Amateur Sleuth Cozy

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Janet Evanovich, bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum series, teams up with Emmy-winning writer Phoef Sutton for a brand-new series of mysteries featuring Emerson Knight and Riley Moon, a dynamic duo with instant and undeniable chemistry. Emerson Knight is...

It's Christmastime, and farmer Lucy Resnick is living the life she's always dreamed of. When she's not selling her jams, soaps, and mistletoe bundles at the Buttercup Christmas Market, she's enjoying cozy evenings by the fire with her knitting group - or her handsome veterinarian boyfriend Tobias Brandt. But less than a week before Christmas, a pall falls over the festive atmosphere when local man Randy Stone turns up with a knife in his back and a sprig of mistletoe in his hair.

In Sweet Revenge, the seventh Bunburry book, Alfie is back in London, trying to pick up his old life there. But even a wild social whirl with his best friend Oscar can't disguise the fact that he misses Bunburry. And then a cry for help reaches him - Liz and Marge are in trouble, and Alfie races back. But as he and Police Constable Emma Hollis join forces to clear the ladies' names, he has to confront a growing suspicion. Has Liz made a mistake while making her celebrated fudge, or have the ladies been up to something more sinister?

In "A Taste of Murder," the third Bunburry book, a local beef farmer is found dead and Betty Thorndike, vegetarian and Bunburry's only Green Party member, is in the frame. Despite what everyone thinks, Betty is absolutely not Alfie McAlister's girlfriend. But Alfie knows what it's like to be wrongly accused, and enlists the help of his fellow amateur detectives, Liz and Marge, to find out who's responsible. There's just one problem about a farm-based investigation - Alfie's scared of cows.

Scarlet House, now a historical re-enactment museum, is the oldest building in West London, Massachusetts. When things start moving around on their own, board members suggest that Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, might be able to get to the bottom of it.

Who better than food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell to book a caterer for the Island Times holiday party? But Hayley's quest for a cook turns into the pursuit of a killer who caters to no one....

I am not a consulting detective, Gemma Doyle reluctantly tells 10-year-old Lauren Tierney, when the little girl comes to the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium to beg Gemma to find her missing cat, Snowball. Gemma might not be able to follow the clues to find the cat, but her dog, Violet, follows her nose to locate the missing kitten in a neighbor's garden shed. Gemma and Violet proudly return Snowball to her grateful owner, and Gemma basks in praise for a job well done. But a few days later, Lauren is back with $10 in hand, wanting to once again hire a consulting detective.

It’s almost spring in Ashland, Oregon, and the town is preparing for the Shakespeare and the annual Chocolate Festival. Business is cookin’ at Torte, and the store is expanding as Jules’ team whips up crèpes filled with mascarpone cheese and dark chocolate. Torte stands a chance of being this year’s confectionery belle of the ball! Life couldn’t be sweeter...unless murder taints the batter.

College English professor and sometime amateur sleuth Alison Bergeron would’ve been thrilled to hear that her husband, NYPD Detective Bobby Crawford, was leaving Homicide if that were the whole story, but it turns out that Bobby’s next assignment is even worse---undercover. As if worrying about his involvement in a case he won’t talk about at all wasn’t bad enough, Alison is forced to take over the women’s basketball team at St. Thomas after the coach dies of a heart attack during a game. She may not know much about basketball, but she’s no stranger to sleuthing, and it isn’t long before she suspects that the coach’s death may be more than unexpected but premeditated as well. With Bobby deep undercover and Alison always on her way to deep trouble, it’s only a matter of time before they run smack into each other in Physical Education, the latest in Maggie Barbieri’s charming Murder 101 mystery series.

When Hank Sharpe asked the Laundry Club Ladies to join him in an undercover investigation to help find a missing person, we grabbed our sleuthing notebook without hesitation. When we found Kyra Tenney's body in what appeared to be an accidental forest fire, we thought we were finished with our undercover act. Only the coroner's report came back that she had been killed before the fire. Join the Laundry Club Ladies as they take their investigation skills to a whole 'nuther level!

