Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Death on Tap

Title: Death on Tap
Author: Ellie Alexander
Expected Publication: October 3rd 2017 by Minotaur Books
Format: eBook, Hardcover, 320 pages
Genre: Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Sloan Kraus #1

I should have known that if the murder did not happen in the first twenty five percent of the book, that this was not a “who-done-it” and that the body floating in the fermenter was only an incidental part of the bigger picture.

Leavenworth, Washington is a Pacific Northwest destination town centered on beer with its Bavarian architecture and Oktoberfest banners. Sloan Krause and her husband Mac are brew masters for his family’s business Das Keller. All that came to a crashing halt when Sloan finds her husband in a compromising position with a barmaid and she wastes no time in heading off to the newest nanobrewery in town - Nitro.

All would have been fine and dandy if it was not for the body that they found floating in the tank at Nitro and fingers being pointed at Mac since he has a bit of a temper and a business on a downhill slide. Sloan wants to clear his name, if not for him, but for his aging parents that have been disappointed by Mac’s most recent antics and bad business deals.

This is where the book takes off in all sorts of directions and the idea of this being called a mystery left completely in the dust. This is a book about family, about beer and hops, about coming to terms with life in foster care and how people can take you in and make you one of their own. Plus, a murder that needed to be tied up since it was mention earlier in the book.

This is the first book in the Sloan Krause Mystery series that comes across as flat. The ending offers some interest in the next planned book, but as of now, I do not see myself waiting for its arrival.

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