Once again, a book and I are not off to a good start. When Tessa Esposito is making tomato sauce for her soon to open restaurant she uses garlic powder. Garlic powder? I guess she’s not a fresh produce only type of chef. I continue, muddle through the exposition of the first chapter. I haven’t read the first in the series, but really, I don’t need to be brought up to speed. Not completely anyway. Some character background can be saved until the character whose background is exposed actually makes an appearance.

Second chapter, a bunch of unlikable characters enter Gabby’s bookshop and the scene. Do people like this actually exist outside of fiction? Tessa turns out to have a knack for walking around and overhearing other people’s conversations. And there’s some misogyny, from Tessa. In the same paragraph she remembers that Lorenzo told his mother he never wants to work, she gets upset with Daphne that she is using Lorenzo. Surely, if a guy thinks he can get by in life solely on his looks, you can’t really blame a woman for not thinking him serious relationship material.

There’s a distinct lack of subtlety in the narration. Gabby is busy putting cannoli on a serving dish and suddenly wonders where her keys are. Tessa puts her phone on the fridge after sending a text. With such attention to detail you would not expect Tessa to forget where she put her phone down. But she does. The misplaced phone and keys become a plot point later on. Well, the misplaced phone does. The keys are not mentioned again and Gabby locks up for the night, so I guess she found ‘m all right. Until the next morning, when Tessa remembers where her phone is and Gabby can’t find the key to the bookshop on her key ring.

This is not the mystery of the strangely appearing and disappearing key, though. With a spare key, Tessa lets herself into the backroom of the bookshop, finds her phone and a cannolo on the ground. For some reason, rather then pick it up and throw away, she decides to tread carefully into the bookshop proper, where she finds more cannoli and the body of Daphne. EMTs and local police are quick on the scene. Gino, local detective and Gabby’s brother, asks Tessa some questions and deduces this doesn’t look good for Gabby. Shouldn’t that also be the point where he decides he should take himself off the case? Surely he can’t investigate a crime where a family member is a prime suspect?

Ah, yes, he can’t. After questioning his sister and cousin he tells them he will be taken off the case. A little late, I think. He’ll probably get an ear full about that at the station, ‘cause a good lawyer could use that to their advantage. Gino also tells Gabby and Tessa that they are both suspects, because they were at the bookshop the previous night. I guess that makes the 50 plus people that came to the shop for the book signing also suspects.

This bothers me for a number of reasons. (1) Daphne was found dead in a bookshop. Her death is suspicious, but it has not yet been established as a crime. Therefor, it’s too early to call anyone a suspect. (2) To call someone a suspect, the police must have a reasonable suspicion someone did something wrong. Tessa is apparently a suspect because she made vanilla cannoli and on the floor next to Daphne are chocolate flavoured cannoli. Personally, I don’t think that is a reasonable suspicion. (3) Aside from the presumption of innocence (which doesn’t seem to exist in cozy mysteries anyway), calling someone a suspect too soon, rather than a witness, could hamper the investigation. Suspects have reason to lawyer up and claim their right to remain silent. Witnesses have less reason to do so.

Perhaps Gino was just protecting his sister and cousin and advising them to go see a lawyer as soon as possible. But then it would have been helpful if he had just said that, rather than call them suspects prematurely. As it is, neither woman brings a lawyer when they go to the police station for their statement / questioning. Ugh, some brother he is.

Tessa’s interview with Detective Padraic McDermott would have gone a lot different with a lawyer present. Lot’s of ‘don’t answer that question’ and ‘are you asking my client to speculate?’ I think both I and Tessa would have enjoyed the interview more had she brought a lawyer. As it is, Tessa is left to think McDermott is a jerk that wants to quickly stitch her up.

Gino and Lou, Gabby’s cop boyfriend, are both taken off the case because of their relationship with Gabby, but both have no qualms about sharing police information (such as autopsy results) with the two ‘suspects’, or giving them ideas about who to talk to. Both also tell Gabby and Tessa that Paddy will handle it. (As a side note: Detective McDermott didn’t seem like the type to appreciate to be called by a nickname by co-workers.)

So, Gabby and Tessa go and talk to a few people they think had reason to kill Daphne. They manage to ruffle a few feathers. Not least of which, mine. As I was slowly getting irritated with the misogyny from the main character, a rock is thrown through Gabby’s window, nearly knocking Tessa in the head. Gabby calls Lou and he immediately draws the conclusion that the broken window is related to the murder case and therefore ‘Paddy will handle it.’ Not that Paddy is actually called in to come and look at the note and the rock it was attached to. So he can make a decision whether the threat is related to his murder case.

No, not much impressed by Lou’s cop skills. Nor his ‘helping out his girlfriend skills’. If he had wanted to help Gabby and Tessa, he should have treated the initial investigation of the rock through the window as an incident separate to Daphne’s murder. It could have been an in for him to investigate the murder case, if Paddy were to reject the notion that the rock through Gabby’s window was related to the murder case. (Easy enough for him to dismiss. The jerk-kind of detective always do.) Missed opportunity there.

There’s a few things I dislike in cozy mysteries. One is dumb cops/detectives the other is criminal behaviour in sleuths. This story has a sleuth that can actually be accused of planting evidence.

Spoiler

Under false pretenses Gabby and Tessa manage to get access to the house of the Rigotta family where they search the kitchens for some expensive chocolate. Tessa finds this chocolate, takes a picture of it and puts it down on the shelf. Effectively having put her finger prints on the evidence. How is she going to explain that one in court?

Later on she steals someone’s mail.

It was then I started counting how many more pages until I reach the end of this story. The resolve was interesting though. I’m actually interested in knowing how this story would have gone if had followed Detective McDermott in his investigation. Sure, he was made out to be a jerk, but he must have been competent, because if he had really wanted to stitch up Gabby, he would have been talking to Gabby way more often than he actually did.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.