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How does an artisan baker get up close and personal with a tiger named Tabitha?
Corinna is on holiday and she’s looking forward to some quality time with a jug of cocktails and the distractions provided by her beautiful lover Daniel. However she is a woman unsuited to extended leisure and she is soon itching for an occupation. Given that this is Corinna, it doesn’t take long for her find it – or perhaps for it to find her…
Fans of amateur sleuth Corinna Chapman will not be surprised at the many twists and turns in the latest novel in the series. For those unversed in the delights of the plump baker, be prepared to suspend disbelief and soak up the atmosphere of quirky mystery that always surrounds Corinna on her quests for justice and truth.
In Cooking the Books she succumbs to a bit of minor blackmail dating back to her schooldays, and reluctantly agrees to be a temporary pastry chef for a catering company looking after the food for the cast of a brand new soap opera, ‘Kiss the Bride’, being filmed in Melbourne’s docklands. The set is a hotbed of intrigue with almost everyone falling under the glare of suspicion sooner or later – just who is trying to sabotage things?
Then there’s Daniel’s search for the missing millions – bearer bonds that have disappeared into thin air. Corinna finds herself juggling cases with aplomb and embarking on a treasure hunt (and a battle of wits) through the city. This is a Melbourne peopled by a diverse cast of characters – from practicing witches to budding actresses, with whole host of others in between. And the tiger? Well you’ll just have to read the book.
As with all of Greenwood’s work, there is a very satisfactory final answer to the problem and it’s not the obvious one. This is well structured crime fiction with an idiosyncratic bent. While the bad guys never win, and justice is definitely served, it happens in such a fundamentally fitting manner that the reader is always left wanting more.
Kerry Greenwood is the author of more than forty novels, six non-fiction works and the editor of two collections. Other novels in the Corinna Chapman series are Earthly Delights, Heavenly Pleasures, Devil’s Food, Trick or Treat and Forbidden Fruit. She is also the author of the Phryne Fisher crime series, several books for young adults and the Delphic Women series. When she is not writing she is an advocate in Magistrates’ Court for the Legal Aid Commission. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered Wizard.