I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
In Too Steep by Kate Kingsbury Series: Misty Bay Tearoom #2
Published by Crooked Lane Books on August 9, 2022
Genres: Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Amateur Sleuth, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Cozy / Culinary, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths
Pages: 288
Format: ARC, eBook
Source: Netgalley
The peace and tranquility of the Misty Bay Tearoom is rocked by murder and a long-buried secret hidden in a most unlikely place in bestselling author Kate Kingsbury’s second charming book for fans of Cleo Coyle and Laura Childs.
It seemed like a simple case: the murder of Lewis Trenton, a beachcomber who lived alone in a cabin in the Oregon hills. But the newspaper article piques the interest of Vivian Wainwright, owner of the British-style Misty Bay Tearoom. The photo accompanying the article shows Lewis’s cluttered living room, and on the shelf is a replica of Big Ben. Vivian is sure she sold the clock a week before in her shop. Who could have given the replica to Lewis?
Unable to keep from doing a bit of sleuthing, Vivian hunts down the replica in a local thrift shop, noticing that the base is missing, rendering it worthless, but just as Vivian is about to throw it in the trash, a sparkle catches her eye. It’s a diamond, hidden away in a crevice in the clock. Vivian takes the diamond to Detective Tony Messina, who identifies it as part of a jewelry heist in Portland a month earlier. Portland police think Lewis was the fence who sold the jewels, and that he was killed after double-crossing the thieves—but Messina doesn’t believe the story.
What was the true motive behind Lewis’s murder? How did he come upon the diamond? And what secrets can the clock tell—before the killer strikes again?
Obligatory this is the second in a series and I did not read the first. In this book, Vivian has an adopted dog, Felix, who I found Annoying and Uninteresting. This book also has a lot of ‘thriller’ elements — it surrounds a diamond theft and then a ‘surprise’! murder. It’s paced kind of weirdly, and there’s multiple points of view, which I Also Hated. There are incredible food descriptions, but no recipes in the back. 2.75 stars from me, rounded up to 3 stars for NetGalley.
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