Customer Reviews

Decaffeinated Corpse: A Coffehouse Mystery (Coffeehouse Mystery)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Cleo Coyle has once again delighted us with a fast-paced mystery using the Village Blend coffee house as the center of activity. Her charcters, including bumbling ex hubby, Matt, and her delightful octogenarian former mother-in-law as well as her wanna be future love interest, Mike Quinn,are fascinating and funny and interesting.

Sometimes, Coyle gives us more information than we would ever want to know about growing coffee beans, properly processing coffee beans and the art of serving java. But it is easy to get past those moments simply because of the story line. She never stalls or gets bogged down, and instead keeps the reader glued because of the pace.

Finding yourself with a quiet Saturday afternoon or wanting a quick read during mobility, this is the one. You will not be disappointed.

I own all of the coffeehouse mysteries and this one did not disappoint. Cleo Coyle has created believable characters and added coffee trivia to boot. I love that no matter how minor a role the character has, Coyle always seems to give a great deal of thought and detail to this person, even if they are only in the book for a minute number of pages.

I have noticed that the plots improve with every novel, as do the recipes. Coyle's whodunits are not so obvious as some other mystery writers and she often keeps me guessing right until the end.

I agree with another reviewer who said that she provides her readers with coffee tidbits and trivia, but she does not get bogged down and I never feel like the book stalls at these times. She never uses a term that might not be familiar to all without explaining it (Rita Mae Brown did this in her last novel) and her dialogue is funny, witty and easy to read.

In Cleo Coyle's latest outing at the Village Blend all our favorite characters are back and up to the same coffee hijinks. This time around Clare is up to her elbows in decaf coffee. As if she didnt dislike it enough already this time around it could bring down everything she has worked so hard to get back. So the murders start piling up and everyone is a possible suspect. Its up to her to save the day and regain some order in her caffeinated life.

If you like her other offerings you will definitely like this one. There is even more character developement and new ones thrown into the mix. Its another fun outing with Claire and the entire Village Blend gang. Also another quick read that will want you having more and more, just like the addicting caffine...

For me, two of the main draws of this series are the New York City setting & the information on coffee. This particular mystery was nothing special, & I enjoyed scenes at the Village Blend much more. As with most series, I've become attached to the characters, & I was very pleased to see a little tension in the Clare- Joy relationship. All in all, for me, the characters & the coffee made the mystery.

It's approaching Halloween and the events of Murder Most Frothy have had some consequences. There's tension between Clare and her daughter Joy. Otherwise, it's business as usual at the Village Blend, the coffeehouse Clare manages in the Greenwich Village. Matt, Clare's ex-husband and partner in the coffeehouse, has brokered a deal with an old friend, Federico Gostwick, to be the exclusive distributor's of his naturally decaffeinated coffee. Clare just needs to convince her baristas that this decaf, known as 'why bother' in the coffee world, is truly worth the bother since they'll be serving the new decaf at a coffee tasting for ICGE (International Coffee Growers Exhibition) at the Beckman Hotel. Of course, that's before Federico was found unconscious in the alley alongside the Blend by Clare who was also knocked out as she checked to see if the body had a pulse. Neither Matt nor Ric want to report the attack which leaves Clare wondering what's really going on.

Clare's learned a thing or three about recognizing a lie or a stretched truth -- and Matt and Ric aren't telling her everything. Det. Quinn is no slouch in picking up clues and Tucker already mentioned the mugging in the alley; so Quinn gives Clare a bit of advice to keep her out of trouble. However, Clare can't just ignore it as more and more it begins looking like Matt may have pulled them into something that could backfire on them all. Once the bodies start to pile up, even Matt has to agree something is wrong and maybe, just maybe, Clare might have a point, or even two.

The characters are becoming more finely drawn as the series continues and as backstory and emotional history are layered in with the plot. Ric and Matt were friends when Matt and Clare were married so a few flashback memories add to the texture of the story.

