60-Second Critic: Murder Melts in Your Mouth

MYSTERY
Murder Melts in Your Mouth
By Nancy Martin
NAL Obsidian; $22.95

Grade: C

It’s a steamy Philadelphia summer in Martin’s seventh light mystery centered around the blue-blooded Blackbird sisters. This time, society columnist and amateur sleuth Nora is halfheartedly investigating the death of her best friend’s partner, but the murder mystery is really just a sideline to the book’s real focus: the tangled warp and weft of old money. As a chocolate festival takes over the city Convention Center, Nora’s parents suddenly reappear after having skipped out on their debts several years earlier, and both of her sisters are having personal crises—one is knocked over by a famous chocolatier’s Rolls-Royce, and the other finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Nora herself is first unhappily broken up with her mobster boyfriend, then happily reunited with him. The almost one-per-page Philly references often seem gratuitous, but overall the book is a mildly entertaining romp through familiar terrain, both geographically and stylistically.