A Murder in Eight Cocktails by Kelly MullenMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Willa and Marty are retired, she was an interior designer and he was something horticultural, their only son has flown the nest and Willa is feeling a little lost. Marty has enthusiastically embraced bird watching as a hobby and Willa has started a podcast.
The couple are invited to the opening of an exclusive cocktail bar where guests are served a series of special cocktails at precisely timed intervals. But no-one expects their host to plunge to his death from the rooftop during the evening, or for him to send what appears to be a suicide text to several of the other guests.
Willa is convinced their host was murdered, and when the police decline to get involved she and her ex-husband Paul, who was the host's business partner, decide to take matters into their own hands.
I struggled to get into this book, despite liking Kelly Mullen's previous book This Is Not A Game, and was about to DNF it when it suddenly got more interesting as Willa and Paul and (reluctantly) Paul start matching the timeline to when they received each cocktail, I could see that this would be like one of those Logic Problems where you have to match (say) the first name, second name, house colour and car type based on a series of clues. Unfortunately, after that spark it fizzled out again. I think for my taste there were too many suspects, too many motives, and therefore when the murderer was revealed it didn't really feel that they were the only suspect that could possibly fit all the clues.
Probably more importantly, I didn't really like Willa, Marty, or Paul and I found it difficult to keep the suspects separate in my mind. Pleasant enough but not one I would read again.
Contains the history and recipes for several cocktails.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
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