Today is July 7th, the date Isaac Newton received an MA from Trinity College, Cambridge, and "God Save the King" was first sung. It's also the birthday of Gustav Mahler, composer and conductor (1860) and
Robert Heinlein, science-fiction writer (1907).

Most importantly of all, it's National Chocolate Day. To celebrate, buy some tickets to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where a performance of the interactive murder mystery play Death by Chocolate will be performed. (Note: the ticket price includes chocolate). If you can't quite make it over to Edinburgh, then you can try a home version on DVD.

Surprisingly, there have been several mystery novels written under the title "Death By Chocolate" or a variant thereof. As you might imagine, many of these tend toward the tongue-in-cheek:

• Death By Chocolate by G.A. McKevett, features zaftig PI Savannah Reid, owner of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency in San Carmelito, California.
• Chocolate Dipped Death (A Candy Shop Mystery) by Sammi Carter with protagonist Abby Shaw who is (appropriately) the new owner of the candy shop Divinity and an amateur sleuth who tries her hand at solving a murder at the Annual Confectionary Competition.
• Death by Chocolate by Toby Moore takes place in a world where fattening foods are contraband. Health Enforcement cops arrest "humonsters" for weight violations, whilst the discovery of a corpse clothed only in the finest chocolate leads the bewildered Agent Devlin on a trail of culinary call girls, hidden burger joints and a bishop whose services are sin-burning "prayercise."
• Death By Chocolate: Redux by David Yurkovich. (Are you ready for this plot?) On a visit to a peculiar candy factory in Switzerland, a tourist falls into a vat of liquid chocolate that's infused with an alien life form. Mutated into a being of pure chocolate, with the power to similarly transform objects and even other humans, he goes on a criminal rampage. Captured, he is convinced to use his strange abilities to benefit humanity via the FBI's Food-Crime Division. Newly christened Agent Swete, he and his partner investigate such paranormal cases as the theft of the Eternity Pasta (the key to everlasting life) and the appearance of a talking dog from an alternate universe.
• Death by Chocolate by Nadalia Bagratuni. Candy Matson, San Francisco P.I,. is a former super model turned gum shoe. Although it doesn't have a candy-themed plot per se, the title alone gets it included in the list.
• Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson. Goldy Bear, former battered wife, owner of Goldilocks' Catering, and sometime sleuth, is soon embroiled in the investigation of the death of old flame, convinced that his fatal car crash was no accident.
• JoAnna Carl has an entire chocoholic series, including The Chocolate Cat Caper; The Chocolate Bear Burglary; The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up; The Chocolate Puppy Puzzle and The Chocolate Mouse Trap. All the Chocoholic Mysteries feature Lee McKinney, a Texas beauty queen transplanted to a Michigan resort, where she is business manager for TenHuis Chocolade. In addition to a mystery, the books feature a behind-the-scenes look at the business and art of making fine, European-style bonbons, truffles and molded chocolates.
• Chocolate Quake, by Nancy Fairbanks, is part of the Carolyn Blue culinary-travelogue mysteries, this one set in San Francisco.
• Joanne Fluke, Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder. This was the debut outing of series protagonist Hannah Swenson, the independent-minded owner of the Cookie Jar. When a well-liked milkman is murdered in the alley near her shop, Hannah joins forces with the deputy sheriff, who just happens to be her brother-in-law.

Bon appetit!