A Room with a Brew by Joyce Tremel

Overview:

Disaster is on tap in this all-new mystery from the author of Tangled Up in Brew.

It's Oktoberfest in Pittsburgh, and brewpub owner Maxine "Max" O'Hara is prepping for a busy month at the Allegheny Brew House. To create the perfect atmosphere for the boozy celebration, Max hires an oompah band. But when one of the members from the band turns up dead, it's up to Max to solve the murder before the festivities are ruined. 

Adding to the brewing trouble, Candy, Max's friend, is acting suspicious... Secrets from her past are fermenting under the surface, and Max must uncover the truth to prove her friend's innocence. To make matters worse, Jake's snooty ex-fiancée shows up in town for an art gallery opening, and she'll be nothing but a barrel of trouble for Max.

My Review:

A Room with a Brew is the third installment of the Brewing Trouble Mystery series.  In this episode, Max is preparing her pub, The Allegheny Brew House, for an Oktoberfest celebration and has hired an oompah band.  Unfortunately, one of the members ends up dead and it's up to Max and her friends to figure out what happened before Candy, who is acting very suspicious, gets accused of murder. In addition, Max learns that her parents' new neighbors have opened up an art gallery and guess who happens to show up at the grand opening?  None other than Jake's ex-fiancee Victoria and she is every bit as mean as Jake described her.  We are also introduced to another character named Tommy whom I liked very much and hope he makes a return in other books in this series.

The main plot centers around art and a Vermeer painting so it was extremely easy to figure out what was going on really early in the book, even though it took forever to get to the actual murder.  That seems to be the trend these days in all mystery books and it is starting to annoy.  That aside, I enjoy the setting of this series, but maybe that's because I grew up not far from Pittsburgh and am a huge Steelers fan.  Though I don't carry it to extremes like Candy, I do own a Terrible Towel, slippers, and a blanket so I can totally relate to Candy.  I also like that it centers around a brew pub which is unique in the cozy world.  Another thing I really like about this series is that there was never a "love triangle".  I don't mind if the characters take a book or three to finally become an item but too many cozies have the love triangle and it is beyond cliche at this point.

Speaking of characters, I think the characters are in this series are a little flat, even though we are now three books in.  I don't expect to know everything about all of them right away but I want more details to make them seem more real.  If you read my post about characterization, you'll know that in order for me to really get lost in a book, I need the characters to feel like my actual friends and while I think Kristie, Daisy, Nicole, and Elmer are interesting, they come across as two-dimensional and fake.  I also thought that Victoria was very over-done with her snootiness and condescension.  It would have been better and much more effective to have her be a little more subtle in her jabs towards Max and Jake. 

Continuing on with characters, Max is just a smidge too arrogant for my tastes.  I'm not sure why that is - maybe because she thinks she knows better than anyone else in matters of detective work and doesn't want to listen to anyone else.  And because I always feel like I'm being lectured when it comes to the brewing aspect of things, almost as if her tastes in brewing are the only right ones.  Maybe I'm being too nit-picky, though, and I don't mean to be.  

None of the things mentioned above are egregious enough to cause me to stop reading the series because I think each book gets just a bit better and I am interested in the characters enough to hope that the author keeps fleshing them out.  

⭐⭐⭐ out of 5.