Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke, 312 pages  

I'm doing a book talk as a tie-in to our culinary programming this month and it's about culinary mysteries. I hadn't actually read a culinary mystery, though, so I figured that might be a good idea! Joanne Fluke is a prominent author in the culinary mystery world so I picked the first in her Hannah Swensen series. Hannah is in her late 20s, single, and lives with her cat Moishe in a small Minnesota town. She has a bakery/coffee shop called The Cookie Jar. Her brother-in-law is the town deputy sheriff. There's a murder and she discovers the body, with one of her cookies still in the dead man's hand! She vows to help her brother-in-law solve the crime, which will help him get promoted to sheriff. Her cookies play a prominent role in the book, being brought to various functions and being used as bribes to get people to talk to her. There is also a side story happening as Hannah's mother desperately wants her to get married and attempts to set her up with any available man around.

This book is a light, easy read and would definitely be classified as a cozy mystery. The younger age of the female protagonist gave it more appeal, at least to me, than some other cozy series. It's fast paced and you get to know a lot of the characters fairly intimately. It also includes recipes for the 7 types of cookies that are mentioned in the book.