Trick or Treat

July 1, 2009
Corinna Chapman's bakery and her boyfriend both come under siege.

Corinna (Devil's Food, 2008, etc.) is understandably upset when a"hot bread shop" opens just down the street in Melbourne from Earthly Delights. The chain store's product is inferior to hers, but its prices much cheaper. Even more upsetting is the"old friend" who's come to visit Corinna's lover Daniel: stunning blonde Georgiana, who apparently has her eye on both Daniel and Earthly Delights. Meanwhile, seemingly ordinary people are going crazy and jumping off buildings in the neighborhood. The police close all shops serving food when they discover that an ergot fungus is the cause. All Corinna's friends from Insula, the unusual Roman-style apartment house where she lives, rally round to provide comfort to the stricken Earthly Delights bakers, who fear that bad rye mistakenly delivered to but not used by them is the source of the ergot. Corinna's friend, the powerful witch Meroe, has her own troubles; she doesn't approve of the carryings-on by some of the Wiccans gathered in Melbourne for Samhain celebrations. Daniel, a private investigator, is pursuing treasures stolen by Nazis from the Jews of Greece, and the case heats up when several valuable pieces turn up underwater at the witches' camping area. As the two plots converge, Corinna and Daniel combine their sleuthing abilities to identify the fiendish malefactor.

Working a case loosely based on a true story, Corinna and her friends are as delightful as ever, the killer a surprise and the appended recipes a treat.

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