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A Chocoholic Mystery #4
The Chocolate Puppy Puzzle
Hollywood comes to Michigan when a film producer decides to turn a local author's romance novel into a blockbuster. Although the movie mogul's chocolate labrador is charming, Lee McKinney thinks the producer's talk is a bunch of sweet nothings-and she grows even more suspicious when she stumbles upon a dead body.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
67 people are currently reading
792 people want to read
About the author
JoAnna Carl
36 books433 followersJOANNA CARL is the pseudonym for the multi-published mystery writer Eve K. Sandstrom. The author writes about the shores of Lake Michigan and has been reviewed in Michigan newspapers as a “regional writer.” She has also written about Southwest Oklahoma and once won an award for the best book of the year with an Oklahoma setting.
Eve K. Sandstrom is an Oklahoman to the teeth: she was born there, as were five previous generations of her mother’s family. Both her grandfathers and her father were in the oil business, once the backbone of Oklahoma’s economy. One grandmother was born in the Choctaw Nation, and Eve is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Eve and seven other members of her immediate family are graduates of the University of Oklahoma. Eve even knows the second verse of “Boomer Sooner.”
Eve wrote two mystery series: the “Down Home” books, set on a ranch in Southwest Oklahoma, and the Nell Matthews mysteries, semi-hard-boiled books laid in a mid-size city on the Southern Plains.
But Eve married a great guy whose family owned a cottage on the west coast of Lake Michigan, not far from the Michigan towns of Fennville, Saugatuck, and Douglas. Every summer for more than forty years she, her husband and various combinations of children and grandchildren have trekked to the community of Pier Cove for vacations that lasted from two weeks to three months.
The area features gorgeous beaches, lush orchards, thick woods, and beautiful Victorian houses. Eve grew to love it. So when her editor asked her to come up with a new, “cozy” mystery series, Eve set it in a West Michigan resort town, scrambling up Saugatuck, Douglas, South Haven, Holland, Manistee, Ludington and Muskegon with her own ideas of what a resort ought to be to create Warner Pier.
As further background, she plunked her heroine into a business which produces and sells luscious, luxurious, European-style bonbons, truffles and molded chocolates. Most small towns couldn’t support a business like this, but the resorts of West Michigan – with their wealthy “summer people” – can. The “Chocoholic Mysteries” were on their way.
Eve’s editor requested that she use a pen name for the new series, and Eve picked the middle names of her three children, Betsy Jo, Ruth Anna, and John Carl. “JoAnna Carl” was born. So that’s how JoAnna/Eve became a regional author in two widely separated regions.
JoAnna/Eve earned a degree in journalism at the University of Oklahoma and also studied with Carolyn G. Hart and Jack Bickham in the OU Creative Writing Program. She spent more than twenty-five years in the newspaper business, working as a reporter, editor, and columnist at The Lawton Constitution in Lawton, Oklahoma. She took an early retirement to write fiction full-time.
She and her husband, David F. Sandstrom, have three grandchildren, whom they love introducing to the lore of their two homes – Oklahoma and Michigan.
She spent 25 years in the newspaper business as a reporter, feature writer, editor, and columnist, most recently at the Lawton Constitution. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of OK and also studied in the O.U. Professional Writing program. She lives in Oklahoma but summers in Michigan where the Chocoholic Mystery series is set. She has one daughter who is a CPA and another who works for a chocolate company and provides yummy insider information on the chocolate business.
Eve K. Sandstrom is an Oklahoman to the teeth: she was born there, as were five previous generations of her mother’s family. Both her grandfathers and her father were in the oil business, once the backbone of Oklahoma’s economy. One grandmother was born in the Choctaw Nation, and Eve is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Eve and seven other members of her immediate family are graduates of the University of Oklahoma. Eve even knows the second verse of “Boomer Sooner.”
Eve wrote two mystery series: the “Down Home” books, set on a ranch in Southwest Oklahoma, and the Nell Matthews mysteries, semi-hard-boiled books laid in a mid-size city on the Southern Plains.
But Eve married a great guy whose family owned a cottage on the west coast of Lake Michigan, not far from the Michigan towns of Fennville, Saugatuck, and Douglas. Every summer for more than forty years she, her husband and various combinations of children and grandchildren have trekked to the community of Pier Cove for vacations that lasted from two weeks to three months.
The area features gorgeous beaches, lush orchards, thick woods, and beautiful Victorian houses. Eve grew to love it. So when her editor asked her to come up with a new, “cozy” mystery series, Eve set it in a West Michigan resort town, scrambling up Saugatuck, Douglas, South Haven, Holland, Manistee, Ludington and Muskegon with her own ideas of what a resort ought to be to create Warner Pier.
As further background, she plunked her heroine into a business which produces and sells luscious, luxurious, European-style bonbons, truffles and molded chocolates. Most small towns couldn’t support a business like this, but the resorts of West Michigan – with their wealthy “summer people” – can. The “Chocoholic Mysteries” were on their way.
