The Trouble with Too Much Sun: A SIMONA GRIFFO MYSTERY

Simona Griffo Mystery #3

by Camilla Trinchieri

It's January and Simona considers herself lucky to shoot HH&H's ad campaign for a new sun product on the sandy beaches of a Club Med on Guadeloupe where she plans to sneak in the R&R she badly needs. Instead Simona finds a lost two-year-old boy who instantly wins her heart and later that night, hidden under the sail of a Windsurfer, the body of his mother, Iguana. Who would kill the mother of a small child? The machete-wielding coconut seller who had been her lover once? The sexy Club Med aerobics instructor who likes to lie or the island guide who dabbles in guns and voodoo? Simona wants justice for Iguana's son and starts asking questions, but before she can get answers she discovers another corpse. This time one of her own crew is implicated and Simona wastes no time in cooking up a recipe to mollify the police commissioner and risking her life to find the real murderer.A recipe for Crisis Pasta is included."Crespi creates a believable inner life for Simona, a transplanted Italian with a keen interest in human nature, lush descriptions of paradise and a whodunit plot that keeps the pages turning."-Publishers Weekly"[Crespi] successfully conveys the peculiar mix of beauty and the touch of malevolence behind it that is the Caribbean. A sigh of relief to see Greenhouse [her detective boyfriend] reappear, and to see that Simona's stubbornness and humanity are both intact and able to move the plot ahead."-Joyce Christmas, Mysterious Women

Genres: Mystery

290 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1992

About the author

aka Camilla T Crespi, Trella Crespi.

Camilla Trinchieri was born in Prague to an Italian diplomat father and American mother and came to the United States at age twelve. After graduating from Barnard College, she moved to Italy. She returned to New York City in 1980 and earned an MFA in writing from Columbia University. As Trella Crespi and Camilla Crespi she has published seven mystery novels.

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simona is on the lovely island of Guadeloupe to supervise her ad agency crew on another skin product. Her relationship with her on again off again love is in hiatus, so to keep her mind of Love, she throws herself into her work and enjoying Club Med.
Despite, she and the crew residing at the toursty Club Med, The Trouble With Too Much Sun has a good feel of what Guadeloupe is truly like outside the tourist trappings. We are introduced to many many characters many who are natives and expats. With food, festivals, markets, language, clothing and atmosphere, the reader gets a taste of the Island.
Once again Simona encounters Death. She and the Island Commissioner work on figuring out who did the dastardly deed and why.
I truly enjoyed this book and it most definitely fulfilled my Book challenge requirement. Although, it was only about 280 pages, it read long. Too long in the last third of the book. There seemed to be too many minor characters popping up and confusing situations and conversations.
I would still recommend it for anyone doing a World Challenge.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simona is supervising a photo shoot on the lovely island of Guadeloupe, when she finds the body of one of the local vendors, a Frenchwoman, who has a little boy. Despite the reassurances of the local police chief, Simona is afraid that there are ties between the murder and her shoot, especially lovely model Ellen Price, Simona's discovery and the daughter of her close friend back in New York. Club Med is a perfect setting for romance, as those around Simona seem to be falling in love; unfortunately Simona's boyfriend, New York policeman Stan Greenhouse, is not near at hand.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simona Griffo is in Guadeloupe at the Club Med for a fashion shoot. She is enjoying the sun when she finds a two year old boy wandering on his own. She takes the boy and looks for his mother, a woman called Iguana, among the beachcombers. Unfortunately she finds the body of the woman hidden under the sail of a windsurfer on the beach. Simone can't resist the lure of a mystery and soon gets herself into danger. This is a good book but not my favorite. The characters are fair and the mystery is OK but there is too much fluff and stuff to make it an engrossing book.