Through the Grinder

Clare Cosi runs the Village Blend, a coffeeshop where she takes pride in the details. When Clare's customers start dying, and Detective Quinn starts suspecting the new man in her life, things take an uncomfortable turn as the barista has urgent need to solve this whodunnit. All while whipping up a perfectly crafted coffee, of course.

'Through the Grinder' was even more amusing than' Uncommon Grounds.' The humor works and comes across natural - most of it is through the unfortunate characters circumstances of having to share space with her ex-husband, the joys of parenting a young adult daughter, contending with a mother in law she loves (but who is determined to reunite her son and daughter-in-law again).

While the author goes into detail show more about proper coffee know-how and creative adventures between lattes and cappucinos, she doesn't overdo it as much as she did in the first book. In other words, it comes across as an enjoyable mystery and not halfway technical manual.

I love the author's quaint style, the characters are hilariously different BUT normal at the same time, the coffee environment shows fun barista mentality. The mysteries are awesome too, clever leads and misleads. It's not impossible to solve but you'll have a fun time trying to.

The surprise isn't the villain so much as it is the shocking sad slap in the ending. My God, how depressing. I had to take away a star for heartbreak alone. Mayday, Mayday, you have been warned! show less

Clare Cosi manages The Village Blend, a century-old coffeehouse in New York’s Greenwich Village, owned by her ex-mother-in-law. She is happily settling into this new life in the City. But one of her regular customers meets her death on the subway tracks shortly after stopping at the coffeehouse. The transit authority rules the death a suicide, but Detective Mike Quinn isn’t so sure. Then another Blend customer “jumps” from her roof and Quinn begins to suspect the new man in Clare’s life.

I thought the plotting was poor, and the clues (and red herrings), heavy-handed. Clare has the makings of a likeable heroine, but her behavior is reckless and immature when she decides to investigate on her own. Detective Quinn has virtually show more nothing to do but appear occasionally to confirm that he doesn’t think the dead women committed suicide, and to warn Clare that her new boyfriend is the chief suspect. Including the thoughts of the killer is jarring in a cozy mystery. I was beginning to wonder if Coyle wouldn’t rather be writing a more hard-core crime novel. I didn’t like the ending at all. Coyle killed off a potential romantic rival for Quinn too soon; this might have been a nice side plot in future books. On the other hand, I certainly wouldn’t want this to descend into a Ranger-Morelli-Stephanie never-ending triangle, so perhaps she was wise to bump off the competition early.

So why give it two stars? It’s was a fast read and I like the back story for this cozy. Maybe I’m just feeling generous, but I also liked the recipe for coffee marinated steaks – seriously. Still, I doubt I’ll read another. show less

Too much of this book feels like filler. The first book in the series blended the coffee gimmick (see what I did there?) nicely into the story, but in this one, there's a bunch of stuff on architecture and a bit on the paintings of a convicted serial killer that don't fit into the theme. On top of that, a whole section of the book feels like it was bolted on to add pages, as the heroes go off exploring an art gallery in a way that doesn't really seem to to add anything to the story.

There's also a lot of pages spent focusing on the dating life of the main character, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing by itself, but the whole book never comes together. It gives the impression of a bunch of little pieces jammed together without any show more coherent whole. It's a pity, after the promise of the first one. show less

I'm getting addicted to these mysteries. I love the coffee atmosphere, even though I only let myself have one cup a day, I make sure that I enjoy it. I like that there is factual information about latte and expresso making, as well as the various types of coffee available, who knew?

As with many mysteries, some of the situations Clare finds herself in are slightly over the top, but great fun to read. In this second in the series, she reacts nervously to the idea of her young daughter Joy, using various on line dating services and decides to check them out for herself.
To her surprise, while checking out potential candidates, Clare actually meets a man that she likes and seems to good to be true. When various women who have all used the show more same dating service turn up dead, Clare's new man is the primary suspect. Of course she wants to clear her name, and enlists the help of her ex-husband Matteo in finding the real killer.

I never guessed the outcome and was truly surprised all the way to the end. This particular "cozy" had a sad undertone which was unexpected, and an "icky" moment concerning a certain body part which had no place in the story. Other than that, it was a fun read. I look forward to continuing with the series. show less

Clare Cosi manages the Village coffeehouse. She also lives upstairs in a luxuriously decorated apartment, owned by her former mother-in law, which she sometimes shares with her ex-husband, Matteo, who's a coffee buyer and often out of the country. Currently, she's worried about her daughter, Joy, since she just broke up with someone yet is ready to get out again in the dating scene. So when Joy signs up for online dating, so does Clare, in the hopes that she'll be able to screen the men ahead of time without Joy knowing.