Melanie Cooper has zero interest in catering her 15-year high school reunion, but Angie insists it’s only right that they bask in the success of Fairy Tale Cupcakes - and Mel’s engagement to the delicious Joe DeLaura is the cherry on top! Everything is going better than expected until Mel’s high school nemesis picks a fight. No longer willing to put up with Cassidy Havers’s bullying, Mel is ready to tell the former homecoming queen to shut her piehole and call it a night. But as Mel and Joe prepare to depart, Cassidy is found dead in the girls’ bathroom....

July 1912. Lady Hardcastle and her tenacious lady’s maid, Florence Armstrong, are enjoying a convivial gathering at the home of their dear friends, the Farley-Strouds. The only fly in the idyllic ointment seems to be the lack of musical entertainment for the forthcoming summer party—until, that is, Lady Hardcastle’s brother Harry calls with news of a murder.

When an American tourist is murdered with a scone in Gemma Rose's quaint English tearoom, she suddenly finds herself apron-deep in a mystery involving long-buried secrets from Oxford's past. Armed with her insider knowledge of the university and with the help of four nosy old ladies from her local Cotswolds village (not to mention a cheeky little tabby cat named Muesli), Gemma sets out to solve the mystery - all while dealing with her matchmaking mother and the return of her old college love, Devlin O'Connor, now a dashing CID detective.

The one rule bookshop owner and widow Penelope Thornton-McClure has given ghostly, hard-boiled PI Jack Shepard is to not haunt the customers. But when the hot, young author Angel Stark arrives at the store to promote her latest true-crime novel, Jack can hardly contain himself. Angel's book is an unsolved mystery about a debutante found strangled to death, and it's filled with juicy details that point a finger at a number of people in the deb's high-society circle. But when the author winds up dead, too - in precisely the same way - Pen is fast on the case...which means Jack is, too.

As Jane eagerly anticipates the wedding of her best friend Eloise Alcott, Storyton Hall is overrun with poets in town to compete for a coveted greeting card contract. They're everywhere, scrawling verses on cocktail napkins in the reading rooms or seeking inspiration strolling the Poet's Walk, a series of trails named after famous authors. But the Tennyson Trail leads to a grim surprise: a woman's corpse drifting in a rowboat on a lake, a crumpled copy of "The Lady of Shallot" in her lifeless fist.

It's the dead of winter in the sleepy town of Ashland, which means no tourists - and fewer customers - for Jules Capshaw and her bakery. But when she's asked to cater an off-season retreat for the directors of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, business starts heating up...until Jules finds a dead body in the freezer. Someone at the retreat has apparently iced the bartender, a well-known flirt with a legendary temper - that is, before a killer beat him to the punch. Then, from out of nowhere, Jules' own ex-husband shows up at the shop.

Despite his usual clientele of gamers, Ben is barely earning enough to keep the store running and stay on top of his father's medical bills. Then a local toy and game collector named Clive offers him a winning strategy—to purchase a turn-of-the-twentieth-century edition of The Landlord's Game, the realty and taxation game that inspired Monopoly, at a tenth of the rare edition's true value. Suspicious of Clive's shady, low-priced deal, Ben turns the offer down.

A bomb goes off with the noon lunch bell, but not before all the kids are safely evacuated, and Carol Crane, the new assistant principal, is hailed as a hero. But days later, Carol is found murdered, and everyone is stunned when the most popular teacher at the school is arrested for the crime. However, not everyone is buying the open-and-shut case, including Lucy Stone, who senses there's more to things than meet the eye. It soon becomes clear that Lucy is flirting with danger, as sizzling secrets and explosive surprises provide a primer for the most diabolical of motives.

For Chloe Abbington, the transition from fine-art painter in New York City to painting-event business owner in charming Whisper Cove is more than a little jarring. But when poison-pen journalist Fiona Gimble writes a viciously negative review of the newly opened Paint with a View, Chloe learns that critics are the same everywhere. And when she finds Fiona's body behind her shop with a painting knife in her neck, Chloe realizes that this picture-perfect town offers anything but peace and quiet.

Food anthropologist Miriam Quiñones-Smith's move from New York to Coral Shores, Miami, puts her academic career on hold to stay at home with her young son. Adding to her funk is an opinionated mother-in-law and a husband rekindling a friendship with his ex. Gracias to her best friend, Alma, she gets a short-term job as a Caribbean cooking expert on a Spanish-language morning TV show. But when the newly minted star attends a Women's Club luncheon, a socialite sitting at her table suddenly falls face-first into the chicken salad, never to nibble again.