Devil's Food Cake Murder

Reverend Bob Knudson and his new wife, Claire, leave for their honeymoon in Hawaii, knowing the parsonage is in good hands with Reverend Matthew. He stayed with Grandma Knudson back when he was a kid, and she adored him and is glad to get to know him as an adult. All seems to be going well, until Hannah finds Matthew dead. At first the clues seem to point to his cousin, Paul, but then a man shows up in town claiming to be the REAL Matthew, saying Paul was impersonating him. Apparently the cousins looked enough alike to do this. No one in town is quite sure what to think: Grandma Knudson didn't think Matthew was acting like the boy she'd known so many years before, so maybe it really was Paul pretending to be him. It got pretty twisted up, and there was a Myna bird and yeah...all kinds of stuff.
Of course the worst of it was at the end, when Norman finally tells Hannah why he's been acting so weird and distracted lately. So much for being Team Norman.

Dexter is Dead

I got so tied up in the Hannah Swensen books I didn't get a chance to finish rereading the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay. I was nearly done with this one, so I just knocked it out. Dexter is in jail, accused of murdering his wife, Rita, his girlfriend, Jackie, and actor Robert Chase. Debs thinks he's guilty and won't lift a finger to help him, even though it's pretty obvious that Detective Anderson is framing him and falsifying evidence. Luckily, Dexter's brother, Brian, hires a high powered attorney to get Dexter out of jail on bail. Turns out Brian needs a little help: he stole a bit of money from Raul, a drug lord, and now Raul is sending hit men after him. Dexter is mistaken for Brian a few times and narrowly avoids losing his life. Then Raul has his and Debs' kids kidnapped (not that they have kids together, but their collective group of kids). Dexter and Brian kidnap one of Raul's men and discover the kids are being held on Raul's yacht. They hatch a bold scheme to get the kids back. I felt like the ending was appropriate: even though we like Dexter, he *is* a killer and shouldn't be allowed on the streets. It was hard not to root for him, though.

Gingerbread Cookie Murder

Okay, so this is *kind* of cheating: I didn't read the whole book, just Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen novella. I'm sure Laura Levine and Leslie Meier's parts were just as good, but I didn't read them.
I don't know why. It's not like I don't have time.
At any rate :)
Hannah is getting annoyed with her neighbor, Ernie. He won the lottery a few years back and bought a condo in her complex. He has an obnoxious holiday laser light show and plays Christmas songs at an insanely high volume. Hannah and Mike go to talk to him about turning down the volume, and his ex-wife lets them in with a key she's not supposed to have, and Hannah finds Ernie dead. Of course his ex is the logical suspect, but it turns out Ernie has more enemies than anyone realized.

Apple Turnover Murder; Power of Pasta

Mayor Bascomb's wife, Stephanie, is planning a fundraiser and hires the Cookie Jar to provide refreshments. Hannah once again is tapped to help Herb with his magic show, and much to her chagrin Bradford Ramsey is MC'ing the event. Bradford seduced Hannah's little sister, Michelle, too and Hannah is hopping mad. So when she finds his dead body...needless to say she's not too sad, and tells Mike honestly that she wished him dead and explains why. Mike was actually kind of sweet in this book (he needed to make up for the Cream Puff Murder, when he was dragging her out of bed at all hours of the night). Norman is acting strangely, though, and when he returns from his business trip he has a new partner for his dental practice: his former fiancee, Beverly. Uh oh.

I defy anyone to read Bruno's book and not cry at least once. I wept through most of it.
A little backstory: a few years ago, I ran a successful cooking series at the library where I work. Local chefs would come and demo some recipes and the people who attended would get to sample their food. Not long after Bruno won CNN's Hero of the Year award, I got in touch with the Anaheim White House Restaurant and invited them to come and do a demo for our program. I thought what Chef Bruno was doing, dishing up thousands of meals to hungry kids every night, was such a wonderful cause I wanted to help spread the word. While Chef Bruno himself wasn't able to make the event, several of his chefs did, and they were kind and gracious, a joy to work with. Chef Bruno started serving meals to motel kids back in 2005, when he took his mother to a local boys and girls club while she was in town visiting from Italy. When they realized that some of the kids were hungry and weren't going to get to eat dinner that night, Mamma Caterina told Bruno to go back to his restaurant and make the kids some pasta. So he did, and kept on doing it.
Last February, the Anaheim White House Restaurant burned down. Chef Bruno's first thought was where was he going to cook for the kids? And what about his crew, he didn't want them to lose their homes because they were out of a job. Luckily, Chef Bruno has many friends who have helped out, and the last I heard, the restaurant is slated to reopen next month. We need more Chef Brunos in this world.

