Amateur Detective

When one of A.J.'s celebrity yoga students gets permanently bent out of shape, and another is accused of the crime, A.J. has no choice but to position herself as a sleuth to find the real killer.

All homicide detective Dylan Collins wants is a few hours of pleasure to take his mind off of the case haunting him. A serial killer is stalking the streets of Charleston, SC—a killer who calls himself The Grim Reaper. When the woman he'd just spent the night with turns up and offers her services as a psychic consultant on the case, his ardor quickly cools. Last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a con artist.

Finola has just moved to Edinburgh and she's more than a little excited. After turning her whole life upside down, she's now a detective and her first case is not long in coming. What began as a harmless search for a missing gardener soon becomes a matter of life and death - for Finola too!

For a guy that lives his life by a set of written rules, former deputy Sam Strait has made a habit of casually violating one of them. He’s violated it to find the killer of a stranger. He’s broken it to solve a friend’s murder. He’s constantly disregarding it for beautiful women. But whatever the cause, Sam is determined to adhere to all the rules this summer. So, when an attractive woman shows up claiming she killed her friend, Sam is hesitant to get involved. The woman doesn’t remember how it happened, but the crime scene is littered with evidence proving her guilt.

There has never been a woman as beautiful as top model Delora Deanne. But Delora Deanne doesn’t really exist. Unknown to the panting public, Delora is a composite of many women. Her face is played by Gertrude Bragg. Torso and legs by Eula Stolz. Hands, Eva Lou Strauss. Brains, Hazel Swackhammer. But now, Delora is coming apart. Hazel Swackhammer receives the first in what is to be a series of beautifully wrapped presents. Inside, she is surprised to find a pair of pale lavender gloves...containing the hands of Delora Deanne.

Resourceful Bingo Riggs and his partner, Handsome Kusak, are in the sucker-bait business, snapping candid pics of tourists off Central Park. Their fly-by-night enterprise can be irresistible to souvenir lovers, but with one camera in a pawnshop and their developing room in the bathtub of a two-room dump near Hell’s Kitchen, their venture is wretchedly underexposed - until they stumble upon an insurance fraud scheme between the allegedly dead eccentric Mr. S. S. Pigeon and his business partner and beneficiary.

Jonathan Knox was an auctioneer of somewhat dubious repute with a photographic memory. So when a frightened woman offered him a discount on eleven of the rarest stamps in existence, worth something like $500,000, he became suspicious. He figured also that if the stamps had been stolen he might net a pretty reward by returning them to their rightful owner. But he couldn't find a single collector willing to admit to owning them. And when the girl who had originally offered them was murdered, Knox knew that he'd be the next one canceled unless he could find the person who would pay.

The last thing 11-year-old Robin wants to hear is that his mother and her new husband are extending their honeymoon indefinitely. The members of the school gang are insisting that he complete a dare before they let him join the group. They want Robin to kidnap Mrs. Nordling’s prize-winning cat when no one is home. Getting into the Nordling’s house is easy, and Robin manages to find the cat and put him in his bag. As Robin is leaving, however, he stumbles upon a terrifying scene - Mr. Nordling leaving the master bedroom with blood all over his body.

The first story featuring Ben, the lovable, humorous ex-sailor and down-at-heels rascal who can't help running into trouble. Ben is back home from the Merchant Navy, penniless as usual and looking for digs in fog-bound London. Taking shelter in an abandoned old house, he stumbles across a dead body - and scarpers. Running into a detective, Gilbert Fordyce, the reluctant Ben is persuaded to return to the house and investigate the mystery of the corpse - which promptly disappears!

It's 1943, the war is raging, and sleuthing scribe Ellery Queen wants to do his bit. After a tortuous cross-country drive, he takes a job writing scripts for a Hollywood propaganda house - twelve hours a day of hack work that quickly turns his mind to jelly. After a few weeks, he is so worn down that he can type nothing but gibberish, and he decides to drive home. The trouble starts as soon as he reaches the desert.

The girl is found beside the East River, strangled. She's in her late 20s - so why was she carrying a fake ID? The case should have nothing to do with Reuben Frost, retired Wall Street lawyer, but Frost has never been known to mind his own business. Not to mention, his wife, Cynthia, has been slowed down by arthritis, and his social calendar is barren for the first time in decades. It's the perfect time to find a murderer.

