Lee McKinney lives a charmed, small town life along the Michigan shoreline. She helps her Aunt Nettie run a chocolate business, which puts her in touch with other food service professionals in the community. Julie Singletree, a nosy local party planner, creates an e-mail list called the Seventh Food Group, so group members can network with each other. Julie drives everyone nuts and clogs their inboxes with sappy poems, quotes and stories.

Just when everyone feels like they can't cope with anymore of Julie's annoying e-mails, she turns up dead. Lee is arguably the second most nosy person in town, and she sets out to uncover the mystery of Julie's sudden death. As she inches closer to the truth, Lee and other members of the Seventh Food Group find themselves dodging danger at every turn until the mystery unravels and they find their rat.

This book is written with an innocent, lighthearted tone that's the perfect "dessert" to take one's mind off the stresses of everyday life. Assorted characters fill the pages of the book, and just like in a box of chocolates this assortment can make it difficult to sort all of them out. With constant chatter about anything chocolate and quotes about chocolate serving as an appetizer before each chapter, you should have a big box of chocolates on hand while devouring this book. THE CHOCOLATE MOUSE TRAP is a sweet and satisfying treat of a book.

Book Summary

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.