Death on Tap

August 7, 2017
Set in Leavenworth, Wash., a neo-Bavarian craft beer paradise, this hopped-up series launch from Alexander (A Crime of Passion Fruit and five other Bakeshop mysteries) introduces gifted beer brewer Sloan Krause. When Sloan catches her husband, Mac, in flagrante with the barmaid at the Krause family’s venerable microbrewery, Das Keller, Sloan leaves Mac and takes a job at Nitro, a competing brewery. There she discovers brewmaster Eddie Deluga, “bloated with beer and death” in a brewing tank. The local police chief arrests Mac for Eddie’s murder. For the sake of their teenage son and Mac’s terrific parents and brother, Sloan must save her low-life cheating husband by sussing out the real killer. Meanwhile, the chemistry cooks between Sloan and handsome Garrett Strong, Nitro’s owner. Alexander provides everything you want to know about brewing, maybe more, including the temperature for storing hops and reasons to filter. Readers will enjoy descriptions of Sloan’s IPA cupcakes and chocolate stout brownies; many will wish the recipes weren’t a mystery.

August 1, 2017
Beer is king in a Washington town tarted up to look like Oktoberfest on steroids.Leavenworth has succeeded in making itself into a beer lover's vacation destination full of breweries of all sizes and shops selling German-flavored products from wurst to pretzels. But it offers no comfort to Sloane Krause, who's caught her husband, Mac, with a newly hired barmaid. After growing up in foster homes, Sloan finally found a loving family with Otto and Ursula Krause, who cherish both her and her unrivaled nose for beer. Sloane still lives in the family home and helps her adoptive parents with their brewery, but now she's taken a job with Garrett Strong, who's transformed the restaurant/hotel he inherited from an aunt into Nitro, the town's only nanobrewery. Garrett, a born brewer, needs Sloane's advice about Nitro's food and design. Despite the ardent wish of April Ablin, the town gossip and guardian of kitsch, to transform Nitro into a Bavarian beer hall, Garrett and Sloan manage to keep it modern. All goes well until Sloan discovers the body of Eddie Deluga, the brewmaster at Bruin's Brewing, floating in a tank of Nitro's best beer the morning after their successful opening. The murder doesn't seem to hurt business, but Garrett and Sloan have their hands full purchasing the hops they need for a new batch from a hops grower with his own priorities. A glowering Mac's failed at every attempt to win Sloan back, but when he's arrested for the murder, Sloan finds herself looking for other suspects. Mac may be a bad husband with more charm than substance, but she's sure he's not a killer. Alexander (A Crime of Passion Fruit, 2017, etc.) kicks off a new series that takes the passion for wine-related cozies in a new direction with oodles of beer lore, plenty of pleasant characters, and a stronger mystery than usual.

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September 1, 2017

After Sloan Krause walks in on her husband, Mac, having sex with the new barmaid, she kicks him out and quits her job at the Krause family brewery. This also means leaving Mac's parents, who have become stand-ins for the ones Sloan never knew. An expert at craft beer and food preparation, Sloan is excited about an opportunity at Nitro, a new microbrewery and taproom in the Bavarian-inspired town of Leavenworth, WA. But her thrill is tempered when she finds a body in Nitro's tank and Mac becomes a suspect after his lighter and fingerprints are found at the scene. Although Mac is a cheater, Sloan is set to prove he isn't a killer. VERDICT The author of the "Bakeshop" mysteries (A Crime of Passion Fruit) introduces a new series with likeable characters, an atmospheric small-town setting, and a quirky adversary for the amateur sleuth. The engaging premise and pairings of beer and food should appeal to fans of Avery Aames's "Cheese Shop" titles.--LH

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