Death on Tap (Sloane Krause #2)
My Rating:
Amateur sleuth Sloan Krause returns in The Pint of No Return, another delightful cozy by Ellie Alexander—this time investigating a movie star who’s murdered not long after arriving in Leavenworth, WA to film his latest project.
No other festival compares to Oktoberfest in Leavenworth, Washington. The whole town is buzzing with excitement over this year’s activities and eagerly awaiting Nitro’s latest offering Cherrywizen, made with locally sourced cherries. But local brewmaster Sloan Krause is tapped out. Between trying to manage the pub, her pending divorce with Mac, and her mounting feelings for Garrett, she’s fermenting in internal turmoil.
To complicate matters, dreamy movie star Mitchell Morgan and his production crew have arrived in the village to film during the authentic Bavarian brewfest. Mitchell has his eye on Sloan and a taste for Nitro’s Cherrywizen. Sloan escapes his advances for good when she finds Mitchell slumped over the bar. Is this a case of one pint too many, or has Mitchell been murdered by microbrew?
Trigger Warnings:
Murder
Characters
- Sloane
- Mac – Sloane’s ex
- Hans – Sloane’s brother in law
- Garrett – Sloane’s new boss at Nitro
- Chief Myers
- Kat – came to town looking for fame, claiming to be Mitchell’s #1 fan
- Payton – producer of the film
- David – producer of the film, worked with Mitchell when he was a child star
- Mitchell – child star that is the host for the documentary that is being filmed
- Connor – the filmmaker that is very green. Thinks very highly of Mitchell
- April – the town ‘ambassador’
- Lisa – owns the vacation rentals in town
My Review
This is the second book in the series and I am loving the feels of the city. As mentioned in my review of the first book – this place is a real town and they go all out at Oktoberfest. This book just sparked my desire to travel there even more! I love fall feels – mix in some beer and a fall festival, I’m in!
The mystery in this book was deep enough to keep me interested, but the family dynamics and the building of the microbrewery, Nitro, helped build my intrigue with this series. I would recommend this for cozy mystery lovers and anyone wanting to learn more about brewing in a fun book.
Spoilers/Summary
Payton was the murderer. She was sick of Mitchell’s entitledness. Mitchell had tried to blackmail Payton into buying him a vacation home. Payton murdered Mitchell by spiking his beer and then hitting him over the head with a bottle. She tried to poison and kill Sloane at the end by spiking her tea when Sloane had thought it was David that was the murderer.
Mitchell had tried to assault Lisa – which was why he left a bad review on her travel site.
Side story of Sloane’s birth parents: Sloane’s social worker came down to visit her and talk to her, she is retired now but wanted to give her the information she had. It seems that Sloane was abandoned at a hospital when she was 6, well taken care of. All of the information on Sloane has now disappeared though after her social worker tried to ask questions. It seems that someone didn’t want anyone finding out who Sloane’s birth parents are.