Book Review: Tapas on the Ramblas by Anthony Bidulka

Charity Wiser, head of Wiser Meats and the head of the Wiser Clan, delights in tormenting her family with the monies she plans of divvying up in her will. Her form of torment, however, is unusual -- she forces the family to gather together for yearly Charity Events (Charity meaning her and not actual charities). She finds either the most unsuitable location or runs the family through a horrendous onslaught of group activities, convincing them that this is what they need to do in order to garner a good spot in her will. At the last such event, though, someone finally had enough of the terrorizing and decided to take action, mistakenly poisoning her cat.

To uncover who in the Wiser family has it in for her, Charity stages one final event and brings in Russell Quant, a gay private investigator. Charity's family will be gathering for a Mediterranean cruise aboard the Friend of Dorothy Cruiseliner -- a gay-friendly cruise chosen specifically to make her family uncomfortable. On top of that, she's let the family know that she plans on changing her will so it's up to Russell to untangle the web of greed and lies within the Wiser family before Charity -- or even Russell himself -- winds up dead in the water.

I liked the characters. Most of the gay/lesbian characters showed the diversity of the gay community -- from the sometimes in-your-face drag queens to the business-like lesbian captain of the ship -- and I like that Charity Wiser never hid her relationship with her lover Dottie from her family, no matter what they may have felt about it.

But it was the twists and turns of the story kept my attention. I never had a solid inkling as to who the murder could be thanks to all the re-directing of potential culpability. With many mysteries, it sometime becomes apparent early on in the story just who the guilty party is, but this story had so many different trails to follow that even I didn't know how Russell would pull off solving the mystery.

Tapas on the Ramblas is a fun mystery, something that is filled with enough interesting characters (from the Wiser clan and members of the ship's crew to two Mary and Rhoda drag queens), plot twists, well thought out red herrings, and murders to keep any reader entertained.

Tapas on the Ramblas
by Anthony Bidulka
Insomniac Press
ISBN: 1-894663-97-7
trade paperback, 289 pgs.

purchased book

Image from Shelfari.