Book Review: The Mango Murders by Lucy Burdette
On a chilly morning like this (and following what seems like an endless summer heatwave) it would have been nice to wake up to warmer temperatures in Key West, but I'm glad I'm not there since there's a murder right around the corner.
It's mango season and the magazine that food critic Hayley Snow works for has planned a sunset cruise in order to bring in potential advertisers, get their name out there and allow people to network in a safe atmosphere until the ship blows up.
While there are no reports of major injuries or death, investigators find a charred body of a woman, no one has filed a missing person report.
Even though the explosion has rattled a lot of nerves, Hayley seems to be at her breaking point as she's been busy helping to prepare neighbor Miss Gloria's eighty-fifth birthday week celebration and coordinating all of the out-of-town guests. Plus, there seems to be some tension between her and husband Nathan.
Hayley feels guilty that she's responsible for the disaster at sea and against Nathan's wishes, she starts investigating on her own and in doing so, digs up some past dirt on her boss Palamina.
Once the out-of-town guests arrive, Hayley's stepmother Allison and mother-in-law Helen help her out, with Helen nearly being run down by a motorcyclist. This of course angers Nathan.
They do receive word that local chef Nan Copley is missing, and she appears to be the victim of the explosion. She was spotted on the cruise, but no one knows why she would have been below deck or what her motive would have been for blowing up the ship. They think it was because Hayley's mother, Janet, has been getting a lot of catering jobs and she did win an impromptu contest for a mango recipe.
The contest was done blindly and through one of Hayley's sources, they find out that Nan had stolen a recipe from an old cookbook published by the Women's Club.
And while Hayley is getting closer to the truth, one of the bigger problems that she has to face is Miss Gloria's sons and daughter-in-law's who want to take her back to Michigan for her final years. This was a theme a few installments back and her son relented and said that she could stay in Key West.
But there's also another mystery to this mystery.
Is this the last installment of the series?
I don't want to jump ahead of myself and say that it is, but at the end of the book, it does say "The End" and while there's material for another installment, I had the feeling that this was like a television series coming to an end as the camera pulls back and the characters are left in the air as to what their lives will be like in the future.
Throughout the book, Hayley does bring up past events from the series and the resolutions, so I'm inclined to believe that this may be the last installment. Other series that have ended have either advanced the characters into the future or wrapped everything up to send them off into the sunset.
For now, we'll just have to wait.
