The most irredeemable and meticulously fashioned ne'er-do-wells I've ever rooted for. Murder in LA has never been such lurid, frothy fun.” —Dave Caplan, Executive Producer of The Conners
“Fresh, highly original, and whiplash funny, Allende serves up a story in a voice like no other I’ve ever read. It’s often profane but by equal turns poignant—and I found myself laughing out loud from the start.” —Susan Jane Gilman, author of Donna Has Left the Building
“The unapologetically wicked characters of Carlos Allende’s darkly comedic novel are beyond salvation, no matter the legal (or emotional) crimes they’re committing. But that’s the fun for us. Allende’s masterful comedy of errors comes out hot and reaches a frenetic pace by the climax of Jignesh’s and Charlie’s hijinks—but all’s well that ends well, even if it didn’t end well for those who crossed their paths. Funny, shocking, and depraved, this novel warns us about what happens when our darkest impulses drag themselves into the light.” —Charles Jensen, author of Nanopedia
"Charlie’s penchant for digressive cinematic deep cuts is endearing.” —Kirkus Reviews
“It’s a murder mystery, it’s a crime drama, it’s all kinds of things wrapped up in this wonderful comedic novel. Yet, there’s pathos; there’s is something poignant in the story. . . .Funny and fascinating at the same time, there’s a poignant aspect to both of these characters.”—Norman B from Life Elsewhere
“There’s humor, there’s sadness, and there’s this poignant undercurrent of recognition. . . .Both characters are flawed and yet we root for them!” “It’s [full of] teeny tiny little jokes that were awesome." —Shelagh Connor Shapiro from Write the Book: Conversations on Craft
“A very good read. Very excited for people to read it!” —Joey Held from Good People, Cool Things
"Carlos Allende has written a very strange and complex story of murder, mayhem, and maybe a little madness, filled with wacky characters, lots of dark humor, and some pretty unbelievable situations." — Rosi Hollinbeck from Seattle Book Review
"Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love is a delightful beach read, a lampoon of American culture that provides plenty of suspenseful fun." — Sarah Osman from the arts fuse
"It’s a very funny tale of an unlikely and unusual relationship between two gay men and murder." — Alternative Perspectives
"Allende's take on the mystery novel is a darkly humorous one, and that's a good thing." — Edge Media Network's Summer Books Roundup
"It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book as unabashedly fun as Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love, and I think it’ll be a while before I read another book that so deftly marries whimsy with wrongdoing, that makes me laugh out loud while cringing at the same time." Genevieve Hartman from Independent Book Review
2022-03-30
Elaborate scams and workplace murders abound in this bleakly comic novel.
In fiction, the strangest things can bring together the participants in a criminal conspiracy. For Charlie and Jignesh, the alternating narrators of Allende’s novel, their connection comes via an unsuccessful date. But it turns out Charlie has a large freezer for sale, and Jignesh happens to have accidentally killed a former co-worker and is frantically trying to cover it up. The novel opens with a flash-forward to Charlie wandering through the desert in Mexico, wishing that he “had never fallen in love with [Jignesh’s] wealth and with his ravishing South Asian skin color.” If that comes off as shallow and fetishizing, that’s the point. For his part, Jignesh has a sideline in writing genre novels with characters along the lines of “winsome Celt women with a wispy mane of red hair like Princess Salmonella McFallog,” and he isn’t as wealthy as Charlie believes him to be. Gradually, the two men become immersed in more unethical activities, from Jignesh’s creative use of workplace funds to outright money laundering. Charlie’s narration is prone to withering takes on the other characters and musings on his Southern upbringing. Jignesh has a more hapless perspective on the world, leading to some comic moments, as when he ponders the appropriate thoughts to have before killing someone: “One shouldn’t pray to his family Gods when committing a crime.” But he also has a more acerbic side that emerges in moments of stress. The high concept of Allende’s novel—placing two relatively average guys who don’t have any real reason to get involved in a murder/fraud plot in the center of one—is interesting. But this ends up being a book that sinks or swims depending on how you feel about the two narrators. That said, Charlie’s penchant for digressive cinematic deep cuts—“His face is as pale as Meryl Streep’s was in The French Lieutenant’s Woman when she first sees Jeremy Irons at The Cobb in Lyme Regis’s harbor”—is endearing.
Allende’s novel offers a stylized but uneven riff on crime-fiction tropes.