Coffee to Die For

Professor Teodora Morelli #2

by Linda French

Northwestern Washington state serves as a backdrop for this wonderfully rich mystery series featuring history professor Teodora Morelli. With the smell of fresh pine and the threat of rain always present, Teddy dwells on the past, but it's her family's present that always demands her attention. A pleasant coffee tasting turns deadly when Teddy's brother-in-law is found murdered and a valuable chocolate-flavored coffee plant goes missing. As suspicion points towards Daisy, Teddy's sister, as the killer, Teddy leaps into the fray, unearthing vegetation of an illegal nature, drug deals and a huge wad of cash.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1998

Reviews

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to stop reading this book. It wasn't that good, I wasn't connected to the characters half way through and half way through I didn't understand who was what?? What??

Exactly. There are too many good books to read to waste my time with one that doesn't grab me.

[Margaret]

Got to chapter 6 and decided to quit ... the characters just didn't mesh for me and I found myself growing disinterested. I'm sure someone else will like it - I do love the title!

[Kathleen Young · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not finish it

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having never read a Linda French novel before I have to ask those with more experience: is the author's level of obsession with perfectly formed breasts in this novel about her average? It's an obsession that is entirely independent of the boobs being real too, as was demonstrated during the squicky drag show segment, where a nun was given the chance to evaluate the quality of the sexy sexy cross dressing. This was then doubled in ick factor when our hero Teddy feels an urge to kiss this child's luscious lipsticked mouth.

Aside from the creep-out factor, this is a book that just sort of rolls along without purpose or direction except filling out page requirements. Teddy's brother-in-law is murdered, but her main concern is getting her grading done. She is being besieged on all sides to find a certain greenhouse, but then when she is locked in with the only person who knows the location, she doesn't ask him. Teddy wanders around being sexually threatened and harassed and her solution is to bring along her stalker as cover. Her sister is unconvincingly stoned out on Ambien for key parts of the action, and mostly does everything she can to become the prime suspect. The key plot device is the development of a chocolate-flavored coffee plant, because mixing chocolate into coffee is somehow difficult? Then the plants are all destroyed by a parasite that somehow arrived in a remote northern Washington State greenhouse? Just how did it get there? And then, to just ice this sh%tcake the closing page describes the book's bimbo serenading the stalker and Teddy while she contemplates her globular breasts floating in a hot tub and he runs out of the room to get novelty condoms.

This is exactly what I expect an AI generated novel to read like. It seemed like it was making sense, right up until you thought about it.
Simply terrible.

[Summer Nirvana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting mystery novel but got very slow in the middle and was hard to pick back up to finish. There were too many characters introduced to try and convey a wide range of suspects, but just left me lost. When the killer was revealed my first reaction was to flip back a few pages to try and remind myself who that person was (and honestly after finishing I’m still not sure)

[Sierra Stahl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Static characters that I could not relate to. No one was interesting. Plot was all over the place—hard to keep track of people and events

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can coffee kill you? If it's valuable enough, the answer is yes. In the entertaining murder mystery Coffee to Die For by Linda French, coffee plants provide a motive for murder.

Dr. Leo Faber, a botanist at the University of Washington with funding from biotech giant AgroGene, has developed a naturally chocolate-flavored coffee plant. As the book opens, he has scheduled a cupping of the new hybrid coffee at Seattle's Oliveri Coffee Company.

Before the cupping, Leo's wife Daisy confides in her sister, history professor Teodora ("Teddy") Morelli, that Leo has been having an affair with a new assistant, Molly Thistle. Daisy is distraught, but Teddy suggests that the relationship is probably innocent. She assures Daisy that she'll be proud of Leo when he unveils the new coffee.

Coffee expert Luigi Oliveri hosts the cupping at his company's nine-foot blond walnut cupping table, "the only cupping table north of San Francisco." Leo's "R-19" hybrid is tasted along with good Brazilian and Ethiopian coffees. Mr. Oliveri likes the chocolate coffee and pronounces it a success. Leo is ecstatic. But Daisy is upset by Leo's obvious attentions to Molly.

Leo has only a short time to enjoy his success, though. Later that night he is found murdered in his greenhouse. The murder appears to be a crime of passion, since he has been stabbed multiple times with a pair of scissors. The obvious suspect is Daisy, but Daisy says she didn't do it and she's sure that Molly killed Leo.

Leo's murder is just the beginning of the mystery. Leo's R-19 coffee plants are missing, and both the university and AgroGene want to recover them. On top of that, Leo was also growing marijuana on the side for some unsavory characters. They want their "product" or the money they paid for it.

