annieb123's Review of In Too Steep

by Kate Kingsbury

The peace and tranquility of the Misty Bay Tearoom is rocked by murder and a long-buried secret hidden in a most unlikely place in bestselling author Kate Kingsbury’s second charming book for fans of Cleo Coyle and Laura Childs.

It seemed like a simple case: the murder of Lewis Trenton, a beachcomber who lived alone in a cabin in the Oregon hills. But the newspaper article piques the interest of Vivian Wainwright, owner of the British-style Misty Bay Tearoom. The photo accompanying the article shows Lewis’s cluttered living room, and on the shelf is a replica of Big Ben. Vivian is sure she sold the clock a week before in her shop. Who could have given the replica to Lewis?

Unable to keep from doing a bit of sleuthing, Vivian hunts down the replica in a local thrift shop, noticing that the base is missing, rendering it worthless, but just as Vivian is about to throw it in the trash, a sparkle catches her eye. It’s a diamond, hidden away in a crevice in the clock. Vivian takes the diamond to Detective Tony Messina, who identifies it as part of a jewelry heist in Portland a month earlier. Portland police think Lewis was the fence who sold the jewels, and that he was killed after double-crossing the thieves—but Messina doesn’t believe the story.

What was the true motive behind Lewis’s murder? How did he come upon the diamond? And what secrets can the clock tell—before the killer strikes again?

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

In Too Steep is the second Misty Bay Tea Room cozy by Kate Kingsbury. Released 9th Aug 2022 by Crooked Lane Books, it's 288 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out in 3rd quarter 2023. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a nice follow-up to the series starter and will please fans of small-town shopfront cozy mysteries. Protagonist Vivian is an intelligent and active widow and the owner of the Misty Bay Tea Room. When a local beachcomber dies under suspicious circumstances, she's soon involved in another mystery and up to her neck in danger, jewel theft, and murder.

The author is prolific and experienced. The plotting is quite linear, but the characters are well rendered and the dialogue flows well. The language is clean (PG) and there's no on page graphic violence. The climax, denouement, and resolution are all self contained in this volume, and it works well as a standalone.

Four stars. Fans of Cleo Coyle, Paige Shelton, and Sue Minix will find a lot to like with this book. It's a light cozy read.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Reading updates

1 February, 2023: Started reading

1 February, 2023: Finished reading

1 February, 2023: Reviewed