Burned to a Crisp (Cookies and Chance Mysteries: Book 3)

Sally Muccio, owner of Sally’s Samples bakery, is gearing up for her upcoming wedding to fiancé Mike Donovan. When her sister Gianna is assigned a member of the local mob as a client in the public defenders' office, things start to heat up. Gianna gets called away from a party to meet with him and disappears. Later that evening, someone sets fire to Sally’s bakery and Sally and her partner, Josie, lose everything. The discovery of a dead body in the destroyed shop and Gianna’s disappearance make her sister a suspect. Unwilling to let the law handle it, Sally and Josie begin their own investigation, hoping to track down her sister before the cops or members of the mob can get to her. 

This is a fun-filled ride with a kooky cast of characters that will have readers everywhere chuckling!  Grandma Rosa is especially entertaining, as is the colorful, English-impaired neighbor, Mrs. Gavelli. Sally’s parents—the Hottie-Over-Fifty mother, Maria, and casket-in-the-living room sixty-year-old father, Domenic—are constant sources of light-hearted humor due to their inability to keep their hands off each other, in ways that make all children cringe. Sally revealed a bit of an annoying "woe is me" attitude at the first sign of trouble, and pushed her fiancé away, apparently a recurring pattern in their relationship. Her paranoid inner dialogue grew tiresome also, and there were a couple of loose ends to this somewhat formulaic cozy mystery. Otherwise, there is plenty enough action and sweet romance in this one to keep readers smiling. Nice job!

Clarice Silvers