Monday, November 14, 2016

Dead Cold Brew

Title: Dead Cold Brew
Author: Cleo Coyle
Expected Publication: January 10th 2017 by Berkley Publishing Group
Format: eBook; Hardcover, 432 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and Berkley for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Coffeehouse Mystery #16

Amazing how a shipwreck and a stolen legacy can change everything, but that is exactly what Clare Cosi and her ex-husband Matt Allegro are confronted with in the newest Coffeehouse Mystery. A book that the reader has to stay with for the long haul, as each turn you think that you have it figured out, even though some of the pieces fall in the way that you think they should, there are just enough random parts to keep you turning pages and coming up with new scenarios in your head.

A replica of the Andrea Doria is preparing to launch from New York, but there are a few last minute details. They are looking for a new trademark coffee that Clare and Matt are working on, a sale that will help Matt out of his newest financial difficulties plus, on the home front, a clandestine meeting with an attorney that will change the lives of both Matt and his daughter Joy. Add in the famous missing Occhio del Gatto (Eye of the Cat), a flawless ice blue diamond cut and set to mimic a cat’s eye, that might not be as missing as the legend goes and Clare confronting the realities that friendship has no legal status and you have another week in the life of a woman who can take on the world in cruel shoes.

The Allegro’s have interesting friends and even more interest family members. Is it possible that there has been an impostor in their midst for decades. A person that has been hiding secrets and in turn tearing families apart. This is yet another complication that this book delves into which is a good thing since the whole “Panther Man” scenario, though whimsical was a bit grating. No, I am not making light of what this character did, but it was distracting at best.

From the prologue, the reader is drawn into the history of the Campana family and the Andrea Doria, it is only sixty years later that the full Campana story comes to light and how intermeshed the Allegro family is with this jewelry business. Subterfuge is the main theme of this book, very few people are who they seem to be and the reader is constantly going back and forth between the good guys and the bad. You will find the usual cast of characters and with humor and style, the writing team of Cleo Coyle, has brought forth both a walking tour of New York and a tasty mystery to boot.

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