French Pressed
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Praise for Cleo Coyle’s Coffeehouse Mysteries ON WHAT GROUNDS
#1 Paperback Bestseller
Independent Mystery Booksellers Association
“The first book in Coyle’s new series is a definite winner! The mystery is first rate, and the characters leap from the page and are compelling, vivid, and endearing. The aroma of this story made this non–coffee drinker want to visit the nearest coffee bar.”
—Romantic Times
“On What Grounds introduces Clare and the Village Blend. The setting is wonderful and New York is portrayed with absolute accuracy. Clare is a character I would love to see more of. She is honest but never brutal and her intelligence is what shines through. I will be looking forward to the next book in the Coffeehouse Mystery series!”
—Cozies, Capers & Crimes
“A great beginning to a new series…Clare and Matteo make a great team…Plenty of coffee lore, trivia, and brewing tips scattered throughout the text (and recipes at the end) add an additional, enjoyable element. On What Grounds will convert even the most fervent tea drinker into a coffee lover in the time it takes to draw an espresso.”
—The Mystery Reader
“A hilarious blend of amateur detecting with some romance thrown in the mix…I personally adored this book, and can’t wait to read the rest of the series!”
—Cozy Library
“A fun, light mystery. Recommended.”
—KLIATT
“[A] clever, witty, and lighthearted cozy. Cleo Coyle is a bright new light on the mystery horizon.”
—The Best Reviews
THROUGH THE GRINDER
“Coffee lovers and mystery buffs will savor the latest addition to this mystery series…and for those who like both, it’s a guaranteed ‘Red Eye.’ Fast-paced action, coffee lore, and incredible culinary recipes, brewed together with some dark, robust mystery, establish beyond a doubt that this one certainly isn’t decaf. All hail the goddess Caffina!”
—The Best Reviews
“Through the Grinder is full of action and murder with a little romance thrown in on the side. The ending is exceptional and completely unexpected.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
“A fascinating mystery…a brave, quirky heroine.”
—Books ’n’Bytes
“There were ample red herrings in the Through the Grinder story to lead the reader astray. I did not guess the outcome until I had finished the book. This is a great mystery in the Coffeehouse Mystery series.”
—Roundtable Reviews
LATTE TROUBLE
“Anyone who loves coffee and a good mystery will love this story. Rating: Outstanding.”
—Mysterious Corner
“Cleo Coyle follows up…with another delightfully percolating and exciting mystery. The strength of this series lies in the characters who are drawn true to life.”
—I Love a Mystery
“A delightful series! Clare is a captivating narrator who offers lots of interesting snippets of information and history behind New York landmarks. This is just one of the many pleasing aspects of these books, along with the many interesting coffee facts. The supporting characters are well drawn…The action is fast-paced and there is a big twist at the end that you won’t see coming!”
—Romantic Times
“With lots of tips on making a great cuppa Joe and some recipes at the end, this is a fun mystery with a twist that you’ll never see coming…A delightful mystery.”
—Fresh Fiction
MURDER MOST FROTHY
“The latest Coffeehouse Mystery is a terrific amateur-sleuth tale that showcases the heroine at her best.”
—Midwest Book Review
“The author weaves a tangled web of distractions and complications and brings the story to a neat and satisfying conclusion. The author also provides a scrumptious-looking set of coffee-related recipes…Murder Most Frothy, like its title, is a light and lively blend.
—BookLoons
“The interaction between Clare and her ex-mother-in-law is full of humor, and the interaction between Clare and her daughter is realistic. This is a quick read…Entertaining and as frothy as the frappés Clare prepares.”
—MyShelf.com
“Exciting, delicious fun, with coffee trivia, recipes, a vicarious adventure for those of us at home reading of things we’d rather not face ourselves but understanding Clare Cosi’s motives and morals.”
—Gumshoe Review
DECAFFEINATED CORPSE
#1 Paperback Bestseller
Independent Mystery Booksellers Association
“Great characters, smooth plotting, and top-notch writing, it’s no wonder these books are bestsellers.”
