A new smartphone dating game turns the Village Blend into a hookup hot spot, until one dark night, when a gunshot leaves a dead body behind and the landmark coffeehouse becomes the center of a whole new scene–a crime scene.
As Village Blend manager Clare Cosi attempts to finalize a date for her wedding, her ex-husband becomes addicted to making dates through smartphone swipes. Clare has mixed feelings about these quickie matchups happening in her coffeehouse. Even her octogenarian employer is selecting suitors by screenshot! But business is booming, and Clare works hard to keep the espresso shots flowing. Then one dark night, another kind of shot leaves a dead body for her to find.
The corpse is a successful entrepreneur who became notorious for his “hit it and quit it” behavior: prowling for women on dating apps, then devastating his conquests with morning-after insults. Though the NYPD quickly arrests one of his recent victims, Clare finds reason to believe she’s been framed.
Now, with the help of her ex and crew of quirky baristas, Clare starts “swiping” through suspects in her own shop, determined to find the real killer before another shot rings out.
About the Authors
Cleo Coyle is a pseudonym for Alice Alfonsi, who writes popular fiction in collaboration with her husband, Marc Cerasini. Like their 15 Coffeehouse Mystery novels, their 5 Haunted Bookshop Mysteries (first released under the name Alice Kimberly), are bestselling works of amateur sleuth fiction published by Penguin Random House. When not haunting coffeehouses, hunting ghosts, or rescuing stray cats, Alice and Marc are New York Times bestselling media tie-in authors who have penned properties for Lucasfilm, NBC, Fox, Disney, Imagine, and MGM. To find out more, visit their online coffeehouse at www.coffeehousemystery.com.
Review of Shot in the Dark
Review (5 Stars): Shot in the Dark is a well-written and entertaining mystery that I devoured in just a few hours. Claire and the gang are enjoying their newfound fame as being one of the best coffeehouses in New York and the meeting site for a new dating app called Cinder. When one of their favorite customers ends up dead with ties to the dating app, Claire must find a killer before it is too late and they add another name to their list of victims.
This is the seventeenth book in the Coffeehouse mystery series and this series is one of my all-time favorites. Claire is a delightful heroine that always finds herself in the middle of trouble and the recipes that are listed in these stories are too die for. One of the reasons that I loved this mystery was because the subject matter was very pertinent to today’s culture. Many of us are addicted to our phones, laptops and tablets (myself included) so it was easy to see how a killer was using the new dating app as a place to find their victims. Sometimes when we sit behind our computers and tiny little screens, we forget that the world is still not a safe place as we remind ourselves every time we turn on the news.
Shot in the Dark was a delightful mystery and even if you haven’t read any of the other books in the series, Ms. Coyle makes it very easy to follow along with the characters. Can’t wait to visit the crew of the Village Blend in mystery number eighteen and I can’t get my coffee-mystery fix soon enough.
Giveaway
Visit my Instagram to win a copy of Shot in the Dark by Cleo Coyle.
