French Pressed

I have to admit I don’t like Joy much, nor do I like Clare’s melodramatic interactions with her daughter. She’s so reasonable and tactful with everyone else, but around Joy she is Ms. Instant Ballistic.

She must have made her daughter’s teen years H**l on steroids. All she does is carp, nag, carp, nag, carp, nag…..ad infinitum ad nauseum. If I had a mother like that I’d have left for the West Coast, Hawaii, or even Japan, as soon as HS was over. Sheesh. There’s plenty of excellent cooking schools and great restaurants elsewhere.

Also, I must have missed something in the last part of the story. Her ex-lover/boss was supposed to transfer her to another restaurant, but instead she stays at Solange? Why? It’s already been established the chef that takes over isn’t creative. Good wanna-be chefs jump around like fleas in a circus; it’s how you build a resume today. Even if she’s just an intern, joining another top-rated chef and getting those accolades from somebody ALIVE, would beat working for a dead ex-lover chef and then a hack.

Except for the issues with Joy, the mystery is good. Clare continues to withstand Matt(eo)’s advances and build a relationship with the more interesting Quinn. Madame continues her charming joie de vivre; she’s really the only truly happy character in the whole series.

Book #6 in this series kept me guessing until the very end. That is unusual but then again, that is the best part. Being an fan of French Pressed Coffee this was the natural attraction but this latest entry is chock full of delightful hints, recipe’s and the delicious whodunit. What I will say is that the delightful at times challenging daughter Joy who has achieved an excellent opportunity to intern at one of the charming bistro’s in town, Solange aka an intern with benefits shall we say, leads to good, bad and disastrous tibits as the body count rises. It is up to Clare, ex husband Matteo and the escalating love interest Det Mike Quinn to find out who really dunnit as Joy is locked up beyond the person of interest category and everyone is simply devastated due to the knowledge that she was truly in the wrong places at the wrong time. But what is the connection? That reader, is for me to now know, and you to find out! Enjoy. I am off to refresh myself with a cuppa fresh pressed coffee and on to #7! It is also the least expensive way for me to relive my old stomping grounds having lived in all 3 boroughs of NYC , Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan(periphery of Greenwich Village, smack dab in the 6th Precint(sp).

This is the 6th book in the Coffeehouse Mystery series. Clare’s romance with Detective Mike Quinn is beginning to heat up, but is complicated by her ex-husband and business partner. Clare has been trying to do her best not to meddle in her daughter’s love life, but she is not pleased with Joy’s romance with the head chef at her internship, who is also a married man. On a visit to the restaurant, Clare intervenes when the woman in charge of the kitchen in Tommy’s absence begins to berate Joy and threatens her physically. Clare decides she needs to be closer to the action and offers to create a custom coffee menu for the desserts at Solange. When Tommy winds up dead after a particularly ugly breakup with Joy, Clare must find a way to clear her daughter’s name. She relies both on Mike and her ex to help her investigate the murder, which takes her into the underbelly of the restaurant culture and into the Russian mafia scene. The mystery was interesting and the characters had good interactions above and beyond the plot. This was a good addition to the series.

Cleo Coyle amazes the reader with her ability to perpetuate the events of intrigue that occur in and around the high-brow coffee shop in Manhattan. She has finely honed her characters of Clare Cosi, manager and amateur sleuth – Mike Quinn, precinct police officer and new love interest for Clare – and of course, the comedic ex-husband, Matt. Drawn together with other good and familiar characters, like Madame, owner of the coffee shop, mother of Matt and ex in-law of Clare she brings an element of class and prestige to the story line.

We also love to read about Joy, daughter of Clare and Matt, who in this book is interning for a chef position. Wonderfully, her youthful antics adds angst and joy to Clare’s motherhood, simultaneously. French Pressed revolves around daughter, Joy, and the crime and pursuit of a killer takes its’ toll on a young Joy.

One of the delightful parts of reading a Cleo Coyle book is the extensive but not intrusive information on coffee the reader picks up. Never overdone, but definitely a part of the story is the acquisition, global reach and fine-tuning, so to speak, of the care and use of coffee beans. This is a great read to take along on a trip, cuddle up with on a rainy Saturday afternoon or put in your bag to read in the waiting room. You cannot miss with this one.

In this the sixth installment of the Coffeehouse Mysteries, Coyle, the writing team of Alice Alfonsi (Rosemary Grace) and Marc Cerasini, who also write The Haunted Bookshop mysteries under the joint pseudonym Alice Kimberly, bring together an interesting assortment of characters.

As Clare Cosi is trying to do her job as the manager of the ever popular Village Blend, murder just always seems to pop up around her. But this time, it’s her daughter Joy that is in trouble and if mommy and daddy don’t run to her defense, it is quite possible that she will spend the rest of her life in jail for murder.

Restaurants are quite a cutthroat business, but when two employees of Solange are found dead, and Joy was the last to be seen with them what are the police to think? Even Clare’s new love interest, Mike, the NYC Detective, is having a hard time with this one. And a couple other things.

There are multiple sub-plots that keep this book humming along and it’s really a very good series that should be enjoyed with a great cup of coffee and maybe even try out a couple of the recipes in the back of the book.

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