Rhythm and Clues

As always, Blacke (Vinyl Resting Place, 2022) does a fabulous job of keeping several balls in the air, from romances to murder, from seeking likely perpetrators to fighting off a pair of predatory investors. Small-town Cedar River, where gossip spreads like warm butter, provides the setting, while the three Jessup sisters—the youngest, Juni, is our narrator—are still struggling to keep their cafe/vinyl record store alive. When a crazy storm rips through town—this is Texas, after all—it washes out the roads, knocks out the electricity, and leaves a corpse in a parked car near their shop. He turns out to be one of the predatory investors—Juni knew him from college—who was hoping to make a deal with the sisters. But more importantly, with the town now isolated, where is the murderer hiding? The characters are wonderful, with Juni’s voice and sense of humor especially fresh, and the storyline is completely absorbing. A real treat for cozy fans.