A house full of guests, no air conditioning, and an alarming number of neighborhood burglaries. What more could go wrong for newlywed, Lee McKinney?
"The Chocolate Jewel Case," the seventh "Chocoholic" murder mystery by Joanna Carl finds heroine and candy store owner, Lee McKinney, with more than her share of house guests. There's Lee's teenage half-sister and her friend; there's Darrel, a quiet (dangerous?) former client of Lee's criminal lawyer husband, Joe; there's Joe's talkative and quirky aunt Gina, who arrived unexpectedly; and there's Pete, Joe's sexist--and sexy--friend.
A Ghost from the Past
Lee is coping the best she can with her house full of people when a man rings the doorbell, asking for her husband. When she explains that Joe isn't there, he says simply to say that his father called. The only problem is that Joe's dad died when he was a boy, drown at sea. Could it be that he's been alive all this time? Their Lake Michigan resort town of Warner Pier is small enough for residents to know one another very well, but no one seems to have seen this mystery man before.
A Jewelry Heist
In the middle of this chaos, Lee and Joe decide to spend a relaxed evening with their new neighborhoods, a family that has recently opened their inherited cottage after many years. The cottage, actually more of a mansion, is named Double Diamond, after both a colorful aunt and the fabled family jewels. No sooner has the party begun, however, when the home is invaded by masked thieves. No one is hurt, but the bandits make off with the jewels, which Uncle Alex had hidden among his laundry. The one-of-a-kind bauble had only been in the house for hours. How could the thieves have known?
"The Chocolate Jewel Case" is a fun, very readable book, with likeable characters that are knowable whether you've read all seven novels in the series or whether this is your first. The plot twists and turns, but never veers off into the unbelievable. Plus, as an added bonus, there are tasty chocolate trivia pages scattered throughout the book.
About Joanna Carl
Joanna Carl has written seven previous culinary mysteries, six of which feature Lee McKinney. Under her given name, she has spent over 25 years as a newspaper reporter, feature writer, editor, and columnist. Ms Carl's home is in Oklahoma, but she spends summers at a cottage on Lake Michigan, in a town very similar to her fictional Warner Pier.
Other Culinary Mysteries
- Dark Tort by Diane Mott Davidson
- A Decaffeinated Corpse by Cleo Coyle
- Silenced by Syrah by Michele Scott
- Key Lime Murder by Joanne Fluke
