Sammi Carter Candy Apple Dead

Candy Apple Dead

Sammi Carter

Berkley, Sept 2005, $5.99, 290 pp.

ISBN 0425205320

After her marriage ended because she caught her husband in their bed with his pregnant girlfriend, corporate lawyer Abby Shaw returned home to Paradise, Colorado to help her Aunt Grace run Divinity Candy shop. When Grace died, Abby inherited the shop and is busy trying to carry on her aunt's legacy. She is totally off men until Brandon Mills, owner of Man about Town, asks her out.

He stands her up but also misses an important business meeting; Abby walks over to his store to check on him but the building is dark. A car pulls out of the lot and she sees it is an auto owned by her brother Wyatt. The next day she learns Brandon's store burned down with him in it. Her brother becomes the number one murder suspect because he was seen arguing with Brandon over his relationship with Wyatt's wife. Abby doesn't mention seeing her brother's vehicle at the crime scene but gossip about the spat between Wyatt and Brandon add to her sibling appearing guilty. In an effort to clear Wyatt from a murder charge, Abby starts asking a lot of questions which comes to the attention of someone who is not afraid to kill again if she gets too close to learning the truth.

CANDY APPLE DEAD is a sweet who-done-it that will appeal to readers of amateur sleuth and cozy mysteries. The heroine learns some shocking truths about her brother, his wife and Brandon and comes away from the investigation wiser about people. Readers will adore Abby whose loyalty to family is admirable but it is Brandon's dog Max who she adopts to save from the pound who steals the show.

Harriet Klausner