My current novel, To Catch a Spy, can be ordered from Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

Martinique

A signature dish of Martinique is Columbo de ____________. Fill in the blank with chicken, vegetables, lamb, fish, pork, or whatever you’d like.

That main ingredient is marinated and cooked in the legendary Columbo spice, and often served with spiced rice (which is fun to say) and maybe plantains. Or it can look like a stew; it’s totally up to the cook.

Columbo spice is very unique. It originated in Columbo, the capital of Sri Lanka, and some have called it a Creole Curry. The spice migrated with Indian laborers, who traveled from Sri Lanka to Martinique in the late 1800s, and it picked up some flavorful additions after its arrival.

Its ingredients include turmeric, cumin, coriander, black pepper, and mustard seeds, among others. Since it’s based on brown mustard and black pepper (as opposed to being chili-pepper based), it’s said to have a sharp but less intensely spicy flavor.

The recipes look great, but perhaps a little beyond what I can handle…

After learning this, I dug a little further -- exactly how did the city of Columbo, Sri Lanka get its name? After all, Columbo sounds Italian to me. And there was that TV show with that detective in the raincoat…maybe it was a big hit there??

Turns out it is derived from the Sinhalese phrase, Kola-amba-thota, which roughly translates into ‘harbor with leafy mango trees.’ By the way, Sinhalese is an Indo-Aryan language, not an Indian dialect, and is spoken by the majority of Sri Lankans. If you’d like more information about Sinhalese, you’re on your own.

Anyway, when the Portuguese arrived around 1500, they adopted, then adapted, the name.

And today we have Columbo, which has nothing to do with Italy or Peter Falk’s TV show.

What was I thinking?

My World

I’ve been getting a lot of pictures of To Catch a Spy from around the country and around the world, and I LOVE it. So much so that I’m posting them on X, Instagram, and my website (www.tocatchathief.com/readers).

I got the idea from my brother Paul and his wife Sherri, who ran a very successful Italian Ice store — they used to take pictures of their customers and put them in the window. Great idea!

Two guys enjoying a perfect day…the beaches look nice, too

It’s humbling to see so many people enjoying the book in far-away places like Asia, Quebec, and the Caribbean. And also in familiar places like New Jersey and South Carolina.

Friends, family, strangers, well-known authors, and media personalities have sent photos. And I post them all.

One sighting that really touched me was my book in The Strand in NYC.

I went there so many times when I worked in Downtown NYC. Decades ago, I was trying to learn backgammon, and there was a specific book I wanted. So I went there and asked about it. They didn’t have it in stock, but they got it for me. How, I have no idea; buying books wasn’t like it was today. But they did it.

The other image that touched me was Foyle’s bookstore in London. A couple we’re very close to happened to be in London and stopped in to ask about it. They were told the book had sold out but was on reorder. I was so impressed.

BTW, Foyle’s is one of the most iconic bookstores in the world. And they’re famous for a few reasons. First, they supposedly had 30 miles of bookshelves in their Charing Cross Road store. I can’t even imagine that. And who measured that? It must have taken forever.

Also, they were well-known for their ancient, weird and infuriating sales process -- you had to wait in 3 lines to buy a book; one to get an invoice for the book, the second line to pay for it, and the third line to actually get it. Apparently, they didn’t want staff handling cash, so they annoyed their customers. Not a common business philosophy, but what do I know?

That’s all changed now. If you want to buy To Catch a Spy, you can do so the normal way; their procedure was updated around 2000. Not that long ago, if you ask me.

Surprisingly, the store also inspired a series of books about ‘The Foyles Bookshop Girls.’

Anyway, please send a picture of the book, you and the book, whatever you’d like. I’d love to post it!

You can submit it via the website at www.tocatchathief.com/readers (see copy up top) or email it to me at markoneill03@outlook.com. All I need is the location it was taken.

Martinique’s Signature Dish & Pictures of Readers with To Catch a Spy

Martinique

My World

Martinique During WW2, Island Rum, and Picking a POV

To Catch a Spy