by Cleo Coyle
Part of Coffeehouse Mystery
First published 2006
Clare Cosi gets an offer she can't pass up. Her new friend David Mintzer, a Manhattan millionaire, invites her to spend the summer at his Hamptons mansion, all expenses paid, training the staff at his new restaurant. Clare packs her daughter, her former mother-in-law Madame, and her best iced coffee recipe, and heads out to Long Island expecting sun and slow mornings. The easy summer ends fast. At David's Fourth of July gala, a staff member turns up dead in the bathroom. The evidence points to one conclusion: someone meant to kill David, not the employee. The holiday fireworks masked any gunshots, and the police are gridlocked in holiday traffic, leaving Clare largely on her own. She starts asking questions. The Hamptons crowd turns out to be less glamorous up close, and the answers Clare uncovers are worse than she expected. The deeper she digs, the more dangerous her position becomes. Cleo Coyle keeps the coffee coming and the tension tight in this sun-drenched mystery where the real threat is hiding behind a very expensive smile.
Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, contemporary, adult-fiction
Vibes: engaging, fast-paced, sun-drenched, suspenseful, tension-filled
Tropes: amateur-detective, cozy-mystery-investigation, fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Hamptons, Manhattan, Long Island, New York
Period: 21st-century, contemporary
247 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Berkley Prime Crime
Content warnings: death, murder