Asking for Truffle: A Southern Chocolate Shop Mystery

Don’t dare call moody un-foodie chocoholic Charity Penn, the heroine of this overly busy but compulsively readable series launch from St. James (Oak and Dagger and two other White House Gardener mysteries), anything but Penn. “Charity” was chosen by her rich, icy grandmother Cristobel Penn, reluctant custodian of a college-age son’s unplanned baby. Cut to blustery Madison, Wis., where Penn has won cooking lessons at a Camellia Beach, S.C., chocolate shop in a contest she never entered. Since Penn’s hacker-surfer pal Craig “Skinny” McGee happens to be headed to a surfing event an hour’s drive from Camellia Beach, he agrees to investigate the mysterious contest. Soon after arriving in South Carolina, Skinny drowns in a chocolate vat—in the shop where Charity “won” lessons. When the local police say that they found drugs in his jeans, Penn snaps and heads to Camellia. Will she solve the murder? Learn her unknown mother’s identity? It’s a circus with too many rings, but readers will cheer Penn every step of the way. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. (Sept.)