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What are the chances that two people would go missing on the same day in little April Springs, North Carolina?  When Emily Hargraves disappears from her newsstand, series heroine Suzanne Hart fears for the safety of the lovely, naive young woman.  Suzanne’s fear proves unwarranted–pretty much.  Emily left her shop with no notice for a quick tryst with Suzanne’s randy, charming ex-husband, Max.  Suzanne regrets not warning Emily about Max, but she trusts that in the end Emily will see him for what he is.

But there is nothing close to a happy ending for the other missing person, Tim Leander.  Suzanne and her friend Grace find Tim’s body hanging from an historic tree in the town park.  Who could have wanted to kill the popular local handyman, and who had the strength to hoist his body up into the Patriot’s Tree?  In part because she found the body, and in part because this kind of snooping is getting to be a habit, Suzanne begins to look into Tim’s life.  What she finds shocks her–it seems that Max is not the only playboy in April Springs.  Suddenly, Suzanne has lots of suspects.  Readers can follow her as she questions Tim’s buddies and lady friends and checks out their alibis with help from Grace, their friend George, and Suzanne’s beau, Jake.  Police Chief Martin is officially on the case, but he has to walk a fine line with Suzanne now that he is dating her mother.  As with earlier novels in this series, the development of Suzanne’s relationship with Jake, and her mother’s with Chief Martin, add to the charm of the book.

This is the fifth novel in the Donut Shop Mysteries series.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Suzanne Hart was mighty angry when local talk show host Lester Moorefield spouted off about how donuts and similar baked goods contribute to the nation’s obesity epidemic.  Moorefield even went so far as to urge his listeners to boycott Suzanne’s donut shop for a week.  As mad as Suzanne was, she did not choke Moorefield by forcing an éclair down his throat.  But when Moorefield appears to experience death by éclair, Suzanne is Suspect #1.

In fact, Moorefield was strangled and the éclair added after the fact.  But Suzanne is still the most likely suspect in the eyes of many people, so Suzanne, her best friend Grace, and George, a regular customer who is a retired cop, begin to investigate the crime.  They know that Moorefield angered many people with his incendiary on-air attacks.  When they start to dig they find a whole lot more–an estranged wife in the next town, a prison record, and financial shenanigans that includes embezzling $2.7 million.  Just when Suzanne thinks she is making progress on the case, Cupid complicates everything–Jake Bishop, a state police investigator and Suzanne’s boyfriend, is assigned to the case, and the local chief of police’s divorce has become final and he has his sights set on an old flame–Suzanne’s mom.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

It’s early December, time for the April Springs Winter Carnival.  Mother Nature has cooperated this year by providing an early snow.  The carnival is on track to be a big success–until a woman is murdered right in front of city hall.  The victim is Darlene Higgins, a local hairdresser and the woman who broke up Suzanne Hart’s marriage.  Suzanne is immediately considered a suspect, but her alibi is rock solid–half the town saw her tending the booth she set up outside of her donut shop.  With Suzanne in the clear, police suspicions turn to Suzanne’s ex-husband, Max, who has disappeared.  Suzanne’s feelings about Max are complex, but she has enough residual affection for him that she doesn’t want him railroaded for Darlene’s murder.

It turns out that Max is not the only local who is missing.  With help from her friend Grace, and George, a retired policeman, Suzanne searches for Max and the missing woman, while simultaneously investigating Darlene’s relationships.  A series of snow storms slow down their progress.  During the storms Grace stays with Suzanne, and some of the nicest scenes in the novel  are the dinners that Grace shares with Suzanne and her mom.  (As with the other novels in this series, Suzanne’s relationships get equal time with the mystery.)  Although Sinister Sprinkles deals with such troubling topics such as financial abuse of the elderly, blackmail, and internet scams, the tone is always light, and the book is an enjoyable read.

This is the third novel in the Donut Shop Mystery series.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Things have settled down for Suzanne Hart.  State police investigator Jake Bishop, who readers met in the first book in this series, is now Suzanne’s boyfriend, and business at the donut shop has picked up.  Business is so good that Suzanne has received some hostile comments from the chief wedding cake creator in town; it seems some couples prefer trays of small baked goods to a traditional wedding cake.  But Suzanne has made friends too, and one of those friends, Marge Rankin, asks Suzanne to cook in her kitchen as part of the town’s Kitchen Extraordinaire Home Tour. Suzanne will make beignets–a new offering at her shop–and Marge will get to show off her newly renovated kitchen.

Suzanne is worried about using baking powder rather than yeast in the beignets and how the portable fryer will perform, but these turn out to be the least of her problems.  As the first group of visitors arrive, Peg Materson, tour organizer and town busybody, is found dead in Marge’s backyard–holding a lemon-filled donut from Suzanne’s shop. Just like that, the tour is canceled and Suzanne’s business is shutdown while police search the premises for the poison that killed Peg Masterson.  George Morris, an ex-cop who is one of Suzanne’s best customers, volunteers to do his own investigating.  Peg was a force to be reckoned with, but she was not well liked, except by a niece who she raised.  Friends, especially the other shop owners in downtown April Springs, rally to Suzanne’s side, and one of the pleasures of this novel is the way the author brings the town to life with a cast of interesting, likable characters.

Like the first book in this series, Glazed Murder, Fatally Frosted includes recipes and a charming map of the April Springs.

This is the second Donut Shop Mystery.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

Suzanne Hart is trying to rebuild her life after a divorce.  She’s back in her hometown, the fictional April Springs, North Carolina, living with her mom, and trying to make a go of it as the owner of the local donut shop, Donut Hearts.  Suzanne has made some changes to the shop since she took it over.  She’s added a range of donut flavors and redecorated with couches and comfy chairs to encourage people to linger rather than just get takeout. Keeping the regulars while attracting new customers is her goal.

And she wants all her customers to be alive, but just as she’s heating up the fryer one morning someone dumps a body outside Donut Hearts.  The police are quickly on the scene, but Suzanne gets a bad feeling about the investigation.  The police chief is still carrying a torch for Suzanne’s mom, who spurned him forty years ago.  Is that unsuccessful courtship the reason he is so hostile to Suzanne?  Or is there something fishy going on with the police department?  That might explain the presence of Jake Bishop, a state police investigator who warns Suzanne to let the proper authorities handle the case.  But Suzanne believes that she’s in danger and so she starts to look into the affairs (personal and professional) of the dead man.  Soon Suzanne is in danger, but she unexpectedly finds a new love.

This is the first book in the Donut Shop Mystery series.  As an extra gift to readers, it includes recipes for for some of the treats mentioned in the novel.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.