The Satanic Mechanic: A Tannie Maria Mystery

Food heals, arouses, coerces, and kills in Andrew’s sublime second psychological cozy featuring South African agony aunt Tannie Maria van Harte (after 2015’s Recipes for Love and Murder), which also offers an immersion course in a polyglot post-Apartheid culture. Afrikaans and Xhosa spice the luminous English sentences; skin is just another detail. Still, old grudges survive. When Bushman leader Slimkat is poisoned with honey-mustard sauce on the kudu kebabs, Maria suspects the white cattle baron whose land the Supreme Court awarded to Slimkat’s people. Hunky cop Hank Kannemeyer fears losing Maria and demands she quit sleuthing, but he needs her forensic taste buds. Another murder at an exotic PTSD workshop, which Maria’s attending because of her guilt over her abusive husband’s death, quashes her thrumming desire for Henk. Tannie Maria’s authentic recipes, for which Andrew credits many sources, are easy to make far from the veldt. Her food wisdom is universal, unassailable: potato salad eases worry; warm orange pudding makes one feel whole. Agent: Isobel Dixon, Blake Friedmann Literary Agency (U.K.). (Mar.)