Angie Amalfi is a little out of the ordinary as amateur sleuths go. She has the requisite handsome cop / boyfriend, San Francisco homicide detective Paavo Smith, an interesting career (cooking related), and an insatiable need to investigate any crime that crosses her path. What sets her apart is her wardrobe (designer all the way) and her romantic nature (she spends quite a bit of time waiting for Paavo in bed!).
In Red Hot Murder Angie and Paavo travel to Arizona, he to meet someone to discuss the mysterious death of an old friend, she to scout it as a possible venue for their upcoming wedding. On arrival they find another missing person and a hilarious herd of ostriches that manage to disrupt most of the events in novel. Pence has created a very endearing and likeable character in Angie and overall I enjoyed the story, but I found the large cast of characters difficult to keep track of. Hal, the original victim, was an eccentric retail giant and ranch owner, divorced from Clarissa and father to Joey, who hopes to inherit the ranch. Maritza, Lupe, and Teresa are three generations of a family whose lives are intertwined with several of the other characters. Dolores is the charming cook/housekeeper at the ranch, devoted to the late Hal, and Doc is the local medicine man, in love with the divorced Lupe, who cannot marry him because of her strict Catholic faith. Junior is Hal's cousin, I think, and Lionel runs the ranch, Ned is the vanished friend that Paavo had hoped to meet, and Laverne is the chef with a secret that causes people to run in the other direction when she offers a new recipe for tasting. See what I mean? Overall though, Pence's novel, one of the most recent in this series is colorful and hilarious. If you pay close attention to names and relationships you will enjoy it from the first page to the last.
No comments:
Post a Comment