Fudge Cupcake Murder

The **Fudge Cupcake Murder** is the fifth book in the *Hannah Swensen Mystery* series. It was originally released in 2004.

## Short Summary

***Bakery owner Hannah Swensen just can’t keep her hands out of the batter when murder stirs things up in Lake Eden, Minnesota, leaving the sheriff dead, a deputy accused, and a killer on the loose . . .***

For Hannah, life seems to be lacking a certain flavor lately. Maybe it’s the local sheriff’s election that’s got her down. For years, Sheriff Grant’s been the iron hand in town. But now, Hannah’s brother-in-law, Bill, is giving the old blowhard the fight of his long, dubious career—and Grant’s not taking it well, especially once the polls show Bill pulling ahead.

But before anyone can taste victory, Hannah makes a very unappetizing discovery: Sheriff Grant’s body in the dumpster behind the high school where she’s teaching her cooking class. Worse, the poor man still has fudge frosting on his shirt from one of her cupcakes.

The number one—and only—suspect is Bill, but Hannah’s not swallowing it. Plenty of people had reason to hate Sheriff Grant. Soon, Hannah’s dishing up scandalous secrets, steaming hot betrayals, and enough intrigue to keep the gossip mill at The Cookie Jar going through several pots of decaf. And the closer Hannah gets to the truth, the closer she gets to smoking out a murderer with a very nasty recipe for silencing people . . .

**INCLUDES TEN ORIGINAL DESSERT RECIPES FOR YOU TO TRY!**

## Main Characters

* Hannah Swensen
* Andrea Todd
* Bill Todd
* Delores Swensen
* Norman Rhodes
* Mike Kingston
* Sheriff Grant
* Nettie Grant

## Quotes

* “Hannah grabbed the scoop and exhumed the item that Moishe had buried. It wasn’t a mouse, or a part of a mouse. It wasn’t even a cricket, or a moth. It was a pristine nugget of his new senior cat food. Suddenly suspicious, she dug around a bit in the litter box, uncovering more evidence of Moishe’s distaste. By his choice of burial spot, her cat was making a graphic comment about the palatability of his dinner.” (Chapter Four)
* “Even though she knew she shouldn’t have, Hannah’d given in last night and filled Moishe’s bowl with his regular kitty crunchies. Tip number six on her vet’s list of ways to convince him to eat senior fare hadn’t worked any better than tips one through five. Last night’s attempt involved drizzling the juice from a can of tuna over the bowl and, for a moment, Hannah thought it might actually be successful. Moishe headed straight for his food bowl and licked the senior pellets with gusto. Unfortunately, that’s all he did. When Hannah examined his food more closely, she discovered that Moishe had licked off every bit of the tuna-flavored juice and left the senior nuggets, pristine and untouched, in his bowl.” (Chapter Twelve)
* “Monday morning came earlier than Hannah anticipated. It arrived at four-thirty in the morning when she rolled over on what felt like small boulders in her bed and discovered that Moishe had brought her the contents of his food bowl during the night.” (Chapter Sixteen)

## Cover Gags

* The sprinkles are shaped like skulls, while the cupcake wrapper has a skull-and-crossbones print.
* The audio book has a cupcake with a skull and crossbones next to it.
* Another cover features a cupcake with an ominous knife above it.

## Trivia

* Hallmark produced a movie based on this book known as *Murder, She Baked: A Deadly Recipe.*
	+ This is the second book to gain a Hallmark movie based on it.
	+ For a list of comparisons visit: Book and Movie Comparisons List
* This is the first cupcake title of the series.
* This is the first fudge title of the series.