Nancy Fairbanks Mozzarella Most Murderous

Mozzarella Most Murderous

Nancy Fairbanks

Berkley, July 2005, $5.99, 295 pp.

ISBN 0425203999

Food Columnist Carolyn Blue is in Sorrento Italy to enjoy the city while her husband Jason attends a scientific conference sponsored by Ruggiero Ricci, owner of Ricci Chemicals. Carolyn arrives ahead of Jason who is stranded in Paris due to an air-traffic controller's strike and spends the day and evening with Paolina Marchetti who is at loose ends because her lover stood her up.

The next morning Carolyn is having coffee by the pool when she sees a body floating in the water. It is Paolina who turns out to be Ruggiero's lover. Carolyn thinks she was murdered but the police don't want to investigate because of the mob connections of her boss and his wife's noble lineage. Carolyn teams up with Bianca, the wife of a scientist also attending the conference, to prove it was murder and to try to find the killer.

MOZZARELLA MOST MURDEROUS is one of the funniest amateur sleuth mysteries to come along in years. Bianca, who is nine months pregnant, and looks it, finds herself, due to her delicate condition, in strange situations that border on slapstick comedy. While two different sets of police offices waste the taxpayers' money, Carolyn and Bianca are busy finding suspects with possible motives. Nancy Fairbanks has written the best mystery of her career.

Harriet Klausner