Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder: A Hannah Swensen Mystery (Hannah Swensen Mysteries)

by Joanne Fluke

Take one amateur sleuth. Mix in some eccentric Minnesota locals. Add a generous dollop of crackling suspense, and you've got the recipe for this delicious new mystery series featuring Hannah Swensen, the red-haired, cookie-baking heroine whose gingersnaps are almost as tart as her mouth, and whose penchant for solving crime is definitely stirring things up. Hannah already has her hands full trying to dodge her mother's attempts to marry her off while running The Cookie Jar, Lake Eden's most popular bakery. But once Ron LaSalle, the beloved delivery man from the Cozy Cow Diary, is found murdered behind her bakery with Hannah's famous Chocolate Chip Crunchies scattered around him, her life just can't get any worse. Determined not to let her cookies get a bad reputation, she sets out to track down a killer. But if she doesn't watch her back, Hannah's sweet life may get burned to a crisp!

• ISBN10: 1575666502
• ISBN13: 9781575666501
• Publish Date: 1 February 2001 (first published 1 April 2000)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 15 December 2009
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Kensington Publishing
• Edition: New edition
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

After enjoying a few Agatha Christie novels, I thought I might branch out into other adult mystery writers. I started with Joanna Fluke because I've often seen her books displayed face-out at the library, tempting me with illustrations of desserts and the promise of sweet-themed mysteries. Unfortunately, I found both the plot and the prose of The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder to be lackluster, and I will not be continuing with the author or the series.

I complain about bad prose in YA books frequently, but The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder is a great example of an adult novel that also has unsophisticated, or perhaps just irritating prose. Choppy sentences and the unnatural tendency of characters to use each other's name at the end of nearly every sentence made my eyes twitch a bit, but I might have overlooked this is the plot had been more captivating.

As it was, I found the plot surprisingly linear for a mystery. As I said, my primary experience with adult mystery novels (particularly ones without thriller elements) is with Agatha Christie, and I was expecting a story structured like one of hers, ones with red herrings and twists and turns that would make it seem like everyone or no one could be the culprit and leave me intrigued but stumped. Instead, I got a story where the protagonist posits a theory, checks it out, discards it, posits a new theory, checks it out, discards it. Rinse, wash, repeat. I imagine this structure might actually mirror a real-life investigation, but it makes for somewhat dull reading. There is also not much room for the reader to participate in the speculation and figure out who committed the crime.

I also was not enthralled with the speculation. The main character is 28 or 29, but she does not always act like it. She surprisingly exhibits some of the same naivete I have rolled my eyes at in YA books, where others might explain it away as "the characters being young." Here, Hannah really has no excuse for starting to investigate a murder and being surprised/shocked/absolutely stunned by the idea that it might be dangerous. She also has no excuse for going around interrogating everyone, asking them pointed questions like what they were doing at the time of the murder and whether they can provide a witness to verify their alibi and thinking she's being incredibly clever and under-the-radar and that no one would ever suspect she was investigating the murder. It is all definitely a secret that she is helping the police with this. The actual detective is, of course, close to useless, a classic mystery stereotype.

So, I was not a fan. The book has its merits, and the series has been made in a television series, which I can imagine being pretty cool if the writers adapt the source material for me, but I won't be reading anything more by Fluke. I've made comparisons to YA a few times throughout the review because naysayers obviously like to accuse YA of being poorly written as if adult books are great art, and The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder is just a great example of how books for adults can also be underwhelming and, frankly, illogical.

[inlibrisveritas]

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder is the very definition of cozy mystery. It isn’t a book that requires a lot of thought and goes perfectly with a cold night, warm blankets, and lots of cookies.

I picked this up as soon as a customer of mine traded it in, because I happened to be craving cookies and for some sadistic reason I enjoy reading about food when I’m hungry. I will say that it was not as addicting as I had hoped it would be, and it took me much longer than anticipated to get through this. In truth I had a lot of issues with the main character, who seemed sort of…idiotic. Hannah owns a cookie shop, where she serves and cookies and coffee all day long…but when a man is murdered behind her store with a bag of her cookies on him she immediately jumps to the conclusion that it’ll be bad for business. Firstly, who immediately worries about that sort of thing? Second, under no circumstances was it bad for her business, not even in the slightest but she keeps sleuthing. Third, she rushes head first into danger more than a few times and is never once questioned or told to stop by police.

However it is a nice little mystery that did keep me guessing for a while, and has a surprising amount of tension all through out it. On a plus there are also cookie recipes included for a good portion of the cookies mentioned in the book, so if you’re a foodie with a sweet tooth who loves a good mystery it might be the series for you.

I’m not entirely sure I’ll seek to continue this series, but it was a nice little respite from the more involved novels I read.

[mbtc]

I read this after reading one of the later books in the series and I liked this better. I felt like the characters were much more understandable in this earlier book. Not my favorite cozy mystery series, but an enjoyable listen. I especially like the recipes and descriptions of cooking. The recipes are real life recipes that I'm looking forward to trying in my own kitchen. Especially after hearing about so many cookies - I'm looking forward to having some!

[thebookdisciple]

Its not a bad book. Its not a great one either. Its fairly predictable, but it was still a fun book.

[Liz (Bent Bookworm)]

Let's just say that while I thought it a bit cheesy/contrived at first, I might have read more. However, if you're having your characters walk into a space with an at least two day old dead body and it takes them 10 minutes to notice anything out of the ordinary in that room, you're doin' it wrong. Dead bodies STINK. Sorry, but that totally ruined this book for me. If you can overlook such details, you'll probably enjoy it as a cute cozy mystery.

[ibeforem]

I wasn’t sure I was going to like this. I’d just finished listening to Before I Wake and lamenting about how nice everyone was, and now I’m going to listen to a cozy mystery? Instead of boring me, this book charmed me. I liked Hannah a lot. Even her amateur sleuthing is believable, because she never really does anything to find her information that I couldn’t have done (except maybe the breaking and entering!). She mostly just asks the right questions of the right people. The fact that she’s helping the cops is something that is only believable in this small town atmosphere. My only regret is that I was listening to this rather than reading it, because now I’m going to have to track down a hard copy of the book so I can get some of the recipes! I’ll definitely be continuing with this series.