Cozy Mystery Review: Rhythm and Clues | Olivia Blacke

Grab a frosty, creamy, Bohemian Frapsody (an adorably named drink served at Sip & Spin Records) from your favorite coffee shop and settle in to enjoy Olivia Blacke’s new mystery, Rhythm and Clues. This third installment in the Record Shop Mystery series is a fun one!

About the Book | Rhythm and Clues

It’s been five whole months since the last murder in Cedar River, Texas, and Juni Jessup and her sisters Tansy and Maggie have been humming along when disaster strikes again.

Their struggling vinyl records shop/coffee nook, Sip & Spin Records, is under pressure from predatory investors, though the Jessup sisters aren’t ready to face the music and admit defeat. But the night after their meeting, the sketchy financier is killed outside their shop during a torrential Texas thunderstorm that washes out all the roads in and out of town. Now the sisters find themselves trapped in Cedar River with a killer, and Juni is determined to solve the case.

When the river spits out an unexpected surprise, Detective Beau Russell asks for Juni’s help, never predicting her investigation will spin her into danger. Up until now, the Jessup sisters have been playing it by ear, but with the whole town watching, can they catch a killer before he strikes again? (Synopsis from Goodreads)

Review | Rhythm and Clues

This is a fun concept for a cozy mystery series. It centers around Sip & Spin Records, a relatively new shop that sells vinyl records and prepares mouthwatering café treats with adorable music-themed names. The shop is owned by sisters Juni, Tansy, and Maggie Jessup in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas. About six months into their business, they aren’t quite making profit, but they aren’t in the red either. Plus, they have a steady stream of loyal customers!

The book opens with Juni at a hockey game sitting awkwardly next to her ex-boyfriend Beau, who she may or may not be on a date with. Juni was invited to box seats at the hockey game by Zack and his business partner Savannah, who own another coffee and record shop in Austen called Rhythm & Brews, and is looking to buy Sip & Spin Records from Juni and her sisters. They aren’t interested in selling, but it doesn’t hurt to let Zack think he has a chance!

A big Texas thunderstorm breaks out just as Beau drops Juni off at her sister Tansy’s house. When the power goes out and cell service is gone, Juni and Tansy have no idea how widespread the blackout is. They get in the car to go check on their store and rescue their cat, but not long after arriving something more troubling happens. A BMW crashes into Tansy’s car. When the two sisters go to investigate, they find the driver’s side empty and Zack’s dead body buckled into the passenger seat. Not long after, they find Savannah inside their shop with a troubling story about Zack’s death and the crash—someone lobbed something through the windshield at him just before the accident.

The storm traps Savannah and any other visitors in Cedar River for the next few days, which means there are plenty of suspects around for Juni to investigate. It turns out that there are a lot of people in Cedar River who had a motive to murder Zack, making the case much more complicated. And to be honest, the reader doesn’t get the most favorable view of Zack before his death based on his drunk antics at the hockey game!

Savannah is staying with Tansy and Juni, so they get to know a lot more about her business practices with Zack. They aren’t necessarily illegal, but there is a distinct feeling of something being off and unsavory about Zack and Savannah’s business tactics. And they aren’t the only ones engaging in behavior that isn’t exactly on the up-and-up. There seem to be plenty of unsavory characters to go around.

I enjoyed Juni a lot as a character. She had lived away from home for years before she got hit with an economic downturn and returned home. Going into business with her sisters is amazing and difficult at the same time, it seems. While they can trust one another as family, Juni’s sisters still treat her like she’s not a grown up. They are overly invested in her personal life. Juni is caught in a low key love triangle but I loved that it wasn’t overdramatized the way they can be in many cozy mysteries. There are several very heartfelt scenes in the book related to this but I won’t spoil what those are.

The mystery itself was interesting and kept me curious about who was behind everything. A few different crimes seem to intersect and there were enough leads and suspects to keep it interesting. The way the mystery came together was surprising—I didn’t have the culprit pegged nor the motive!

This book works great as a standalone mystery so readers should feel free to jump in here or read all three books. I think this is one of the stronger cozy mystery series and I’ve noticed each mystery gets better than the last.

Thank you to St. Martins Press for my copy. Opinions are my own.

About the Author | Olivia Blacke

OLIVIA BLACKE (she/her), author of the Record Shop Mysteries, beginning with Vinyl Resting Place, and the Brooklyn Murder Mysteries (Killer Content and No Memes of Escape), finally found a way to put her criminology degree to good use by writing murderously fun, cozy, and caffeinated mysteries. Olivia is a little nerdy, a lot awkward, and just the right amount of weird. She is a recovering ex-Texan who resides with her husband, Potassium, and Baileycakes, their roly-poly rescue puggle. When not writing, reading, or spending way too much time on social media, Olivia enjoys amigurumi crochet, scuba diving, collecting tattoos, watching hockey, and baking dog cookies. She wants to be a unicorn when she grows up.