Sicilian Good Fish Salad: A Recipe for 4

From Camilla Trinchieri:

Since I’m going to Sicily, I’m including the recipe for a salad that I ate for lunch in the town of at Villa Armerina (famous for a it’s Roman mosaics) many years ago.

Sicilian Good Fish Salad For 4 servings

1 19 oz. can of cannellini (navy) beans
1 15 oz. can of corn kernels
1 heart of celery sliced very thin--about two cups
1 bunch scallions sliced--green part included
1/2 red pepper diced very small--for color
3 hearts of palm sliced (optional)
1 1-inch fresh tuna steak
or two cans of water-packed light meat tuna
4 large basil leaves

Dressing:
1 1/2 tbsps. balsamic vinegar or 1 tbsp. lemon juice
4 tbsps. extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 clove minced garlic

Drain the beans and the corn and out in a serving bowl.

Add the vegetables.

If using tuna steak, brush it with oil and sear it on a very hot skillet three minutes per side. Let cool, slice and add to bowl.

If using canned tuna, drain and add.

In a small bowl mix salt, pepper and garlic with lemon juice or vinegar.

Add olive oil.

Whip together well, pour into serving bowl and gently mix all the ingredients.

Serve at room temperature with hearty bread and chilled white wine.

Buon appetito and ciao for now.

The Trouble with a Hot Summer

The Trouble with a Hot Summer
A Simona Griffo Mystery
by Camilla T. Crespi
June 1997, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-017662-8

Where I Get My Ideas

I was staying at a friend's cottage out in East Hampton. Looking out of her picture window in the very early morning I saw a man row across the window's view. An hour later I saw him row back into view. When I asked my friend about him, she explained he had suffered a heart attack and rowed for exercise every morning without fail. Intrigued by the words "without fail" I watched him the next morning and wondered, what if he doesn't come back?

Setting

Long Island -- East Hampton, Springs, South Hampton hospital, Sag Harbor.
New York City -- Upper West Side, Union Square, Greenwich Village.
Plot

Simona is at the end of a troubled vacation with Stan and Willy in the Hamptons when she shares iced coffee and a foggy dawn with Springs resident and advertising genius, Bud Warren. Mistaking Simona for a licensed P.I., thanks to the maneuverings of Simona's friend Dmitri, Bud asks Simona to investigate his ex-wife's death from drowning exactly one year ago. Bud swears it was murder even though the police decreed suicide. There's a heat wave going on and Simona agrees to meet Bud that evening in the cool waters of Gardiner's Bay to discuss the matter further. The only problem is that Bud never comes back from his morning row.

Recurring Characters

* Stan and Willy Greenhouse
* Dmitri K.
* Raf Garcia, Stan's partner
* Gregory Price, Simona's co-worker

Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Crespi softens the dark edges of her mystery with deft humor, allowing Simona to enjoy the Hamptons' hot spots, rub elbows with celebs and entertain a mild flirtation with the owner of a trendy restaurant. The mix of breezy vacation fun and somber matters of death, passion and art provides the tension needed to make this a sultry summer read.

Mostly Murder
A brisk mystery and a fun read and Camilla Crespi is one hot writer.

Mystery News
For well-knit stories told in a humorous vein Crespi is right up there with today's best.

The Boston Sunday Globe
The dialogue is lively, the mystery reasonably mysterious, and the sense of place is appealing.

The Beginning

That magical light that enticed countless artists was gone. Gardiner's Bay, twenty feet ahead, had disappeared during the night like Brigadoon. The white windmill of Gardiner's Island across the bay had turned into a memory. It was an August Sunday in Springs, a hamlet just north of East Hampton on Long Island, New York. At 6:03 AM the temperature was seventy-four degrees. The sun a white blister wrapped in gray gauze. Depending on your mood, the fog was dreary, romantic or scary.

Bud Warren was unusually talkative. "The ugly cliché. Greed and vanity destroying nature's beauty." He wiped his forehead with a tanned, gnarled hand. "When I first came out here in '56, the place was still unspoiled." Bud poured coffee. "This heat we've been getting? Man-made. Ozone layer's thinner than a Park Avenue wife."

