A Sprinkle in Time is the second Shake Shop storefront cozy mystery by Dana Mentink. Released 24th May 2022 by Poisoned Pen Press, it's 360 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
I love cozy mysteries, whatever form they take, library, bookmobile, shopfront small town amateur sleuths, professors turned investigators, I'm not picky. Animals are a plus. This one ticks a lot of boxes. The setup is small tourist town shopfront ice cream shop with a once-burned-twice-shy female protagonist in the early stages of a slow-moving romantic relationship with a local man. A much hated local businessman (shades of Snidely Whiplash) turns up dead and Trinidad Jones is determined to see justice done.
Despite being the second book in the series, the plot works perfectly well as a standalone and introduction to the ensemble cast of fun and eccentric characters. There are a number of appealing facets. The author is adept at plotting and the dialogue never felt overly clunky or precious. The story moved along at a good pace and despite the longer-than-average page count for a shopfront cozy, it never dragged or felt overwritten. I like that the main character is intelligent, driven, honest, and kind. She's also a small business owner and apparently a woman of color (but the author doesn't overemphasize the fact).
The language is squeaky clean, nary a damn to be seen. There is no NSFW content and the denouement and resolution are well crafted and satisfying. The author has even included a couple of recipes in the back of the book which look intriguing.
Four stars. Definitely one for the fans of small-town shopfront cozies.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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