Four Parties and a Funeral - A Review & Giveaway

Review

FOUR PARTIES AND A FUNERAL by Maria DiRico
The Fourth Catering Hall Mystery

 

Reality TV has come to Belle View! The production company for The Dons of Ditmars Boulevard have arrived filming the pilot they hope to sell to the networks. Now Belle View Catering Hall is filled with wannabe reality stars, including some Family members looking to become TV celebrities. When the production company's smarmy  CEO winds up dead Little D becomes the prime suspect, after all he is the son of a real Don and is romantically involved with the victim's ex-wife. Mia Carina will have to prove his innocence while corralling the dons and donettes as the film crew tries to create more drama. At least she can count on Shane for support. Or can she?

 

Oh, the lure of fame and stardom achieved without any real effort... or talent. While Mia is immune, she sees a solid money making opportunity for Belle View and takes advantage. Little D and many others, however, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, look to promote themselves, whatever the cost. Reality television brings out the worst behavior in people-and so it is in the fourth Catering Hall Mystery. We see behavior that can be hilariously funny, jaw dropping, and murder motive making. The mystery is ingeniously woven through the scenes along with major character development.

 

While there are lots of laughs, there are also serious moments when a critical problem to Mia and Shane's future arises as well as health concerns for Mia's dad. This balance of laugh out loud moments (I can picture those bargain bin colors on Elisabetta's new knitwear) and sobering issues (and I'm not talking about the day after the bachelorette party kind of sobering) makes FOUR PARTIES AND A FUNERAL so great.

Belle View Catering Hall takes on reality TV in FOUR PARTIES AND A FUNERAL with plenty of drama, laughs, and love. It will tug at your heartstrings while you simultaneously hold your stomach from laughing too hard.

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 Four Parties and a Funeral (A Catering Hall Mystery) by Maria DiRico

About Four Parties and a Funeral

Four Parties and a Funeral (A Catering Hall Mystery)
Cozy Mystery 4th in Series
Setting - New York
Kensington Cozies (March 28, 2023)
Mass Market Paperback: ‎ 304 pages

In this fresh and witty cozy mystery series set amid an extended Italian-American family in Astoria, Queens, catering hall owner and amateur sleuth Mia Carina must solve a murder on the set of a reality show.

The June events schedule at Belle View is busting out all over—proms, graduations, and of course, weddings. There are unexpected bookings too, including a casting call for the pilot of Dons of Ditmars Boulevard. But soon, Mia’s fears about the cheesy reality show are confirmed . . .

Belle View quickly becomes the site of a sea of wanna-be goombahs and phony girlfriends, and some of Mia’s friends insist on getting in on the action. The production company owner and his executive producer ex-wife—who’s also very minor British royalty—have assembled a motley crew that does as much infighting and backstabbing as the on-screen “talent.” Even so, it’s a shock when a dead body is found in the pool house of a local mansion rented by the show . . .

Murder might boost the ratings. But Mia intends to make sure the killer gets jail time, not airtime . . .

Italian recipes included!

About Maria DiRico

Maria DiRico is the pseudonym for Ellen Byron, author of the award-winning, USA Today bestselling Cajun Country Mysteries. Born in Queens, New York, she is first-generation Italian-American on her mother's side and the granddaughter of a low-level Jewish mobster on her father's side. She grew up visiting the Astoria Manor and Grand Bay Marina catering halls, which were run by her Italian mother's family in Queens and have become the inspiration for her Catering Hall Mystery Series. DiRico has been a writer-producer for hit television series like Wings and Just Shoot Me, and her first play, Graceland, appears in the Best Short Plays collection. She's a freelance journalist, with over 200 articles published in national magazines, and previously worked as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart, a credit she never tires of sharing. A native New Yorker who attended Tulane University, Ellen lives in Los Angeles with her husband, daughter, and two rescue dogs.

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