DEADLY CRUSH

The manager of a popular Sonoma wine bar struggles to discover who killed an unpopular handyman.

Cece Barton wishes she’d never hired Karl Meier to update the lighting at Vino y Vida. Not only was he brusque to her and verbally abusive toward his nephew, Ian, who worked as his helper, but he ran well past the wine bar’s opening time, forcing customers to cluster outside waiting to be seated. Cece’s second encounter with Karl makes her even sorrier: She gets a frantic call from her car mechanic, Josefina Jarvin—who knows her reputation for solving murders—and when Cece arrives at Jo’s shop, she finds Karl squashed like a bug under the lift. Suspects abound, starting with Jo, who happens to be Karl’s ex-wife. But there’s hardly anyone in the little town of Colinas who hadn’t had a run-in with the dead man. Mooncat Smith and Dane Larsen, who work at Vino y Vida, both hate him. So does Ian, his nephew. Even Ian’s high school friend Serena nurses ill feelings toward Karl. Still, sifting through the possibilities isn’t the greatest challenge for Cece because she can’t help second-guessing herself. She wonders if Jo is really her friend or just an acquaintance, hesitates to give motherly advice to her grown daughter, Zoe, and fears she’ll never be as successful as her twin sister, Allie. Given all that self-doubt, readers may well be as relieved as Cece herself when she finally cracks the case.

Here’s hoping her latest success gives Day’s heroine the self-confidence to become the cozy sleuth she deserves to be.