Header image with four cats and the text: Pussreboots, a book review nearly every day. Online since 1997
Now 2025 Previous Articles Road Essays Road Reviews Author Black Authors Title Source Age Genre Series Format Inclusivity LGBTA+ Art Portfolio Purchase Art WIP

Recent posts


Month in review

Reviews
Barbacoa, Bomba, and Betrayal by Raquel V. Reyes and Frankie Corzo (narrator)
Bocchi the Rock!, Volume 1 by Aki Hamazi
Coaching Fire by Victoria Laurie and Rachel Dulude (narrator)
Fire Force, Volume 1 by Atsushi Ohkubo
Fogged Inn by Barbara Ross and Dara Rosenberg (Narrator)
How Spider Saved Halloween by Robert Kraus
A Little Ray of Sunshine by Kristan Higgins
Live and Let Grind by Tara Lush and Kae Marie Denino (Narrator)
Memoirs of a Mangy Lover by Groucho Marx and Leo Hershfeld (illustrator)
Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala and Danice Cabanela (Narrator)
Murder at the Lobstah Shack by Maddie Day and Rachel Dulude (Narrator)
New Year's Eve Murder by Leslie Meier and Karen White (Narrator)
No Way Out by Dan Poblocki
Oh No, the Aunts Are Here by Adam Rex and Lian Cho (Illustrator)
Prologue to Murder by Lauren Elliott and Karen White (Narrator)
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo
Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and W. W. Denton
Ya Boy Kongming! Volume 2 by Yuto Yotsuba and Ryō Ogawa

Miscellaneous
November 2023 Sources

November 2023 Summary

Ozathon

Previous month


Rating System

5 stars: Completely enjoyable or compelling
4 stars: Good but flawed
3 stars: Average
2 stars: OK
1 star: Did not finish


Privacy policy

This blog does not collect personal data. It doesn't set cookies. Email addresses are used to respond to comments or "contact us" messages and then deleted.


Barbacoa, Bomba, and Betrayal: 12/16/23

Barbacoa, Bomba, and Betrayal

Barbacoa, Bomba, and Betrayal by Raquel V. Reyes and Frankie Corzo (narrator) (2023) is the third book in the Caribbean Kitchen mystery series. What starts as a vacation to the Dominican Republic and becomes a work trip in Puerto Rico puts Miriam into the middle of a gentrification money laundering scam that's affecting so many of the small towns across the Caribbean, regardless of country.

Miriam and her family were originally from Cuba. While she now lives with her husband and extended family in Florida, her parents have tried to recreate their life in the Dominican Republic. They work as property managers and here it's at a hotel that seems to have hit on a string of extremely bad luck. Miriam, though, suspects sabotage and she think's it's Jules, a developer who keeps showing up wherever she is.

This mystery is one of the most complex ones I've read in a long time. Mysteries that involve travel usually follow the Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie, 1934) formula, with the murder being in a fixed location with a fixed number of suspects (a train, a plane, a ship, for example). Here, though, the mystery is split across two countries with similar histories but unique cultures.

There is a murder, or rather murders, as collateral damage when other methods of stealing properties doesn't work. Miriam's part in solving the mystery is out of justifiable outrage at how the wealthy are gaming a system to their own benefit to displace local people and further tank economies already suffering for a long laundry lists of reasons.

As Miriam is also working through most of this book, there's we get to see her education as a food anthropologist coming through. I loved all this added detail. Frankly if Raquel V. Reyes ever branches out to write some nonfiction books about Caribbean culture and food, I will read them.

Five stars

Comments (0)


Lab puppy
Name:
Email (won't be posted):
Blog URL:
Comment:

Tumblr Mastadon Flickr Facebook Facebook Contact me

1997-2025 Sarah Sammis