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THE MARIACHI MURDER
by Marie Romero Cash
Camel Press, January 2016
310 pages
$15.95
ISBN: 1603813004


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

When a popular mariachi singer is found in a shallow grave just south of Santa Fe, detective Rick Romero and forensic psychologist Jemima Hodge join forces again to track down the murderer. The fourth in the Jemimah Hodge Mystery series, THE MARIACHI MURDER is as much about the evolution of Romero's and Hodge's relationship as it is about solving a murder, and fans of the series will enjoy seeing the two maneuver through some tricky personal issues as well as solve a mystery that takes Romero south of the border and deep into his past. To complicate both his relationship with Hodge and the murder investigation, Romero's ex-wife shows up on the scene, and his brother becomes a main suspect. Meanwhile, the mariachi turns out to be quite a womanizer who may have been less popular than it first appeared--at least among husbands and boyfriends--and he had an unexplained stash of cash that points toward involvement with drug- running across the Mexican border, so there are no straightforward, easy answers to anything. All of the personal and professional complications swirl around amidst the rhythms, traditions, and scenery of Santa Fe, giving the reader a potentially delightful escape.

However, things are not always what they seem--in the story or in the telling of it. Marie Romero Cash lives in Santa Fe, and she obviously knows intimate details of the city and the surrounding countryside, which she sprinkles liberally throughout the story. While this works to some extent to create a solid sense of place, many of the details are so extraneous to the story that they become distracting: this isn't a travelogue, it's a mystery and should be told as such. Then, too, the mystery is often a bit too realistic, at least in the time it takes to solve it. Cash has it dragging on for days and weeks and months without showing much progress but with heavy emphasis on the passage of time. While that may be the way mysteries are truly solved, it doesn't play well as a novel. Then, too, the novel is billed as a Jemimah Hodge mystery, and while Hodge does play an important role, others--even seemingly fairly minor characters--tend to have equal billing, with lots and lots of shifting among viewpoints, which is both distracting and limiting as far as character development goes.

That said, the mystery of the murdered mariachi is a good one (though perhaps a bit overcomplicated), the personal struggles are fairly interesting, and the setting descriptions are spot-on. If you're willing to work through the pacing issues and do a bit of on-the-fly editing to tighten up the storytelling, THE MARIACHI MURDER isn't a bad read. And if you're new to the series, don't worry. This works fine as a stand-alone novel, too.

§ Meredith Frazier, a writer with a background in English literature, lives in Dallas, Texas

Reviewed by Meredith Frazier, January 2016

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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