The Pint of No Return is the second book in Ellie Alexander’s Sloan Krause Mysteries. Amongst the SLEW of culinary cozies on the market, there are only a handful that focus on alcoholic and even less that are well written. This is one of them.
I love that this series features a female beer brewer. Plus, Nitro’s latest release, Cherry Weizen, is a sour cherry beer that sounds like something I’d really enjoy.
Title: The Pint of No Return
Author: Ellie Alexander
Series: A Sloan Krause Mystery #2
First Published: October 2, 2018
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Categories: Mystery
Acquired: Purchased
Oktoberfest in Leavenworth
The main character of this series is Sloan Krause, a female beer brewer living in Leavenworth, Washington. In the previous book, Sloan left both her cheating husband Mac Krause and her job at the Krause family brewery. She then joined forces with newcomer Garrett Strong to open a small microbrewery, Nitro.
In The Pint of No Return, Leavenworth is setting up to celebrate Oktoberfest. A film crew arrives to film a documentary about the inside world of Leavenworth and its craft beer community. The host of the documentary, Michell Morgan, is an obnoxious former child star who loves insulting everyone around him.
It was obvious early on that Mitchell would be the victim, but the identity of the murderer was a little less easy to figure out. There are a few viable suspects including Sloan’s friend Lisa Balmes, who manages the rental property that Mitchell trashed, both in an online review and in reality. There’s also Kat Kelly, Mitchell’s ‘biggest fan’ (*cough* stalker *cough*). And don’t forget the film crew, all of whom were constantly being verbally abused by Mitchell.
There’s more to this cozy mystery than just a ‘murder of the week’
Along with the main murder mystery, there’s a lot going on in the background. Sloan has been searching for her biological mother and her leads have brought on more questions than answers. Meanwhile, Sloan’s in-laws have decided to step back from operating the Der Keller brewery and have left it in three equal shares to their two sons, Mac and Hans, and Sloan. Plus, Sloan continues to be attracted to Garrett while Mac is doing everything he can to win her back. Whew! Who said life in a small town was quiet and simple?
One of the things I love about cozy mystery series is the feeling of familiarity – it’s like visiting old friends again. The search for Sloan’s mother, and the love-triangle-that’s-not-really-a-love-triangle between Sloan, Garrett and Mac have kept things interesting without being too distracting. Even though this is only the second book in the series, I’m enjoying Sloan’s adventures and the Leavenworth townfolk. Ellie Alexander’s writing is like candy to me (her other cozy mystery series, A Bakeshop Mystery, is one of my favourites). I was so inspired by Leavenworth I even came up with a crest to celebrate their Oktoberfest party!
I’ve spent the last several years reading A LOT of culinary cozy mysteries (the combination of food and mystery is completely irresistible to me) but I’ve abandoned more than my fair share of series because I got bored of the characters or they made decisions I didn’t agree with (I get pretty attached). I know it’s still pretty early in the series to make a long-term commitment but from what I’ve read of Sloan Krause so far, I’ll be following this gal for awhile!
Read The Pint of No Return for yourself
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More books by Ellie Alexander that I’ve reviewed
*waves!* Stephanie,
This is the first review I wanted to re-visit on your lovely blog as I had this checked out for at *least!* two months but my health woes overtook the time I needed to read it! :O I also confused this title with another series and hadn’t realised this was starting a new series – oy, oy, what a Winter… I need to re-borrow this lovely and dig into it myself – as I found quite a few Cosies now are featuring *wine!* As a girl who loves red and is recently smitten by whites – as who knew if you have a tree allergy you need to avoid certain wines? I’m seriously now in love with Pinot Grigio! And, blessedly I can keep my beloved Merlot; the others, *le sigh*, I had to ‘let go’ so the wine world is being re-discovered now for future favourites.
Hence why though I was eager to find my library had *wine!* Cosies…
Wait – this is the second book? I’m so lost. So the other one is the series…. honestly now I’ve confuddled myself! lol I’ll sort it eventually.
You and I are readers of the same feather – I can get miffed too if the characters and/or the direction of a series goes against where I think they ought to be going, too!! I love the crest – I was most impressed with the design and then thought – how clever the author had that for readers to share; til I realised as I reached that part of your review – its your design!! Top cheers!!
Now I need to go sort out which is ‘book one’ for this series!! Ha.
Loved your takeaways and yes, I love the familiarity myself – though in truth, I am so heart-attached to the dramatic crime dramas I’m reading they are familiars just like Cosies to me! As for instance: the Kay Hunter series (strictly experiencing via audiobook ATM); Marjorie Trumaine Mysteries, Hiro Hattori novels, Anna Blanc Mysteries and the Samuel Craddock Mysteries to name a few.,..
Hi Jorie!
LOL – Book 1 is called ‘Death on Tap’. There’s also a short story called ‘Trouble is Brewing’ – it was part of her other culinary cozy mystery series (Bakeshop Mysteries) and introduces Sloan Krause, so it kicks of this series. I’m a huge fan of Ellie Alexander and her two culinary cozies are at the top of my favourites list right now. In fact, I have an interview blog post with her coming up later this month! I’m SUUUUPER excited about it!