Shot in the Dark

Much to Clare's amazement the Village Blend becomes a hub for a dating apps best place to hookup. In Shot in the Dark by Cleo Coyle, that might not be the best reputation to have. In fact on a night when the coffeehouse is packed with patrons, a young woman pulls out a gun and fires shots into the ceiling as she threatens a young man.

It seems the Cinder app with its Cinder-Fellas and Tinker-Tinker responses have made the app a huge success, but not everyone is happy about it. Once Gun Girl displays and fires her weapon, Clare knows she has to calm down the scene. When the police take Carol Lynn Kendall away, they question the object of her rage - Richard Crest. He claims innocence about why she was so angry. He admits to hooking up with her via the app, but it was just "for fun" he claimed.

Before you can say doppio, the scene has gone viral and people are staying away in droves from the Village Blend. Because the Cinder app is feeling the effects of the video, SydneyWebber-Rhodes founder and CEO of Cinder turns up with her Tinkerbells to try to mitigate the damage. She plans a gigantic hook-up event at the Village Blend, but not to be outdone, Clare and Esther plan a poetry slam upstairs to let customers talk about their bad experiences with dating apps. What could go wrong?

When Clare finds the body of one of her customers in the Hudson River, she thinks maybe Richard Crest is more than a philandering jerk. As she investigates, she is dragged into more than the dating app scene.

This is a fast-paced mystery with lots of excitement and twists and turns. I'm always craving coffee and pastry after I read these books.

Second coffeehouse series

The second coffeehouse mystery series is written by Cleo Coyle and takes place in New York City. Clare Cosi manages the historic Village Blend coffeehouse. Her formidable former mother-in-law Madame Dreyfus Dubois Allegro is the owner and her ex-husband Matt Allegro is the coffee bean hunter. It has a decidedly different vibe than the Uncommon Grounds series.

The earlier books in this series were set in the Greenwich Village coffeehouse, but the action moves to Georgetown and Washington, DC in Dead to the Last Drop. The previous books have been well written and the plots move along logically, yet still with mystery. Dead to the Last Drop has three of my least favorite elements: flashbacks (hate them), an extremely convoluted plot (not wholly believable) and very long. Don't get me wrong, I have read many long books, but cozy mysteries, by their nature are not this long. I felt as if I were in the middle of a pop culture thriller with endless police chases.

The story opens with Clare's boyfriend NYPD Detective Mike Quinn (on loan to the Department of Justice) bursting into the Village Blend DC and demanding that Clare come with him. He pulls her outside and practically forces her into a car. He wants her to explain what she knows about the President's daughter Abby. Bewildered Clare climbs into a strange car without her cell phone or handbag and without telling anyone where she is going.

The plot flashes back two weeks earlier when the President's daughter comes disguised as a musician to play at the upstairs Open Mike session. It bumps along to a visit to the White House by Clare to meet the First Lady, a controlling, scary woman, then trips into Mike's history with his current boss Katerina, an ambitious, back stabbing, man-eater who has Mike in her sights and Clare on her to be destroyed list.

I did not care for this book and I struggled to finish it. If you liked the earlier books, you probably will not like this one. The first book in this series is On What Grounds.

Do yourself a favor and read the earlier ones first.