I have four books to read and review this weekend. I thought I’d be ahead of the game this month, but I didn’t read one word when I was home in Ohio. No complaints. I’m not complaining about the wonderful time I had with family. But, I am going to tempt you to read one of Sandie Herron’s audiobook reviews. Check out French Pressed by Cleo Coyle.

French Pressed
Written by Cleo Coyle
Narrated by Rebecca Gibel
Series:  Coffeehouse Mystery, Book 6
Unabridged Audiobook
Blackstone Audio 2008 (6/1/2012)
Listening Length:  9 hours 2 minutes
ASIN:  B0087X9QQG

It’s a good thing Village Blend manager Clare Cosi and her ex-mother-in-law Madame visit Solange, a hot New York French restaurant.  Clare’s daughter Joy is interning there.  But on this particular night when Clare goes back to the kitchen to see Joy, she stops one of the chefs wielding a knife at her co-workers.  Joy had been loving her job as well as loving executive chef Tommy Keitel, a married man whose restaurant just might be owned by the Russian mob.  Clare and her ex, Joy’s father Matteo Allegro, disapprove of the romance but do their best to let Joy make her own choices.

Clare returns to the Village Blend where her current beau, New York City detective Mike Quinn is waiting.  Things are heating up when Matt turns up on her doorstep.  Initially angry, Clare is glad Matt is with her when Joy calls from a friend’s place where she has found his dead body killed by a chef’s knife.  The NYPD considers Joy a prime suspect, so Clare is determined to clear her name.  First she finds a way into Solange by convincing Chef Keitel to try her coffee services.  As always, Clare impresses with her knowledge of fine coffees and the growing and brewing processes.  While at Solange, Joy catches a glimpse of her mother and Tommy Keitel and misunderstands, fleeing from the restaurant mid-service.  Joy must return later to clean up her station, but there is more of a mess than she imagined.  Chef Tommy Keitel is dead with one of her knives in his neck! 

The police arrive at Solange along with Clare, briefly questioning them both.  Their decision is quick and decisive: Joy is their prime suspect, and she is arrested and charged with both murders.  It is now up to Clare to investigate with some help from Detective Mike Quinn.  Clare journeys around New York from the drug-ridden slum lived in by the knife-wielding chef to a Russian restaurant with her barista and her rapping Russian boyfriend.  She plays decoy for Mike when she catches his perp’s eye at a fancy new club.  She follows the blackmail trail.  She attend’s Tommy’s wake and a dinner in his honor, gathering crucial clues. 

This was a delightful sixth entry in the Coffeehouse mystery series.  As usual with a book by Cleo Coyle (husband and wife team Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini), we are given a trip around New York you’ll never find in a tourist guide.  They challenged the notion of the person finding a dead body is the killer.  The ubiquitous talk of coffee had me brewing my own, just to keep up. 

Special mention must be given to the narrator, Rebecca Gibel.  Her various voices were fabulous.  The Russian rapper, rapping in both English and Russian, detectives from various boroughs of New York, and especially the elderly Madame were among the fantastic voices of the many characters she brought to life.