—Cozy Library
“Author Coyle displays a deep understanding not only of coffee…but also of coffee shop culture. She treats espresso-shop work as an honorable profession…Coyle knows her coffee so well that even I have learned new coffee bits by reading her books. If you have not yet discovered the Coffeehouse Mystery series by Cleo Coyle, you should…I heartily recommend them.”
—Eric S. Chen, BARISTO.net
Berkley Prime Crime Books by Cleo Coyle
Coffeehouse Mysteries by Cleo Coyle
ON WHAT GROUNDS
THROUGH THE GRINDER
LATTE TROUBLE
MURDER MOST FROTHY
DECAFFEINATED CORPSE
FRENCH PRESSED
Haunted Bookshop Mysteries by Cleo Coyle Writing as Alice Kimberly
THE GHOST AND MRS. McCLURE
THE GHOST AND THE DEAD DEB
THE GHOST AND THE DEAD MAN’S LIBRARY
THE GHOST AND THE FEMME FATALE (available May 2008)
FRENCH PRESSED
CLEO COYLE
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
FRENCH PRESSED
A Berkley Prime Crime Book/published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2008 by The Berkley Publishing Group.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any p
rinted or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 1-4362-0811-4
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
This book is dedicated to
Roy Snyder
For his encouragement, thoughtfulness, unfailing good humor, and most of all for his sage financial advice—a fundamental asset for any writer who’s crazy enough to believe that “a room of one’s own” is achievable in one of the most expensive cities on the planet.
Cheers to you, Roy, for keeping the dream in play.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
RECIPES & TIPS FROM THE VILLAGE BLEND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While it is widely recognized that New York City is crowded, costly, competitive, and occasionally downright dangerous, New York is also a foodie mecca. It’s the kind of town where you can attend an open-to-the-public culinary talk and find yourself sitting next to a young Cordon Bleu graduate while listening to legendary chef Jacques Pepin speak extemporaneously about such things as butchering a chicken. The aforementioned 92nd Street Y restaurant panel along with my two decades of speaking with restaurant professionals while dining out in New York were among the many experiences that contributed to the backdrop of this novel.
I would also like to acknowledge the gracious help of Douglas Snyder, general manager of Bin Fifty-Four Steak and Cellar. Doug is a consummate professional who chivalrously answered countless questions about running an upscale restaurant, while also giving me one of the finest dining experiences I’ve ever had.
A succulent shout-out additionally goes to Bin Fifty-Four’s executive chef, Andrew Bales, for giving me an after-hours tour of his efficiently run domain, a professional kitchen that consistently produces the most delicious fire-grilled steaks being served in America today.
Dear reader, if you ever find yourself in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, do not miss the dining experience at Bin Fifty-Four. And please be assured that the characters, situations, and murders in this book are completely fictitious figments of my imagination. Although Bin Fifty-Four is the scene for fabulous food and wine, it has never been ruled a crime scene!
Joe the Art of Coffee and Murray’s Cheese Shop, both located in Greenwich Village, New York, have also been great sources of information. My sincerest thanks go out to them, as well. If you are ever in New York’s West Village, these first-rate establishments are a genuine delight to visit—you might even see me there.
My special thanks also go out to editor Katie Day, executive editor Wendy McCurdy, and literary agent John Talbot for making my job so much easier.
Last but in no way least, I’d like to thank the roasters at Counter Culture Coffee in Durham, North Carolina, for their inspiration, as well as their superior beans. If anyone knows and loves coffee, it’s the intrepid coffee hunter Peter Giuliano, coffee director of Counter Culture. To learn more about the coffees mentioned in this book and the art of making them, drop by my virtual Village Blend coffeehouse at:
www.CoffeehouseMystery.com
Where coffee and crime are always brewing.
“You can tell when you have crossed the frontier…because of the badness of the coffee.”
—Edward VII (1841–1910)
“Food and sex…what else is there?”
—Wolfgang Puck
PROLOGUE
STABBING flesh was no big deal. That was the way to think about it. The boy was just another piece of meat…
From across the dark avenue, the killer stood, expression grim. There were three stories in the redbrick building, six apartments, a roofless porch. The boy was alone on the highest floor. Through bright windows, the killer watched him pacing. He looked like an animal, like panicked game.
