Book Review: The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

This is our May book club pick of the month. The name alone intrigued me and I was even more excited to find out that the main characters name was Hannah, unfortunately I was somewhat disappointed.

If I had read the book outside of a book club setting I think I might have enjoyed it more. This was like a road trip book- something fun and light, quick and simple. I'm not exactly sure what we are going to discus in our book club.

29 year old Hannah owns a cookie shop and stumbles upon the body of Ron, her delivery boy and the town football hero. Her brother in law Bill is a police officer who wants to solve the crime so he can be promoted to detective. Turns out Hannah has a knack for solving crime and begins to collect the clues and helps Bill solve the case (basically Bill does nothing...but gets all the credit.

I did not like the voice of the main character. She was a cat person. She talked exactly like my Grandma Phyllis. I love my Grandma Phyllis but lets be honest she couldn't pass for a 29 year old so I had a hard time believing that Hannah was a 29 year old woman and not a 78 year old woman. The dialogue was a little annoying and many of the clues seemed to fall into her lap. I didn't ever really connect with the main character (which was strange because she was JUST like my grandma!) and I didn't like how all the jokes were explained...

I did like the story. It was fun and light. The BEST part of the book was that Hannah would cater several town events with these yummy sounding cookies and then she would share the recipe in the story. I love chocolate chip cookies and she had a very interesting recipe. Today I tried her chocolate chip crunch recipe which included corn flakes. CORN FLAKES?! I was intrigued...so I had to try them.

They were very good.

So if you would like to try it here is the recipe...the best part about them is if you dip them in milk you can count it as a balanced breakfast!

Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies
1 cup butter (2 sticks melted) 1 cup white sugar 1 cup brown sugar 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt 2 tsp vanilla	2 beaten eggs (beat with fork) 2 1/2 cups flour (not sifted) 2 cups crushed corn flakes (crush them with your hands) 1 - 2 cups chocolate chips
Melt butter, add the sugars and stir. Add soda, salt, vanilla and beaten eggs. Mix well. Then add flour and stir it in. Add crushed corn flakes and chocolate chips and mix it all thoroughly. Form dough into walnut-sized balls with your fingers and place on a greased cookie sheet, 12 to a standard sheet. Press them down with a floured or greased fork in a crisscross pattern (the same method as peanut butter cookies). Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes and then remove to a wire rack until they're completely cool. (The rack is important -- it makes them crisp).