The Chocolate Bear Burglary

Many mysteries center around food. You will find that several of the great mystery series have large and elaborate meals included throughout the course of the plot. Ms. Carl does one better by including almost everyone's favorite food - chocolate. I love the descriptions of the type of chocolates that TenHuis makes. She doesn't just say "So and so bought a raspberry bon bon" but includes what it's made of and how Nettie makes it. I especially loved the description of how they make the hollowed out chocolate bears with all the goodies inside in this particular book. I enjoyed the plot more in this story (I refuse to give anything away!), as it appears Ms. Carl's talent as a mystery writer improves with each book. There was just as much scandal involved as the first, but I thought the way the story was handled was clever. I can see she steers clear of conventional mystery plots while making her readers' mouths water. This is definitely a wonderful new series and I hope there are lots more to come.

JoAnna Carl's second book, "The Chocolate Bear Burglary" in her chocolate mysteries immerses the reader completely into small town life in the chocolate business. JoAnna Carl does such a great job that I now have over $200 worth of chocolate coming from Morgen Chocolate in Dallas - the shop that she actually based her stories on. Unfortunately, they have an online website! LOL Actually, it was kind of neat because you can actually see some of the various types of candies that the author describes in her series.I thought that it was so neat that she also based this mystery in part on the antique chocolate molds. Oh...went on eBay and they just got a shipment in from Belgium of antique molds. Actually, resisted them =but again, how neat to look at them.This second book was even better than the first and was belivable in plot and dialogue. Lee's tongue twisting impediment still gets on my nerves and it is just a little too cute in the words that DO come out - but it was a little more "bearable." The one criticism is that I thought the Teddybear Event in Warner Pier could have been expounded upon at the end. It was described in the beginning and we really don't hear too much more about it.The mystery aspect was very good as I didn't realize until the end who was involved in the murders. This is a light, but truly enjoyable series.

JoAnna Carl is another of the great cozy mystery writers writing in the food genre that has become so popular. If you like Tamar Myers or Joanne Pence, you will enjoy JoAnna Carl.We start our tale, in the winter, with Lee, a heroine displaced from Texas, to Western Michigan. Lee has taken on the daunting task of looking after the business side of her aunt's chocolate factory and store, TenHuis. While she can work magic with a ledger, Lee has the troublesome problem of saying the wrong thing all of the time. We follow Lee as one problem after another falls into her unsuspecting hands. With her everpresent verbal bumblings, her inteligence is easily called into question, but as it all plays out, she does find a way to extract herself, and her loved ones from all of the messes. (I won't give details, as I DESPISE spoilers!)She also includes little tidbits of trivia about the appearance of chocolate in older works of mystery. Those segements are fascinating.

Lee McKinney is divorced and helping her aunt run a chocolate shop and factory in a tourist town in Michigan. Her love life consists of phone calls from a man who won't take her out in public. She has some excitement with the shop's participation in a Teddy Bear Days promotion. A local family has loaned a collection of antique teddy chocolate molds for the shop's display. Her former stepson shows up out of the blue and strange things keep happening, culminating in a burglary and a murder. The antique molds seem to be at the center of it all.This was a very good installment of the series. Lee and Joe's romance seems rocky but interesting. The Chocolade is doing well and people seem to be dying at a satisfactory rate to keep the series going. Can't wait for the next murder.

After divorcing her husband and leaving her Texas hometown, Lee McKinney moves to Warner Pier, Michigan where she begins to make a new life for herself. She moves into her Aunt Nettie's home because the prices for real estate in Michigan are sky high and serves as the business manager for her aunt's TenHuis Chocolade store. The merchants in the business district are doing a teddy bear winter promotion to attract tourists and TenHuis Chocolade exhibits very valuable antique molds.In the middle of all the festivity and commotion, Lee's former stepson Jeff arrives in town, refusing to tell her why he's there. She puts the troubled youth to work at her aunt's store and he becomes a hero when he foils a robbery that insures the molds are returned to Gail, the antique dealer who lent them to the store in the first place. The next thing anyone knows is Gail is dead and her stepson is in jail on suspicion of murder. Lee is determined to prove his innocence and sets herself up as a target for a killer without mercy.Do not read THE CHOCOLATE BEAR BURGLARY on an empty stomach because the luscious, mouth-watering erotic descriptions of exotic chocolate will have you running out to buy gourmet sweets. JoAnna Carl's amateur sleuth tale is a delectable treat starring a heroine impossible to dislike. This woman gets the job done, whether its selling chocolate or solving the case as she follows up every clue and lead.Harriet Klausner