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

Synopsis

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!

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Excerpt

If anyone had told Mia Carina that one day she’d wake up in bed next to a former male model,

she would have spit whatever she was drinking out of her nose.

Yet here she was.

Mia enjoyed a languid stretch and was rewarded with an angry meow from Doorstop, the Abyssinian diva who commanded the foot of the bed and was not happy about being woken up by an accidental nudge from Mia’s foot. Mia sat up and reached over to pet the annoyed cat. “Sorry,

sweetie. I didn’t know you were there.”

Doorstop made a sound that in human would have translated to “Yeah, right” and repositioned himself.

The male model still asleep next to Mia muttered something unintelligible and then said quite clearly, “Bacon and grape jelly.” Mia giggled. Shane stirred and opened one eye. “What?”

“You were talking in your sleep about work again. It’s adorable.”

Shane yawned and sat up. “What did I say?”

“Bacon and grape jelly.”

“Right. For the Kiwanis Club breakfast in the morning.”

“Practically our only event this month that isn’t a prom, graduation party, or wedding.”

Shane and Mia were coworkers at Belle View Banquet Manor, the party facility turned over to her “recovering mobster” father, Ravello, as payment for a gambling debt. Mia breathed a sigh of relief when Ravello asked her to help him run Belle View as a legitimate, entirely legal enterprise for the Boldano Family. She’d breathed sighs laced with lust and desire when Shane signed on at Belle View as operations manager. By Christmas, she and Shane had succumbed to their mutual attraction, but feeling guilty about the impropriety of a boss-employee relationship, they’d kept their romance on the down low for months.

Shane laced his fingers together and placed his hands between his head and the pillow. “Speaking of weddings, we need to find out if it’s okay to give Jamie and Madison cash as a present. I don’t see a bride in Connecticut carrying a satin sack for checks.”

Mia chuckled at the reference to the most important accessory to a bride’s outfit at the many Italian weddings she’d grown up with—the money sack. “At least not Madison’s family. They’re a little upscale for the sack. Nonna said that, in her day, sacks didn’t even exist. People just stuffed the checks or cash down the bride’s cleavage and, when that filled up, in the groom’s pockets or pants.”

“And now sacks are old school. Did I tell you that for the Castro-Pradeep wedding, I have to print out business cards they can hand out to their guests with their Zelle, PayPal, and Venmo account

information?”

“Ha. That’s a wedding favor I didn’t see coming.”

Shane’s extremely handsome face creased in a frown. “I still haven’t figured out what to wear to the barbecue.” He and Mia, along with Ravello, the Boldanos, and a Queens/Long Island contingent would soon be trooping up to Worthington, Connecticut, for a party hosted by Madison’s parents in honor of the happy couple.

“Me neither,” Mia said. “This is, like, a whole new world. Jamie showed me pictures of the Wythes’ house, where they’re hosting the party. It’s old and white.”

“Like Madison’s relatives,” Shane said with a sly grin.

Mia chortled, then wagged a finger at Shane. “Don’t. Be nice, you. It’s not her fault her family goes back a million years. Jamie said the house is, like, almost as old as the country, and her parents are super nice. They don’t act entitled at all. But what to wear, what to wear. Hmmm . . .” As Mia pondered this, she tapped an index finger painted with sparkly gold nail polish against her lip. The

other four nails were painted a soft sea green.

“They sail a lot in Connecticut,” Shane offered.

“Maybe stuff with anchors?”

Mia brightened. “Great idea. I’ll see what I can find online.”

Shane yawned, then leaned over to Mia, gifting her with a kiss that knocked all images of anchors and America’s founding fathers from her thoughts.

“I gotta go home and shower before work. It’s gonna be a day.”

Mia sighed. “I know.” Big Donny Boldano, Jamie’s father and technically the boss of all bosses to the Belle View crew, had begged Mia to hire Jamie’s older brother, Little Donny Boldano, to do something—anything—at the banquet facility. At the ripe old age of thirty-four, Big Donny’s namesake was still trying to find himself. This was to be his first day on the job. Mia and Shane’s plan was to let Little Donny figure out which angle of the catering business interested him the most and then place him there.

About the Author

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 a 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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