Charity Penn is one of these 'don't you know who I am?' heiresses we all find annoying. She has more cause than most, as the infant Penn was dumped by her unwed mother on her rich father and raised in Wisconsin by a succession of relatives. Now Penn has a trust fund she doesn't intend to use and a chip on her shoulder the size of a California redwood. A letter informing her that she has won cooking lessons in a South Carolina beach town looks like a scam. People are always angling for her money, including boyfriends. But a school friend, Skinny McGee, says he can call in while in the area. He phones, recommends Penn comes down to the chocolate shop, and is murdered before you can say brandysnap.

The unlikeliest part of the whole tale, for me, is that Penn heads off to the decaying town of Camellia Beach, stays at its Pink Pelican Inn and takes lessons in chocolate cookery at The Chocolate Box. Why would she, if random visitors get killed and the police claim it was a drug deal gone bad? This sounds like a Sue Grafton crime tale but our Penn is no PI. Still, we accept that Penn has to be on the spot, where she immediately starts asking everyone if they know what happened to Skinny and doing the 'don't you know who I am?' line. No, actually, most of them don't. And they don't care. This being a small town, characters have to double up, so the dedicated surfer is also the lawyer and the daughter of one of the chocolate shop partners is also a New Age crystal seller.

I love that a social conscience dominates the buying of the shop's raw materials, by two admirable elderly ladies, Bertie Mays and Miss Mabel Maybank. They're as different as chalk and cheese, when so many small-town tales are bland in population. I also like Stella, the lively and at times ill-mannered Papillion puppy Penn brings as company and guard dog. To tell you any more would spoil the scenic story, so I'll just assure you that Dorothy St. James' sumptuous ASKING FOR TRUFFLE is best enjoyed with chocolates. And yes, there are recipes!

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