LAST BITE

Peele’s comedic mystery follows a Chicago widow dealing with loss and under-the-table intrigue.

At the funeral of Vinnie Sortino, a beloved Cubs fan and longtime Chicago city employee, his widow, Angie, discovers that his death has left behind as many questions as fond memories. Forced to spread the casket payment across three credit cards (two of which are declined), Angie realizes Vinnie has left her nearly broke. The debts deepen as the mourners arrive, each with a hidden agenda, including Vinnie’s sharp-tongued sister and her mangy dog, a flirtatious colleague named Ralph Conti, and Cookie Guggleman, a sultry HR officer from City Hall who hints that Vinnie’s pension might be stolen out from under Angie. When Ralph learns that mob-connected loan sharks are demanding repayment for Vinnie’s Cubs bets, he vows to protect Angie, even as his affair with an alderman’s glamorous wife, Rebecca, threatens to drag him into the same corrupt orbit. Angie’s efforts to rebuild lead her to take a job cleaning City Hall by day and move in with her niece, Gina, to launch a morbidly funny catering business called Last Bite, which pulls her deeper into a web of civic secrets that may extend to the mayor’s office. Amid crooked officials, crazed Cubs fandom, and tangled loyalties, Angie struggles to reinvent herself. Peele writes with warmth and sharp comic timing. The funeral-set opening strikes a deft balance between sincerity and humor, which is carried throughout the novel via sharp, funny lines (Gina quips about her roommate’s weed habit, “Some people have Glade air freshener; we have eau de marijuana”). In tone and spirit, the novel recalls Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987) with its bittersweet mix of mystery and humor. The catering subplot drags a little compared to the novel’s more exciting threads, but Peele consistently draws readers into a fun and familiar Chicago (full of Cubs chatter and crooked City Hall corridors) without slipping into cliché, thanks to her vibrant character work—Angie’s determination to change her life will undoubtedly win readers over.

A hearty novel layering grief and humor in a flavorful Chicago-style slice.