Review: Make Mine a Double
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 11, 2014
Like the quick cup of very strong coffee that's usually all I have time to gulp down most mornings, "The Barista" by J.T. Craig still packs quite a wallop. Craig (actually the pen name of the writing team of John Teubner and Craig Laughlin) is writing a series of short, short stories entitled "The Coffeehouse Chronicles," describing some of the comings and goings in a big city coffeehouse not unlike Starbuck's. "Barista" is the second story in the series, and it is actually a companion piece to the first story, entitled "The Regular."Without revealing too much about the plot (which has a couple of twists to it), "Barista" is the story of a coffeehouse worker named Vera who becomes convinced that one of the shop's regular customers is actually a dangerous stalker looking for his next victim. Obviously, there isn't much room for a complicated story line in a six-page story, but Craig manages to pull off quite a remarkable feat. Rather than just accepting Vera's obsession as a given fact needed to drive the plot of a story this short, Craig actually delves into Vera's past and explores just how she came to be working at this coffeehouse. The explanation is a bit perfunctory, but there's only so much an author can explain in six pages, and Craig does a good job of making Vera's obsession credible enough to pass muster in this story.Although "Barista" is a companion piece to Craig's earlier story, "The Regular," it's not a sequel per se. The events portrayed in "Barista" do not follow those in "Regular," but rather they occur simultaneously, as each story looks at the same episode from a different perspective. This story actually is equally effective, regardless of whether a reader has read the earlier story. Reading the first story gives away a minor twist early in "Barista," but the major shocker at the end still comes as a surprise. In exchange for giving up a bit of surprise, readers of "Barista" will admire Craig's cleverness in the way "he" has set up both stories. On the other hand, reading "Barista" first will give away the major surprise at the end of "Regular, so, if readers want to read both stories, I strongly urge them to read "Regular" before this one.Once again, I have to wrestle with the grade to give this story. It is quite clever and it does have a solid ending, but, on the other hand, it's a six-page story for which the authors usually charge 99 cents. The authors did explain to me that Amazon policy prevents them from offering this story for free on a full-time basis (I got it for free during a brief promotion), but I just don't see the value in paying a dollar for something this short. However, there is added value in "Barista" resulting from the rather intricate yin-yang manner in which this story complements and interconnects with "Regular." So, I feel a minimal, three-star review is fair here. Here's hoping, however, that the authors will finish a few more coffeehouse tales so they can publish an entire collection. That's one order I'd like to see filled as soon as possible.