Finished: "Recipes for Love and Murder" by Sally Andrew

Finished: Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew, 2015, 9780062397669.

Crimespree Magazine wrote about Andrews's most recent novel and since that sounded interesting I reserved this one. I keep on eye out for South African books after enjoying novels by Deon Meyer and Roger Smith.

My cousin and brother visited Lake Mills over Memorial Day weekend. My cousin has worked in several states, traveled overseas for work, and even had a two year term in Australia. His oil company has locations spreading from Texas, north into Alberta, and to Alaska's North Slope.  Most recently my brother has vacationed in Switzerland, Italy, Iceland, and Svalbard Island way off the coast of Norway.

At one point the discussion turned to skiing. My brother did a high altitude ski trip in Switzlerland. My cousin goes on ski trips to Colorado. The one time I went downhill skiing was in Iowa. Yeah, Iowa for downhill skiing. The location was near Dubuque and used the hills by the Mississippi.  As we were talking I remembered that "Hell, I often never leave the city limits." When I do leave the city limits I oftentimes go no farther then a neighboring county. The last time I visited anywhere overseas was my college semester in Australia in 1992.

I mention this because I consider myself decently aware of other countries, cultures, and international news. I pay attention and read different news sources. I listen to overseas radio. I do this, I do that. Blah Blah Blah.

But, one thing I really rely on for learning about other people and places is novels. I cannot travel much so I rely on books. A good mystery novel can be as didactic as any nonfic tome from an academic publisher. Deon Meyer and Roger Smith are good examples of that and so is Andrew's novel set in the semi-desert Karoo region of Southwest South Africa. Andrew adds a lot of detail about the region. Some of those details are minor but others color and fill-in so much of life for a lot of people there. The different languages, Afrikaans families and loyalties, weather, cars, food, social manners, etc.

Anyhoo.

Tannie Maria (Tannie means Auntie and is an honorific for any woman older than the speaker) is a widowed women in her 40s who lives in a remote house and writes a food column for her regional newspaper. Maria stayed at home most of her life and only married because after her ill mother died she needed to go somewhere. That somewhere was a physically abusive husband. Now that the husband is dead she focuses on food. Maria's daily life revolves around food and her recipe column is popular. When the newspaper's owners demand more readership the local editor gives Maria an advice column to write.

Maria knows little about love and relationships but since she knows a lot about food she prescribes food for the lovelorn. One letter writer is a woman in a bad marriage. Maria gives advice. The woman is murdered. Maria and the other two women for the newspaper get involved in investigating.

Things happen. There is violence. Weird religious people. Mourners for the dead women. A silly shootout. Maria seeing most everything from a food focused point of view. Bad driving. Love affairs. Etc.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit. Which is good because this was 378 pages long. This is the first cozy mystery I have read. Recipes in the back.

Comments:
1. My cousin's oil firm lost a lot of money last year because of economic issues. I was very impressed when he said that they kept on all the employees. Some of the staff spent some days standing around looking at each other but they had jobs. Plus, the people are there, trained, and ready to work when work picks up again - which it did.
2. EDIT: France. I was going through old emails and saw my brother was skiing in France for two weeks. I knew I forgot a country.