Monday, October 24, 2011

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

Change of Pace!

This falls in the subgenre of mystery novels called Cozy Mysteries and into the subsubgenre featuring culinary settings rather than knitting or cats - although this one does have a resident feline. Aforementioned feline is named Moishe, which is somehow supposed to be after Moshe Dayan, because he has only one eye. I don't know enough Yiddish to know if Moishe is a diminutive for Moshe. Whatever - nobody but the cat is Jewish - and he doesn't keep kosher.

The story is set in Minnesota and the heroine is named Hannah Swenson. She has a bakery/coffee shop which specializes in cookies. The story reminded me very strongly of the Goldy Bear mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson. Goldy is a full-time caterer, and Hannah "caters" (beverages and cookies) many events in addition to running The Cookie Jar. Both are closely associated with the local police or sheriff's department. And both, after describing the food in mouth-watering detail, provide recipes. Herein lies one of the major differences: Hannah's recipes sound like ones I might actually try - perhaps because they are for cookies, or perhaps because they only call for a normal number of ingredients and far less arcane culinary knowledge.

Good fun, reasonably well-crafted mystery, and entertaining characters and plot line, plus the series suspense of wondering which of her two boyfriends (the balding but very funny dentist, or the totally gorgeous police detective) she will end up favoring.

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