Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The Chocolate Castle Clue-Joanna Carl

The Chocolate Castle Clue


Joanna Carl

Obsidian, Oct 4 2011, $22.95

ISBN: 9780451234742



In Warner Pier, Michigan, TenHuis Chocolade is owned by Aunt Nettie, but run by her Texas niece Lee Woodyard. After delaying for months cleaning out the storage room, Lee begins the task finding stuff that are four decades old including a trophy and related paraphernalia form over forty years ago when the singing group Pier-O-Ettes won a contest at Castle Ballroom; Aunt Nettie and five other young girls made up the group.



The singing group is having a reunion and everyone associated with the sextet is elated except elderly angry Mrs. Rice, the wife of the late Daniel, owner of the long demolished Castle Ballroom. Mrs. Rice tells Lee and her husband Joe that her aunt is a slut just like the other singers and this time they will get what they deserved over forty years ago when Rice died from a gunshot to the heart. When someone murders Mrs. Rice, Lee becomes the next target as she learns the Pier-O-Ettes were tied to the death four decades ago, but the secrets of how and why remain concealed.



The latest Chocoholic cozy (see The Chocolate Pilot Plot) is an entertaining whodunit as Lee is caught at the angle of a death forty plus years ago and a murder today. The exciting story line includes chocolate trivia, but it is the two deaths of the Rice couple four decades apart that make for an enjoyable amateur sleuth as Lee learns reunions can prove deadly.



Harriet Klausner



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