The Hamptons was expected to reach ninety-three for the fourth day in a row. New York City, one hundred again. This was the third morning Bud and I met at this hour. We'd mostly stared at the water's edge and the fog beyond.

More

Recipe -- Cool Pasta

Serves four

* 4 ears of corn
* 4 large ripe tomatoes
* 2 bunches scallions
* 4 tbsp. olive oil
* 1 cup loosley packed basil leaves
* 5 large fresh mint leaves
* 1 lb. pasta shells
* salt and pepper to taste

Cut corn off the cobs with a serrated knife. Reserve the cobs. Seed and dice the tomatoes. Trim and thinly slice the scallions, including the light green part.

Heat olive oil in a skillet. Add the scallions and sauté over medium heat for 3 minutes. Mix in corn. Cook for 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and season vegetables well with salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes more.

Tear basil and mint leaves. Remove skillet from heat and add leaves. Allow the vegetables to cool in a large serving bowl.

Add the reserved cobs to a large pot of salted water and bring to a boil. Add the pasta shells.

When shells are al dente (approx. 12 mins), drain and remove cobs. Add pasta to vegetables in bowl. Mix well, check for seasoning, and serve.

Buon appetito!

The Trouble with a Bad Fit

The Trouble with a Bad Fit
A Simona Griffo Mystery
by Camilla T. Crespi
1996, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-109-4080, Harper Paperbacks, ISBN 0-06-109408-0

Where I Get My Ideas

Working with several fashion accounts during my advertising days, I became fascinated with the business of clothes. With Bad Fit I got a chance to study the rag trade and find out how a piece of cloth develops into a dress and tons of hype. I did a lot of research for this book, hanging out in a design studio and at the Fashion Institute of Technology library. I came up with a lot of information that I was afraid to include in the book for fear of slowing the mystery down, so I added "fashion footnotes" in the back of the book for those readers who want to know more. The rag trade the way it was known to the countless immigrants who survived on it is disappearing. As a recent immigrant I wanted to tip my hat to that business.

In this one, I also got a chance to pit Stan against Simona as they work on the same case. I guess I like to test their love for each other.

Setting

New York: the garment district, Greenwich Village, Union Square, Soho, Chinatown, Bryant Park, Upper West Side, Penn Station South, Long Island.
Plot

Roberta Riddle, an aging designer who is trying to make a comeback and one of Simona's difficult clients, has one week to get her act together before the New York ready-to-wear spring/summer fashion shows. Her new partner, Charlie, is giving her problems. Someone is playing nasty tricks on her. Then her muse and fit model, Phyllis, gets her head bludgeoned with Roberta's jade Buddha in the ladies room where Charlie left a bloody fingerprint. Stan Greenhouse is assigned the case. Roberta knows that Stan is also Simona's boyfriend. She offers Simona five thousand dollars to help clear Charlie.

Simona, whose own job is at risk, wants to keep a client happy even though Stan doesn't like it one bit. When someone starts chasing after Simona, she hires a bodyguard -- Dmitri K, a Stalin look-alike who drives a taxi, uses his cousin's pink Cadillac as an office, and sells hair on the side. They soon become sparring partners and fast friends. Careening from one side of Manhattan to another, they piece together the fragments of everyone's past which comes together just as Roberta's models sashay down the runway of the fashion tent in Bryant Park.

Recurring Characters

* Stan Greenhouse
* Raf Garcia, his partner
* Willy Greenhouse
* Gregory Price, Simona's good friend at work last seen in Small Raise

Reviews

A fast paced thriller...Ms. Crespi has an eye for fashion detail that gives the novel a cutting edge. -- The Sunday New York Times Book Review

This is a clever little novel with lots of insider bits about high fashion and snappy characters. -- Toronto Globe & Mail

Quick-moving prose, good garment-district atmosphere and a heady mixture of skeletons in the closet makes this a recommended title. -- Library Journal

Sprightly, sunny, and gossipy: a welcome return. -- Kirkus Reviews

The Beginning

"Garmentos stab you in the chest!" Phyllis announced.

