The Trouble With a Bad Fit: A Novel of Food, Fashion, and Mystery
by Camilla T. Crespi
from Harpercollins (Mm)
Simona Griffo--the Italian-born, New York-based food and murder expert--is worried about losing her soft creative job at her ad agency, of being pushed upstairs with "the Living Dead, account executives who get to work at 8 a.m. in ironed suits and crisp hair, trailing antiseptic deodorant smells. I thrive in the late-starting, garlic-breath, T-shirt-and-jeans department." She certainly does. Simona's latest misadventure takes her cooking and crime-solving skills into the world of high fashion, where one of Griffo's clients is in danger of losing her company and her freedom. As usual, there's a great-looking recipe at the end of the book--this time for something called Shmatta Pasta, which I'm making tonight. Past Griffo gourmandizings in paperback include The Trouble With Going Home, The Trouble with Thin Ice, and The Trouble With a Hot Summer.
New York Fashion Week is only days away and Simona's new client and friend is desperate to finish the collection she hopes will bring her back to fame. Then her fitting model and muse is found murdered in the ladies room. Simona's live-in detective boyfriend, in charge of the case, warns her to stay away, but Simona isn't about to lose a client or let down a friend. Except her boyfriend isn't the only one who wants her off the case. On the way home one evening, Simona is attacked. Dmitri, a Russian cabdriver, arrives on the scene just in time and Simona hires him to be her bodyguard, which doesn't do her much good. Attacked a second time, she ends up in the hospital more determined than ever to find the murderer.
Ambitious new partner, angry tailor, overly-protective sample maker, grateful seamstress, jealous competitor-the suspects are many. Only when Simona delves into the past does she arrive at the truth, but not before risking her life again, this time on the runway of Bryant Park.
Fashion Footnotes and a recipe for Schmatta pasta are included."A fast-paced thriller with a convincing fashion background and a cast of characters big enough to fill...a Prada bag."-Suzy Menkes, The New York Times Book Review"This is a clever little novel with lots of insider bits about high fashion and snappy characters."
-Margaret Cannon, Toronto Globe and Mail"Sprightly, sunny and gossipy: a welcome return."
-Kirkus Reviews"Griffo is an engaging personality: determined, charming and willing to go the extra mile. She might be bloody and bruised, but she is unbowed. I met a heroine whose new adventures I'll seek out."
-Roberta Alexander, Contra Costa Times
The Trouble With a Small Raise: A Simona Griffo Mystery
by Camilla T. Crespi
from AuthorHouse
Simona needs a raise badly, but her boss is too busy with HH&H's new advertising campaign for a fancy perfume to give her the time of day. She gets up early one morning to confront Fred one last time only to find him lying on the plush carpet of his office...murdered. Who is the killer and why? Maybe it's the art director who hungered for Fred's job. Or the jilted ad executive. Or the secretive CEO. Or the overworked Office Manager. There are too many suspects to sort through, but when the cute detective assigned to the case discovers incriminating evidence in Simona's desk, she knows she better find the murderer fast.
"Replete with well-drawn characters...Nothing spoils the fun of this thoroughly engrossing whodunit, [which introduces one of the boldest and most likable female sleuths."
-Publishers Weekly
"Small Raise presents a complicated plot and a lot of intriguing ad business colleagues, and introduces Simona's "When in doubt, cook" philosophy. My kind of woman."
-Joyce Christmas, Mysterious Women
"Crespi has a light touch with location and atmosphere, and her characters are far from the staid characters often found in series books."
-Ellen Nehr, Murder Ad Lib
"Ms. Crespi truly shines in the humor department. Realistic and richly detailed...Crespi will undoubtedly win a following among those who become acquainted with her heroine."
-Stevanne Carter, Mostly Murder
The Trouble With Thin Ice (Simona Griffo Mysteries)
Simona and her detective boyfriend are spending Christmas in a cozy Connecticut inn to attend an interracial wedding. It's Simona's first vacation with Greenhouse and her nervousness isn't helped by the presence of Greenhouse's wary teenage son, Willy. Out for some needed cold air, Simona discovers a body under the thin ice of the nearby lake. The dead woman, whose husband had disappeared years earlier, turns out to have had mysterious ties to Kesho, the African American bride-to-be. Greenhouse is in Florida with his ailing mother, leaving Simona in charge of Willy, when Kesho is arrested for the murder. Convinced of her new friend's innocence and with Willy as her Watson, Simona delves into the town's secrets and lies to uncover the truth. Another murder gives Simona a much-needed clue, but her zeal for the truth puts Willy and her in danger. Thanks to Simona's gutsiness and Willy's fast thinking, the murderer gets his due, Kesho walks down the aisle and Greenhouse asks a question.
A recipe for Comfort Pasta is included.
"Simona exercises her adorable ways with a vengeance...but it is her keen intelligence, not her bubbly personality, that wins."
-Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
"Rich in atmosphere and buoyed by wry wit, Crespi's briskly paced narrative calls for an encore."
