Murder by Mocha

June 27, 2011
La vita is definitely dolce these days for feisty Clare Cosi in Coyle's 10th coffeehouse mystery (after 2010's Roast Mortem): she has an exquisitely furnished, rent-free duplex above Village Blend, the Greenwich Village coffee shop she manages for her former mother-in-law; steamy amore with NYPD detective Mike Quinn; even a lucrative deal to use some of her Village Blend beans in Mocha Magic, a new love potion being pitched to women by a Web powerhouse, Aphrodite's Village. Of course, there's trenta-sized trouble brewing. Indeed, the Mocha Magic launch gala turns into a crime scene with Clare's discovery of a slain Aphrodite's Village exec. She soon finds a second murder victimâand herself in the line of fire. Until the pseudonymous Coyle (the wife-husband writing team of Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini) starts stirring in too many subplots, this is a tasty espresso-dark tale of multigenerational crime and punishment lightened by the Blend's frothy cast of lovable eccentrics.