Olivia Greyson is the proud owner of The Gingerbread House--a quaint shop that specializes in all things cookie--and her best friend, Maddie, is her sidekick, baking up scrumptious treats for their cookie-themed parties. But a dead body on their front porch might put their bake shop in a truly sticky situation...
Olivia is busy baking up special cookies for Maddie's upcoming engagement party when soap star Trevor Lane shows up unexpectedly in town. It soon becomes clear that Trevor, who grew up in the neighboring town of Twiterton, left behind a number of enemies with long memories. Even Trevor's assistant and childhood friend, Dougie, seems to harbor a grudge against him.
Soon after his arrival, Trevor is found dead on The Gingerbread House porch, his handsome face branded with the image of a cookie cutter. When their friend Stacey is implicated in the murder, Olivia and Maddie rush to find the killer. Because it seems someone in Chatterley Heights has a sweet tooth for revenge... ( )

Olivia Greyson is busy running The Gingerbread House but she has even more things on her plate these days - her best friend and coworker Maddie is getting married and Olivia is trying to find the perfect cookie recipe for the engagement party. She is working night and day on arrangements for the party and the last thing she needs is to be interrupted but when soap star Trevor Lane is murdered and his body left on the porch of The Gingerbread House Olivia finds herself involved in the case. Can Olivia, with the help of Maddie, solve this case in time for Maddie to enjoy her engagement party?

"One Dead Cookie" is the tasty fourth book in Virginia Lowell's A Cookie Cutter Shop cozy mystery series. I had not read any of the other books in the series but I never felt lost regarding the characters or setting while reading this book. The cookie cutter shop setting is an interesting one (I'm not sure if a business like that would survive in real life but it works perfectly as a setting for a cozy mystery). The setting made me hungry - I'm not a huge cookie fan but my mouth was watering as Olivia and Maddie were constantly eating cookies (they apparently survive on cookies and very little sleep!). Olivia and Maddie are nicely done characters but, although the book is from Olivia's viewpoint, Maddie seemed a bit stronger as a character. Lowell does a great job of portraying life in a small town where everybody knows everybody else's business or so they think. The mystery itself is well plotted with a few surprises - I just wish Lowell had had a different ending for one of the most interesting characters in the book.

"One Dead Cookie" is a delicious cozy mystery. ( )

Just so-so.

I really like to the two main characters, Olivia and Maddie. And Olivia's mother is a joy. The dialogue between these three is really well written and there are more than a few good one-liners. Del is sweet and I think he could be a great character if he was around more.

The plot of the mystery, at it's bones, was well done. Old clues, new clues, lots of suspects and an ending that wasn't the total cliched "cozy ending number 2". I liked the ending.

So what was the problem? The story just didn't flow well at all. It felt disjointed and clunky; disorganised. And while I'm an animal lover to an extreme, if I had to hear one more time about Spunky's days on the "mean streets of Baltimore" or his begging eyes I was gonna scream. It was too much.

If the next book came out right now, I wouldn't pick it up. We'll see how I feel X months from now when it does come out. ( )