Sister Sleuths: Cooking up Carbs and Chaos

With the book club and my own never-ending TBR list, books are taking over my life.  After finishing my sister's pick, Elle Cosimano's Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead, my mom couldn't wait to find out what happened next and went for the next installment, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun.  I can't blame her, as these books are page turners that bleed into one another.  I think it's the only whodunit series I've read where the same mystery keeps building throughout (because the Russian mob never rests).  Anyway, this time, Finlay and Vero are still trying to find the online hacker who wants to hack Finlay's ex to pieces.  And apparently, the best way to do that is to join the Police Academy.  No Steve Guttenberg cameos here, though; this is the citizens' version of the training.  To that point, even neighborhood busybody Mrs. Haggerty is along for the ride-along, giving Finlay and Vero a run for their blood money in her Juicy Couture sweats.  Of course, hot cop Nick is in charge of the program and is still trying to entice Finlay to sample what her mother referred to as his "nice biscuits."  It's all pretty hilarious, and less gory than its two predecessors.  Best of all, for once I thought I had the perp figured out (I was wrong, but it was nice while it lasted).  What's more, the cliffhanger's a real doozy.  But we'll have to wait until Cosimano writes the next book to find out how Finlay and Vero hang in there.

After vicariously chasing bad guys -- and being chased by them -- I was ready for a different kind of biscuit, or rather, roll.  Yes, it was time for cozy queen Joanne Fluke's Caramel Pecan Roll Murder.  In a nutshell, it's about a blowhard who gets bumped off during a fishing competition.  I read it in a day, probably because it's half recipes, and found its downhome charm kind of soothing.  This isn't always the case; sometimes the local yokel simplicity of this series grates on me.  That said, unlike Finlay, the heroine, Hannah, doesn't have to investigate murders; she just likes to (which presents its own kind of neurosis, but I won't get into that).  She's a mild-mannered Minnesotan, baking cookies and juggling a hot cop of her own -- plus a dorky dentist -- while stepping in to solve the occasional murder.  Not that things ever heat up for Hannah in the romance department.  In Caramel Pecan Roll Murder, the hot gos is that Hannah's bunking with the dentist while her condo is being deep cleaned.  But it's all much ado about nothing, as Hannah never hooks up with anyone.  Still, what I find most horrifying about these books isn't Hannah's love life or even the crimes -- it's the sheer quantity of baked goods that Hannah is expected to produce every day, often beginning before sunrise.  People are always like, hey, Hannah, can you bake three dozen Coconut Mocha Madness cookies for today's Rotary Club meeting? or whatever.  And that's not even counting all the friends and family that drop by her shop to gobble up the candied fruits of her labor. 

It's almost enough to make you want to go undercover . . . which brings us full circle back to Finlay.

But then, I guess that's what books and life are about: finding that elusive balance.