Book Review: Roast Mortem

Book: Roast Mortem (Coffeehouse Mystery book #9) by Cleo Coyle

Edition: Paperback

Rating: 5 stars

Review:

Fire and family drama fuel this mystery as Clare Cosi, manager of the Village Blend coffeehouse tries to find out who is behind several coffeehouse fires.

When Clare accompanied the Village Blend's owner Madam Allegro who is also Clare's former mother-in-law to Caffé Lucia, she thought it was going to be a simple task of picking up an antique roaster. However, the duo soon found themselves in for a big surprise. While they were at the café visiting Madam's old friend Mr. Testa, a fire started. It left Madam and Mr. Testa trapped in the basement while Clare was desperate and frantic in her efforts to help not only them but Dante, one her employees, who was injured.

Luckily it didn't take long before the fire department showed up. But the situation was still dire with the fire fighters trying to keep the fire from spreading while also trying to figure out a way to rescue two people trapped in the basement.

With the situation finally under control and Madame and Mr. Testa off to the hospital, Clare was left with the realization that the fire wasn't a random incident. She believed that someone had deliberately set it and she was going to find out who was responsible. But as the mystery progressed, she found out that there were more coffeehouses being targeted and one blaze even left one firefighter dead.

That wasn't the only mystery Clare found herself being involved in. The ongoing and somewhat volatile feud between her boyfriend Mike Quinn, a police detective and his cousin Michael Quinn, a captain of one of the local fire stations had her trying to piece together clues trying to find out why these two were constantly fighting. To make matters even worse, Captain Quinn was found nearly beaten to death and Detective Quinn was arrested for it. Leaving Clare to find who really committed this crime to help clear her boyfriend of the charges.

I like this story. It's fast paced, full of humor and drama and suspense while having several twists and suspects surrounding the mystery of the fires and the attack on Captain Quinn. I really like the characters they are realistic with some having a bit of quirkiness to their personality. I think Clare is a great character, she's smart and caring and not without a good number of flaws such as being a total risk-taker. As well as being a little too eager at times to jump into solving a mystery.