The Body in the Piazza: A Faith Fairchild Mystery (Faith Fairchild Mysteries)
Most of Page’s 20 Faith Fairchild mysteries have taken place in the small Massachusetts town where she has a catering business, but this time she’s enjoying the sun-drenched Tuscan hills. Faith and her husband, Reverend Tom, are in Italy to celebrate an anniversary and attend a weeklong cooking seminar at the home of an old friend, who has opened a tourist culinary school. The couple’s first night is in Rome, where they meet a charismatic travel writer, Freddy, who, unfortunately, is killed before their eyes. Once they are ensconced in the cooking school, it becomes apparent that the reasons for Freddy’s murder haven’t stayed in Rome and that any one of the other school attendees could have had a hand in the malevolent events. Although there is certainly a mystery here, it gets lost, perhaps happily so, in the book’s lush surroundings as well as in the flavors of the wine, pasta, and panna cotta that will have readers heading for their nearest Italian restaurant—not that it can compare. Perhaps the recipes at the book’s conclusion will help. La dolce vita—only soured a bit by murder. --Ilene Cooper