Recipes for Love and Murder

Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

OMG. What’s not to like? This reads like an Alexander McCall Smith novel realized with a little less humour, perhaps, but with an actual murder to solve and an amateur detective, in this case a cookery writer who has been forced to swap her regular column to one that’s an advice-for-the-lovelorn in a small-town newspaper that is syndicated throughout a stretch of rural South Africa.

Our heroine, Tannie (“Aunty”) Maria, divides her time between chasing up culinary and housekeeping clues (that the police fail to recognize as being significant) and cooking roast lamb, curries, and various cakes to nourish her friends, plus a never-ending supply of cereal bars she calls rusks. As is the case with many books that use food for their binding theme, you’ll find many of these recipes printed in the back matter. Think Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and Like Water for Chocolate. I’ve always thought it’s a very generous thing to do.

Andrew throws in Afrikaans terms and colloquial slang freely, but I didn’t get bogged down by them at all. Anything with -berg on the end is a mountain, anything with -bos is a bush, and anything with -bok or -bokkie is some kind of buck, like a roebuck. Blerrie, as you’ll quickly discern, is probably bloody. Sometimes she helps by explaining these things; sometimes she doesn’t. It doesn’t matter, though—it all adds to the book’s local colour. If the statistics she quotes about wife beating and the incidence of murder in South Africa are true (and I suspect they are), then they are horrifying in the extreme.

A thoroughly enjoyable read. Take Tannie Maria’s advice and fill your hearts with love. God knows we could all do with some right now.

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