Eve’s editor requested that she use a pen name for the new series, and Eve picked the middle names of her three children, Betsy Jo, Ruth Anna, and John Carl. “JoAnna Carl” was born. So that’s how JoAnna/Eve became a regional author in two widely separated regions.
JoAnna/Eve earned a degree in journalism at the University of Oklahoma and also studied with Carolyn G. Hart and Jack Bickham in the OU Creative Writing Program. She spent more than twenty-five years in the newspaper business, working as a reporter, editor, and columnist at The Lawton Constitution in Lawton, Oklahoma. She took an early retirement to write fiction full-time.
She and her husband, David F. Sandstrom, have three grandchildren, whom they love introducing to the lore of their two homes – Oklahoma and Michigan.
She spent 25 years in the newspaper business as a reporter, feature writer, editor, and columnist, most recently at the Lawton Constitution. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of OK and also studied in the O.U. Professional Writing program. She lives in Oklahoma but summers in Michigan where the Chocoholic Mystery series is set. She has one daughter who is a CPA and another who works for a chocolate company and provides yummy insider information on the chocolate business.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
November 19, 2015
A quick read, mildly entertaining and not as "quirky" as most cozies, which I liked. (On the other hand, those who enjoy the roundup of goofballs found in your typical cozy might miss them.) I liked the Michigan setting, in a fictional town in the vicinity of Saugatuck (which is not mentioned, but based on geographical clues, that's the most likely area). Also features a dog, which is usually a plus for me.
March 7, 2016
Four very different feels to the books in this series so far. I must say that the fault lies totally with me regarding the low rating. I couldn't wrap my head round the events of the mystery. I can't carry a map in my head to save my neck. It was nice to read about the early events that foreshadowed the danger that Lee would incur. The attempt at suspense and endangerment was sad to the point of pathetic. We all know Lee will not die. But I sailed through three quarters of the book without problem. Despite the limited suspects, I was only partly right in choosing the guilty. There were only 2 to 4 suspects in all. Will keep slogging through the series as the author is not resting on what could be laurels.
March 15, 2014
A producer has come to town with sites set on making a movie based on local history. But Lee thinks something isn't right and starts to investigate. She's hardly started when she finds a dead body. Another fast moving mystery with characters I love to visit.
Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.
Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.
July 11, 2017
In terms of being a cozy mystery this one was very good! I need to hunt down the rest of the series now!
February 18, 2025
I actually enjoyed a few books in this series but then lost interest in continuing to purchase and collect and read them...it might have been that the sheer number of books in the series seemed daunting when my TBR list was already sitting at 600 purchased books.
July 7, 2013
Impossible to put down! Read this in one day - stayed up past my bedtime! Easy to read, fun characters, can't wait to see what happens next!
January 16, 2020
This one was okay, but no great shakes. The plot was even thinner than most cozies, and the ending felt rushed and perfunctory, a hindrance to the sappy revelation about Lee's personal life that must be disposed of as quickly as possible.
Guess what? Don't care about her personal life, or her weird martyr complex about Aunt Nettie, who has lived her whole long life without neurotic Lee telling her which way to wipe. Joe, her ardent beau, might have been a sulky manbaby about Lee's reluctance to tie the knot, but he wasn't wrong about her smothering codependence with Aunt Nettie.
The killer wasn't hard to peg for anyone who's read a cozy before, though there were a few decent red herrings to keep the story marginally interesting.
A good beach or bedtime read, but hardly a challenge for hardened mystery buffs.
I do wish they'd kept the puppy, though. Monte was a cute little bugger.
Guess what? Don't care about her personal life, or her weird martyr complex about Aunt Nettie, who has lived her whole long life without neurotic Lee telling her which way to wipe. Joe, her ardent beau, might have been a sulky manbaby about Lee's reluctance to tie the knot, but he wasn't wrong about her smothering codependence with Aunt Nettie.
The killer wasn't hard to peg for anyone who's read a cozy before, though there were a few decent red herrings to keep the story marginally interesting.
A good beach or bedtime read, but hardly a challenge for hardened mystery buffs.
I do wish they'd kept the puppy, though. Monte was a cute little bugger.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2019
Over the past few months I've read most of the books in one series and one book in a longer series of Michigan based cozy murder mysteries. They were both wonderful. I read The Chocolate Puppy Puzzle by JoAnna Carl and the first three books in the Cranberry Cove Mystery series by Peg Cochran. All the books had all the necessary traits intrigue, thrilling, romance, humor, and some action. Both series feature a female lead who works in the family business. Both take place in the lovely state of Michigan (not a resident just a visitor) and I think they do a wonderful job of representing the beauty of the area, yes even when its cold. If you're a native or local to the Great Lake State and are looking for a fun cozy murder to read these are your jam.
