Book Review: Death Is Semisweet

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Death Is Semisweet     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Lou Jane Temple
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Culinary   Amateur Sleuth   Woman Main Character
Series: Heaven Lee # 7
St. Martin’s, Sept 2002, $23.95, 288 pp.

The plaza, a shopping center in Kansas City, is festive dining the holiday season and Foster’s Chocolates blimp just adds to the glittery atmosphere. Chef Heaven Lee and her friend Stephanie are eating at a restaurant in the plaza when they hear gun shots. Somebody shot at the blimp and killed the man operating it.

Foster’s Chocolates is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary in business when a man trying to destroy them is murdered on the property. Heaven, always interested in solving a murder case, does a little snooping. She discovers that the Foster family is divided against itself and everyone had a motive to kill the man. Things turn really weird when Foster’s Chocolates and Stephanie’s Chocolates shop are vandalized, but Heaven is incensed when somebody trashes her restaurant too. She’s very determined to find out who the perp is and bring that individual down.

This culinary mystery should come with a calorie warning Do not read when hungry. The recipes, mostly chocolate, are easy to follow and taste delicious (don’t say a word). The who-done-it is excellent because there’s seems as many legit suspects as the number of carbo grams in any of the recipes. Lou Jane Temple has written another tasty amateur sleuth novel.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner