JoAnna Carl The Chocolate Mouse Trap

The Chocolate Mouse Trap

JoAnna Carl

Signet, Sep 2005, $6.99, 240 pp.

ISBN: 0451216350

In Warner Pier, Michigan, Lee McKinney manages her Aunt Nettie's chocolate shop, Tenhuis Chocolate. Currently the emails from wannabe party planner Julie Singletree is driving Lee crazy with her Victorian sweetness in every message; approximately six arrive every day to Lee and five other people that Julie has anointed as the seventh major food group, "fancy foods". Lee eats the sugary electronic memos because she cannot afford to alienate the granddaughter of wealthy customer Rachel Shraeder of Shraeder Labs.

On local TV news is the report someone murdered Julie. Lee feels bad and a bit guilty that she recently badmouthed the woman, but goes on with her life. That changes when assaults on the fancy food group occurs. Julie wonders if one of the other five is a killer or could an outsider have a grudge against them. Julie plans to find out before she or her aunt become victims.

The latest chocolate animal amateur sleuth novel is a fine tale as Lee changes from detesting the victim to guilt and sorrow over her death to fear and courage for the safety of her aunt and her. The heroine's transformation happens quite smoothly as she hated the sugary emails, but never wished Julie dead nor willing to allow herself or her aunt to join the deceased by idly waiting for the cops to solve the caper. Once Lee knows that she has a different deadly rodent than the chocolate mice she made for a Shraeder Labs gala, she begins her investigation into who wants to murder the fancy food group.

Harriet Klausner