As a huge Poe fan, I once made a trip to Baltimore just to visit his grave, and own all his books (and wrote an essay on him while in school) so this book was one I was looking forward to reading.  While the plot had interesting points, and I did like the fact we have the murder almost immediately - which is always a nice thing so you aren't subjected to pages and pages of needless detail - it also moved slowly for the first quarter of the book.

Reading further, I was somewhat torn; partly because her grandfather seemed a bit of a con man to me: he used her recipes to get a job writing a food column for the newspaper, and then expects to continue so he can write a cookbook.  This did not endear me to the man, and grandfather or not, she should have set him straight about who gets the credit and where, especially since he's secretive on other things as well.  He seemed more like a "user" than a loving grandfather.  It also seemed like they were nothing more than business partners (and not very equal-sided, either).  As for the relationship between Val and Gunnar, there doesn't seem to be any "oomph" attached.  They just seemed boring when they were talking to each other.

Eventually the suspect list was narrowed down to a select few, and then you have the meat of the story.  Putting it together at the end was interesting, and it all came together nicely at last.  Recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Tell-Tale-Tarte-Five-Ingredient-Mystery/dp/1496709179/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2124053233

More on Maya Corrigan's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/c/maya-corrigan/

Edgar Allan Poe: The Ambiguity of Death

Author:  Giuseppe Cafiero
Genre:  Biography

Paperback, E-book
ISBN #:  9781925271959
Australian ebook Publisher
192 Pages
$14.99; $6.99 Amazon
August 24, 2015

Three Stars

Giuseppe Cafiero presents the most intriguing biography of one of America's most enduring writers:  poet, author and critic Edgar Allan Poe.  The beloved master of mystery and the macabre, Poe's life and work is explored through the creation of memories, recriminations, intense loves and of delicate devotions.

Using the form of literary nonfiction, Cafiero successfully structures this memoir in the style of a traditional fiction narrative.  Introducing the reader to the character, The Reporter, whose story is a mirror in which it's possible to contemplate what is unreasonably hidden and infinitely ambiguous in the existence and in the writing of Edgar Allan Poe.

After Poe's infamous death, the reporter attempts to investigate the life and writing of Poe by attending a meeting at the Old Swan Tavern in Richmond.  Invited to the interview is archrival Reverend Wilmot Griswold and one of the last to see Poe before his death, Dr. J. Evans Snodgrass.  The reporter not only discovers the accusations of life filled with alcoholism, opium addiction, violence and womanizing but also begins to understand that this painful dark existence is not the antithesis to great writing. This is confirmed when the investigation continues with the meeting of an array of people by the reporter who divulge more information on the life of Poe and why many became the protagonists in his stories.

This surreal bio-fiction of the life of nineteenth century American writer, father of detective fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, brings to life a solidly constructed psychological portrait of the writer through the characters in his works.  Each of the stories is accompanied by the gloriously gothic illustrations by acclaimed Italian artist Sergio Poddighe.

Perhaps this is the only way to pay tribute to a writer who has indelibly marked the nineteenth century.

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I will tell you first that Edgar Allan Poe is my favorite author.  I own everything he's ever written, and several biographies.  Therefore, I was intrigued by this book.  Unfortunately, it's not exactly what I expected.  I have attempted several times to read and re-read it, only to put it down.  Finally coming to a conclusion, I can only hope to understand what the author is trying to communicate.

It is written in the style of Poe's books, as a sort of non-fiction fiction.  But the difference is that with Mr. Poe's works, we knew that it was fiction; here it seems the author is attempting to channel Edgar, and I am not quite sure it works.  At least, it doesn't work for me.  At times I wasn't even sure if the people mentioned above were speaking about Poe or merely talking between themselves.  I wasn't sure whether I was privy to a conversation about Poe, or if he were listening from another table nearby, in the first pages of the book.

As I read the ensuing chapters, I learned very little that would interest me.  Labeling chapters such as Berenice - which was a tale by EAP - I wasn't sure if the author was reiterating what Poe had already written, or if he was attempting to put his own spin on it.  This was just one of the examples I encountered that seemed odd somehow.  Another is The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Poe's only complete novel.  Mr. Cafiero is reiterating Poe's work, but in such a way as it appears to be told by someone else.  Honestly, I'm not sure what Mr. Cafiero wanted to achieve in this book, but it just doesn't appeal to me.

In the end, this book might be for others who enjoy this type of writing, but it just wasn't for me.  Three stars for a worthy effort, but unfortunately it couldn't hold my interest.

http://www.amazon.com/Edgar-Allan-Poe-Ambiguity-Ambiguities/dp/1925271951/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1498432811