And you thought you could only eat Marshmallow Peeps, those sugar-coated Easter goodies that reduce grown men and women to salivating candy freaks. If David Hasselhoff gets to kill trees (see Anna Katterjohn’s Performing Arts Celebs Spring Out This Season), and he’s not even edible—not even in Germany—surely America’s No. 1 selling nonchocolate candy gets a book so you can work your addiction into bonafide psychosis.

And not just any book, but a Japanese manga–sounding whodunit that tracks the disappearance of a family of Peeps via the local newspaper and celebrity rag (Peeple)? Your goal: find the family before their sell-by dates, silly.

It’s all for your deranged pop culture pleasure in Mark Masyga and Martin Ohlin’s Peeps: A Candy-Coated Tale (Abrams Image, 2006), which was sadly never submitted to LJ with a crate of yellow fluff chickadees. And if you’re curious about how Peeps candy came to be, check out the manufacturer’s most excellent virtual history book, A Peep in Time, complete with photos of founder Sam Born, a Russian emigre who actually started in the chocolate trade in New York City.

Still got a sweet tooth (I know I do)? Read Steve Almond’s Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America, an LJ Best Book of 2004.