Queen's Bureau of Investigation is now open for business - and in each department of this new enterprise Ellery finds ample opportunity to exercise the brilliant, ingenious, and at times startling talents of his crime-lab mind. For to the bureau come some of the most plaguey cases in Queen's career.

This rare volume is a collection of some of Queen's best, containing three novelettes and two short stories. The stories include "The Death of Don Juan", "The Wrightsville Heirs", "The Case Against Carroll", "E = Murder", and "Diamonds in Paradise". Ellery Queen stars in all of them, making this collection a must-listen for mystery fans.

La prima esperienza con "Miss Marple" non partì sotto i migliori auspici. Avevo la febbre e, quando mia madre era uscita, le avevo chiesto di portarmi un Asterix; quindi mi aspettavo un fumetto. Appena lo vidi, con sospetto, chiesi che libro fosse. "Un giallo di Agatha Christie" rispose lei "di quelli che piacciono tanto a tuo fratello". Di bene in meglio. "Sai, il protagonista non è un poliziotto, e nemmeno un investigatore privato. È una vecchietta che risolve i casi mentre lavora a maglia". E mi lasciò il libro sul comodino. Dalla prefazione di Marco Malvaldi.

Anna Marie St. Clair was a normal Wisconsin-farm-girl-turned-mistress when she was framed for the murder of her racketeer boyfriend, one of Chicago’s sleaziest politicians. Sentenced to death, and only hours from getting fried, a lucky hitch sets Anna Marie free, but she blackmails the corrupt warden into informing the tabloids that she took her volts like a real trouper. What better payback than to haunt the lives of those who tried to steal hers? As the shapeliest ghost in the Windy City, she’s going to prove that dying well is the best revenge.

England's prestigious Plumtree Press is about to release a shocking book that exposes coded messages in a famous novel - codes alleged to be printer's errors. The messages are so treacherous, that if discovered at the original time of publication, the author would have been hung for treason. Now, with someone ruthlessly trying to keep this revealing exposé out of stores, Alex Plumtree must protect his star author and family's legacy before the phrase "publish or perish" becomes all too real!

It's the week before New Year's Eve, and genealogist Lucy Lancaster is ready to mix work and play at the beautiful Hotel Sutton, enjoying herself while finalizing the presentation for her latest client, hotel heiress Pippa Sutton. Freshly arrived at the hotel - and determined not to think about Special Agent Ben Turner, who went radio silent on her after one date - Lucy is stopped in her tracks when a strange man comes staggering toward her. He presses a classic Montblanc pen onto her hand, gasps, “Keep them safe”, and collapses at her feet, dead.

Professor Craig Kennedy and his loyal sidekick, newspaper reporter Walter Jameson, first learn of the Clutching Hand and his gang when they investigate a string of murders involving the policyholders of Taylor Dodge's insurance company. After receiving a threatening note, Dodge himself is robbed and killed, and his daughter, Elaine, turns to Kennedy for help. Using the latest advances in forensic science, the professor uncovers the exotic and deadly scheme behind the murders. But when the Clutching Hand and his band of evildoers kidnap Elaine, Kennedy must leap into action.

Genealogist Lucy Lancaster is just about to tuck into a plate of tacos at her favorite Austin joint, Big Flaco’s, when she gets an unexpected visit from her former - and least favorite - coworker. Camilla Braithwaite hasn’t gotten much friendlier since the last time Lucy saw her, but that doesn't stop her from asking a favor. In her hand is a newspaper feature on an ancestor, a Civil War corporal - and a liar, according to the article. Charles Braithwaite is depicted as a phony and a deserter, and Camilla wants Lucy’s help clearing his name.

Jeanie’s getting married, and – despite her completely impossible four sisters – her best friends Clio and Amber are determined to give her a bachelorette weekend to remember. They’re in matching pink T-shirts and the drinks are flowing... But the night turns out to be unforgettable for all the wrong reasons when a girl turns up dead on the dancefloor. And – even though she’s a stranger – she is wearing one of Jeanie’s hen T-shirts.