Book Review: _Holiday Grind_ A Coffeehouse Mystery for Christmas, by Cleo Coyle

My dad told me the story of A Christmas Carol when I was about six years old (1954). My dad was a great storyteller. We were on the trolley in Pittsburgh.

"Once upon a time, a man always said, 'Bah, humbug' when anybody wished him a 'Merry Christmas'. On Christmas Eve he was getting ready to go to bed. He was sitting in front of the fire on the second floor. All of a sudden, he heard chains clinking up the staircase. He was the only one home.

"There was even the sound of a train on the steps. He was really scared. Then, his buddy came walking through the door. His buddy had a chain around his waist, and a bunch of cashboxes and locks were attached to it.

"His buddy was already dead for seven years . . . "

He told me a greatly simplified version. He didn't have the book with him. He also stripped out everything but the essentials, to make it more interesting to a little kid. We were on the trolley, and he would soon be dropping me off at my mom and stepdad's house.

But, I never forgot that story my dad told me on the trolley. I didn't find out until many years later that it was a "real" fictional and classic story. I'd thought my dad was telling me something that really happened to somebody he knew.

One December in 1990, I was on my way to see a local stage production of Dicken's A Christmas Carol.

On my way, I found out my dad already passed away. He was only sixty three years old. I did not make it to that stage production of A Christmas Carol.

My youngest son and I have had a tradition of reading A Christmas Carol in its entirety each December. We read one "Stave" at a time. Dickens calls the chapters "Staves" in A Christmas Carol .

Maybe some folks dismiss Dickens' A Christmas Carol as an old, shopworn tale about a stingy guy who becomes generous because of some ghosts who visit him.

In chapter twenty three, Clare Cosi says, "No, I've never actually read the Dickens story. But everyone knows about Scrooge, right? The terrible misanthrope who hated Christmas?"

For those of us who love it, read it and revel in its lyricism, language, and humor --- exactly as Dickens wrote it --- that's only a beginning glimpse. TV and movie productions rarely get close.

I know a very intelligent man who says that television, stage and movie enactments of A Christmas Carol are "plastic and insipid".

Yes, Tiny Tim did say, "God bless us every one;" --- Scrooge had a fright from seeing his own grave; --- Scrooge visited the Cratchit household on Christmas morning, pretending to be angry that Bob had taken the day off; --- whereas, Bob believed Scrooge really was angry --- and so forth.

But, there's more.

Due to Cromwell's influence, there was barely any Christmas in England in 1843 (the year Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol ).

Dickens brought Christmas back to England with his little story. It was soon after A Christmas Carol that Prince Albert brought that Christmas tree from Germany with him. There was a sketch in the Illustrated London News of Victoria and Albert with the kids, standing around the Christmas tree.

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

Ah, yes, back to the main point here. This is a review of Holiday Grind , by Cleo Coyle, not A Christmas Carol , by Charles Dickens.

The author includes a part of the nephew's quote, above, on a little frontispiece. That was a good sign for me. When I saw that, I liked the book, Holiday Grind , and the author, Cleo Coyle already, even though I'd never heard of either before.

I like the characters, even though I'd like to know some of them a little better. But, I guess that might be because this was the first I've read of the series. Maybe a continuing reader gets to know them better.

Then, the story. It's exciting, suspenseful, sad, a little humorous, full of surprises and kept me guessing the whole way.

Then, of course, there's the prose --- the cement that holds it all together. It's easy, transparent, smart, insightful --- just plain, no-nonsense, good writing. I forget I'm reading a book. I'm experiencing it all right along with Clare. At one point --- when the firefighters rescued her --- I actually burst out crying.

It's written in the first-person, from the point of view of Clare Cosi (!?) who owns and manages The Village Blend, a coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. She refers to it as the Blend.

Clare's ex-mother-in-law had bequeathed the one-hundred year-old building whose ground floor houses the Blend to Clare and Matteo when they were still together.

Well, that was what I thought at the time. As I say elsewhere, Holiday Grind was the first Coffeehouse Mystery I read.

Since Claire and Matteo were co-owners of The Blend, and since Madame had been trying to get them together again, I assumed she had bequeathed it to them while they were still together.

But, when I later read On What Grounds, I found out how wrong I'd been.

Okay, back to Holiday Grind.

Actually, it's a Fa-la-la-Latte tasting party. The coin was termed by Alf Glockner, a member of the Traveling Santas. Alf usually stops in each day after his shift to have a latte with Clare. Alf's daughter had been a barista at the Blend for a little while. Alf used humor as a way to make the world brighter. He spoke with the folks in line at the Blend while he was there, and made them laugh --- even before they'd had their java.

He did some very nice break-dancing in his Santa suit. He also had a little stand-up routine that he tried in the Village. He donated his stand-up at soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

That's it, I thought. I can't take any more. " Santa Claus is not cheesy!" I cried.

Dead silence ensued.

"You're all forgetting what this season is really about!"

Everyone stared. I'd just become Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

"Well?" Esther finally said. "What's it about, boss?"

I threw up my hands. "Giving! Selfless giving! That's what we're celebrating! The Christ Child's birth is a gift of love to a weary world! All these symbols --- the tree, the lights, the carols --- it all comes down to love!"

No one moved as my words reverberated off the restored tin ceiling and echoed through the newly decorated shop. For a full minute, we actually had a silent night.

I shouldn't have been surprised at the flabbergasted expressions around the room. After all, this was the age of irony, when cynicism was the conventional norm, which was why a blasphemous string of curses would have gone over without a batted eyelash. The truly radical act these days was sincerity.

