Brewed, Crude and Tattooed

Hapless coffee-shop owner Maggy Thorsen shows herself at her worst in this fourth installment in the series in which she and a motley crew are stranded at her coffee shop, Uncommon Grounds. Author Sandra Balzo tries to create an And Then There Were None-style atmosphere in a tale in which one stranded soul after another winds up dead, but there’s never any real sense of terror or suspense.

Brookhills, Wisconsin, a small, fictional wealthy exurb located west of Milwaukee, gets an unseasonable blizzard in May. Maggy; her partner at Uncommon Grounds, Caron Egan; the town’s television weather “slut,” blonde, perky Aurora Benson; her teenaged son Oliver and an additional collection of characters find themselves stranded at Benson show more Plaza, the strip mall where Uncommon Grounds is located. Even Maggy’s sheepdog Frank ends up at the coffee shop, and yet others join the group as the novel — and the storm — rages on.

Maggy discovers the corpse of Way Benson, Benson Plaza’s womanizing owner, buried in the falling snow with a hatchet in him. Benson planned to evict all of the tenants and turn the property over to a big-box grocery chain called Gross National Produce; that gave all the tenants a reason to want Benson dead. Benson’s love-’em-and-leave-’em proclivities added quite a few spurned lovers to the suspect list. With communication cut off to the outside by the storm, Maggy realizes that she must take the lead in unmasking the killer, one of their own number.

The premise should produce a chilling page-turner, right? But somehow Balzo’s novel never achieves the proper suspense. Maggy comes off as alternately goofy (who after all takes a drooling, barely housebroken sheepdog to work?) and whiny. The normally crotchety Sarah Kingston, usually good for a laugh or a memorable quip, remains mostly in the background. Maggy’s usual sidekick and love interest, County Sheriff Jake Pavlik, is virtually non-existent. Instead, readers are treated to a new collection of characters, all of them crafted from cardboard: the obedient Vietnamese daughter, her dutiful and loving dad, the abrasive Frenchman, the conceited and conniving mistress, the grandmotherly pharmacy owner.

The novel’s still an OK read, but it’s certainly no Bean There, Done That. Save Brewed, Crude and Tattooed for a day when you seek something mindless and haven’t anything better.

I initially thought that the title was a reference to Uncommon Ground’s tattooed Goth barista Amy — although she’s not crude at all. But Amy, along with Pavlik, barely figure in the book. show less

Loved this story and Sandra Balzo sense of humor.

This is a great series. I truly enjoy these characters.

I love this series and this is a fun take on a locked room mystery. Trapped in a strip mall during a spring blizzard with two dead bodies and suspects running amok. I enjoy the protagonists sense of humor and snark. :) Look forward to reading the next in the series.