At the Village Blend, Clare and her baristas refer to a decaffeinated espresso as a "why bother?" but Clare knows that a growing percentage of customers prefer decaf at least part of the time. So when an old friend of Matt's develops the first botanically decaffeinated coffee bean, Clare leaps at the exclusive opportunity to distribute the beans. But then Matt's friend is attacked and Clare begins to investigate as the body count begins to rise. This is the fifth Coffeehouse Mystery (after On What Grounds, Through the Grinder, Latte Trouble and Murder Most Frothy). I was a little disappointed in the last one which left me apprehensive of beginning this one. Thankfully this is both a return to form and to the usual NYC setting. The mystery this time revolves around the world of decaffeinated coffee and is full of infomation on how coffee beans are decaffeinated, and even touches on biopiracy and the intellectual property rights of new breeds of plant. Beginning with what appears to be a simple mugging, Clare's investigation quickly involves Madame and Quinn who is back for this book. Matt's relationship with Breanne is blossoming, as is Joy's inappropriate new relationship. The mystery takes centre stage though, and leads up to a brilliant ending. As usual the book includes scrumptious sounding recipes, this time for Coffee Milk, Homemade Coffee Syrup, Italian Sesame Cookies, Carne Con Cafe "Matt's Ragout", No Biggie Coffee Cake, PB and Nutella Sandwich (who knew nutella is rare in the US?) and Clare's Cappuccino Muffins. There's also a section on what foods contain caffeine. All in all, this was a great read and I'm really looking forward to French Pressed. Plot: 10/10 Characters: 9/10 Ending: 10/10 Enjoyment: 10/10 Cover: 10/10 Overall: 49/50
The gist of this story is that Clare and Matteo reconnect with Matt's childhood friend Federico Gostwick (a.k.a. Ric) who has devised a hybrid coffee plant that is naturally decaffeinated (you'll learn oodles about the assorted processes for decaffeinating coffee in the course of the story). In return for their involvement, Ric is offering them exclusive rights to the new bean at the Village Blend and their coffee kiosks in upscale stores. In return, Matt has gotten in a bit deeper into the ugly underbelly of the coffee business, skirted a few plant import laws here and there, and Clare and her crack baristas will cater the bean's introduction to the assembled members of the International Coffee Growers Exhibition (ICGE) which is conveniently meeting in NYC.Old resentments from Clare's married days resurface as she has to interact with, and be patronized by, her and Matt's friends from the old days as well as Matt's current girlfriend, Bree. Joy continues in her course of poor decision making (that's never gonna grow old!), Madame continues to make herself useful in numerous ways, and the situation with Quinn heats up as well.The major factor keeping the story from gaining a four-star evaluation is that the pacing was uneven and the last third felt a bit rushed. That is, there was oodles of exposition and set-up, and then the major action all occurred and was resolved within the last 80 pages of the story. This had not been the case with prevsious entries in the series, and it's hard to know whether the authors were simply trying to mix things up a bit or whether the plot simply "got away" from them. Not a bad story, but not executed to the same standards set elsewhere in the series.
What do You think about Decaffeinated Corpse (2007)?
Everything you every wanted to know about decaffeinated coffee told in a most exciting way, plus more and more information about New York, makes up this fifth Village Blend Coffee House cozy mystery. Sometimes lots of extraneous information overwhelms, but these mysteries seem to blossom with every piece of information. In this mystery, the development of a coffee plant that actually produces coffee beans with less caffeine than processed decaffeinated regular beans, becomes a boon that brings out the money developers, and those who will kill for this product.Clare and her octogenarian mother-in-law parole the streets of New York while seeking stalkers and murderers. Clare and her co-coffee shop owner and ex husband remain friends and loving parents to their 20 something daughter. Everyone is developing other love lives of their own, which cause intriguing conflicts and problems within this book. I loved the car chase scenes, even the left turn on red that nearly put a couple of them in jail. If you're a coffee lover, New York lover, cozy lover, or just a plain book lover, you will definitely enjoy this decaffeinated joy ride of a mystery!
—Ronna
Some old friends come back into Claire’s life as Matt is preparing to bring on a new blend of decaffeinated coffee to Blend. Unfortunately, Ric, Matt’s childhood and new business partner, was mugged. Claire now wants to investigate why anyone would want to hurt Ric and why Ric is trying so hard to cover it up. Oh I really enjoyed the mystery in this book. There were so many twist and turns I didn’t know what to believe. I was definitely surprised by that ending. It seems that the author is finally breaking up some bad habits i.e.: employees dying, employees being bad guys, accidental murder victims.As for character development. . . *sigh*. I still hate Claire. I want to smack her daughter Joy. Matt is finally growing on me. Overall, I give this book a B. That’s two letters higher than the last one.
—Buho
Decaf in not my thing. But this book makes the coffee sound desirable. And this book is too, after you get over the type of coffee that it's talking about. As always you get caught up in the mystery that always involves someone that the coffee lady personally knows. Again as always a fun mystery in a great series,especially when there's some coffee recipes involved. This Is another novel where you to stay up an extra half hour that turns into like 2 and end up getting up for work the nextmorning with 2 cups of super strong Italian roast. Definatky a page turner, like all coffeehouse mysteries, but just not my favorite. It does have a happy romantic ending with the coffee lady Clare finally starting a relationship with the police man she's been flirting with since the beginning of the series.
—Danielle
