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) fiancΓ©'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 boyfriendβs parents, Alison Bergeron
has to stop by a local coffee shop to steel her resolve.
Itβs a big event. Not only is it the first time sheβs met
NYPD Detective Bobby Crawfordβs entire family, but itβs 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 Wilmottβs posts.
The brawl quickly spirals out of control, and George lands a
fatal blow.
The case couldnβt be anymore simple, and Alison witnessed
the whole thing, but when Wilmottβs car explodes in the
aftermath, what looked to be a straightforward crime of
passion becomes something far more complicated and
premeditated, and George Millerβs wife wants Alison to clear
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