Review of Holiday Buzz by Cleo Coyle

Publisher: Berkley
Series: Coffeehouse Mystery #12
Format read: Paperback
Release Date: December 3, 2012
Buying Links:  Amazon  Barnes & Noble  The Book Depository

Book Blurb from goodreads:

Holiday time is party time in New York City, but after a sparkling winter bash ends with a murder, Village Blend coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi vows to put the killer on ice…

At the Great New York Cookie Swap, pastry chefs bake up their very best for charity. Clare is in charge of the beverage service, and her famous Fa-la-la-la Lattes make the gathering even merrier. But her high spirits come crashing down to earth, when she discovers the battered body of a hard-working baker’s assistant.

Police suspect a serial attacker whose escalating crimes have become known as “The Christmas Stalkings.” Clare’s boyfriend, NYPD detective Mike Quinn, finds reason to believe even more sinister forces are involved. Clare isn’t so sure—and when she finds a second bludgeoned baker, she becomes a target. Now Clare is spending the holiday season pouring over clues, and she’s not going to rest until justice is served.

Bea's Thoughts:

This is the second book I've read in this series and neither book worked for me. They're not bad, they just don't do it for me. I found Holiday Buzz to be long, occasionally dry, unnecessarily complicated, and just plain boring at times. Yet at other times, I enjoyed it and wanted to keep reading. I  was continually torn between saying the heck with it and giving up and continuing to read to see who the killer was.

There are many candidates for the killer, lots of clues and red herrings and coincidences, almost too many. It felt at times as if Coyle had a word count in mind and needed to fill it somehow. I like Clare and her relationship with her ex-husband and his mother who are also her partners in the coffee shop. In fact, I liked the relationships and the coffee house scenes much better than the mystery portion which was unfortunate since this is a mystery. When the killer was revealed I was in disbelief because I couldn't believe it, it was, in my opinion, implausible. I wish we'd had a chance to see Moirin, the murdered woman, before she died. We see her through the eyes of Clare and others during the story but she never felt real to me. I wasn't invested in solving her murder; I wanted to see who killer was because I was curious how Coyle would pull it off and not because I cared about Moirin.

Having tried two books in this series, I think it's safe to say that it's not the right series for me. It might work for you though. There are recipes included and many of the cookies and drinks mentioned in the story sound absolutely delicious. 

I borrowed this from my local library.