Note: This review originally appeared in The Season E-Zine's November mystery section.
Holiday Grind by Cleo Coyle
Berkley, paperback reprint (November 2010)
Rating: 9 (Excellent) (The Season's rating scale runs from 1 to 10.)
For fans of: Diane Mott Davidson, Joanne Fluke
Village Blend manager and head barista Clare Cosi is in the holiday spirit. Christmas carols are playing, the Blend's decked out in red and green, and Clare and her employees are working on a new menu of Fa-la-la-la Lattes that are sure to bring lots of thirsty shoppers through the doors. But when Clare steps out for a walk in the snow and stumbles across the corpse of Traveling Santa (and Blend friend) Alf Glockner, her mood becomes a little less merry. The NYPD officer assigned to the case, Sergeant Emmanuel "General" Franco, dismisses Alf's death as a mugging-gone-wrong and seems more interested in hitting on Clare than in catching Alf's killer. Clare's positive Alf's death wasn't just a random act of street violence, though, and when Alf's daughter Vicki asks Clare for help in solving her father's murder, Clare can't say no. Can Clare unwrap the mystery surrounding the slain Santa without becoming a victim herself?
I admit, I don't usually like Christmas-themed mysteries; more often than not, they sacrifice plot and pacing for schmaltz and sentimentality. Author Cleo Coyle does go a little heavy on the cozy here, what with her Dickens references and her Salvation-Army-esque Traveling Santas. That does not, however, mean that Holiday Grind isn't worth your time; despite the tinsel, this is a cracking good mystery, chock full of murder, sex, blackmail, and intrigue. The book's got a strong narrative drive, an intricate storyline, and a great sense of atmosphere. And if when you're done, you don't emerge itching for a perfectly drawn espresso or a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain, there's a good chance you're dead inside.
If Coyle's writing has one fault, it's her minor characters. The Village Blend's baristas -- flamboyant actor-playwright Tucker, hip jazz musician Gardner, grad student and slam poetess Esther, and tattooed fine-arts painter Dante -- are little more than caricatures of people you'd expect to find in a Village coffeehouse. Traveling Santa and down-on-his-luck standup-comic-wannabe Alf Glockner is annoying even in death. And with his cowboy boots, Yankees jacket, and red, white, and blue do-rag, Sergeant Franco is patently ridiculous.
Her main characters more than make up for this flaw, though. Clare makes for a smart, plucky heroine, hunky NYPD Detective Mike Quinn is everything you could hope for in a series love interest, and the romance between the two throws off plenty of sparks. Clare's "family" -- reformed-bad-boy and ex-husband Matteo Allegro, sophisticated socialite and ex-mother-in-law Madame Allegro, and daughter Joy -- are also compelling characters, and are a big part of what makes Coyle's fictional world feel so lifelike.
Holiday Grind is the eighth installment in Cleo Coyle's Coffeehouse Mystery series. I'm an avid fan, having purchased and read every installment -- the last few in hardcover. Trust me when I tell you there's a reason Coyle's become a big name on the cozy scene. Her books don't disappoint. Do yourself a favor, and go out and buy one today.
REVIEW: Night of the Living Deed
Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman
Berkley, June 2010
Rating: 10
When Alison Kerby and her young daughter, Melissa, buy a rambling old house on the Jersey Shore and start making plans to turn the place into a guesthouse, they don't expect to have lodgers before the renovations are even complete. They also don't expect for those lodgers to be ghosts. As it turns out, the house is haunted by the spirits of Maxie Malone and Paul Harrison -- the house's previous owner and the private investigator she hired to discover who was sending her anonymous threats. The pair's deaths were initially ruled a double suicide, but Alison's determined to get the investigation re-opened -- particularly since Paul and Maxie refuse to leave her alone and let her finish her renovations until their murderer is brought to justice. But when Alison starts receiving threatening messages herself, she's forced to wonder: will she solve the case in time to avoid becoming the house's newest ghostly guest?
Night of the Living Deed is the first in E. J. Copperman's new Haunted Guesthouse Mystery series. It's Topper meets Beetlejuice with a dash of This Old House thrown in for good measure, and it's one of the best mysteries I've read this year.
