Brenda H. (booksinvt) -
Death by Vanilla Latte is the fourth installment in the Bookstore Café Mystery series featuring coffee shop/book store co-owner Kristina "Krissy" Hancock set in the small town of Pine Hills, Ohio. Things at the shop have finally settled down and the newly established Death by Coffee sees to be picking up a following especially amongst the local book lovers.
Pesky busybody and local gossip Rita Jablonski is beside herself with glee that her idol, James Hancock, famed mystery author and Krissy's father is in town for a book signing. James is accompanied by his literary agent, Rick Wiseman and the man's assistant Cameron Little. Rick has always given Krissy the creeps as he's shown an unhealthy interest in her ever since she was a little girl.
The local mystery group offers up their novels to the agent and are both astonished and angry when the rude man laughs in their faces. Not deterred, the group descends on his hotel later that evening and when he won't answer the door leave their manuscripts at his door. James witnesses one of Rick's unwanted advances on Krissy and he arrives at the hotel for a confrontation with the agent resulting in Rick's bloody nose.
It's really no surprise when the agent doesn't appear at Death by Coffee the next morning, Krissy volunteers to go look for him and finds him dead in his hotel room. Obviously first on nemesis Officer John Buchannan's suspect list are Krissy and her father. Determined to clear both their names, Krissy sets out to find the real killer.
Things about this series continue to annoy me, mostly the fact that Krissy does little work at her shop instead relying on Vicki and the two shop employees to pick up her slack. Krissy still seems to have no friends in the local community and the dreaded love triangle seems to be coming to the forefront in the series. I was happy to see Krissy's father come to town and hope that we will be seeing more of him in the future.
Pesky busybody and local gossip Rita Jablonski is beside herself with glee that her idol, James Hancock, famed mystery author and Krissy's father is in town for a book signing. James is accompanied by his literary agent, Rick Wiseman and the man's assistant Cameron Little. Rick has always given Krissy the creeps as he's shown an unhealthy interest in her ever since she was a little girl.
The local mystery group offers up their novels to the agent and are both astonished and angry when the rude man laughs in their faces. Not deterred, the group descends on his hotel later that evening and when he won't answer the door leave their manuscripts at his door. James witnesses one of Rick's unwanted advances on Krissy and he arrives at the hotel for a confrontation with the agent resulting in Rick's bloody nose.
It's really no surprise when the agent doesn't appear at Death by Coffee the next morning, Krissy volunteers to go look for him and finds him dead in his hotel room. Obviously first on nemesis Officer John Buchannan's suspect list are Krissy and her father. Determined to clear both their names, Krissy sets out to find the real killer.
Things about this series continue to annoy me, mostly the fact that Krissy does little work at her shop instead relying on Vicki and the two shop employees to pick up her slack. Krissy still seems to have no friends in the local community and the dreaded love triangle seems to be coming to the forefront in the series. I was happy to see Krissy's father come to town and hope that we will be seeing more of him in the future.