This wasn’t something the killer wanted, but the decision had been made. Now time was a slow freeze and the waiting was unbearable on this dank, noisy street. Pub crawlers stumbled along littered sidewalks, Latino teens clustered amid grimy subway girders, and cop cars patrolled too visibly beneath the Number 7 line’s elevated tracks.
The killer hugged shadows, tried to stay hidden, maneuver some shelter from the pitiless wind. Glacial gusts continued to whip down Roosevelt, straight off the East River a mile away. Manhattan had been warmer, the killer thought. Queens was an ice cave, its buildings too low to dull the lash.
Finally, on the street, an opportunity came: a take-out delivery for someone inside. The brown-skinned man in the bright green jacket buzzed the intercom. Behind three pizzas and a liter of soda, the killer slipped in.
Laughter exploded behind a thin door. Some kind of party. A game on TV.
Noise, thought the killer, noise was good.
There were thirty-nine steps to the third floor, thirteen to each landing. The door to the boy’s apartment was cheap, nothing more than flimsy wood. The killer loitered quietly in front of it, one minute, two…
The breathing must be even, the killer reasoned. The hand must be steady.
The killer knocked lightly, like a neighbor, like a friend. The boy answered fast, expecting someone else. Confusion set in. There’d been no buzzer. No request for entry. His brown eyes went wide. Anxiety. Dread.
“What do you want?”
“To explain,” the killer said. The smile seemed to help. “You might have gotten the wrong idea…about what you heard last night. Let me come in and talk to you.”
The killer’s right pocket was a holster now. Resting inside was the hard silver handle of the ten-inch blade, which poked through the lining. The coat was long enough to conceal the threat, old enough to be discarded after.
“I can quit my internship,” the boy pleaded. “I don’t have to go back to the restaurant. Not ever. How about that?”
“Did you tell anyone, Vinny? What you heard last night?”
“No! No one!”
“Then let’s sit down and discuss it. You don’t have to quit. I’ll just explain everything, and you won’t have to worry anymore.”
“Well…” the boy said, glancing into the empty hall. “Okay…I guess you can come in.”
“Thanks, Vinny.”
Gloved fingers slipped inside the coat pocket, grasped the silver handle. The French blade was steel, high carbon and stainless, sharp as a surgical instrument, manufactured for the utmost precision.
Precise, the killer thought, I must be precise. No flinching. No hesitation. Thrust down fast. Plunge hard and true…
Vinny turned his back, and the knife went in smoothly, past skin, through muscle, avoiding bone. The flailing was minimal, the noise a weak howl. It was done n
ow—over. And so was Vincent Buccelli. The boy was just another piece of meat.
ONE
“UGH,” I murmured. “This coffee’s absolute poison…”
No, the lukewarm ebony liquid sloshing around my bone china cup wasn’t actually lethal, just bitter, old, and lifeless—the kind of adjectives I would have been mortified to hear uttered about my coffee, God forbid my person.
“It can’t be that bad,” Madame said. “Let me give it a try.”
Sitting across from me at one of Solange’s linen-shrouded tables for two, my ex-mother-in-law lifted her cup and sipped. “Oh, my…” With a frown, she brought a napkin to her gently wrinkled face, closed her eyes, and discreetly spat out the offending liquid—a routine gesture for an industry cupping, not for one of New York’s finest French restaurants.
Up to now, the meal had been astounding. My appetizer of oysters had been poached in champagne, lovingly sauced, and placed back in their shells with a flavor and texture that defined delicate. My entrée of butter-browned lobster—artfully arranged around a flan of porcini mushrooms and earthy foie gras—had danced across my taste buds with savory succulence. And for desert, a modern execution of a traditional tarte Tatin, with spicy-sweet cardamom-laced apples and a drizzle of ginger-caramel coulis, had been presented in a pastry so tender it melted on my tongue like newly spun cotton candy.
The entire experience had been orgasmic, a seduction by color, taste, and sensation, with bite after bite making me shiver. Not that I was a restaurant critic.