Everyone in the neighborhood knew --- and loved --- Alfred Glockner. Even without his long white beard and Traveling Santa suit, Alf was a huggable guy. On the slightly paunchy side, he wore his graying hair in a retro sixties ponytail and his salt-and-pepper mustache in a slightly walruslike David Crosby-esque style. His ruddy face was close to jack-o'-lantern round, his vivid hazel-green eyes completely lit it up,and for the past month he'd been using the Blend to take a bathroom break or warm his bones.

Because his daughter had once worked as a barista here, I could see why he felt at home in my coffeehouse; and because he was colllecting for groups that helped the city's homeless and hungry, I was more than happy to supply all the free lattes the man could drink.

. . .

On one of the many days I sat down with Alf on a latte break, he told me the Traveling Santa thing was "a great gig" for him because he was also working the comedy club circuit. Not only did the Santa act pay him a regular salary, it helped him hone his stand-up routine.

Twice a week, he even made time to bring his Santa act to soup kitchens and homeless shelters. "Those places can give a person a bed or a hot meal,"he'd told me, "but what they need even more is laughter --- a leavening of the life force, you know?"

He truly did embody the spirit of Christmas.

Clare is waiting with the baristas and some friends, including Matt --- who is having a little tiff by telephone with his new wife, model Breanne --- for Alf to arrive at the Taste of Christmas Fa-la-la-la-Latte tasting party. Clare's a little disgusted with the vibe at the party, and hoping Alf will cheer things up for everyone.

She goes walking to where Matt had recently seen Alf a few blocks away.

Clare is walking alone in the falling snow of Greenwich Village. It brings back a happy memory of when she was a little girl. She went outside alone on her red plastic toboggan after others were sleeping.

"But tonight . . . the world was mine again, a blank canvas, fresh and clean, for me to mark as I please."

Clare finally does catch up to Alf, but it's too late.

He's dead.

In the first few moments after finding Alf's body, Clare remembers a four-foot plastic Santa that had been in Clare's yard when she was a little girl, before her mom had disappeared from her life. It had a big red light for a nose.

When Clare's daughter, Joy, had been twelve, Joy also loved the kitschy plastic Santa. The red light from its nose helped light up her bedroom at night.

Until one Christmas, some drunken young folks had gone around smashing decorations in neighbors' yards.

Clare could not adequately explain to Joy.

Nobody ever could.

Clare felt that same way now, kneeling in the snow beside Alf's body and sobbing. She barely noticed how cold and wet the denim of her blue jeans felt on her knees.

Law enforcement folks think Alf was just shot for his stash by some random street thug.

But, Clare has noticed some footprints in the snow indicating otherwise. Of course, those will soon be trampled anyway by the officers who are making reports.

There's also the matter of a "cold case" Clare's boyfriend, Sgt. Mike Quinn, of the NYPD, is working on.

Two young women died of overdoses.

I really loved this book.

I loved it so much, I couldn't put it down. Because I couldn't put it down, I finished it in a few days.

Because of finishing it so quickly, I had to say goodbye. I felt sad. I didn't want to say goodbye.

Maybe I'll just read it again. No more surprises, but, still . . .

It stands on its own anyway, for characters, generosity and many other things.

Like Mr. Dickens' works, it honors the child in all of us. There's that talk of childhood Christmas memories. What does Christmas taste like? for the Fa-la-la-la-Lattes.

When Clare is investigating Alf's death, she finds out some slightly tacky things about him --- but that was before he became Santa.

What distinguishes the slightly tacky Alf from the Father Christmas Alf. (Right jolly old Alf = Elf?)

Mr. Dickens' A Christmas Carol did the trick.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

Brother Dom --- a former Franciscan monk who founded the Traveling Santas program --- said as he handed Clare an old copy of A Christmas Carol.

"There's a passage at the end of the first chapter that moved the man to tears, made him understand that it wasn't too late for him to change his perspective. I'm glad he had that reconciliation before he died."

When you read other reviews, you might see mention of the fact that there are "recipes" at the end.

Well, that's not really doing it justice.

It's a fat little book, just like the right jolly old elf himself.

{Alf}.

It's really a little Dickensian treasure trove of good cheer. It reminds me of cooking with a smart, skilled old friend who knows and cares about learning, eating, food, friendship, and the great journey of life.

There are seven pages of coffeehouse terms. Under "espresso" I learned that the Italian company La Pavoni manufactured the machine invented by Luigi Bezzera. In the 1940's, Giovannia Achillea Gaggia made what we know today as the espresso machine.

The next paragraph explains how to use that wonderful, cheap, tacky old stovetop espresso machine, Bialetti's Moka Express pot. (I've been wondering about that for at least --- oh, I don't know --- thirty? --- years.)

Then, after a page of "Guide to Roasting Terms" there's a six-page guide to "Tips for Being Your Own Barista", which includes:

• How to Make Espresso Without a Machine;
• How to Create Latte and Cappuccino Froth Without an Espresso Machine Steam Wand;
• Making a Rustic Cappuccino;
• Making a Rustic Latte.

After that, there's just so much more.

Thirty-three pages more, in fact.

Apparently the author is a really good, experienced cook, or chef, and knows her way around a kitchen.

She shares it, in a friendly, chatty, generous, knowledgeable way. It's really kind of like a course in Christmas cooking and baking, almost --- but you also get to make (from scratch! --- no prepack or prepared items used as "ingredients" in a "recipe") the wonderfully Christmasy coffee drinks to enjoy along with the baked goods.

``It isn't that,'' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. ``It isn't that, Spirit. [Mr. Fezziwigg] has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.''

Scrooge --- guided by the Ghost of Christmas Past --- sees his young self at the Fezziwiggs' Christmas party.

Scrooge's memories of the Fezziwiggs are his only happy ones.

The happiness Alice and Marc give, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.