It all started with a delayed chocolate order. San Benedetto's Wine and Chocolate days have begun, and Maddie Kosloski's Magic of Chocolate exhibit is prepared in her paranormal museum- except the chocolate hasn't arrived. How can you have a chocolate exhibit without chocolate? Maddie's friend, Adele Nakamoto, owns the tea room next door and is also panicking so Maddie agrees to go to the new chocolate shop, Reign, and pick up their delivery. Unfortunately, Maddie stumbles across another dead body and now she's worried she's in the crosshairs of a killer.

CHOCOLATE A LA MURDER is the fourth book in the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum series. Overall, each book in the series stands on its own merits but readers may want to read the prior book, DEJA MOO, for some background history on Maddie's personal relationship issues. However, Kirsten Weiss does an excellent job at providing a general overview of the town and the other relationships so that readers can jump in and enjoy the mystery.

I love that Kirsten Weiss includes a paranormal mystery within the context of the main mystery! CHOCOLATE A LA MURDER features a haunted molinillo and I love the eerie feel the mystery behind it adds to the paranormal museum. I was a little skeptical as to how Kirsten Weiss could keep a cozy mystery centered around a paranormal museum going, but the ingenuity of the murders coupled with the secondary mysteries featuring various allegedly haunted paraphernalia is a hit!

Chocolate infuses every aspect of this paranormal-tinged mystery. Kirsten Weiss crafts realistic and likable characters and puts them in intriguing situations. I may never think of chocolate making the same way again! If you love cozy mysteries and want something just a tad different, then CHOCOLATE A LA MURDER is exactly your cup of tea!

Book Summary

Maddie gets rattled by a candy-coated murder

It's Wine and Chocolate Days in San Benedetto, and paranormal museum owner Maddie Kosloski has sweet dreams about her new Magic of Chocolate exhibit. Her latest attraction is a haunted Mexican whisk called a molinillo that rattles if someone lies. When Maddie visits the town's new boutique chocolate shop, she finds one of the owners dead and covered in melted cocoa.

Maddie's determined to catch the killer, and she soon uncovers deadly dealings in the world of artisan chocolate. But the deception surrounding those dealings are enough to make the molinillo rattle all night. Will Maddie have to temper her passion for sleuthing before a killer makes her fate a bittersweet one?

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