February 18, 2018
A dodgy guy claiming to be a Hollywood producer looking to film a movie based on a piece of local history has come to Warner's Pier, and Lee is immediately suspicious of him, especially since he shows entirely too much interest in Aunt Nettie. While snooping after the would-be movie maker, Lee then promptly stumbles over a dead body amidst a pile of pumpkins and from there, as usual, things go a little crazy.
Less predictable than the previous ones, but more convoluted. And what is it with this romance subplot that doesn't make me feel anything except annoyance?
Less predictable than the previous ones, but more convoluted. And what is it with this romance subplot that doesn't make me feel anything except annoyance?
July 15, 2019
I felt like I missed a book or two, but I double-checked the list. No, I did not miss one. I was just getting used to the Joe relationship, and right in the beginning of the book, he mentions marriage like it was totally normal. It's still hard for me to see why the two of them are together, what they have in common and all that, and now they're getting married?? It threw me for left field. The rest of the mystery was really interesting, but the Joe parts just seemed really distracting and made it hard for me to concentrate.
March 29, 2020
Alright, I guess it wasn’t as bad as I first opined. The second half of the story became more interesting as it hurtled on to the denouement.
And it doesn’t hurt that there were two sweet romances thrown in. 😆
On the plus side, I did not see that ending coming. On the other hand, the solution to the mystery took a lot of the last chapter to unravel, that it almost felt a tad contrived and surreal.
Entertaining for the time it took to read, but it doesn’t give me a hankering to check out the rest of the series. 🤷🏻♀️
And it doesn’t hurt that there were two sweet romances thrown in. 😆
On the plus side, I did not see that ending coming. On the other hand, the solution to the mystery took a lot of the last chapter to unravel, that it almost felt a tad contrived and surreal.
Entertaining for the time it took to read, but it doesn’t give me a hankering to check out the rest of the series. 🤷🏻♀️
September 23, 2017
I have read a few of these books when I find them, but never in order! In this book, a con artist shows up in Warner Pier saying that he wants to make a movie out of a book written by a person living there. Lee immediately thinks he is up to no good, and sets out to see what he is doing there. After discovering a body buried under a pile of pumpkins, she finds herself the target of the killer. There are many suspects, including some of her good friends. Which one has done it?
December 6, 2018
Aunt Nettie, Lee, and Joe are back...and they gain a puppy for part of this book. A Hollywood producer arrives, offering to film an adaptation of a local author's novel. When he disappears and Lee finds herself getting shot at, Lee goes into hiding for two days to try and convince the shooter s/he succeeded. But who's the shooter? And why does s/he want Lee dead?
More chocolate factoids throughout, though not much of the book is set in the chocolate shop, as Lee is in hiding.
More chocolate factoids throughout, though not much of the book is set in the chocolate shop, as Lee is in hiding.
December 11, 2020
As is the case with many of Joanna Carl's books, this book is an entertaining read. The characters are likeable and the tone is light and somewhat humorous. There are fun facts about chocolate sprinkled throughout the book, and one of the characters is a charming chocolate lab puppy who warms my heart. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys cozy fiction.
December 31, 2020
In this one, there's a scammer and a puppy. The problems are that too many characters are caricatures and that Lee does something very, very, stupid towards the end. There's no excuse for her taking a walk when she does. I don't mind foolish action in this genre, but I've repeatedly stated that stupid bothers the heck out of me. The only saving grace is the writing style remains smooth.
November 6, 2018
Yeah. Aunt Nettie goes out on dates. And Lee helps Joe pick tile for his bathroom. Fun stuff. I got to the point where I didn't really care about the 75-year old mystery. I was just enjoying the characters.
January 28, 2019
Lee and the group are back it in another fun adventure from Warner Pier. This time "Hollywood" has come to town and many of the residents are acting differently. Lee senses trouble is brewing from the moment a chocolate lab puppy named Monte comes charging up to her in the park.
April 23, 2018
Still enjoying these at #4! Nice plot twist with con-artist “movie producers”
October 2, 2018
I liked it.
August 4, 2019
Another great read in this series. I love this series and the characters. I will continue reading it b
Read
September 17, 2019OK
May 4, 2020
This is a such a fun addition to the series! Love the characters, Joe is finally building a personality, and I really enjoyed the mystery.
May 6, 2020
4.5 Stars! Fun!!
I would love to go and visit them in Michigan ;-)
I would love to go and visit them in Michigan ;-)
July 6, 2020
Cute story, and I love that it's set in Michigan, where I'm from.
July 7, 2021
JoAnna Carl's books are a joy to read, good stories and good characters! I'm ready to read the next one!
February 2, 2022
This was not my favorite cozy mystery. I had a hard time getting into it. I cannot even point to a reason why. I am sure there are many other who would enjoy this book, just not me.
April 16, 2022
An okay cozy mystery. Main character was not very strong and the climax of the book was so-so.
September 4, 2022
This book was as enjoyable as the others in the series. I look forward to other installments.
November 26, 2022
Fun read with good twists!
June 9, 2023
This was a great cozy little mystery. An easy read that kept you engaged.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews