The Chocolate Pirate Plot
A Chocoholic Mystery
By JoAnna Carl
Hardback, $21.95, 232 pages

I love pirate stories. And cozies set in Michigan. And a delicious chocolate bonbon treat filled with soft caramel.

If you’re like me, you’ll grab a hot chocolate (with little marshmallows on top), settle in and rip through “The Chocolate Pirate Plot” by JoAnna Carl like a “Texas tornado.”

Set Up North in a little tourist town called Warner Pier, cozy mystery lovers won’t have to fight traffic to get to the Upper Peninsula to stroll along Lake Michigan — Carl lets her readers live the experience vicariously.

The Pirate Plot is No. 11 in the series, which just gets better with each new title. For those who might have read an earlier installment, Lee McKinney is now Lee (“half Texan and half Michigan Dutch”) McKinney Woodyard. She returned to the Great Lakes State to work for her Aunt Nettie three years ago and start a new life. Now she's found the true love of her life in new husband, lawyer and boat builder, Joe Woodyard. Joe has also gained a more prominent role in Lee's crime-solving adventures.

Not much has changed at TenHuis Chocolade — except perhaps more descriptions of delicious chocolate treats and lots of new cocoa lore and yummy recipes — but each new book in this series offers a fun caper that’s as fresh as a truffle just carefully placed in the chocolate case by the hairnet ladies.

The Pirate Plot will warm your soul with wishful dreaming about summertime on Lake Michigan — in what became known as “The Summer of the Warner Pier Pirates.” And readers can spend delightful hours of escape from ice, snow and cold whipping winds. Who could ask for anything more?

“The huge red sun had just sizzled and sunk into the water over toward Wisconsin. The breeze is cool, but not chilly; sweatshirts were nice, but inside the cabin jackets weren’t needed. The water was a deep silky gray, the sky had exactly the right number of puffy purple clouds edged in gold."

Like Joe’s smile that “broke out like the sun coming out after a Lake Michigan thunderstorm. It just spread all over the place and chased every dark cloud away,” this chocolate series will satiate your craving for a page-turning tasty tale.

And when you’ve completed this book, you might want to head back in time with new-in-paperback, “The Chocolate Cupid Killings,” just in time for Valentine’s Day. It's a sweet adventure — minus the calories — but filled with lots of holiday love lore.

Also in the series is "The Chocolate Cat Caper," "The Chocolate Bear Burglary," "The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up," "The Chocolate Puppy Puzzle," "The Chocolate Mouse Trap," "The Chocolate Jewel Case" and "The Chocolate Snowman Murders."

I've read them all and one's more delicious than the last.

Lisa Allmendinger is a reporter for AnnArbor.com who also reviews cozy mysteries each Wednesday. She can be reached at lisaallmendinger@annarbor.com.