There are craft breweries and local wineries, but it’s small-batch bourbon distilleries that Jill Curtis is scouting in “One for the Road” by Medina County author Mary Ellis. It’s the inaugural entry in a Bourbon Tour Mystery series.
Jill is on her way from Chicago to Kentucky with a videographer and an assignment to tour distilleries and conduct interviews. With an expense account sufficient to cover 10 days, she makes a reservation at a bed and breakfast in little Roseville, where two family operations have histories that go back to a feud that started in the 1700s.
Jill made the B&B choice because the owner, Dorothy Clark, is her grandmother’s long-estranged cousin. Before she can explain the relationship, she and Michael Erikson, the videographer, overhear an argument between Dorothy and her husband, Roger.
Jill and Michael take their first tour, led by the handsome, flirty Jamie Shelby, in the eighth generation of his family at his distillery. He is taken with Jill and, after a post-tour interview, asks her for a date.
The next day, Jill and Michael arrive at a second distillery but are told that no one is available to give them a tour. Michael sweet-talks the gullible receptionist into letting them look around by themselves, and they see the expected vats and barrels. Then Jill sees the unexpected: Roger Clark lying dead in a pool of blood.
It happens that the Kentucky State Police lieutenant sent to investigate is staying at the same B&B as Jill and Michael. This proximity allows Jill to help Dorothy, now “Aunt Dot,” with housekeeping and funeral arrangements while leaving time for a picnic with Jamie and assisting Lt. Harris with searching the crime scene, though she remains a suspect.
An uncomfortable visit to Roger’s off-the-grid cousin provides more background into the longstanding feud and identifies more potential suspects. Readers may be puzzled at the lieutenant’s willingness to entertain Jill with a candlelight dinner complete with wine, discussing crime theories and alternate suspects.
A pregnant woman with an emergency delivery and a series of vandalism at the Shelby distillery add to the drama.
“One for the Road” (208 pages, hardcover) costs $28.99 from Severn House. Mary Ellis has several other series, including Secrets of the South mysteries, Civil War Heroines, and Amish romances.
Events
Mandel Jewish Community Center: The Cleveland Jewish Book Festival continues with novelist Eshkol Nevo, author of “The Last Interview,” in a Zoom event at 3 p.m. Sunday; Paula Shoyer, author of “The Instant Pot Kosher Cookbook:100 Recipes to Nourish Body and Soul,” at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Register at mandeljcc.org.
Hudson Library & Historical Society: Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” talks about “Saving Freedom: Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization” in a Zoom event at 7 p.m. Monday. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Kermit Patterson talks about “Fossil Men: The Quest for the Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind.” At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Mark Kurlansky talks about his memoir “The Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing.” At 7 p.m. Thursday, Amelia Pang discusses “Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods.” Register at hudsonlibrary.org.
Medina County District Library: Julie Buxbaum, author of the young adult books “Tell Me Three Things” and “Admission,” talks about her work in a Zoom event at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Register at medina.lib.oh.us.
Cuyahoga County Public Library: Andromeda Romano-Lax talks about her historical novel “Annie and the Wolves” in a Zoom session from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday. W.S. Winslow talks about his debut novel “The Northern Reach,” about families in a coastal Maine town, from 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday; Joel C. Rosenberg discusses “The Beirut Protocol,” latest in his Marcus Ryker espionage series, from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday; from 7 to 8 p.m. Friday, Patti Callahan talks about her historical novel “Surviving Savannah.”
Morley Library: Marie Vibbert of Cleveland talks about “Galactic Hellcats,” followed by a question-and-answer period, in a Zoom presentation from 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. Register at morleylibrary.org.
Mac’s Backs: Cleveland writer and editor Thomas Mira Y Lopez, author of “The Book of Resting Places: A Personal History of Where We Lay the Dead,” talks to Katherine E. Standefer, author of “Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life,” about her heart condition and the extraordinary measures taken to manage it, in a Zoom session at 7 p.m. Thursday. Go to macsbacks.com.
Email information about books of local interest, and event notices at least two weeks in advance to BeaconBookTalk@gmail.com.
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