Previously, coffee has been only a side issue to the crime and investigation, in Decaffeinated Corpse it's all about the coffee: who buys it, who controls it, who develops it, and how soon it can come to market. Coyle manages to fill the reader in on the history and tangled commercial business of the coffee world, or at least enough to allow the reader to understand what is involved and how it could be seen as a deadly serious enterprise.

The series keeps getting better and better and you should try the recipe for Clare's Cappuccino Muffins -- perfect with a nice cup of coffee and a good book, preferable Decaffeinated Corpse.

I've read all of the coffeehouse mysteries and I enjoyed this one more than the last. I may be in the minority, but I love the relationship between Clare and Matt. It is always interesting to see how a character can be in turmoil over whether to let feelings take charge when common sense tells you to do something different. And Clare's relationship with Joy is definitely one that has a lot of changes ahead as Joy seeks to make her way as an independent adult.
The mystery in these books is the secondary concern for me, because I can read many other books and get a good mystery. What I care about in this series is the relationship between the characters that I have grown attached to, including Madame and Mike.
For some reason, I just haven't been very excited about Mike as a love interest, maybe because of the way he is described in the books. He comes across as this stabilizing force that seems safe. Boring. But nice. Like a strong older brother type. I like the adventure, the uncertainty of conflict with Clare when it comes to romance.
I especially loved the reference to Clare as a "Nancy Drew". It is so true! She just can't help herself when strange things happen around her, so she takes risks to figure out whatever she can.
Hopefully the next book will come out soon and according to the excerpt in the back, it will have more of Joy and Clare's relationship in it, which I look forward to!

I've been following this coffeehouse mystery series since the beginning, and I have absolutely enjoyed every one.

The author manages to get me to suspend disbelief, and buy into a manager of a Greenwich Village coffeehouse who would be nosy enough to get involved in crime investigations. The characters behave like real people (even the minor players, such as the coffeehouse's barristas, have their own goals and storylines), and they're very appealing. The setting is fun; I grew up in New York, and I appreciate how well Coyle integrates city life into the story, without getting heavy handed about it. And the mystery... well, okay, I _did_ correctly guess the whodunnit before the end, but I didn't mind. The story doesn't rely completely on body count and investigations, since there are so many character changes going on.

Bottom line: I grabbed this book as my companion for a plane flight, and it was exactly what I had hoped for. I spent a few hours in another world, and I was thoroughly entertained while I was there.

Can you start with this book, out of order from the rest of the series? Probably. There's no plot elements that require you to know everything what went before. But I'd recommend you do start at the beginning, because you'll get the most from the people-relationships, such as Clare's feeling about her ex-husband and why she's so close to her ex-mother-in-law.

Obviously, this series appeals to people who are serious about coffee. I'm not a coffee geek, but I do roast my own beans (see IRoast2) and own a high-end Solis espresso maker. The author does drop a lot of coffee knowledge, and (even though I'm a long way from ignorant about the subject), I learned quite a bit. If you enjoy coffee and mystery novels, you'll definitely enjoy this book and this series.

But you wouldn't have to like coffee to enjoy this book. It's just a fun, cozy mystery... good entertainment.

This is one mystery series that I eagerly look forward to each installment and have yet to feel let-down. My enthusiasm for this series continues with this book.

Clare Cosi is back in Greenwich Village and the Village Blend Coffee House after spending the last book on Long Island. There is intrique and excitement when a decaffinated coffee bean is developed that would significantly impact the coffee-drinking world. All the complications that arise out of owning a huge money-maker are used to move the story along to a successful completion. The city of NYC continues to be more of a character in the book rather than just a setting and adds a lot to the mystery.

Complaints from other reviewers -- no dead body until Chapter 19 and too much coffee history/information -- didn't bother me at all. In fact, these are some of the very features that make this book rise above other mystery series I read. The author seems to respect the reader enough to put some real "meat" in the book rather than just a lot of fluff.

