DEATH BY CHOCOLATE SNICKERDOODLE

A small-town shop owner investigates the murder of a nasty old geezer.

No one in the island community of Eastport, Maine, has much good to say about Alvin Carter. His ramshackle house is an eyesore, and he treats anyone foolish enough to work for him to short wages and an abusive tongue. It gets so bad that the only one he can get to do his housework is sturdy, rawboned Mary Sipp, who carries a pistol in her purse and tolerates nonsense from nobody. But when Mary has to hack her way through the overgrowth with a machete to get to Alvin’s front door, he agrees to hire Jake Tiptree’s son, Sam, to do some landscaping. Sam and his partner, Billy Breyer, are making headway when Billy finds Alvin with a hatchet in his skull. Eastporters, including local police chief Bob Arnold, agree there’s no way Billy could have killed Alvin; Billy wouldn’t hurt a fly. But the folks on the state’s murder investigation team arrest Billy anyway, prejudiced by the fact that a few years back, he killed his father. Jake, known best to her Eastport neighbors for the treats she sells at the Chocolate Moose, puts on her deerstalker, determined to crack this case both to save her son’s business and to keep Billy’s tyrannical aunt, Prunia Devereaux, from seizing custody of Billy’s orphaned sisters, who are under his guardianship. What happens next is a series of disjointed episodes featuring Jake breaking into various venues, assisted by her best friend, her elderly stepmom, her daughter-in-law, who seems to be suffering from postpartum depression, and even the chief of police.

Preposterous.