Roberta Riddle ripped a muslin sleeve from the jacket Phyllis was modeling.

From the open workroom door, the tailor scowled. The sample maker nodded. The production manager jiggled his sneakered foot.

Roberta ripped out the other sleeve.

Recipe -- Schmatta* Pasta

Serves six

* 2 oz. dried porcini mushrooms
* 8 tbsps olive oil
* 1 lb. white mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
* 1/2 lb. shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
* 1/2 lb. portobello mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
* salt and pepper to taste
* 2 slices bacon, diced
* 4 cloves garlic, peeled
* 1 (28 oz.) can peeled Italian tomatoes
* 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
* 1/2 cup flat-leafed parsley, chopped
* 1 lb fresh lasagne**
* 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Soak dried porcini mushrooms in 1 1/2 cups of warm water for 30 minutes. Remove the softened porcini from liquid and rinse under water. Chop. Drain mushroom liquid through a sieve lined with a paper towel and reserve.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Heat 2 tbsps. of olive oil in large skillet. Sauté fresh mushrooms in batches over high heat until water evaporates. With each batch, add oil as needed (reserving 2 tbsps). Season with salt and pepper.

In another skillet sauté bacon until crisp. Remove bacon and discard bacon grease. Heat the reserved 2 tbsps. of oil in the same skillet and cook garlic cloves until golden. Add tomatoes, mushroom liquid, bacon, and red pepper flakes. Cook over high heat for ten minutes. Remove garlic and season to taste. Add all the mushrooms and mix well. Cook for another five minutes to heat through. Add parsley.

Tear fresh lasagne into three-inch pieces to make schmatte. Drop lasagne pieces (rags) into the boiling water. Mix well to keep them form sticking to each other. Cook until al dente (three minutes) and drain.

Pour half the sauce and half the Parmesan in a large serving dish. Add schmatte and mix well. Pour rest of mushroom sauce and rest of Parmesan on top. Mix again and serve.

*Schmatta in Yiddish means rag. The clothing business was often referred to as the rag trade or the schmatta trade.

**Dried lasagne can also be used -- crack in half before boiling. Cook until al dente (approx. 10-12 minutes).

NOTE: Recipe can be prepared in advance and kept in refrigerator for two days or can be frozen. If not serving immediately, cook the pasta for only two minutes. Reheat pasta and sauce in 400-degree oven until piping hot (15 minutes approx.).

The Trouble with Going Home

The Trouble with Going Home
A Simona Griffo Mystery
by Camilla T. Crespi
1995, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-109153-7, Harper Paperbacks, ISBN 0-06-109153-7

Where I Get My Ideas

While writing the previous book, Thin Ice, it became clear to me that Simona needed to clear up the debris from her past if she wanted her American life to go anywhere so I took her back home to Rome to face some old ghosts. In this book I wanted to deal with loyalty, tradition, and the power of Italian family ties.

Because Rome is laden with history and art, I begin each chapter with a quote about the city which also connects with the events described in the chapter.

Going Home has been optioned by Dolphin Entertainment for a possible TV movie.

Setting

A Rome tourists seldom see.

Plot

Simona flies back to Rome to find out what has gone wrong in her parent's marriage. She hasn't been back more that an hour when she witnesses the mugging and stabbing death of a young American art student just outside the building where her mother is temporarily living with Mirella, an old friend of the family's and the dead student's art teacher. When the murder weapon is traced back to Mirella's kitchen, Mirella, her son Luke and even her 92-year-old Nonna are suspects. Simona's mother asks Simona to help clear Mirella's family of any suspicion. Simona agrees, although she suspects her mother is really only trying to distract her from finding out what has happened to her father who seems to have disappeared.

