Grounds for murder A coffee lover's mystery

In Lush's diverting debut, Lana Lewis comes home to the island of Devil's Beach, Fla., to run Perkatory, her family's café, and recover after losing her reporter's job in Miami and divorcing her philandering husband. Among her problems are the upcoming Sunshine State Barista Championship, where she will have to display top-notch barista skills even though she's a beginner, as well as her employee and championship partner, Fabrizio "Fab" Bellucci, who's dating Lana's high school nemesis, Paige Dotson, and is linked to other jealous women. After Fab decamps for the café owned by Paige's father, Lana's heated confrontation with him makes her the leading murder suspect to the locals when his body turns up outside Perkatory. Lana thinks the police's theory of suicide is unfounded and uses her reporter's skills to uncover Fab's kinky sexual escapades and involvement with shady characters in potentially illegal activities. Lana's voyage of self-discovery, along with her new agey father, quirky hire Erica, and feisty puppy Stanley, portend future fun for readers. Agent: Amanda Leuck, Spencerhill Assoc. (Dec.)

A journalist divorced by her philandering husband and laid off from a Miami newspaper settles in Devil's Beach to manage her father's coffee shop and finds murder, romance, and some outstanding lattes. There's no reason why Lana Lewis shouldn't offer Erica Penmark a job as barista at Perkatory. But Fabrizio Bellucci, the barista who's talked Lana into entering the first annual Sunshine State Barista Championships with him and is helping her perfect her decorative lattes, takes umbrage at the competition and quits without telling Lana. The next time she sees him, he's serving coffee at the Island Brewnette, a rival establishment owned by his girlfriend Paige's father, Mickey Dotson, where Lana tells him off but good. The time after that, he's a dead body in the alley behind the apartment he rented from Lana's father. Clearly he took a header from the roof onto which he'd enticed so many ladies charmed by his abs and his Italian accent. But did he fall, or was he pushed? Police chief Noah Garcia, who Lana wishes would take her to some nice roof even though he doesn't drink coffee, won't say whether he thinks Fab was murdered, let alone whether Lana gave him a shove. So Lana, ignoring his polite request to butt out, volunteers to do a feature story for her old editor on Fab that will justify her poking around, chatting up suspects like reputed mob foot soldier Lex Bradstreet, and turning up clues like pictures of an unknown woman in bondage in Fab's place. At length she confronts the killer and narrowly escapes death just in time for the Barista Championships. You'll never guess who wins. A debut that ticks off so many boxes of the shopkeeper cozy that the lack of recipes is truly remarkable. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.