Bread of the Dead by Ann Myers

Santa Fe Cafe Mystery, Book 1

Synopsis: Trick or treat—and murder—are on the menu in this first in a new culinary mystery series

Life couldn’t be sweeter for Tres Amigas Café chef Rita Lafitte, decorating sugar skulls and taste-testing rich, buttery pan de muerto in anticipation of Santa Fe’s Day of the Dead bread-baking contest. That is, until her friendly landlord, Victor, is found dead next door.

Although the police deem Victor’s death a suicide, Rita knows something is amiss. To uncover the truth, she teams up with her octogenarian boss, Flori, the town’s most celebrated snoop. The duo begins to sift through long-buried secrets and to take full measure of duplicitous neighbors, but the clock is ticking and their list of suspects is growing ever longer. Just as the clues get hotter than a New Mexican chili, one of their main suspects winds up dead. Rita fears that the killer is dishing out seconds—and her order might be up.

Review: It’s been awhile since I had not read a cozy mystery novel, and it’s true that when I came across this novel, I was quickly intrigued. Murders, food and an investigation, what more could we ask for?

We meet with Rita, a young woman working in a restaurant and trying to get her life on trail after breaking up with her husband. Having left her home for a small apartment to accommodate her daughter, she thought she could finally live in peace. Yet all this will change once her owner dies next to her home. While the police (including her husband, the detective in charge) concludes on a suicide, the protests began to rain, including that of Rita and her boss, Flori. Forced to team up together, they will try to understand what happened and to discover the identity of the killer. But the tracks are quite numerous between the neighbors who threatened him the day before for him to leave for his land or his ex-wife who tells everyone that she is the heir and that everything belongs to her now.

I was quickly swept away by the story, I had a good time and it’s true that I was curious to learn the truth about what really happened. We follow with pleasure the assumptions of our heroine, agreeing on her ideas and being surprised by the revelations purposes. I confess that I did not expect at all at the end and I really enjoyed the way the author had directed her history.

I also expected to see a love triangle here with former husband and the new possible pretender, but this is not the case and I admit that it was nice to see Rita focusing on one person. It’s a pretty interesting character who does not hesitate to confront the most dangerous situations to help her friends. But despite that, she takes her role as mother to heart and it was nice to see her interaction with her daughter.

As you can see, there is a good novel, I took pleasure in discovering. To read.