Plum Pudding Murder

It's Christmas in Lake Eden, and Hannah is busier than a one armed paperhanger, making cookies for a Christmas tree lot owned by Larry and his fiancee, Courtney. Delores and Norman both ask for her help, though, because Norman's mother (and Delores's friend and business partner) Carrie is acting bizarre: cancelling long standing plans and giving conflicting excuses as to why she can't make it. Hannah goes to a small business owner's class with her mom that Carrie was supposed to go to, and learns some things about shady business practices that make her take a second look at Larry's Christmas tree farm. When she and Norman go by one night to pick up a check he owes her, they find Larry murdered. Turns out Larry was stealing from his investors and socking away the profits, leaving the Christmas tree farm in the red. He was lying to everyone, so quite a few people had a good motive to kill him.

Never Get Angry Again

I read "Never Get Angry Again" for work. Not that I have anger issues, I really don't, but it said it would help you learn how to stay calm and in control in any situation, and that's something I can definitely use. Working in a library, ANYONE is welcome to come in, and we get some people with issues (like all libraries do). Any coping techniques to have positive interactions are always welcome, and he had some good tips. One of the most helpful, I think, is that while we can't choose what happens to us on a daily basis, we can choose what we spend our time thinking about. Do you ever lay awake at night, remembering all the dumb things you said or did and wish you could do them differently? I think we all do, and he pointed out that thinking like that is like walking a path in the forest: it's easier than blazing a new trail, but if you take the time and effort to make a new path, you can get off the old one.

Walk It Off, Princess; Carrot Cake Murder; Cream Puff Murder

I was really disappointed in David Thorne's latest book, "Walk It Off, Princess". Thorne is normally quite funny, I've read several of his previous books and I keep up with his website and he usually makes me laugh, but this one wasn't funny at all. First off, it was very short, about 150 pages, and his books aren't cheap, so I felt like I got ripped off. And then it just wasn't funny. He talked about finding a friend's dead body (he committed suicide) when he was 21 and getting scammed out of $150,000 by a con artist at the age of 28. Yikes! I mean, I'm glad he's able to get over it and move on, but it just depressed me.

On to more Hannah Swensen! In "Carrot Cake Murder", Lisa and Herb's families are having a big joint reunion at Eden Lake. Hannah is helping out, providing desserts and such. Herb's long lost uncle Gus shows up out of the blue, driving a Jaguar and flashing a Rolex and a diamond pinkie ring, bragging about how successful he is running a string of nightclubs in Atlantic City. Gus left town some twenty years earlier under murky circumstances: he'd gotten in a physical fight with Jack, Lisa's sweet dad who is now suffering from Alzheimer's. He still knows he doesn't like Gus, though, even if he can't remember why. When Hannah finds Gus murdered, Jack is the prime suspect. Hannah goes to work clearing his name, since she knows Lisa's dad couldn't possibly have killed Gus, no matter how much bad blood was between them.

Delores is getting her book published! She's written a Regency era romance, starring some of Lake Eden's residents. Hannah is nervous about how the book will be received, but she's even more upset when she goes to try on the dress for the launch party that Delores ordered for her and finds it doesn't fit. Andrea offers to help her lose weight by going with her to the gym. Hannah takes her up on her kind offer, but she's dismayed when their normal instructor breaks his arm in a car accident and their class is taken over by Ronnie Wood, a sexy fitness instructor from the police department that Hannah just knows Mike has a thing for (not that she's jealous or anything...). Ronnie is an outrageous flirt, and half the wives in town are jealous of her. Ronnie is nasty to all the women in the first class, and Hannah is outraged that she seems to enjoy being hurtful. So when she finds Ronnie drowned in the Jacuzzi the next morning, the list of people in town who *didn't* want her dead is actually shorter than the list who did.
Mike was kind of a big jerk in this one. He calls Hannah up in the middle of the night, waking her up, and all but orders her to meet him downstairs in the parking garage and oh, can she bring fresh coffee and cookies while she's at it? And he does this not once but twice! Hannah was too nice to him, I would have told him to go pound sand. Norman is a lovely gentleman, worrying about her getting enough sleep and eating right since she's on a diet, he goes out of his way to make sure she still gets little treats that aren't bad for her. Hannah, you should marry Norman.
Oh, and she loses enough weight in two weeks to fit in the dress her mom got for her, in fact it's loose.
Now I kind of hate you, Hannah.