Chocoholic mysteries

Chocolate-shop manager Lee McKinney has had enough of party planner Julie Singletree's cutesy e-mails. Then somebody actually kills the woman, putting everyone on her mailing list on edge. As their connections to the murder emerge, so do more attacks. Lee smells a rat-and it's not made of chocolate. And if she doesn't want to be permanently deleted, it's up to her to trap it.

In her rare free time, newlywed Lee McKinney Woodyard works on TenHuis Chocolade's newest offerings, chocolate jewels. But soon the town of Warner Pier has its very own jewel heist, and then a body is found in the lake. Lee can't help but wonder if the crimes are related. Maybe if she digs up some dirt, she'll hit the mother lode.

The Warner Pier tourism board is kicking off its Tough Guys and Private Eyes film festival with The Maltese Falcon, and Lee Woodyard and her Aunt Nettie are preparing a delicious chocolate noir tie-in at TenHuis Chocolade. What Lee isn't prepared for is a face from the past: Jeff Godfrey, her former stepson. The last time Jeff showed up in town, he wound up being accused of murder. Now he says he's only in Warner Pier to see Bogart on the big screen....

"When a house near Lee and Joe's home goes up for sale, the couple teams up with Lee's aunt and uncle, Nettie and Hogan, to buy it, remodel it, and resell it for a sweet profit. But after the owners of the house, the Baileys, accept their offer, a local developer, Richard 'Spud' Dirk, suddenly swoops in with a higher one, and it seems their dreams might be snatched away. Lee, never as passionate about the plan as her husband and uncle, is anxious...