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On What Grounds (Coffeehouse Mysteries, No. 1) | 
| Author: Cleo Coyle
Publisher: Berkley
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
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Rating:  78 reviews
Sales Rank: 11542
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 1
ISBN: 042519213X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780425192139
ASIN: 042519213X
Publication Date: September 2, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Book Description
"The perfect cup of coffee is a mystifying thing. To many of my customers, the entire process seems like some sort of alchemy they dare not try at home...." Ten years ago, Clare Cosi left an unhappy marriage along with a job she loved: managing the historic Village Blend coffeehouse in New York's Greenwich Village. For a decade, she was happy raising her daughter in the quiet suburbs of New Jersey; but now that Joy is grown and gone, life has gotten way too quiet for Clare. With a little cajoling from Madame, the Blend's flamboyant, elderly owner, Clare agrees to return to her old job, and right from the start she gets one heck of a jolt. On her first morning back as Village Blend manager, Clare unlocks the front door to find her beautiful, young assistant manager unconscious in the back of the store, coffee grounds strewn everywhere. As Anabelle is rushed to the hospital, police arrive to investigate, but Detective Mike Quinn finds no sign of forced entry or foul play, and he deems it an accident. Clare disagrees; and after Quinn leaves, there are a few questions she just can't get out of her mind, like why was the trash bin in the wrong place? If this wasn't an accident, are her other baristas in danger? And are all NYPD detectives this attractive?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 73 more reviews...
Light, fluffy, fast and enjoyable read June 5, 2008
New Yorker living in TX (Austin, TX)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm a fan of the Agatha Raisin and Hamish MacBeth series. I enjoy light mysteries with as little violence/blood/gore as possible. This book fit the bill. While I enjoyed the characters I would have liked the author to give them a bit more depth. I got tired of reading about the main characters "C Cups." It got a bit repetitive at times. This is a combo mystery and just plain old light weight fiction. It was funny at times too! Perfect beach reading or just when you want to escape for a few hours. I'm looking forward to reading the next in the series.
 Not my cup of tea...or coffee June 5, 2008
S. McCullough (Indianapolis, IN)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I wanted to like this book a lot. I am desperately seeking a good, cozy or not, mystery series. But this was not it. The plot sounds pretty good, a single emply nester moves back home again to live near and work for her ex-mother in law. Clare's is given the immense job of restoring the coffee shop back to its glory days. Previous management has left the coffeehouse failing. Unfortunately, Clare also has to deal with her ex-husband popping back up and wanting to play house, literally. Adding even more drama, Clare finds her favorite barista lying crumpled at the bottom of the stairwell. Clare is sure that it was attempted murderer but she needs to convince the police of that. Sounds pretty good, huh? Its in the actual detail of the story that "On What Grounds" becomes so dry its nearly unconsumable. The author gives far too much detail about what makes for perfect coffee, or expresso, or 500 different coffee variations. As she is doing so, she comes across as snooty instead of sincere. I am not a coffee drinker, but I don't think even the most faithful drinker of the stuff could possible want this much detail about the size and shape of beans or how the cup percolates. Even putting coffee aside, the author goes off on these long discriptive tangents about paintings, or siding, or watching grass grow, whatever. As I read, I kept wondering if this stuff would later come up to be important in solving the crime, but nope. I just don't understand why the huge deviances from the story line and why the editors allowed this. Part of me wants to know if and when the writing in this series becomes better stream-lined because then it may be worth trying to jump into the series again.
Coffee, Coffee Everywhere May 8, 2008
Dennis Phillips (Bulls Gap, Tennessee USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Being a tea drinker I picked this book up with some trepidation because I feared that it would focus so much on coffee that I would never be able to get into the story. In one regard I was correct because there is a heavy focus on coffee and even a bit of an attitude when it comes to us tea drinkers but despite the attitude I found that I really did get into the story, especially as things really perked up toward the end.
Clare Cosi is the lead character in this series and the stories revolve around the coffeehouse that she manages for her ex mother-in-law. She dearly loves her ex mother-in-law despite the fact that the old girl is determined to get her rakish son back together with Claire. The son in question functions as the coffee buyer for the Village Blend that Clare manages and ends up being a major part of this story. He is such a major factor in fact that this book reads almost as much like a romance as it does a mystery. Sometimes the romance almost overwhelms the mystery at times but in any cozy mystery one can always expect some side plot to compete with the mystery for supremacy.
For a cozy, and especially for the first book in a cozy series this book gets to the mystery in a hurry and the reader is hardly past the first page before Clare discovers one of her employees crumpled at the bottom of a flight of stairs. The police think that it is an accident but Clare isn't at all sure about that and begins to dig around for clues as to what might really have happened. As the reader follows Clare around in her investigation more characters are introduced and pretty soon the world of Clare Cosi is fleshed out and very interesting.
This author does rely a bit heavily on her coffee theme and sometimes gets bogged down in details but on the other hand she does a superb job of making the coffeehouse atmosphere seem so very real that it is easy to picture yourself sitting at the counter ordering up some exotic blend. Even though I don't like coffee I could almost actually smell the stuff brewing and when my wife read this book her coffee consumption doubled. If this were a painting instead of a book it would be very bright, vivid and realistic and despite the occasional flaw I found that I enjoyed it very much. The writing is well done and the mystery is clever with plenty of suspense and with a few red herrings tossed in for good measure. While reading this book you will find that you don't really need any caffeine to keep you on the edge of your seat.
 This book is in the wrong section... May 3, 2008
Victor Catano (New York, NY United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Romance would better describe this than mystery. There's more attention paid to descriptions of the rugged, Mediterranean good looks of lead character's ex-husband and the rugged, Nordic good looks of the lead detective than there is paid to the little details, like, oh, the actual crime.
What saves this book for me are the vivid descriptions of the coffee shop and the so-real-you-can-smell-it atmosphere she creates. This is obviously a writer who loves coffee and you will finish the book salivating for a good cup of french roast. I'd really like to read a culinary book by this author, something in the style of Bill Buford of Anthony Bourdaine, where she does a coffee tour or a guide to the coffees of the world. She's got a real gift for the descriptions of food, and I would love to see more of it. I'd rather see that than see her try to shoehorn a lukewarm mystery plot in between the coffee shop interludes.
This is a little too "cozy" for my tastes, but your mileage may vary.
Coffeehouse Mysteries Series May 3, 2008
L. A. Vitale
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I just finished reading "On What Grounds" today!! It is an absolutely lovely, fun and fast read... and has everything one would love in a mystery novel for the following reasons:
* Great Female Amateur Sleuth Named Clare Cosi, whom manages The Village Blend
* A Great Cast of Characters
* Witty Dialogue
* Nice Storyline That Keeps You Intrigued
* Love the Whole Coffeehouse Theme In This Novel
* And lastly as an added side note, I look forward to trying the coffee themed recipes found at the end of the novel!!
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