NEW SWEDEN – For national correspondents used to New York City prices, one enjoyable diversion from the arsenic poisoning case came from the 11-cent coffee brewed at a local variety store.

Stan Thomas, the proprietor of Stan’s on nearby Madawaska Lake, reluctantly raised the price by a penny because of a state sales tax.

Last Saturday morning, some of Stan’s regular customers sat at a table sipping coffee and discussing the poisonings that left one man dead and 15 others hospitalized. Jerry Nelson, 66, of Madawaska Lake said he was lucky not to have been at the church when the poisonings occurred.

“I would’ve drunk free coffee,” he said. “I would’ve saved 50 cents if I drank five cups.”

Coffee also was on the mind of some parishioners at Gustaf Adolph Evangelical Lutheran Church who were relieved no children tried the arsenic-laced coffee, since it’s not uncommon for even the kids to have a few sips.

The Swedes are among the world’s biggest coffee consumers, and 133 years after Swedish immigrants settled this section of northeastern Maine, it’s clear their caffeine habit still flourishes. One New Sweden woman recalled how she used to drink upward of 25 cups each day.

New Sweden’s population has dipped to just 621 residents in recent years. But the town’s ranks may have swelled back near 700 if one counted all the reporters, TV producers, camera operators and photographers who visited during the last two weeks.

One reporter who backed his car into a ravine, popping a tire, learned how quickly stories spread in a small community. When he later identified himself to a New Sweden resident, the local man mentioned the tire incident immediately.

The media horde did not exactly blend into its surroundings, and out-of-state license plates, ever-present notepads and enormous satellite trucks weren’t the only reasons.

One national magazine writer bemoaned big-city journalists who swoop into small towns without altering their fancy wardrobes. But his multiple ear piercings may not have endeared him to the town’s conservative Swedish-Lutherans.

With its small-town setting and old-fashioned cause of death, the New Sweden poisoning case has drawn many comparisons to fiction, including to the long-running TV mystery series “Murder, She Wrote.”

That show set many of its murders in the fictional coastal town of Cabot Cove, Maine. Arsenic even figured into the plot of a 1991 episode.

Maine State Police have linked Daniel Bondeson, a church member who later committed suicide, to the poisoning, and remain unsure about any accomplices. They have narrowed their probe to the 50 or so regular parishioners at Gustaf Adolph Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The case is reminiscent of mystery novels in the “locked-room” subgenre, where the list of suspects is finite, says Gerry Boyle, a Maine-based writer.

“They’re still there. They’re sitting beside you. They’re talking to you about this. They’re going to church on Sunday,” Boyle said last week.