by Toni Murphy

Created on: November 06, 2009

Holiday Grind

A Coffee House Mystery

By: Cleo Coyle

Published by: Berkley Prime Crime Hardcover

Published on: November 4, 2009

Pages: 384

ISBN: 978-0-425-23005-3

Holiday Grind opens at the Village Blend with everyone preparing for the Christmas season. The Blend is a landmark coffee house in the West Village of Manhattan. It is owned by Clare's, ex-mother-in-law known affectionately as Madame. Clare and Madame's son Matteo divorced several years back but Madame has never given up hope that they would one day find each other again. In an effort, to help make this happen, Madame enticed Clare back to New York by deeding the coffee house to Clare and Matteo jointly, making them partners, once again. Clare can live with that because she is doing what she loves best, managing the coffee house and constantly working on new flavors of coffees to offer her customers. This is what we find Clare doing as we join her and her Baristas (trained espresso bartenders) as we enter the Blend. Clare has organized a party to try and discover the Taste of Christmas. She is tired of the same Christmas flavors year after year and is looking to spruce up the holiday with a few new flavors of coffee.

Clare is disappointed when no one at the party is in the spirit of Christmas. It is still 3 weeks until Christmas and everyone is tired of the same old holiday grind. Clare decides what this group needs is Santa Claus, but Santa is late. Alfred Glockner, who is one of the traveling Santas around town and father to one of Clare's previous Baristas, is a regular at the Blend. He is always dropping in the Blend to say hello and cheer up the customers. Clare always gives him a free cup of coffee in appreciation of all the work he is doing to raise money for the homeless. Clare, thinking maybe Alf had forgotten her invitation to the tasting party, decides to go out and find him. Matt, her ex-husband, tells her that he saw Alf pushing his sleigh down one of the local streets as he was headed to the Blend. Clare thinking that the West Village being a small neighborhood should make it easy to find a traveling Santa, heads out into the cold, snowy night and straight into murder and mystery.

In Cleo's creation of the Coffee House Mysteries, you will find all the elements you love about a cozy/amateur sleuth mystery. All the mystery and suspense is there without having to wade through the blood, sex and profanity. Cleo throws in just enough red herrings to keep you guessing who the murderer

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