Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Murder and Mamon is the 4th-book in Mia P. Manansala’s Culinary Cozy Mystery series, Tita Rosie’s Kitchen.
This series, set in the town of Shady Palms, follows Lila Macapagal and is full of food, friends and family drama. I have vibed with every book in this series so far and have really enjoyed getting to know Lila, her family and friends.
In this installment, Lila’s godmothers, April, Mae and June, lovingly known as the Calendar Crew, are embarking on a fresh business venture; a new laundromat.
Also new is that Ninang April’s niece, a recent art school graduate, gets sent from the Philippines to Shady Palms by her family. She’ll be staying with Ninang April and the plan is for her to help out at the laundromat.
Instead of the Macapagals celebrating their grand opening though, they find their building vandalized and April’s niece lying dead with a threatening message scrawled beside her.
Devastated by all that’s occurred, the Aunties are beside themselves with grief and fear. Who would target them like this? According to the threatening message, it appears that perhaps their well-known meddling and gossip may have finally pushed someone over the edge.
With the local police making little progress, Lila feels compelled to begin her own investigation. She’ll do whatever she can to protect her family.
With one family member dead, Lila isn’t willing to just sit back and risk more.
I really enjoyed this. It was exactly the fun-spirited story that I needed right now. There’s just something about returning to a beloved Cozy Mystery series, reuniting with characters that feel like friends and solving oftentimes OTT-cases with them, that I will never grow tired of.
I’m a true sucker for this series. I will never stop reading them. As long as they’re published, I’ll be picking them up. It’s just my kind of Cozy.
While this wasn’t my favorite in the series, I do think it is a super strong installment. I liked getting to know even more about the Aunties, as Lila is forced to dig a little more into their personal lives in this one.
I also found the conversations regarding why the victim came to the United States in the first place rather interesting. It involved a bit of a scandal and Lila had to try to figure out the ins-and-outs of that as well.
The mystery had me stumped. I had a lot of suspects, everyone seemed suspicious and I even questioned if the victim was who the killer intended to take out. At the end of the day, it was just a lot of fun. Pure entertainment.
I would recommend this series to any Cozy Mystery fan, particularly if you enjoy Culinary Cozies. There’s a lot of food talk in these books, with vivid, mouth-watering descriptions. If you don’t walk away hungry, you may not have a soul.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Berkley, for providing me with a copy to read and review.
I’m such a fan of this series and am already anticipating the 5th-installment. I cannot even begin to imagine what sort of craziness the Macapagal family is going to get involved in next, but you better believe I want a front row seat!