Death Comes in Through the Kitchen

Starred review from February 5, 2018
At the start of this dazzling culinary mystery from Dovalpage (The Astral Plane), laid-back, spiritually shambolic 36-year-old San Diego, Calif., reporter Matt Sullivan arrives in Cuba just before the 2003 Black Spring crackdown on dissidents, not to investigate human rights violations but to marry (he hopes) 24-year-old food blogger Yarmila Portal, whom he mostly knows through online interactions. But Yarmi doesn’t meet him at the airport, and in dizzying succession, Matt discovers her body in a running shower in her Havana apartment, lands in police custody, and learns from Lt. Marlene Martinez that Yarmi had a young lover, Pato Macho. In a typically rich
scene, both laugh-aloud funny and bone-chilling, Matt is grilled about his email suggesting Yarmi write a report for the CIA (i.e., the Culinary Institute of America). Matt instantly understands the confusion of acronyms, but will his interlocutor believe that the almighty spy agency allows a mere cooking school to share its initials? Matt’s travails are interspersed with Yarmi’s recipe-filled blog posts, bringing her to life after death, and the procedural narrative spirals to a smoky finish involving lucid dreaming, Santeria, gender fluidity, and the ultimate magic realism of politics. Those expecting a traditional food cozy will be happily surprised.

February 15, 2018
A San Diego food writer finds himself in the soup when his would-be fiancee is found dead in her Havana apartment.Matthew Sullivan, who writes food columns for El Grito de San Diego and Foodalicious, thinks he's hit the jackpot when he discovers Yarmi Cooks Cuban, a blog by Yarmila Portal Richards, who works at La Caldosa, a private restaurant run by Isabel Quintana in the living room of her Havana apartment. El Grito's Spanish-language readers love Yarmi's unique take on Cuban cuisine, and Matthew is increasingly captivated by their private correspondence. After visiting Yarmi for a couple of weeks, Matthew is smitten. He buys a wedding dress in San Diego and goes back to Havana to propose. His second trip is a disaster. When he arrives at Yarmi's apartment, she's lying dead in her bathtub. Isabel offers Matt her penthouse, which turns out to be a dilapidated hellhole. "Agent Pedro" of the Seguridad, Cuba's Department of State Security, confiscates his passport. Taty, a waiter at La Caldosa, makes a pass at him. As Matt's life spirals increasingly out of control, Dovalpage's narrative veers away from him to follow Padrino, a Santeria priest Matt recruits to help solve Yarmi's murder; Pato Macho, Isabel's volatile son; and failed revolutionary Ricardito Rendon. The parade of colorful characters helps Dovalpage paint a vivid portrait of late Castro-era Cuba but does little to solve Yarmi's murder.Dovalpage, author of novels and short stories in both Spanish and English (The Astral Plane: Stories of Cuba, The Southwest, and Beyond, 2012, etc.), offers lots of local color, but her rambling tale of love gone wrong is too unfocused to sustain interest in what's essentially a shaggy dog story.

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March 1, 2018

Cuban-born Dovalpage's second English-language novel (A Girl Like Che Guevara) features Padrino, a retired police detective who practices the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria. It's 2003, and American journalist Matt has illegally traveled to Cuba to visit Yarmila, the beautiful woman he fell in love with through her food blog. He's brought her cooking gear that's impossible to get in Cuba and with great optimism, a wedding dress. Anticipating a happy reunion, Matt instead arrives at Yarmi's Havana apartment to find her dead in the bathtub, while the Cuban police swiftly detain him and take his passport. When they finally let him go but retain his passport, Matt turns to Padrino for help. As Matt and Padrino try to find Yarmi's killer, they begin to suspect Yarmi was living a double life. Matt begins to wonder who Yarmi really was, but he also finds himself questioning his own identity when he experiences unexpected feelings for a local drag queen. VERDICT Don't let the title and included Cuban recipes mislead you into thinking this is a cozy--this novel shows the gritty side of Cuba in a mystery more notable for its compelling portrayal of Cuban life than the detecting.--Melissa DeWild, Spring Lake Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2018

Winner of Spain's Rincon de la Victoria Award and the author of both fiction and plays, Cuban-born, New Mexico-based Dovalpage offers a literary mystery set in 2003 Havana. It opens with San Diego journalist Matt arriving in town to marry Yarmila, whom he got to know through her food blog, and instead finding her dead in the bathtub. Swift amateur sleuthing (obviously, Matt is the main suspect), psychological suspense (who was Yarmila, really?), and a portrait of modern Cuba; a big pitch at ALA Midwinter.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.