BOOK REVIEW

Title: Mozzarella Most Murderous

Author: Nancy Fairbanks

In ten words or less: Food columnist stumbles upon body while in Italy and investigates.

Review: Carolyn Blue is a homemaker and food columnist from El Paso with two grown children. She can’t wait to accompany her chemist husband, Jason, to Sorrento, Italy, for a conference, and hopes it will be a romantic second honeymoon. But Jason’s plane get grounded in Paris because of a strike, and Carolyn is at the hotel by herself. She strikes up a conversation with a lone Italian woman, Paolina, who is waiting for her lover to arrive, and they spend the day sightseeing and commiserating with each other.
But the next morning Carolyn discovers Paolina’s body in the hotel pool. The authorities are content to write the death off as a suicide, but Carolyn doesn’t agree. With the help of another hotel guest, Bianca, the hugely pregnant wife of another chemist, she is determined to persuade the authorities that Paolina was murdered.

Why bother? Mystery lite, with recipes, which are decidedly not lite. For fans of other foodie mysteries.