Ming Tea Murder: Tea Shop Mystery #16

Murder spoils the black-tie affair that opens bestseller Childs’s soothing 16th mystery to feature Charleston, S.C., tea shop owner Theodosia Browning (after 2014’s Steeped in Evil). The Gibbes Museum, of which Theodosia’s boyfriend, Max Scofield, is the PR director, is celebrating its new Chinese tea house, bought and disassembled in Shanghai and now reconstructed inside the museum, with a gala party. For the occasion, Max has persuaded the Gibbes’s director to install a photo booth, which proves quite popular with the guests, one of whom is major donor Edgar Webster, whose dead body Theodosia has the misfortune to find inside. When Max becomes a suspect in Webster’s murder, Theodosia once again turns sleuth. Realistic and down-to earth characters populate a cozy that tea lovers will relish and even coffee drinkers will enjoy. Childs rounds out the volume with a section of favorite recipes, tea-time tips, and a list of publications, websites, and blogs related to tea. (May)