The Satanic Mechanic: A Tannie Maria Mystery

Now an Acorn Original TV Series Starring Maria Doyle Kennedy, Kylie Fisher, and Tony Kgoroge

Tannie Maria, our crime-fighting, food-loving heroine, returns to solve another delicious caper: the mystery of her own romantic future

Tannie Maria--recipe writer turned crime fighter--barely has time to return to her cooking and advice column for the local Gazette when she finds herself embroiled in another whodunnit--Slimkat the Bushman’s life is being threatened, and Tannie Maria is determined to find out who wants to kill him. The nature reserve beside the Kuruman River has been awarded as ancestral land to the Bushmen, also known as the San people, and a host of greedy parties, like diamond miners and cattle companies, are willing to do whatever it takes to keep them from claiming it.

Add to the mix that Tannie Maria is also trying to overcome her own hangups in love with her boyfriend, the rugged detective Lieutenant Henk Kannymeyer, and--for the first time in her life--to go on a diet, there is no shortage of conundrums personal and professional for an amateur sleuth to confront in this delightful, warm-hearted sequel to Sally Andrew’s Recipes for Love and Murder, one of O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE’s Books To Start 2016 Right.”

Blending a madcap mystery with lovable characters, in the beautiful setting of South Africa’s rural Klein Karoo, Sally Andrew really does have the perfect recipe for a crime series.

Tannie Maria, recipe writer turned crime fighter, writes the love advice and recipe column for the Klein Karoo Gazette: words of wisdom for the lovelorn, along with a recipe for something helpful and delicious. But Maria has a problem of her own. Her relationship with the rugged detective Henk Kannemeyer is still haunted by the memory of her abusive late husband, so she decides to check out a counseling group run by a man they call the Satanic Mechanic. Then a local land-rights activist is murdered—poisoned before her eyes—and Tannie Maria’s quest for healing takes a more investigative turn. Which means her relationship with Henk is about to get professional. And more important, very complicated.

There is no shortage of conundrums personal and investigative for an amateur sleuth to confront in this delightful, warm-hearted sequel to Sally Andrew’s Recipes for Love and Murder. Blending a madcap mystery with lovable characters in the beautiful setting of South Africa’s rural Klein Karoo, Sally Andrew really does have the perfect recipe for a crime series.

"Food heals, arouses, coerces, and kills in Andrew’s sublime second psychological cozy featuring South African agony aunt Tannie Maria van Harte...Her food wisdom is universal, unassailable: potato salad eases worry; warm orange pudding makes one feel whole." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Readers who’ve come to love Tannie Maria will enjoy the book." - East Bay Times

"Her book is a thing of beauty." - Daily Maverick