Business at the Belle View catering hall is hopping and Mia Carina has to maintain her juggling act for the holiday season - not just two large events (a Sweet Sixteen party that keeps being changed ever other day and a first birthday Party with a Nativity theme including live animals) - but family obligations are rearing their heads - her estranged mother has returned and her "godfather" wants her help with a family problem. Put this all together and then add murder where it could be a family member as murderer and Mia is served up a smorgasbord of suspects.

This series is so fun! Great characters and amusing well-written mysteries! ( )

Maria DiRico’s Catering Hall Mysteries is a cozy series that I always look forward to reading, and It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder is the perfect way to start off your Holiday reading!

Besides the well developed characters and fantastic community in this series, the other thing I also know I can count on in lots of action and crazy event situations. Some cozies spend a lot of time having the main character just going to talk to people to find out who the killer is, but DiRico incorporates so many fun and interesting scenarios that at times this series has the fast pace of a thriller. I never find myself skimming her books…. and that is some of the highest praise I can give.

If you haven’t already started this series from the beginning, you should do so with Here Comes the Body. But if you’ve already read the first two in the Catering Hall series then you can look forward to a crazy first birthday, an outrageous sweet sixteen that introduces us to a new character that I look forward to seeing in future books, Nona and her posse dominating the Christmas decorating scene along with a dark horse that helps them become the talk of the town, an estranged mother, and so much more! ( )

Is the holiday season supposed to be fun? Mia Carina has to ask herself this in the third installment of Maria DiRico’s Catering Hall Mysteries. Estranged and incarcerated relatives crashing the holiday in the Carina household would have been plenty for Mia to deal with but add in her friend Jamie Boldano’s family drama and it’s Christmas ala murder. Throw in an inappropriate crush on her employee, Shane, from yet another mobbed up family, and two events at the catering hall to survive before she can take a breath and enjoy the Christmas season.

I was given an ARC from the author for an honest review. ( )

This third book in the Catering Hall series is fun. In this Christmas-themed book, Mia Carina, part of an Italian family in an Italian neighborhood in Queens, NY, is working at as an event planner for a banquet facility run by her father for the leading organized crime family.

The characters are absolutely marvelous, so much so that I want to go back ASAP and read the first two books in the series, as well as any forthcoming books.

This delightful holiday mystery is highly recommended!!

(I received a copy of this book from the Publisher, via Net Galley, in exchange for a fair and honest review.) ( )

Mia Carina returned home to Astoria, Queens, after her husband disappeared in a boating accident in Florida. Since then, she's been managing the Belle View Catering Hall as an event planner, working for her father Ravello, who's finally in a legitimate business for the powerful Boldano Family, whom he works for.

She, along with her employees Shane and Cammie (who pretends to work but is priceless to Mia in other ways), are planning a first birthday party based on the Nativity, and a Sweet Sixteen party for an angst-ridden teenager who's slowly bonding with Mia.

But the real problem comes when the Boldanos call Mia to their home. Donny Senior and his wife Aurora are worried because their youngest son Jamie has been approached by a man claiming to be his half-brother. What the Boldanos think is that this con artist is just looking for a way into the family. They want Mia to be with them when they talk to Jamie, and she agrees. But the plan backfires, and now she's in the middle of their problems.

But things get worse -- her mother, who lives in Italy, shows up out of the blue and tries to get Mia to forgive her for leaving. But Mia doesn't know how to handle it, and her grandmother Elisabetta, with whom Mia lives, isn't buying any of it. Also on hand is the fact that Elisabetta is trying to get her block to win a trophy for best Christmas display, and she's got a Tony Benne-Santa (don't ask) to beat. Things are heating up for Mia.

Just when things can't get any worse, a body is discovered in one of the displays, its feet sticking out from a Santa's workshop. Now Mia finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation, trying to prove the innocence of people she loves like her own, and in doing so, she just might ring some bells that would rather she didn't...

This is the third book in the series, and I think it is the best of the three. Mia is really in the middle of it this time, and she's lucky she doesn't have a nervous breakdown with everything that's happening: planning two events, the reason her mother returned, her best friend Jamie's problems, and the problems between his family, her grandmother's attempts at winning a trophy. In between there are other things happening, and the root of a lot of the humor in the book (and some are so funny that I had to read the passages to my husband). There's one scene that takes place between Mia and her mother over at Mia's friend Phillip's home that's practically hilarious, in its own way.

But even the body takes second place to how it got there and who put it there: Mia is trying her best to find the killer, even if it causes her (very) personal pain (another funny scene). She's lucky to get out in one piece, in my mind. Anyway, she goes through a series of challenges as she's trying to keep the Boldano family members out of jail.

It's a wild ride over the Christmas holidays, and almost like being at a county fair, watching the antics go on. Especially fun is her grandmother and her neighbors as they try and out-Christmas-design each other's lawns and homes. Let us not forget the constant strings of Italian thrown in here and there, some invectives (hey, I'm slowly learning the language! When I get mad at my husband, he won't know what I'm saying -- ha!). And, of course, some delicious recipes at the end which I plan to make...

When the ending comes and the killer is revealed, it's a twisted tale of threads that were merely one at a time in the beginning, but slowly began to come together in a tapestry of lies, intrigue, misunderstandings, and secrets. What ends up is a wonderful tale that I wish didn't end at all. I love Mia and everyone around her and truly can't wait for the next in the series. Highly recommended. ( )