I continue to look forward to each and every installment. If you like mysteries, this is one of the best there is.

"Decaffeinated corpse" is the fifth mystery novel in the Coffeehouse Mysteries-series by Cleo Coyle, and by far the best. (Not that the others weren't good; just that this one is even better). This series has grown with leaps and bounds, and especially the setting, for the most part in other parts of New York, away from the Village Blend makes this for a far more entertaining, energetic read.
Anyway, to recap for those new to this series: Clare Cosi is manager of the Village Blend, a historic coffee shop in New York's Greenwich Village. Her life is a complicated blend of managing the Village Blend; pleasing the customers with delightful espressos, lattes and other kinds of coffee; worrying about her daughter Joy who's now grown and gone but has a knack for getting into trouble; her attempts at managing the difficult, headstrong Village Blend's coffee buyer and also her coffeeshop-partner (AND ex-husband) Matt Allegro, not to mention the other beaus in her life like NYPD-detective Mike Quinn; and handling Madame, the Blend's flamboyant, elderly owner. To add something extra to this complicated brew, she also has a tendency to have things "happen around her", like murders.
Of course, in "Decaffeinated corpse" it doesn't take long before the first dead body shows up as she gets involved when an old friend of her ex-husband develops the world's first botanically decaffeinated coffee bean, which seems a great business opportunity for the Blend's international kiosks which have recently been started up by Matt. And after that, it really starts to get complicated as casualties start piling up and high on the suspects-list are those near and dear to her... But I leave it to the reader to find out how Clare manages to find the murderer...
Anyway, Cleo Coyle (husband-and-wife team Marc Cerasini and Alice Alfonsi) has a winner on her hands with this novel! You can read it as a stand-alone, but why not get to know these characters better at first? For that, be sure to read the other novels in this series. Or, if you like your mysteries with a bit more "noir" added: pick up the Haunted Bookshop mystery series by Alice Kimberly (Marc and Alice writing under a different pen-name), also a great read!

Since May 2007, I've become addicted to the Coffeehouse Mystery series by Cleo Coyle. (Incidentally, "Cleo Coyle" is really the husband and wife writing team of Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini. They are also "Alice Kimberly", who writes the Haunted Bookshop Mysteries.)

I savored the first book, On What Grounds, and also enjoyed Through the Grinder (although it was suprisingly sad and dark at the end). I've recently finished Book 3 Latte Trouble (my least favorite of the series), as well as the fourth book Murder Most Frothy (you can see my reviews of those books at their product page).

I'm pleased to report that Decaffeinated Corpse is one of the best in the Coffeehouse Mystery series--almost on par with the first (and best) book!

In the fifth book of this series, one of Matteo's friends, Ric, has cultivated a naturally decaffeinated plant. Because decaf is in high-demand (and because the Village Blend's expansion into kiosks placed at high end boutiques has caused a financial strain), both Clare and Matteo jump at the chance to get exclusive rights to distribute the Gostwick Estate Reserve.

However, when Ric is assaulted in the alley behind the Village Blend, Clare begins to suspect that something shady might be going on...and that the assault was, in fact, attempted murder.

I love the evolution of the characters (Clare, her ex-husband Matteo, ex-mother-in-law Madame, floppy-haired barista Tucker and even the icy Breanne Summour)--as well as the realistic complexities of relationships...including Clare's relationship with her coke-snorting culinary daughter, Joy, and her attraction to the rumpled cop, Mike Quinn (which is now creeping towards a bona fide romance).

I keep rooting for Clare to get back with Matteo--and the authors make him a very likable rogue!

As always, there are FASCINATING coffee growing/brewing tips in Decaffeinated Corpse, especially in terms of decaffeination. And, there are GREAT recipes at the back, too. I can't wait to try Clare's Cappuccino Muffins!

I'm looking forward to the sixth installment, French Pressed, set to debut in March 2008!