But Clare gets a surprise herself -- she meets a wealthy, attractive man named Bruce Bowman who's interested in her. Surprisingly, Clare likes him and secretly hopes he'll call. When he does, and she decides to make show more dinner for him, Matteo shows up unexpectedly and while she thinks the evening is ruined, Bruce makes the best of it and asks her out again.

But there's a problem in the dating world -- someone is killing off women who have been on the same dating site as Clare. At first, it all looks like suicides, but Detective Mike Quinn is beginning to think otherwise. And he also thinks that Bruce might be the one killing them. But Clare refuses to believe it, and decides to launch her own investigation to prove him otherwise. But one thing is definite -- Bruce does have a link to all these women, and Clare might be the next 'suicide' on the list if she's not careful...

This is the second book in the series, and I did like it better than the first. Unfortunately, I still don't like Matteo. He cheated on Clare through their entire marriage, and saying sex doesn't mean anything to him because there's no emotional connection is no different than saying killing animals doesn't mean anything if you have no emotional connection. It's cruel, it's wrong, and it's horrible. When Matteo married Clare, he took marriage vows -- which included being faithful, so I still think he's a pig and needs to get out of her life.

That being said, Clare is a tad too obsessed about coffee -- and this is coming from a woman who owns around ten different coffee brewers, is a Supertaster (I have more taste buds in my mouth than the average person and can taste flavors others can't), has grinders, foamers, etc., and keeps around ten or twenty different types of coffee in the house at any given time. I love coffee. But I don't go around telling anyone about the wonders of it. They already know if they're coffee drinkers. (Let's just say a major chain kinda sucks when it comes to making good coffee). Clare makes me a bit nauseous when it comes to coffee. I'd really like to see her back off a bit.

Trying not to give anything else away in this book is really difficult, but I will say that I didn't care for the ending at all. It was depressing, and honestly, it makes me not want to read any more of these for awhile. Which isn't to say it's not a good book; but if I feel this way about it the next day after reading it (and I waited until morning to write this review) then I can't in all good conscience give it more than two stars because of it. Sorry about that.

At any rate, others might think a lot higher of this book, but I really don't like those that depress me, which is why I rarely read thrillers. I read to relax and enjoy, not be depressed nor angry. Still, I will try the next in the series to see how things progress...eventually. show less

Second in the Coffeehouse Mystery series.

It’s November, and The Genius is stalking young women from the Village, killing them so cleverly as to have the deaths appear as suicides. All are regulars at the Village Blend, Detective Mike Quinn believes that the deaths are not suicides but murders, and naturally Clare becomes involved.

The plot itself is a step up from the first book, with subtle, clever red herrings sprinkled liberally throughout the story. In this episode, we do get more Village history, drill on making various coffee drinks, and an eyeful of online dating, New York style. Clare, always the hawk-eyed mom determine to protect her chick Joy (who’s quite grown up), decides to try out all this dating stuff. Her romantic show more life does pick up as she meets a slick groper, a fundraiser for a vegan activist group; he uses scantily-clad lingerie models to raise money to campaign against meat.

What makes this series even better is Coyle’s prose, which is funny and refreshing. A typical example:

“Kira held up a big Lands End canvas carryall. Inside was enough newsprint to wrap dead fish through a nuclear winter.”

Clare cleverly and subtly trying to talk Joy out of online dating:

“Joy, aren’t you busy with your culinary classes" I blurted out. "I mean computer dating doesn’t sound like something you’d have a lot of time for."
Joy gave me a look I can only assume was also used on heretics during the Spanish Inquisition.

Generation gap:

Joy: “He was sort of intense, wasn’t he?”
Clare: “Sort of intense? That man would win a stare-off with Charles Manson.”
Joy: “Who?”

There is an appendix that contains recipes and tips from the Village Blend for such drinks as Cafe Frangelico and Matteo’s coffee--Hazlenut Cocktail and a recipe for Coffee-Marinated Steak with Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Hearty Coffee Gravy.

Wonderful! Highly recommended. show less

I have been a fan of Murder Mysteries for as long as I can remember. One of the things that I have always been able to do is guess who the murderer was before the author has told me. This is the second time that Cleo Coyle has been able to get me.

Another aspect that is normally in Cozy Mysteries is that the protagonist normally ends up happy at the end of the book. Very much like Miss Anatole episodes. You like the characters. You laugh with them and then at the end of the book you don't think too much about them. This is because there wasn't any real loss of characters or the main character wasn't hurt.

Cleo Coyle is not afraid to pull heart strings. I actually teared up in this book. Which never happens to me in Mysteries. I had an show more idea in my head where things where going with the characters and it was totally and utterly wrong. I hope our protagonist Clare can overcome the loss that she has be given. I know there are more books in the series, and of course I'm going to buy them. I have to know how it unfolds. show less