No One You Know

Finished March 20

No One You Know by Michelle Richmond

This book starts with a woman meeting someone unexpectedly and then jumps back twenty years to when he first became a person she was aware of. The main character here, Ellie Enderlin, had an older sister Lila who was a math prodigy. Lila had given up her other love, riding her horse Dorothy, to focus on math. She was specifically focused on proving Goldbach's Conjecture. Both sisters are still living at home with their parents in San Francisco, and Ellie is a sophomore at college when Lila doesn't come home one night. Less than a week later, her body was found, with head damage near a hiking trail. 

The police enquiry didn't result in an arrest, and Ellie was able to confide all her feelings in a professor that she was close to, Andrew Thorpe. He showed sympathy when she asked for an incomplete in his course, and then encouraged her to talk to him about Lila. Ellie was unaware that Andrew had an agenda. But a few months later, after she'd confided quite a bit about her sister and her own life in regards to her, Andrew revealed that he was writing a book, a book about Lila. Despite Ellie requesting several times that he not do this, that he had betrayed her trust, he went ahead with the book, and in it he named who he thought had killed Lila. That man was never arrested, but his life was changed irrevocably anyway thanks to Thorpe's book. His marriage ended and he lost access to his son. He left his job and moved far away.

Lila had eventually read the book and accepted the version there, but after meeting the man Thorpe accused, she begins to question things. She meets with Thorpe and begins looking at other possibilities. This is a book about secrets, about noticing the small things, about trust and the loss of it, and about relationships in a larger way. 

Richmond is a great writer and she has a sense of the absurd that comes through in the plot here and in one quirky scene where she references one of her own earlier novels. I really enjoyed Ellie's foray into the facts of her sister's death, and how she came to know her more fully as a result. I also found Ellie's career interesting. She is a coffee taster and buyer for a small coffee company, and I enjoyed learning some of the detail of her job.

Uncommon Grounds

Finished May 4
Uncommon Grounds by Sandra Balzo

This mystery novel starts with a body. Maggy Thorsen arrives later than planned to her new coffee shop on the day of the planned grand opening. On the floor is the body of one of her partners, Patricia Harper. The third partner in the shop, Caron Egan, Maggy's longtime friend, seems to stunned to respond. Maggy is recently separated, after her dentist husband decided his young hygienist was what he wanted instead. Her son is in college, and Maggy has put her financial stake into the shop and really needs it to succeed.
Pavlik, the new sheriff is on the case, although Gary Donovan, the local police chief, doesn't seem happy about that. Maggy grows increasingly worried that the real killer of Patricia isn't going to be found and she decides to mount her own investigation. Joining forces with Sarah, Patricia's close friend, Maggy starts looking at the evidence more closely, and finding a lot more going on in her community that she ever thought was happening.
Small town Wisconsin means that everyone knows everyone else's business, but it also means that people make certain assumptions, and that can be dangerous.
I liked the character of Maggy, and her small house and big dog. She is a bit technologically challenged, but she has a good heart, and the right instincts.

Christmas Mystery

Finished January 26
Holiday Grind by Cleo Coyle
The main character here, Clare Cosi, one of the co-owners of a NYC West Village coffee shop, drinks coffee like it was going out of style. Clare owns the store with her ex-husband Matt, in a building owned by her mother-in-law and good friend. Clare also lives in the apartment above the store.
Just before Christmas, Clare and her staff are developing a line of flavoured lattes for the season, and when their neighbourhood Santa (who came up with the idea of the lattes) hasn't shown, Clare goes out to track him down. She finds him alright, but he is dead and the reaction of the police lead her down the road of her own investigation. Clare's significant other is a NYPD detective and while he supports her in trusting her instincts, he also has a big caseload himself, as well as some other issues.
The book includes a lot of information about coffee, including terminology and how-tos. It also includes a bunch of recipes, that sound really good.