Death by Chocolate Snickerdoodle

Book excerpt: In the fourth Death by Chocolate Mystery by the bestselling author of the Home Repair is Homicide series, Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree and Ellie White are fired up for Eastport, Maine’s Annual Cookie Baking Contest. But when a cunning killer and a devastating fire threaten to ravage the quaint island town, Jake and Ellie must dip into another homemade homicide investigation before all they love goes up in smoke… As co-owners of Eastport’s beloved waterfront bakery, the Chocolate Moose, Jake and Ellie know their customers expect them to cream the competition at the town’s annual Cookie Baking Contest. But they’re really just in it for fun, hoping to get Jake’s daughter-in-law baking again. Those plans collapse when fearsome local curmudgeon Alvin Carter is murdered, and every crumb of evidence points to Tiptree family friend—and all-around sweet guy—Billy Breyer. Billy’s sisters beg Jake and Ellie to prove his innocence. After all, lots of folks had gone sour on Alvin, whose popularity ranked somewhere between a toothache and the plague. But just as the ladies begin sifting through the suspects, a series of grass fires blaze across the island, threatening catastrophe. Now, Jake and Ellie will need all their courage—and an extra dash of that downeast Maine stubbornness—to sniff out the real killer before anyone else gets burned . . .