A BEAN TO DIE FOR

An ex-reporter just can’t stop investigating murders.

Since getting downsized from her job covering crime for a Miami newspaper, Lana Lewis has devoted herself to three things: her shih tzu, Stanley; her boyfriend, police chief Noah Garcia; and helping her dad run Perkatory, his punningly named cafe in Devil’s Beach, Florida. It’s that third passion that has her headed one morning to Peas on Earth, the local community garden, where she and her best friend, Erica Penmark, are helping Lana’s hipster dad plant coffee beans. They’re willing to put up with the draconian rules laid out by the garden’s president, Darla Ippolito—plant non-GMO seeds only, don’t plant anything past your plot’s boundaries, and never, ever fail to put the hose away—in order to provide some locally grown offerings at Perkatory. But when they get there, they discover the body of elderly Jack Daggitt, lately banned from the garden by the stern president for multiple rule infractions. Fearing that their disagreement will cause the authorities to put her at the top of their list of suspects, Darla implores Lana to help her find Daggitt’s real killer. But helping Darla escape suspicion forces Lana to negotiate a careful path with Noah, who cautions her to leave the detecting to the police. As it turns out, he needn’t have bothered. The solution to the case comes straight out of nowhere, producing no real peril and zero suspense.

A large chai latte will raise readers’ pulse rates higher than this one.