Simona soon finds out that Tamar, the dead student, may have been carrying a lost Leonardo da Vinci drawing in the satchel that was stolen the day she was killed -- a drawing that may have been stolen from the crumbling palazzo of a prince who seems very much interested in Simona's mother or taken from the home of a rich American businessman and collector with whom Mirella is in love. Even Simona's ex-husband, who keeps showing up playing the charmer, was somehow involved with the dead student. As Simona tries to help her friends and stay connected to Stan by long distance calls, she has to sort out her own ambivalent feelings as to where home really is.
Recurring Characters

* Stan Greenhouse
* his son Willy

Reviews

A mouth-watering caper. Murder may provide the impetus for the action in this book, but it is a particularly Roman lust for life that keeps us turning the pages. -- The Denver Post

...the picture Crespi paints of the extended Italian family is emotionally complex, and her knowledge of love for them is worth the visit. -- The Drood Review

RECOMMENDED...evocative descriptions of the Eternal City make an interesting backdrop to a compelling mystery. -- Deadly Pleasures

Camilla Crespi makes the city come alive. -- Critics' Choice, America Online

Crespi imbues Simona with new depths and self-revelations, ultimately providing a wonderfully satisfying Roman holiday not only for Simona, but for the readers as well. -- Kate's Mystery Books Newsletter

A fitting background for a mystery shrouded in the examination of the many forms of love, Rome is beautiful and deadly. A very clever puzzle will satisfy but the images of the Eternal City in springtime will captivate and transport the armchair traveler who longs for the rich tastes and smells of Italy. -- Mystery Lovers Bookshop News

The Beginning

"Go thou to Rome, at once the Paradise."
--Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais

It was the girl who held my attention.

The scooter had whizzed in front of me -- two heads and a blur of dark, long hair -- but the girl on the sidewalk looked straight at me, her expression thoughtful, not the stunned surprise I expected.
Recipe -- Pasta Allegria (Happiness Pasta)

Serves four as a main course

* 4 small and firm zucchini
* 2 large yellow bell peppers
* 1 large Japanese eggplant (long and slim, the color is light purple. It is sweeter than Italian eggplant.)
* 2 lbs ripe plum tomatoes
* 2 garlic cloves, minced
* 10 large leaves of basil
* 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
* 1 lb short tubular pasta (penne or rigatoni)
* Salt and pepper
* Kosher salt for pasta water

To be prepared four to six hours before serving:

Remove grill from broiler and cover with tin foil. Turn on broiler. Slice zucchini in 1/8" horizontal strips. Repeat procedure for eggplant. Cut peppers, remove seeds and white cores and slice into 1" strips. Halve the tomatoes.

Lay out zucchini on foil-covered grill, season with salt and pepper, and grill on top rung of broiler for 4 minutes on each side. When done, remove to a large serving bowl.

Repeat procedure for eggplant and peppers (peppers may take longer depending on thickness). The vegetables should turn golden brown, with a few burnt edges. Broil tomatoes, cut side up, for 10-12 minutes. Mix the cooked vegetables together and cut them into smaller pieces inside the bowl. Add minced garlic and hand-shredded basil leaves. Check for seasoning and correct if necessary. Add olive oil. Let the vegetables macerate in the bowl at room temperature for 4 to 6 hours. (If it is a hot day, you may put in refrigerator, but remove at least an hour before serving.)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta. Cook until al dente (10 to 12 minutes depending on quality of pasta). Drain, add to vegetable bowl. Mix well and serve.

The Trouble with Thin Ice

The Trouble with Thin Ice
A Simona Griffo Mystery
by Camilla T. Crespi
1994, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-109554-5, Harper Paperbacks, ISBN 0-06-109154-5

Where I Get My Ideas

I visited a friend in Ridgefield, Connecticut, at Christmas time. Her house overlooks a small lake. I looked out of the window at a peaceful scene of misty snow. It was incredibly beautiful. What better place to kill someone?

Coming from New York City I was surprised not to see any African-Americans so I thought, what if an African-American wanted to buy the estate next to the home where she grew up, the daughter of servants to an influential, often unsavory family? What if the ice covering the lake (read lake as metaphor for the past) is so thin, the slightest pressure will make it crack open? I had fun weaving in choking family ties, secrets created from love and hate. The past plays a strong role in all my stories.

In Thin Ice I try to deal with prejudice, with our preconceptions of who people are, with the delicate balance needed to make any relationship work.

It's my first hardcover!