The prose starts out a little clunky, but Copperman quickly finds Alison's voice, and when he does, the book just comes alive. The plot is tight, the narration is propulsive, and the mystery is clever and kept me guessing until the very end. The list of suspects is long, but not too, and Copperman drops clues in all the right places. The pacing is perfect, the dialogue is witty and natural, and the book is quite simply a pleasure to read from start to finish.
Alison is a smart, strong, independent single mother who makes for a fabulous amateur sleuth and a winsome heroine. Melissa is neither precious or precocious and actually makes for a remarkably good sidekick, and Maxie and Paul may be ghosts, but they're two of the best supporting characters I've ever read. Petulant poltergeist-with-a-heart-of-gold Maxie is characterization at its finest; simultaneously hilarious and charming, her antics and snarky banter will keep you roaring, and the sweet relationship she shares with Melissa will warm your heart. And for his part, ghostly P. I. Paul is a nice twist on the star-crossed love interest (a concept I expect Copperman will have a great deal of fun exploring in later books) and is the perfect impetus to get Alison involved in this and future investigations. He's sweet, charming, and doggedly persistent, and is hands-down a more compelling disembodied detective than Alice Kimberly's Jack Shepard.
With Night of the Living Deed, E. J. Copperman has created a haunted guesthouse that just begs for an extended stay. What are you waiting for? Run out (right now!) and buy yourself a copy; you can thank me later.
*Note: I purchased this book with my own money; it was not provided to me by the author or his publisher.
Berkley, June 2010
Rating: 10
When Alison Kerby and her young daughter, Melissa, buy a rambling old house on the Jersey Shore and start making plans to turn the place into a guesthouse, they don't expect to have lodgers before the renovations are even complete. They also don't expect for those lodgers to be ghosts. As it turns out, the house is haunted by the spirits of Maxie Malone and Paul Harrison -- the house's previous owner and the private investigator she hired to discover who was sending her anonymous threats. The pair's deaths were initially ruled a double suicide, but Alison's determined to get the investigation re-opened -- particularly since Paul and Maxie refuse to leave her alone and let her finish her renovations until their murderer is brought to justice. But when Alison starts receiving threatening messages herself, she's forced to wonder: will she solve the case in time to avoid becoming the house's newest ghostly guest?
Night of the Living Deed is the first in E. J. Copperman's new Haunted Guesthouse Mystery series. It's Topper meets Beetlejuice with a dash of This Old House thrown in for good measure, and it's one of the best mysteries I've read this year.
The prose starts out a little clunky, but Copperman quickly finds Alison's voice, and when he does, the book just comes alive. The plot is tight, the narration is propulsive, and the mystery is clever and kept me guessing until the very end. The list of suspects is long, but not too, and Copperman drops clues in all the right places. The pacing is perfect, the dialogue is witty and natural, and the book is quite simply a pleasure to read from start to finish.
Alison is a smart, strong, independent single mother who makes for a fabulous amateur sleuth and a winsome heroine. Melissa is neither precious or precocious and actually makes for a remarkably good sidekick, and Maxie and Paul may be ghosts, but they're two of the best supporting characters I've ever read. Petulant poltergeist-with-a-heart-of-gold Maxie is characterization at its finest; simultaneously hilarious and charming, her antics and snarky banter will keep you roaring, and the sweet relationship she shares with Melissa will warm your heart. And for his part, ghostly P. I. Paul is a nice twist on the star-crossed love interest (a concept I expect Copperman will have a great deal of fun exploring in later books) and is the perfect impetus to get Alison involved in this and future investigations. He's sweet, charming, and doggedly persistent, and is hands-down a more compelling disembodied detective than Alice Kimberly's Jack Shepard.
With Night of the Living Deed, E. J. Copperman has created a haunted guesthouse that just begs for an extended stay. What are you waiting for? Run out (right now!) and buy yourself a copy; you can thank me later.
*Note: I purchased this book with my own money; it was not provided to me by the author or his publisher.