To the Last Drop

Someone kills dental surgeon William Swope by throwing him out his 10th-floor office window in Balzo’s entertaining ninth mystery featuring Brookhills, Wis., coffee shop owner Maggy Thorsen (after 2013’s Murder on the Orient Espresso). Maggy has more than one personal link to the victim. Swope shared his dental practice with Ted Thorsen, Maggy’s ex-husband; Maggy recently consulted Swope’s wife, Lynne, a financial planner, about her inheritance; and Maggy’s son, Eric, got a lift from school from Swope’s daughter the day of the murder. Suspects include a woman who has been picketing the dentists’ office for their being in cahoots with a government plot, and an irate dentist from Louisville, Ky., who blames Swope for illegal business practices and drug use. Maggy can’t keep out of the case, even if it costs her relationship with the investigating sheriff, Jake Pavlik, her boyfriend. Maggy makes an appealing amateur sleuth, though the story would have benefited from more action and fewer discussions and less analysis. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary Agency. (Nov.)