"Earthly Delights"

"Earthly Delights" is the first book in the Corinna Chapman mystery series by Kerry Greenwood.  Greenwood is the creator of the Phryne Fisher mystery series which I have yet to read but I love the Australian TV series based on those books (watched the first season on DVD and am eagerly awaiting the second season to air then make it to DVD's).  That was enough to prompt me to check out more of her work.

Corinna left the accountant/banker field and her husband to start her own business, "Earthly Delights" in Melbourne, Australia.  Why?  Because she found she didn't like her high profile career or her husband and loved baking bread.  She lives in an eccentric 8 story building with 16 apartments, an assortment of businesses and an equally eccentric group of neighbors. 

In this first book in the series Corinna becomes involved accidentally with some drug addicts and that leads to an involvement with a gorgeous hunk of man (Daniel) who acts as security for the nightly bus that delivers food to street people -- most of them addicts.  While she's busy trying to figure out why he would fall for an overweight woman and whether his motives are true, he asks for her help in discovering who is killing some of the addicts.

In the meantime, someone is threatening the tenants in her building as well as herself and that brings Senior Constable Letty White to the building to investigate who could be behind the terrorism of the tenants.  By the end of the book, Corinna has taken on a recovering addict as an assistant in her bakery because he has a talent for making muffins "to die for."  She's also helped Daniel and Constable White solve their mysteries.  I enjoyed it enough that I've already sent for the second book in this series.  pazt