Through the Liquor Glass by Sarah Fox is the fifth installment in A Literary Pub Mystery series and has local pub owner Sadie Coleman not only investigating a new murder but fighting to keep her boyfriend from taking the fall. Shady Creek, Vermont, is celebrating the fall weather with a festival called “A Taste of Shady Creek” which focuses on showcasing all the local eateries. Between preparing for the event at her Pub, The Inkwell, and for a booth at the event hall, Sadie is also having to prepare for the first-time visit of her mother to show her her new home and her new life. Between the pressures of wanting her mother to understand that this is where she belongs and The Inkwell is how she wants to make her living, she also must brace herself to also introduce her boyfriend Grayson Blake. Just when it seems there couldn’t possibly be anything more to add to her plate, Sadie learns that several food critics are present at the event as well.
Despite all this extra pressure, Sadie is managing to enjoy herself and is having a perfectly wonderful time with Grayson when everything goes horribly sideways literally overnight. Finding the crushed body of one of the visiting food critics under one of the massive barrels in his distillery would be bad enough, but it turns out Grayson also has a bad history with the victim. Even worse, whoever committed the murder seems to be fully aware of this and is setting Grayson up to take the rap for it. With Sadie convinced the police won’t look deeper into the murder because all the evidence keeps pointing to Grayson, she dons her metaphorical detective’s cap and sets about clearing his name. Grayson does not help the situation by deciding to go into hiding rather than letting the police take him into custody. He plans to investigate the murder himself, but besides making him look even guiltier to the police, it also adds yet more stress to Sadie as she is left to wonder where he might be and if he is safe.
As she digs into the life of the victim, Sadie unfortunately finds plenty of people with motive for murder. Whether it’s locals around town whose business had been ruined or hurt by her in the past, or other visiting critics, plenty had unkind things to say about the victim. Balancing her investigation with her mother’s visit, her responsibilities to The Inkwell, and the A Taste of Shady Creek event, Sadie is running on empty before too long. An average day becomes her trying to take care of her responsibilities and her early mornings and late nights trying to sleuth out answers. Faced with an ever-growing pile of questions and precious few answers it is easy for her to become overwhelmed and give into despair…luckily Grayson can sneak around to see her a few times to bolster her spirits and strengthen her resolve. The two of them often need to exchange information as well as it turns out the incident from Grayson’s past is the key to the current investigation.
Through the Liquor Glass does an excellent job of keeping readers invested with plot twists and turns, as well as with the tension Sadie faces when trying to both save and find her beloved Grayson when he goes into hiding. It was also refreshing to have the incident connecting Grayson with the past not revolve around a past romantic encounter, but instead with another murder investigation. To me, this pulls readers in further than a romantic past connection, which is often how an attractive male character is linked to a female victim. While previous books will help readers establish how Sadie came to be in Shady Creek and to be with Grayson, they are not a necessary to enjoy Through the Liquor Glass. Once finishing it, however, readers will find themselves thinking about how it all started and picking up the previous volumes. I know I am! In addition, due to my love of fall drinks I decided to try the ‘Kiss of the Cider Woman’ beverage recipe included in the book and can definitively say it is a tasty crowd pleaser. – Carla Schantz
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Carla Schantz is a Courthouse Clerk Supervisor and has a bachelor’s degree in English as well as a master’s in legal studies. Books have been a passion of hers since she was young, and she is a firm believer in the purse book so that she is never without a book at any time.