Forbidden Fruit: A Corinna Chapman Mystery (The Corinna Chapman Mysteries)
Those who care more for food than crime-solving will best appreciate Australian author Greenwood's fifth comic mystery featuring Melbourne baker Corinna Chapman (after 2009'sTrick or Treat). Corinna remains ecstatically involved with her lover, PI Daniel Cohen, who winds up on the trail of two 16-year-old runaways, Brigid O'Ryan and Manny Lake, though Brigid and Manny's respective parents disagree whether the pair went off together. Greenwood throws some militant vegans and freegans as well as a donkey with a taste for rosewater-infused muffins into the plot, but the pieces fail to coalesce as they do in her superior Phryne Fisher series (Cocaine Blues, etc.), in which she deftly balances humor and suspense. In this series, setups are more farcical than funny, and some may grow weary of Corinna's frequent editorializing about one food item or another she's just eaten.(June)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.