Setting

Fieldston, a made-up town in Connecticut between Danbury and Ridgefield; the Danbury hospital and mall; and the Upper East Side of New York City.
Plot

It's Christmas time. Simona and Stan go to the Sleepy Hollow Inn to spend their first vacation together and to attend the New Year's Eve wedding of their friends Kesho and Richard. The first problem that arises is that Stan, at the last minute, decided to bring along Willy, his precocious, hostile 14-year-old son. Not exactly the romantic vacation Simona had in mind.

The second problem is that Simona, trying to save a doe from drowning in the half-frozen lake, uncovers the body of Elisabeth Dobson with Kesho's earring nearby. Kesho is accused of the murder. much to the satisfaction of the Dobsons who do not want her as a neighbor. Simona wonders if one of the Dobsons wasn't in fact the murderer. They stood to inherit Elisabeth's home, a Frank Lloyd Wright estate called RockPerch. Why did Elisabeth's husband vanish without a trace eight years earlier? What is Myrna Dobson hiding by getting drunk every night? Why does Charles Dobson dislike his son so intensely?

When Stan is called away to his mother's bedside in Florida, Simona and Willy form an uneasy alliance to help Kesho and uncover the story that led to two deaths in a quiet, snowy village.

In Defense of the Female Amateur Sleuth: One of the characters resists Simona's questions.

"You're not the police. You have no authority to ask anything of me. You're not even some private investigator."

Simona answers: "Women have never waited for authority, have we? We just go ahead and do whatever has to be done century after century. Even when we don't get recognition or a share of the authority, we still keep doing what needs to be done."

Recurring Characters

* Stan Greenhouse

Reviews

Brisk and continuously engaging. Rich in atmosphere and buoyed by wry wit, Crespi's briskly paced narrative calls for an encore. -- Publisher's Weekly (a starred review)

An unusually well-hidden killer. -- Kirkus Reviews

The imprint of architect Frank Lloyd Wright enhances this fourth Simona Griffo mystery, who loves to cook and solve murders, is delightful even when problems increase as she tries to help a friend. -- Oklahoman

Simona exercises her adorable ways with a vengeance. It is Simona's keen intelligence, however, not her bubbly personality, that wins the boy's respect, keeps the bride-to-be out of jail and resolves the old, bitter feuds of a socially hermetic community where the daughters of black servants are not meant to get too uppity. -- The New York Times

Simona Griffo is an appealing protagonist, and the frozen woods of rural Connecticut come alive in Crespi's writing. -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

The Beginning

"Where did you throw my pajamas?" I surfaced from a whirlpool of sheets and quilts on the four-poster bed, hands searching. Greenhouse, naked under the sheets, kept busy with various parts of my body.

"Ouch." I was stalling for time.

"Yum!" was Greenhouse's reply.

We were on our first night of what was to be a week's vacation at the Sleepy Hollow Inn in Fieldston, Connecticut. It was also my first extended vacation with Greenhouse after two years of on and off dating and my first ever with Greenhouse & Son. Too many firsts for relaxation.

Recipe -- Comfort Pasta

Serves six hungry stomachs

* 4 tbsps. olive oil
* 1 large carrot, minced
* 1 celery stalk, minced
* 1 large onion, chopped
* 4 garlic cloves, peeled
* 2 lbs. beef chuck, cut into bite-sized pieces
* 2 cups flour
* 2 cups white wine (optional)
* 1 tbsp. tomato paste
* 5 plum tomatoes, quartered
* 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
* 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
* 1 1/2 lbs. rigatoni
* 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
* 1/4 lb. fresh spinach

Select a heavy-bottomed pan with lid in which all ingredients can fit. Sauté garlic cloves in oil until lightly browned, stirring well. Put flour in a paper bag. Discard cloves and raise the flame to high. In batches drop meat in the paper bag and shake. Flour meat right before adding to pan or else it will get gummy. Add meat to hot oil in batches and brown well on all sides. Add the wine and cook over high heat until almost evaporated. Remove the browned meat and set aside. Lower flame and add onion, scraping the bottom of the pan. Sauté onion until translucent. Add tomato paste, stir and cook 2 minutes. Add a tablespoon of broth if onions are too dry. Add celery and carrot, stir and cook 3 minutes more. Add the meat and accumulated juices. Add tomatoes, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Stir. Add broth. When broth starts to boil, lower flame, partially cover pan, and simmer meat for 1 1/2 hours.

