EAT, DRINK, AND GET BURIED

Murder rocks the highly caffeinated world of Gen Z.

At Village Blend in New York’s Greenwich Village, Clare Cosi and her team of baristas serve up only the best brews, using fresh-ground beans sourced by Matt Allegro, her globe-trotting ex-husband. So it’s no surprise that when rising young culinary star Ava Welsh decides to throw a birthday bash for her boyfriend, session musician Ryan Riggs, she chooses Village Blend to provide the catering. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Ava is childhood best friends with Clare’s daughter, Joy. But the party, held at a hip boutique hotel with a killer view of the Hudson River, turns into a disaster. The birthday cake provided by an exclusive bakery is decorated with an obscene message. Joy locks herself in the restroom and refuses to talk to either of her parents. A stressed-out Ava repairs the damaged confection, but no one gets to taste it because an uninvited guest falls to her death from the balcony, and the police suspect Ryan of giving her a fatal push. From that point on, it’s a complicated cat-and-mouse game, with Clare trying to find the runaway Ryan before the police while searching for clues to the dead woman’s identity and looking for a motive that would pin the crime on anyone but Ryan. Coyle makes good use of her Greenwich Village locale, including a sneak peek into Electric Lady Studios, Jimi Hendrix’s old stomping grounds. But focusing on the younger set and their hipster ways (who else would think to use an old spice mill to grind up some single-origin beans while running from the cops?) deprives readers of the chance to enjoy Clare’s redoubtable ex-mother-in-law, Blanche Dreyfus Allegro Dubois, whose zest comes from true joie de vivre rather than cappuccino.

Coffeehouse mayhem capped by a mind-boggling 45 pages of recipes.