Earthly Delights: 1 (Corinna Chapman Mysteries) - Softcover

"A buxom baker and a handsome man of mystery solve a series of crimes. Corinna Chapman has left her driven husband and high-pressure job to open Earthly Delights, a bakery in Melbourne. A unique Roman-style apartment house provides lodgings for her, her cat Horatio and a diverse bunch of neighbors that includes Meroe the Witch, retired professor Dionysius Monk, the Pemberthys and their spoiled dog, a Dutch lady gardener, some computer nerds and sylph-like aspiring actresses Goss and Kylie, who help in the bakery. A series of threatening letters addressed to Corinna and the other ladies in the building soon escalate to spray-painted death threats, the first on the wall of a nearby shop owned by androgynous dominatrix Mistress Dread. Corinna's life changes dramatically when she meets Daniel Cohen, an attractive man who works nights on the Soup Run delivering food to the city's homeless, and hires the homeless junkie Jason, who has an amazingly light hand with muffins, to help clean the bakery. She wonders if her ex, who's hatched a scheme to buy her apartment house and tear it down, could be the poison pen. At length, she and Daniel get to the bottom of the threats, discover who's killing off junkies with hot-shots and have a sexy adventure at the local Goth club with a vampire named Lestat. Poles apart from Greenwood's popular heroine Phryne Fisher ("The Green Mill Murder," 2007, etc.), but equally delightful."--"KirkusReviews"

Praise for Earthly Delights... "Put on the coffee pot, whip up a batch of muffins (yes, two recipes are included), and enjoy this thoroughly original tale. Strongly recommended for fans of offbeat mysteries." -Library Journal starred review "Greenwood's light touch is perfect, and fans of the [Phryne] Fisher novels will eat this one up." -Booklist One day, Corinna Chapman, high profile accountant and banker, walked out on the money market and her dismissive and unpleasant husband James, threw aside her briefcase, and doffed her kitten heels forever. Now she is a baker with her own business, Earthly Delights, in Melbourne, Australia, living in an eccentric building on the Roman model called Insula with a lot of similarly eccentric people. She and her cat Horatio are quite content with this new life until a junkie falls half dead on her grate, a gorgeous sabra stalks along her alley telling her that she is beautiful, and threatening letters accusing her of being a scarlet woman begin to arrive. Then suddenly Goths, lost girls, fraud, late nights, nerds, and beautiful slaves complicate life for Corinna. And she still needs to get her bread out for the morning rush.... Kerry Greenwood, author of more than twenty novels, won the Crime Writers' Association of Australia Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. Earthly Delights is first in her series of mysteries featuring the irrepressible baker-cum-sleuth Corinna Chapman.