Can be prepared ahead of time up to this point. Stew can be frozen.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.

Cook stew 1/2 hour more at a low boil before serving. Wash and stem spinach.

Add rigatoni to boiling water. When al dente, drain. Add spinach to stew and stir. Spinach will wilt with the heat. Pour half of the stew into a big pasta bowl. Add half the Parmesan. Stir. Add the drained rigatoni. Stir. Add the rest of the stew and Parmesan. Stir again and serve.

Buon appetito!

The Trouble with Too Much Sun

The Trouble with Too Much Sun
A Simona Griffo Mystery
by Trella Crespi


Where I Get My Ideas

I'd been to a few Club Meds and thought the idyllic setting would be a great backdrop for a murder. Plus I needed a vacation badly.

A Sense of Place -- Imagining a story without first knowing where it takes place would be impossible for me. I think it has to do with feeling rootless for most of my life. I grab on to a place for dear life, hoping it will never go away.

Setting

La Caravelle, Club Med, Guadeloupe. The villages of Pointe-à-Pitre and Sainte-Anne, Carbet Falls, and Soufrière volcano.
Plot

When Simona's boss gets called back to New York on an agency emergency, she suddenly finds herself in charge of a publicity shoot for Beau Soleil, a sun product line, on the island of Guadaloupe. The job does not proceed smoothly. The photographer is morose and difficult. Simona feels fat and lonely. The model has rocks thrown at her. The island guide Simona hired turns out to be mixed up with gun runners and voodoo. When Simona tries to return a lost two-year-old boy to his mother, she finds the woman's body under the sail of a Windsurfer. The commissioner in charge, Cristophe Beaujoie, believes someone from the club is involved. Simona wants to help.

"Why do you wish to mix yourself up with violent death?" the commissioner asks Simona.

"It comforts me to know that if I work hard enough, I can come up with solutions."

In this book I worked hard to give the reader a sense of the island, its people, its history and cuisine. I was particularly taken by the folktales, and I created a character Papa "La Bouche" (the mouth) who weaves the history of the slaves and folktales together. The story is also drenched in the sensuality of the tropics.

Recurring Characters

* Ellen Price, the model Simona discovered in A Small Raise.
* Stan Greenhouse, her on-and-off-again lover

Reviews

...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. -- Publisher's Weekly
The Beginning

I was buried up to my neck in the gloriously welcoming, warm sand of La Caravelle -- Club Med on Guadeloupe, while Mozart's Jupiter Symphony was allegroing over the sound system to the rhythm of creaking tree frogs and breaking waves. In the past three happy days the late-January sun had warmed, burned, and finally tanned me.

Now it was sunset time, a quiet affair in the Caribbean.

Recipe -- Pasta Crisi (Crisis Pasta)

Serves 4 as a main course

* 2 lbs. ripe plum tomatoes -- thickly sliced lengthwise
* 1/2 bunch arugula -- leaves torn into small pieces (Substitute with watercress if arugula not available.)
* 2 cloves garlic -- minced
* 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
* 1 large mozzarella -- diced
* 8 sun-dried tomato halves (packed in olive oil) -- drained and chopped
* 1/3 cup olive oil
* 1 lb. imported dried penne or spaghetti
* salt and pepper to taste

Heat broiler.

In large serving bowl mix olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, sun-dried tomatoes, and mozzarella.

When broiler is very hot, line the fresh tomato slices on an aluminum-wrapped broiler pan, season with salt and pepper, and broil tomatoes until their edges turn black -- 10 minutes approx. (repeat this process if pan is not large enough to accommodate all the slices.)

Add broiled tomato slices to serving bowl. Add arugula. This sauce can be prepared a few hours ahead of time. Best served at room temperature.

Cook the pasta in a large pot filled with salted boiling water. When the pasta is al dente, drain and transfer to serving bowl. Toss all the ingredients together, letting the hot pasta soften the mozzarella.

