A Half-Baked Murder

This winning series launch from the pseudonymous George finds the 28-year-old Paris-trained pastry chef Chloe Barnes returning home to her idyllic beachside hometown of Azalea Bay, Calif., following a humiliating breakup with her cheating fiancé. When her much loved grandmother falls ill with cancer, Chloe puts her five-star baking skills to work making cannabis brownies to help Grandma Rose cope with pain. The brownies are such a hit with Grandma Rose and her friends that Chloe’s Aunt Dawn proposes the two of them go into business and open a shop selling THC-infused baked goods. Chloe is intrigued, but before she can get Baked by Chloe off the ground, a former high school classmate, Brendan Chalmers, with whom she recently had a frightening run-in, is found stabbed to death. Since the knife has Aunt Dawn’s initials on it, she becomes the prime suspect. George checks off all the requisite boxes, including an appealing small-town setting, cute dog, close family, and the possibility of romance on the horizon. Cannabis-infused recipes round out the volume. Cozy fans will eagerly await the next Cannabis Café mystery. Agent: Jill Marshal, Marsal Lyon Literary. (Mar.)