In the opening chapter of Latte Trouble by Cleo Coyle, the Village Blend’s best barista, Tucker Burton, is not happy. “Men are pigs. They should die!” he exclaims in the middle of a Fashion Week party in the coffeehouse. And within a matter of minutes, one does, apparently poisoned by a lethal latte that Tucker served him. Tucker, of course, becomes the prime suspect, but Clare Cosi, the manager of the Village Blend, knows he’s innocent and vows to find the murderer. Clare’s investigation takes her from her familiar milieu of baristas to the exotic world of the fashionistas, giving readers an entertaining mini-tour of New York along the way.

In Through the Grinder by Cleo Coyle, the Village Blend coffeehouse is losing women customers. Not because of its coffee, which everyone agrees is excellent, but through murder. The first to die is Valerie Lathem. On a Saturday morning, Valerie stops for coffee at the Village Blend. Soon afterward, she falls from a subway platform and is killed by the oncoming train. Although the media presume it was suicide, NYPD Detective Mike Quinn thinks otherwise. When other Village Blend customers die in suspicious circumstances, Village Blend manager Clare Cosi knows she needs to find the killer, if only to protect her business.

“The perfect cup of coffee is a mystifying thing,” says Clare Cosi, the manager of the historic Village Blend coffeehouse in New York City’s Greenwich Village. So begins On What Grounds by Cleo Coyle, the first book in her Coffeehouse Mystery series. But what is even more mystifying is how the Blend’s part-time assistant manager, young dancer Annabelle Hart, ended up unconscious at the bottom of the basement stairs. Annabelle appeared to be alone, with all the doors locked and no sign of forced entry. Clare is convinced that Annabelle’s fall was not an accident, and she leaves no coffee cup unturned in her quest to learn the truth.