Eat and forget the crisis!

The Trouble with Moonlighting

The Trouble with Moonlighting
A Simona Griffo Mystery
by Trella Crespi

Where I Get My Ideas

I wanted to bring my Italian life into this one to flesh out Simona's past so I gave her a two-week vacation to act as dialogue coach for an Italian film crew shooting New York locations. Again the autobiographical intrudes heavily. The film director, Sara Varni, is modeled after Lina Wertmüller and the male film star bears a strong resemblance to Marcello Mastroianni, people I worked with often.

Setting

New York City -- Lincoln Center, the Upper West Side, Spanish Harlem, Greenwich Village, Soho, the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, the tony Royalton Hotel.
Plot

Simona's dialogue coach stint starts with the glamorous Hollywood star nearly getting electrocuted in the Lincoln Center fountain during a shoot. Simona will also have the pleasant job of finding Johanna dead in her fancy Upper West Side apartment. The still photographer, Toni Berto, Johanna's lover and Simona's old friend, is accused of the murder. Simona, overriding the objections of her detective lover, jumps in to help Toni and uncovers old and new obsessions. It's also a story about loyalty and Simona's search to find her American legs which leads her to make mistakes.

More about names -- Some people objected to a man being named Toni with an i. That's the Italian spelling of the name and since Toni is Sicilian, it would have been wrong to spell his name Tony.

Recurring Characters

* Stan Greenhouse, her NYPD homicide detective lover
* Raf Garcia, Stan's partner

Reviews

[regarding Small Raise and Moonlighting]: Both these books are fine mysteries, well and fairly plotted. But Trella Crespi deserves special congratulations for her characterization of Simona. Crespi has made Simona confident and uncertain, happy with her life and regretting choices made, self-sufficient and, just occasionally lonely. In the hands of some authors the results would seem inconsistent and irritating, but Crespi's writing makes Simona seem very very human. And Crespi has given Simona a normal love life, with lows as well as highs, with everyone doing the best they can and hoping things will work out at last. The reasons for this are numerous as they are trivial, but the end result is a heroine who rings true. -- The Drood Review of Mystery

As the series progresses, she [Simona] will undoubtedly become more skilled in her search for information and more discriminating about what she seeks. I hope she will also become more analytical. At times I grew tired of her efforts to assuage the feelings of the other suspects, but then a less-involved amateur sleuth would not have lingered to create the delicious Sicilian Good Fish Salad, whose recipe concludes the book. -- Mystery Scene

Author comment -- Simona is starting her life over again. She's new at sleuthing and is propelled by emotion and intuition. Give her a chance to settle, to come of age all over again in America. My aim is to give the reader the arc of a woman's life.

The Beginning

Things were getting off to a fine start on my moonlighting job. I was standing on skyscraper-high stiletto heels, wearing a summer evening dress one choking size too small and being sprayed by the wind-swept fountain mist at Lincoln Center on an unusually cold September midnight.

Recipe -- Sicilian Good Fish Salad

Serves four

* 1 19-oz. can of cannellini beans
* 1 15-oz. can of corn kernels
* 1 heart of celery sliced very thin -- about two cups
* 1 bunch scallions sliced -- green part included
* 1/2 red pepper diced very small (for color)
* 3 hearts of palm sliced (optional)
* 1 1-inch tuna steak or 2 cans of light meat tuna
* 4 large basil leaves

Dressing:
* 1+1/2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar or 1 tbsp. lemon juice
* 4 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
* salt and pepper
* 1 clove of garlic -- minced

Drain the beans and the corn, and put in a serving bowl. Add sliced celery, scallions, red pepper, hearts of palm. If using tuna steak, sear it in a tbsp. of oil in a very hot skillet three minutes per side. Let cool and slice. Add to bowl. If using canned tuna, drain and add. Tear basil leaves into small pieces and add to bowl.

In a small bowl mix salt, pepper and garlic to lemon juice or balsamic vinegar. Add olive oil. Whip together well, pour in tuna bowl, and gently mix all ingredients. Serve at room temperature with hearty bread and chilled white wine. Buon appetito!