Gingerbread Cookie Murder

Fluke, Levine, and Meier each offer a yuletide whodunit treat in this entertaining follow-up to 2007's Candy Cane Murder. In Fluke's wry "Gingerbread Cookie Murder," Hannah Swensen of the Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minn., wants her neighbor Ernie Kusak to simply lower the volume on his too loud Christmas outdoor display, but she soon discovers Ernie with his head bashed in. In Levine's hilarious "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies," Jaine Austen's holiday stay at her parents' home in the Tampa Vistas retirement community is enlivened by the murder of elderly lothario Dr. Preston McCay, whose neck gets broken during his star turn in an amateur play called The Gingerbread Cookie That Saved Christmas. Rounding out the volume is Meier's less cheery but poignant "Gingerbread Cookies and Gunshots," about Maine reporter Lucy Stone's investigation of a four-year-old boy's disappearance. Recipes enhance two of the selections. (Oct.)