Teddy gets involved in the case in order to help Daisy. Her primary goal is to find the missing coffee plants, which are supposed to be in a greenhouse somewhere in the woods north of Seattle. Along the way, Teddy's investigation takes her all over northwest Washington, from urban Seattle to the granite cliffs and small towns of the Skykomish River Valley. She encounters a gallery of colorful, and in some cases, dangerous, characters. But with perseverance and some luck, she solves the mystery.

Coffee to Die For, the second of three Professor Teodora Morelli Mysteries to date, shows that author Linda French is knowledgeable about coffee. (The third book in the series, Steeped in Murder, is set in the world of tea.)

Coffee details provide a nice touch. For example, the signature Oliveri roast is "dark brown, wide-cracked, oily caffeol barely flushed to the surface." Leo's R-19 is described as a hybrid of "El Beso chocolate from the Venezuelan north slope" and "Ethiopian mocha from the Ahmar mountains in the east." Late in the book, Mr. Oliveri's son tells him that the house blend of the new coffee house opening near the university is called "Dancing Goat." Mr. Oliveri says, "Go there. Those kids know what they're doing," and tells him the legend of Kaldi the goatherd's discovery of coffee.

Without giving too much away, the biology of coffee and the economics and politics of the coffee business are central to the mystery of Leo's murder and the hunt for the missing coffee plants. By the end of the book, it is clear why coffee can indeed be "to die for."

[Ralph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a mystery, but not one in which detection, or even a detective, plays a major role, which is okay since it is intended to be rather light and breezy, almost an American cozy. For that kind of mystery to be successful, however, it has to have the right mix of characters, situation, atmosphere and action to offset the murder at the heart of the story. "Coffee to Die For" (which is a great title) is a near miss as an American cozy, made so mostly by the gallery of characters conjured by author Linda French. The protagonist, Teodora "Teddy" Morelli, is a history professor, but never seems to rise above the level of a ditz blundering in and out of one dire situation after another, less concerned with the murder of her brother-in-law than she is about keeping her sister out of jail for providing the art on some seed packets. The supporting cast fails to engage the reader or advance the story: a fabric cutter named Mungo whom the author no doubt intended to be comic relief comes across as brain damaged; her sister as the damsel in distress is dramatically self-destruction and appears more deranged than distressed; minor characters who were supposed to be either suspects or eccentric scene-builders are either toss-aways or distractions; and having a foot doctor named Dr Scholl is just too cloying on the intellect to be acceptable. The only time French is moderately successful in putting forth a Runyonesque crook is in Date, a thug with pretensions of poetry and philosophy, but even there the author manages only a near miss, the moment done in by mishandling the situation and the input from the other characters. Not a great book, but for all its problems it is not a bad book, and would make for an enjoyable two-hour distraction for an undemanding mystery fan looking for a light read set in the Seattle area.

[audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alongside Teddy, Sister Bede Kinney sat with hands clasped, the picture of perfect humility and call-to-service. In Bede's eyes danced the question: just how did Asian boys in ballgowns fit into the Lord's great Scheme of Things?

Synopsis: History professor Teddy Morelli has a complicated family, and while she's not quite investigating her brother-in-law's murder, she is trying to clear her sister of all charges. While not getting together with her ex-husband and trying to locate her mother in the Galapagos.



Teddy Morelli's sister Daisy is complicated: the ditzy vegan owner of a stuffed rabbit company, she's being cuckolded by her husband Leo, a botanist developing a $10mil strain of coffee. The humiliation ends when Leo is stabbed to death in his lab, but then the coffee plants go missing, and one of Daisy's sketchiest employees has embroiled everyone in a weed deal with Alaska. No, like three whole very large cities in Alaska. And then he takes off. Good times.

Here's the thing: French only wrote three Teddy Morelli mysteries, and I've read all three. For me, they're the complete package: technically flawless writing, fascinating characters (not all likeable), interesting plot and setting setting setting. The stories roam all over Washington State and rope in a number of the strange small people who live in the cracks in the world.

This installment of the series is possibly the least believable in terms of plot denouement, but I found I was having too good of a time to care much.

Also? Bonus points for safe sex talk. It was not just well-integrated and welcome, but hot and funny too.

Damn I wish there were more than three entries in the series. *sigh*

[Pat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Professor Teodora Morelli.
Amusing but all over the place.
Coffee plant engineered with chocolate. Someone is growing pot. Making bunnies.
Teddy's sister's husband is killed.
Would try this author again.

[Banu Altunbas]

a bit disappointing for a mystery book. Let's put it this way, it didn't spark any desire to read more of Linda French!