Murder and Macchiatos

Peyton Ashford is a law professor who has inherited an old barn which she and her husband, Cooper, city District Attorney, have turned into the Old West designed Books and Brews Bistro, a coffeehouse. Peyton and her two best friends, Willow and Kylie, become amateur detectives out of sheer necessity when the Sheriff, Matt Taylor, either refuses to investigate crimes  or is so incompetent he can't do the job properly. Peyton and her friends solve different types of crimes, mostly in this small town of Dauphin's Cove, Connecticut, which used to be the whaling capital of Connecticut. Along the way, Peyton runs into various difficulties of her own, both in her family and amid friends from past and present. 

The body belongs to Peyton's great-uncle, whom she has not seen since childhood. The Sheriff declines to investigate so Peyton enlists the help of her two best friends, Willow and Kylie, to help her solve the murder. Strangely, this murder happened in the exact same way as the murder of her great-great grandfather, over 100 years ago. Along the way, a teenage girl mysteriously disappears and her parents refuse police help in finding her, but Peyton is determined to do so. A mysterious explosion destroys the teen's home, and searchers find the body of her brother...not killed in the explosion but murdered.  

A competitive law professor and a Federal Drug agent become involved, determined to prevent Peyton from solving these crimes, especially that of her great-uncle. Fake art reproductions, hundreds of thousands of dollars fraudulently acquired, a stolen antique scrimshaw, a deadly lab, and the interference of a strange woman all add to Peyton's problems in trying to solve the worst and most unusual crimes the small town of Dauphin's Cove had ever seen.