COLD BREW CORPSE

A yoga teacher’s disappearance disrupts a budding romance.

Lana Lewis’ life is finally on the upswing. After a brief marriage and an equally brief career as a reporter for a Miami newspaper, she slunk home to the Gulf Coast after both went bust. But running a coffee shop in a Devil’s Beach building owned by her aging-hippie dad has its rewards. Perkatory has two killer baristas, Erica and Barbara, to help Lana serve her quirky customers with style. And she’s on the brink of a meaningful relationship with local police chief Noah Garcia. Unfortunately, their first real date ends before it begins when the receptionist at his swanky apartment house hands Lana a note from the handsome detective apologizing for being called away on a case. It seems that Raina Rose, owner of Dante’s Inferno, a popular hot yoga studio, has disappeared. Her boyfriend, Kai Lahtinen, son of a prominent politician, is beside himself. Raina has no reason to run away. She just led a successful yoga retreat to Costa Rica, and her business is booming. But there’s also no reason to suspect foul play. Lush dangles the mystery of Raina’s whereabouts tantalizingly for a gratifyingly long time before descending into the tried-and-true cozy tropes: a corpse, cascading revelations about the dark side of the deceased, and a plucky heroine whose sleuthing inevitably leads to peril.

If only Lush had sustained her initial momentum, she’d have a recipe fit to beat Starbucks.