When the first body is found in a dimly lit café on Grape Street, Detective Cameron Poe knows at once this is no ordinary murder. A delicate glass stands beside the victim - a perfectly prepared macchiato martini - and, scrawled across the marble tabletop in blood, a single chilling message: "Awake and beware."
As Rockford’s fog thickens, so too does the mystery. Each new victim is found with the same cocktail and a new phrase, a morbid trail leading Poe through smoky gambling spots, genteel drawing rooms, and the city’s underbelly of ambition and deceit. Everyone seems to be hiding something - the barista with a criminal past, the playwright with too-perfect alibis, the widow who never mourns.
In a case steeped in caffeine and corruption, Poe must stir together the smallest clues before the killer serves their final, fatal drink - one meant just for him.