The Chocolate Shark Shenanigans: A Chocoholic Mystery

Carl’s delightful 17th Chocoholic mystery (after 2016’s The Chocolate Bunny Brouhaha) opens with a bang. Lee Woodyard, who manages her aunt’s sweet shop in Warner Pier, Mich., and her husband, Joe, are exploring the old Bailey house, which they plan to buy, fix up, and resell for a profit, with her police chief uncle, Hogan Jones, and plumber Digger Brown when Digger accidentally drops a gun he finds stashed in the basement. The gun goes off, and a bullet barely misses Lee. Next, Hogan discovers the body of small-time developer Spud Dirk, who claimed first dibs on the Bailey place, in the carport. Joe and Lee decide to investigate, backtracking to Joe’s school days when the Sharks, a gang of five boys, used to hang out in the Bailey basement. Four of them once pulled a ridiculous fake robbery at the fifth gang member’s workplace. Was it a coincidence that irascible Meyer “Curley” McWhirley died, apparently of natural causes, on the same night as the phony holdup? Carl keeps the reader guessing. Those who like their cozies profanity free will be rewarded. Agent: Laura Blake Petersen, Curtis Brown. (Nov.)