September 21, 2015
Even cozy fans who are foodies may be disappointed by Andrew’s derivative first novel, the launch of a series set in South Africa. Tannie Maria, who has survived an abusive husband, channels her passion for food into a regular column for her local paper, combining recipes with romantic advice. Soon after an anonymous correspondent writes of her own domestic abuse, the woman, Martine van Schalkwyk, a supermarket bookkeeper, is found dead near a pond on the farm where she lives with her husband, Dirk. Feeling guilty, Maria decides to play amateur detective, and in the process she falls for the hunky and available officer in charge of the case, Det. Lt. Henk Kannemeyer. Maria, who frequently talks to her food, lacks the compassionate insight of Mma Ramotswe of No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency fame, and her observations about the world are often less than profound (“maybe life is like a river that can’t be stopped, always winding toward or away from death and love”).