“It’s Florida. Everyone’s strange. They shouldn’t be jerks on top of it.”
(p. 23). CROOKED LANE BOOKS. Kindle Edition.
Grounds for Murder is a mystery/romance taking place in contemporary times in a fictional Florida town called Devil’s Beach, three hours west of Miami on the Gulf of Mexico. It is written well for an author’s first novel, and for me, it was a welcome relief from some of the heavier literary stories I have been reading lately. Every time I read a “youngish” author, I learn something new about our culture. In this book, it was about competitive latte art. Baristas compete with each other for the best blended and decorative lattes. In this story, Lana Lewis, owner of the Perkatory coffee shop, plans to enter a latte competition with her employee, Fabrizio Bellucci (Fab), an Italian barista and “Instagramer.” She is happily running her late mother’s cafe after getting divorced and losing her job as a journalist. Fab has excellent barista skills, lives upstairs from the shop, and Lana is doing her best to befriend him while tolerating his reputation as a womanizer.
Lana attends an event in Miami, and when she returns to open Perkatory at 6:00 am, she finds Fab’s dead body as she parks her car. The police, headed by small-town chief Noah Garcia, whom Lana falls in love with, want to rule Fab’s death a suicide, but Lana can’t help but use her journalism skills to begin investigating the death as a murder. During her investigation and the story’s development, there are interesting Florida characters, including an alligator poacher and a mermaid tail maker. There are mafia connections among Lana’s potential suspects, and Lana also makes a new friend as she is forced to make business decisions. Additionally, Lana grows assertive when confronting her ex-husband and then the girl who bullied her in high school. So, there is much going on, and nothing is too deep or intense. It’s a good story and a quick read.
