Driven by its quirky characters, this series offers plenty of whimsy but not much mystery.
A wine and chocolate fest brings plenty of business and a chocolate-dipped murder to San Benedetto, California.
Maddie Kosloski has added a Magic of Chocolate exhibit to her paranormal museum and is feeling good about the museum and life in general, with her best friends, Adele and Harper, always on hand to help. All is ready except for the delivery of chocolate from Reign, the local artisanal chocolate store. Tired of waiting, she decides to go pick it up only to find a man covered in chocolate lying on the floor, and her best efforts at CPR don’t work. The first officer on the scene is Detective Laurel Hammer; a bully in high school, she still hates Maddie, especially since Maddie has been dating Detective Jason Slate. The dead man is Atticus Reine, co-owner with Orson Malke of the chocolate shop, which has gained a great reputation. Maddie has never been able to pass a murder by (Deja Moo, 2018, etc.), and this time is no different even though it's difficult for Jason to have his girlfriend as witness and sleuth. Although she dearly loves her friends, she and Harper are being driven crazy by Adele, whose wedding plans are constantly changing as problems arise and she nitpicks every decision. Still, Maddie finds time to speak to Orson and his wife, Lola, and Atticus’ wife, India, who all worked in some capacity at Reign. There is also one employee they fired who was picketing when Maddie arrived, but he is not first on her list of suspects—especially once Tilde, the bookkeeper at Reign, is murdered and Maddie herself has a few suspiciously narrow misses. Although there are only a few serious candidates, Maddie must winkle out the truth before she becomes the next victim.
Driven by its quirky characters, this series offers plenty of whimsy but not much mystery.Pub Date: March 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7387-5713-1
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This superb series (The Dark Angel, 2018, etc.) never disappoints. Its patented combination of mysterious circumstances,...
An anonymous letter brings DCI Harry Nelson memories of past sorrows and present dangers.
The letter mentions a stone circle that harks back to the 20-year-old case of a missing child. Ten years later, another missing child introduced Harry to archaeologist Ruth Galloway when he asked her to examine some bones. That case began a working relationship that turned out to be equally productive in personal terms: A short-lived affair between the two produced a child, Kate, though Harry is married and has two grown daughters. His wife, Michelle, who accepts Kate in their lives, is about to give birth to a baby who may or may not be Harry’s. A new archaeological team working near the site of the original henge finds a stone coffin containing bones. The head of the dig is Leif Anderssen, whose father, Erik, was Ruth’s mentor all those years ago. As Harry continues to receive cryptic messages, the bones of what Ruth thinks is a young girl are found near the new dig, opening up yet another old case. The police think the body is that of Margaret Lacey, who vanished from a street party in 1981. The focus at the time was on her parents; her older siblings, Annie and Luke; and John Mostyn, a neighbor and odd duck who collected stones. But nothing was ever proven, and Margaret’s body was never found. The birth of George, Michelle’s son, puts more pressure on Harry, who loves his wife and Ruth in different ways, to stay in his marriage. Nelson’s team and some friends of Ruth’s use their own areas of expertise to search for clues from the past, but when the child of Annie’s daughter, Star, is kidnapped, the present-day crisis takes center stage.
This superb series (The Dark Angel, 2018, etc.) never disappoints. Its patented combination of mysterious circumstances, police procedure, and agonizing relationship problems will keep you reading, and feeling, all night.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-97464-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.
Notch another corpse for Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree (Death by Chocolate Malted Milkshake, 2019, etc.).
After slowly working its way out of the red, Jake’s sweet shop is now one of the linchpins of the revitalized business district of Eastport, Maine. But she and her partner, Ellie White, are less than thrilled when Henry Hadlyme, star of the food tourism show Eat This! offers to include The Chocolate Moose on his podcast Eating on the Edge! which highlights off-the-beaten-track purveyors of New England fare. Hadlyme seems a little slimy to Jake and Ellie, and his interest in their treats seems less than sincere. But when he calls Jake “missy,” that’s it; the two chocolateers boot him out of their shop. He comes back with a vengeance—or at least, his corpse does. It turns up in the basement of the Moose with a stuffed parrot pinned to its shoulder and a cutlass jabbed through its chest in a gruesome nod to the ongoing Eastport Pirate Festival. Jake would love to present police chief Bob Arnold with a convenient alternative to charging her with Hadlyme’s murder. And there’s no dearth of suspects: A surreptitious trip to the Eat This! production trailer lets Jake know that pretty much everyone involved with the show hated Hadlyme. But finding out exactly who croaked the curmudgeon—and offering the chief some proof—proves to be a challenge to Jake’s and Ellie’s ingenuity, health, and welfare.
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1134-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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