Olivia Blacke's entertaining second entry in the Record Shop Mystery series, A Fatal Groove, takes readers back to Cedar River, Tex., for another adventure involving lattes, LPs, local color, and murder. Juniper "Juni" Jessup and her sisters, Maggie and Tansy, work hard to get their new record-shop/café, Sip & Spin, off the ground. But when Bob Bobbert, Cedar River's longtime mayor, drops dead after sipping their coffee at the local Bluebonnet Festival, the Jessup sisters fall under suspicion. Juni, undeterred by her detective ex-boyfriend's warnings to let the pros handle it, begins investigating the case, which appears to have ties to a 1956 bank robbery (and may or may not involve her Uncle Calvin).
Blacke (Vinyl Resting Place; No Memes of Escape; Killer Content) packs her story with musical references and amusing nods to Texas lore, including the widely held (mythical) belief that it's illegal to pick bluebonnets. Juni's personal life, including her maybe-something-more relationship with local mail carrier Teddy Garza, gets some airtime, as does her widowed mother's new paramour and his possible connection to the case. Readers will enjoy following Juni's adventures as she tries to figure out who killed Mayor Bob, where the money from the long-ago bank robbery ended up, and what to do with the surprise cow (yes, really) that turns up in her front yard. Cozy mystery lovers and audiophiles alike will appreciate Blacke's story, with an ending as enjoyable as one of Juni's signature coffee creations (like I'll Bean There for Brew or Sweet Chai O'Mine). --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams