In Single Malt Murder by Melinda Mullet, internationally recognized photojournalist Abigail Logan inherits the Abby Glen whiskey distillery in the Scottish Highlands from her Uncle Ben, who brought her up when her parents were killed when she was seven. Traveling to Scotland with her best friend, Patrick, for Ben’s funeral, Abi starts getting messages that turn from warnings into death threats. Upon arriving in Scotland, Abi finds that everyone expects her to sell the distillery, one of the best in the world. To make matters worse, Abi learns that the distillery has been a target of sabotage, likely in an effort to force her to sell cheaply. Abi gets through the funeral in a daze and then drinks up a bottle of whiskey, so Patrick fills her up with coffee to sober her up. Now wide awake, the pair go to the distillery to inspect for further sabotage. While searching through the building, Abi spies a barrel of whiskey in which floats a dead body. When she discovers that the body is that of Duff, the friendly bartender, and that the police officer is inclined to call it an accident from trying to sabotage the distillery, Abi determines to use her investigative skills as a photojournalist to get to the truth.
In the midst of her research, Abi gets to know the people of the Scottish community. She meets a woman older than 100 who teaches Abi all about the distillery. She tells Abi about how Ben saved it when he bought the distillery 14 years earlier, with the use of his marketing and other business savvy. But even further, the old woman tells Abi about the earliest days of the place and how her husband took a big risk to make and market a special whiskey that the manufacturing board didn’t believe in and was unwilling to invest in. It turned out to be a tremendous success, now worth thousands of pounds a bottle. Though most locals greet Abi with hostility other than trying to woo her to sell the distillery, Hunter, the caretaker of the place, diligently takes over seeing to Abi’s care. Further, after getting past their rough start, Abi and Grant, one of the top people in the distillery, become friends and do some investigating together. Finally, Abi’s greatest ally, Liam, the wheaten terrier given to Abi by Ben not long before he died, does not want to leave her side and serves as her great protector.
I really had a good time listening to this book. Before I started reading Single Malt Murder, I knew absolutely nothing about whiskey, but the book does a good job of teaching us readers about the distillation process and how whiskey is created, from start to finish, without making us feel stupid. Those who know everything there is to know about making whiskey will not become bored with the lessons on the beverage either. The material taught us about whiskey before getting used in the plot of the book does make the book all the more fascinating.
The plot takes interesting turns and kept me drawn to the book. We keep wondering what is going on and whom we can trust. Which people are behind the sabotage, and what exactly are they trying to manage with this?
The characters in the book are well- drawn and ones we get invested in. We feel connected to Abi and want her to succeed in the whiskey business against the threats of people who seem to want to scare away a woman from ownership of the distillery. We also feel empathy for the murdered Duff, even as we learn some potentially negative things about him. But my favorite character in the book is Liam. The dog really endears himself to all who meet him and to us readers. He serves as Abi’s chief protector, living up to the meaning of his name that was given to him by Ben when he gave the dog to Abi.
Gemma Dawson performs the audiobook of Single Malt Murder, and she does a strong job of bringing this book to life. She creates strong accents and voices for each of the characters. The expressions Dawson uses make the book believable and enhance the experience of listening to the audiobook, opposed to reading it on our own.
I thoroughly appreciated the book Single Malt Murder. I enjoyed learning about the whiskey distillation business, a topic I had never found to be of interest before. It blended into the plot perfectly and gave an extra element of fun to what was already a strong and clever plot. I loved the book so much that I already bought book two in the series! I give it five stars!
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