The Chocolate Book Bandit: A Chocoholic Mystery

Lee Woodyard, the business manager of TenHuis Chocolade, her aunt’s sweet shop in Warner Pier, Mich., has an important choice to make in Carl’s appealing 13th chocoholic mystery (after 2012’s The Chocolate Moose Motive). Does she join the library board or the chamber of commerce’s tourism committee? She’s too busy to take on two new jobs. Before committing herself, Lee decides to attend the library board’s next meeting, the first for the library’s handsome new director, Henry “Butch” Cassidy. At the meeting, just as Butch raises the issue of Sunday hours, a scream from another part of the building interrupts the proceedings. Library clerk Betty Blake has just discovered the body of retiring board member Abigail Montgomery at the bottom of the basement stairs. Everyone on the committee becomes a suspect in Abigail’s murder, as does Lee. Realistic characters, an engaging plot, and lots of local color distinguish this superior cozy. Agent: Maureen Walters, Curtis Brown. (Oct.)