A Cup of Jo by Sandra Balzo
Review by Cheryl R. (Spuddie)
This is the sixth entry in the Maggy Thorsen “coffee shop” mystery series, which is set in fictional Brookhills, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Maggy and her team are celebrating the grand re-opening of Uncommon Grounds in a newly refurbished train depot, with train service from the depot into the city of Milwaukee resuming at the same time. When one of the event promoters is found dead in the giant inflatable coffee cup Maggy had hired to promote the opening, she is once again thrust into the midst of a murder investigation. In this case though, she won’t have her boyfriend, Sheriff Jake Pavlik, to pump for information as he ends up being a ‘person of interest’ in the murder. When Maggy learns from the victim’s spiteful sister that Pavlik was having an affair with Jo–the victim–her world begins crumbling as she once again faces betrayal from a man she thought she knew. I didn’t even figure out the mystery ahead of time in this book as I often do–a couple of carefully placed red herrings had me looking in the totally opposite direction for the killer.
I enjoyed this book as I have all the other books in this series, and this part of the review encompasses the series in general. I will start by saying I am no lover of cookie-cutter cozy mystery series, so when I picked up the first book, Uncommon Grounds, and actually liked it, it thoroughly surprised me. The books in this series are not typical cozies–I call them semi-cozy. There is a bit more of an edge to the humor, the occasional four-letter word, adult themes are handled more directly instead of just alluding to unpleasant things, and the world more closely resembles real life where people are just people with faults and foibles–they aren’t automatically lumped into ‘the good guys’ and ‘the bad guys’ camps with the good guys always coming out on top. It’s more subtle, with shades of gray, with situations that could actually happen to real people, and those people having realistic reactions to what life deals them.
I like Maggy’s character a lot–she’s a laid-back shop owner in a wealthy suburb, a divorcee whose husband of twenty years announced he was leaving her for a younger woman on the day their only son went off to college. Maggy’s come a long way since that first book, but she isn’t invincible–she’s strong but vulnerable at the same time and she doesn’t really fit in with the Brookhills crowd, which consists of tennis-playing Barbie clones, business executives and Volvo-driving soccer moms. She lives alone in a small house with a huge sheepdog named Frank (who is a hilarious part of her circle of friends) and has a somewhat tentative relationship with the Sheriff, as mentioned above. The romance in this series is there, but it doesn’t dominate and take over the stories, which is another BIG plus for me. The secondary characters have become quite well-developed by this book too and again are not your ‘typical’ cozy characters.
I would highly recommend this series, especially for those who find traditional cozies a little ho-hum–and yet, they probably will satisfy readers of those traditional cozies too, as they aren’t overly graphic, violent or nasty. The author has an engaging writing style that make the pages turn quickly. I would recommend starting from the beginning–each book builds upon the last and a lot would be missed by reading out of order. I feel this series is vastly underrated and hope my review encourages a few people to give it a try.
Sandra Balzo‘s Maggie Thorson Coffee Shop Mystery Series:
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Sounds like my type of series. Will have to give it a try.
Always looking for something new!