College professor Alison Bergeron stops in a shop called
Beans, Beans for a cup of coffee while on her way to meet
her (about to be) fiancé's family. She's not sure she wants
to meet his family, and she's not sure that she wants to
marry him, either. Bobby Crawford is a gorgeous cop and all
a girl
could ever want in a man, but Alison is gun shy with good
reason. The coffee is meant to fortify her but, instead, she
gets caught in the middle of an actual fistfight. As the two
men come crashing through the door, she gets knocked to the
pavement. When the owner of the shop manages to get things
under control after calling the cops, he takes Alison inside
to put something cold on her quickly swelling and blackening
eye. One of the men comes back inside to apologize to Alison
just before he drops dead on the spot.
As it turns out, the dead man is a much despised local food
critic, Carter Wilmott, with many enemies. His cause of
death is ruled as a blow to the head but something just
doesn't make sense to Alison. Things get even more
interesting when the wife of the man in jail for killing
Carter starts following Alison around town. In the midst of
all of this, Alison's good friend, Father Kevin, is having
some strange problems of his own that he says he can't share
with her.
Alison's long-suffering almost fiance', Crawford, is
starting to lose patience with her refusal to discuss
whether or not she's marrying him. It's hard for her to do
that, though, when she keeps feeling nauseous every times
she tries to think about it. Actually, Alison's been feeling
sick a lot and that's another puzzle.
When it starts to dawn on her as to what really happened to
Carter, things begin to get dangerous for her. Is she going
to get this mystery solved before someone shuts her up
permanently? Will she agree to marry Crawford? Is August
going to continue to be a bad month for her?
This is one of the most engrossing "cozy" mysteries I've
ever had the pleasure to read. The action just doesn't stop!
Also, there are plenty of "laugh out loud" moments in this
book to make people turn and stare at you if you're reading
the book in public. It's book 5 in the Murder 101 series,
but the first one that I've read. I'll be getting the rest
of them now because Alison is one of the most enjoyable book
characters that I've run into in ages.
Do yourself a favor and get to know Alison Bergeron. You're
going to love her and all of her mysterious adventures.
On her way to meet her boyfriend’s parents, Alison Bergeron
has to stop by a local coffee shop to steel her resolve.
It’s a big event. Not only is it the first time she’s met
NYPD Detective Bobby Crawford’s entire family, but it’s also
coming on the heels of a wedding proposal that she has left
unanswered so far.
As she steps into the shop, a fight
breaks out between Carter Wilmott, a merciless local
blogger, and George Miller, the head of the town's public
works and the ostensible target of one of Wilmott’s posts.
The brawl quickly spirals out of control, and George lands a
fatal blow.
The case couldn’t be anymore simple, and Alison witnessed
the whole thing, but when Wilmott’s car explodes in the
aftermath, what looked to be a straightforward crime of
passion becomes something far more complicated and
premeditated, and George Miller’s wife wants Alison to clear
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