Suzanne Toren

Early summer brings plenty of work for baker Hannah Swensen, even before Mayor Bascomb's wife drops by The Cookie Jar to place an order for her charity event...for eleven hundred cookies! And Hannah almost flips when her business partner, Lisa, suggests setting up an apple turnover stand. But she places her faith in Lisa, and even agrees to be a magician's assistant in the fundraiser's talent show. The only snag is the show's host, college professor...

"Hannah's up to her ears with Easter orders rushing in at The Cookie Jar, plus a festive meal to prepare for a dinner party at her mother's penthouse. But everything comes crashing to a halt when Hannah receives a panicked call from her sister Andrea--Mayor Richard Bascomb has been murdered and she's the prime suspect. Even with his reputation for being a bully, Mayor Bascomb--or "Ricky Ticky," as Hannah's mother likes to call him--had been unusually...

"An air force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back to life by creatures of air and light. A hearing-and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and...

"The holidays have arrived, and Hannah and her good pal Lisa have agreed to provide all the goodies for the town's annual production of A Christmas Carol. But before anyone can say "Bah, humbug!" a Santa-sized sackful of trouble ensues. Like the fact that Lisa's husband will be playing Mr. Claus to his ex-girlfriend Phyllis Bates' Mrs. Claus. Or that before the curtains even go up Phyllis is found dead in the snow--wearing a costume that the real...

"Not even Lake Eden's nosiest residents suspected Hannah Swensen would go from idealistic newlywed to betrayed wife in a matter of weeks. But as a deadly mystery unfolds in town, the proof is in the pudding. When The Cookie Jar becomes the setting of a star-studded TV special about movies filmed in Minnesota, Hannah hopes to shine the spotlight on her bakery--not the unsavory scandal swirling around her personal life. But that's practically impossible...

Throwing herself into the holiday season in the aftermath of her husband Ross' disappearance, Hannah Swensen investigates the murder of her husband's television-station assistant, who had been driving Ross' car and working from his office at the time of his death. Hannah has felt as bitter as November in Minnesota since Ross vanished without a trace and left their marriage in limbo. Still, she throws herself into a baking frenzy for the sake of pumpkin...

When someone shoots visiting Lutheran minister Matthew Walters, Hannah Swenson and cronies investigate Matthew's background, especially his relationship to his creepy, paroled convict cousin, Paul.

Collects three gingerbread cookie-related mysteries, including a mysterious murder during a Christmas play, the disappearance of a young boy, and a brutal murder involving a bakery.

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and... no qualms about a little murder. This funny, irreverent story collection by Helene Tursten, author of the Irene Huss investigations, features two-never-before translated stories that will keep you laughing all the way to the retirement home. Ever since her darling father's untimely death when she was only eighteen, Maud has lived in the family's spacious apartment in...

On the morning after the 2003 Academy Awards, Max--an Oscar-winning writer/director whose fame has waned--and his lover, Elena, are in bed, still groggy from last night's red-carpet festivities. They are talking about movies, talking about love, talking about the just-begun war in Iraq. But a house full of guests demands attention. They share their stories of Hollywood past and present; they watch films in Max's luxe screening room; they gossip by...