-Publishers Weekly starred review
"Crespi turns out a nicely complicated story that includes both unexpected twists and credible interpersonal tensions... Simona's voice is personable. She deals deftly with racism and, more generally, with stereotyping, whether it is used to pigeonhole blacks, Italians, or New Yorkers."
-Wilson Library Journal
"The Trouble With Thin Ice is the best Simona Griffo yet, a fast-paced puzzle with the trademark recipe included."
-M.E. Burness, Reading For Pleasure
The Trouble with Moonlighting: A Simona Griffo Mystery
by Camilla T. Crespi
from AuthorHouse
Simona is using her vacation time from HH&H advertising to moonlight for old friends from Italy on a film called "Where Goes the Future?" The future of Johanna Gayle, the five million dollar star, seems shaky indeed when she's almost electrified in the Lincoln Center fountain during a night shoot. Everyone rules it an accident, but is it? Simona knows that anything can happen on a set where the star plays one man against the other, the director treats her actors like scum, and the aging protagonist obsesses about his vanishing sex. The worst does happen. Simona finds Johanna sprawled in the bedroom of her deluxe apartment, a copper wire around her neck. When Simona's detective boyfriend arrests Johanna's lover, the set photographer, Simona is ready to risk her job and boyfriend to exonerate her old Sicilian friend.
A recipe for Sicilian Good Fish Salad is included.
"Crespi deserves special congratulations for her characterization of Simona...[Her writing makes Simona seem very very human...the end result is a heroine who rings true."
-Jennie G. Jacobson, The Drood Review of Mystery
"For me, the independence, the insecurity and the introspection set Simona apart from a lot of today's female sleuths."
-Joyce Christmas, Mysterious Women
"The setup is good and Crespi is acutely perceptive."
-Susan Oleksiw, Mystery Scene
"Simona is an interesting character. She's smart and inquisitive and still trying to adjust to American ways. Her divorce has left her dependent and emotionally needy-a situation her detective boyfriend is trying to deal with."
-Oline H. Cogdill, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
The Trouble with Going Home
by Camilla T. Crespi
from AuthorHouse
Something is very wrong between Simona's parents, and she flies home to Rome to find out more, only to witness the murder of Tamar, an American art student in front of her mother's new home. When the police connect the murder weapon to the apartment where Mama is now living, Simona has no choice but to sharpen her detecting skills. Was Tamar killed because she claimed to have found a lost Leonardo drawing? Because she was playing with drugs? Or had she discovered someone's nasty secret? Mama's best friend won't say why she kicked Tamar out of her home and Simona's philandering ex-husband swears he was only a friend. Then there's Prince Maffeo who gave Tamar a home in his dilapidated palazzo. And the American owner of the art school who took the student under his wing. Fortified by Mama's great cooking, Simona pokes into the dark corners of many hearts to reach the shocking truth about the murder and her parents.
A recipe for Pasta Allegria is included.
"Murder may provide the impetus for the action in this book, but it is the particularly Roman lust for life that keeps us turning the pages-and contemplating our next meal."
-Tom and Enid Schantz, Denver Post
"For the armchair traveler, evocative descriptions of the Eternal City make an interesting backdrop to a compelling mystery. The book will appeal to those who like Italian food (who doesn't?) and female amateur detectives."
-Elorise Holstad, Deadly Pleasures
"One of the joys of reading this book is discovering the city of Rome through Simona's eyes. Camilla Crespi makes the city come alive: you meet and see the people, the buildings, the streets and the plazas. And the food. Food is as important an ingredient in The Trouble with Going Home as murder."
-Ken Hughes, Critics Choice-America OnLine
"The picture Crespi paints of the extended Italian family is emotionally complex, and her knowledge of and love for them is worth the vis
The Trouble with Too Much Sun: A Simona Griffo Mystery
by Camilla T. Crespi
from AuthorHouse
It's January and Simona considers herself lucky to shoot HH&H's ad campaign for a new sun product on the sandy beaches of a Club Med on Guadeloupe where she plans to sneak in the R&R she badly needs. Instead Simona finds a lost two-year-old boy who instantly wins her heart and later that night, hidden under the sail of a Windsurfer, the body of his mother, Iguana. Who would kill the mother of a small child? The machete-wielding coconut seller who had been her lover once? The sexy Club Med aerobics instructor who likes to lie or the island guide who dabbles in guns and voodoo? Simona wants justice for Iguana's son and starts asking questions, but before she can get answers she discovers another corpse. This time one of her own crew is implicated and Simona wastes no time in cooking up a recipe to mollify the police commissioner and risking her life to find the real murderer.
A recipe for Crisis Pasta is included."Crespi creates a believable inner life for Simona, a transplanted Italian with a keen interest in human nature, lush descriptions of paradise and a whodunit plot that keeps the pages turning."-Publishers Weekly"[Crespi successfully conveys the peculiar mix of beauty and the touch of malevolence behind it that is the Caribbean. A sigh of relief to see Greenhouse [her detective boyfriend reappear, and to see that Simona's stubbornness and humanity are both intact and able to move the plot ahead."
-Joyce Christmas, Mysterious Women
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