Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of Greasing the Piñata by Tim Maleeny

Greasing the Piñata by Tim Maleeny

Greasing the Piñata

by Tim Maleeny

  • Critics' Consensus (1):
  • Readers' Rating (14):
  • Published:
  • Dec 2008, 247 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Greasing the Piñata is a novel about family, politics, and the devastating effects of tequila on a private detective's investigative abilities. It is the third novel in the Cape Weathers series, and the first to be published in hardcover.

A former U.S. Senator vanishes days after his son goes missing. When they're both found dead on a golf course, body parts missing, in Mexico, the Senator's estranged daughter Rebecca resolves to discover what happened.

Private investigator Cape Weathers doesn't really want the case. He can't stand politicians and doesn't know the terrain. But when it looks like the daughter may become the next victim, Cape crosses the border looking for answers.

Cape asks his deadly companion Sally, trained by the Hong Kong Triads, to watch his back as he stumbles onto a conspiracy that leads from corporate boardrooms in San Francisco to strongholds in Mexico. Together they confront a killer determined to bury the past along with anyone trying to dig it up.

Miles away from home and nowhere near finding the answers, Cape manages to get kidnapped, steal from the mob, piss off the DEA, alienate the local police, confound a computer genius, and somehow lose the client he's been protecting all along.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Maleeny smoothly mixes wry humor and a serious plot without sacrificing either in his third Cape Weathers mystery (after 2007's Beating the Babushka)." - Publishers Weekly.

"Definitely not for the faint of heart but just right for readers who like a gritty crime novel with a labyrinth of plot twists." - Library Journal.

"The Cape Weathers novels are smart, snappily written, energetic mysteries starring an engaging hero." - Booklist.

This information about Greasing the Piñata was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Gary

greasing the pinata
Cape Weathers, ex reporter turned P.I.,takes on a case involving politicians,mafiosi,and the drug cartel,for his client,which takes him from his home base of San Francisco to Mexico. Enlisting the aid of his friend Sally, he encounters adventures and plot twists to keep you guessing till the end! A very enjoyable read. A straight ahead P.I. mystery, Poison Pen Press really impresses with their quality reads. I might even join the mystery of the month club. With a line like,"the moon was a full as a drunkards bladder" how can you miss! read it!

Talya

Greasing the Piñata - Cape Weathers, PI
This is the third and in my opinion, the best Cape Weathers' Investigation novel. The characters are all very unique, including the reappearance of Sally, the beautiful trained assassin sidekick. The novel includes politics, drugs, the environment, and murder--everything to make a great crime novel. I hope to see more from Tim Maleeny and Cape Weathers.

Jill

FUN, FAST AND EASY!
Anything can happen in Mexico. And pretty much everything happens to P.I. Cape Weathers in a mystery that starts with a couple of dead bodies in a golf course water hazard and doesn’t end until the Mexican Mafia, a Chinese Triad alum and a few U.S. politicians have made an appearance—and gotten a little sweaty, testy or dead.
All the while, Weathers keeps batting at the piñata that is his case: Who killed his client’s father and brother and why?
This Mexican party has Weathers getting fairly beaten around himself in a mystery that, chapter by chapter, will keep you reading at break-finger pace!
Enjoy this one on your own—while not a beach read by any stretch, this is a novel much more suited to personal enjoyment than a deep discussion by your local book club. Tim Maleeny’s Cape Weathers is a guy you want to savor on your own; and at your own pace. Like your first boyfriend, he probably won’t stand up to a lot of in-depth scrutiny, but he is a hell of a lot of fun!

Joanne

Greasing the Pinata by Tim Maleeny
The author's writing style, short chapters with attention grabbing first sentences and intriguing final lines,makes the story move right along. Private investigator Cape Weathers and his associates, trained by the Hong Kong Triad Sally and commitedly green Linda, comprise an oddly likable core trio.

This case is set primarily in San Francisco and Mexico. The plot revolves around current issues but is peppered with just the right amount of testosterone and old gumshoe style metaphors. Greasing the Pinata should appeal to readers who enjoy action mysteries. It might be interesting to see this author weave Cape and Sally into a more psychologically suspenseful who-dunnit in a future tale.

Sally

Organized violence
"No one believes they're going to die until it happens, and then it's too late." That's the great opening line of this fast-paced mystery. I read a lot of mysteries, mostly cozies and British police procedurals, so this was outside my normal range. There was some graphic violence, but I enjoyed the book very much in spite of it.

Velma

Anything can happen in Mexico
Cape Weathers is in Mexico looking for a missing person who unfortunately turns up dead. Thus begins a smoothly written, complicated mystery with some action. While this was my first experience with Tim Maleeny's work I found myself quickly comfortable with his writing style and breezed through the book in a couple of days. It would have been sooner, but work got in the way. I thought his most intriguing character was Sally, an oriental assassin, who tweaked my interest and made me wish that more of her story had been told. Aside from some questionable language and violence this would make a highly suitable piece for a quick read or a vacation book.

...8 more reader reviews

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Information

This is Maleeney's third Cape Weathers novel following Stealing the Dragon (2007) and Beating the Babushka (2007).

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more mysteries...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.