Amateur Sleuth Mystery

Grandeur and opulence are everything in the famed New Orleans Garden District where pets are family and no bling is too big. Opening Furry Godmother, pet boutique and organic treat bakery, is Lacy Marie Crocker's dream come true - until the glitter gun used to make her Shih Tzu tutus becomes a murder weapon - and Lacy becomes public enemy number one. Now detective Jack Oliver is hounding Lacy, and her Furry Godmother investor wants out before his name is tarnished by association.

Nevada Barr quickly attracted the attention of mystery fans when her first Anna Pigeon mystery, Track of the Cat, appeared. Now she immerses the intrepid park ranger in a perilous search that will take her far below the waters of Lake Superior. As Anna spends her days patrolling its shores, the surface of Lake Superior fills with tourists. In the depths below lie an ancient ship and the bones of its sailors.

As a motorcycle club member and firefighter, Ian Walsh is used to riding the line between the good guys and the bad. He may owe the club his life, but his heart rests with his fire station brothers - and with the girl he's loved since they were kids, Rory Sorenson. Ian would do anything for Rory. He'd die for her. Kill for her. Defend her to his last breath - and he may just have to.

With her rent rising faster than her pie crust, bakery owner Winnie Johnson had hoped to be rescued by an inheritance from her wealthy friend and neighbor Gertrude Redenbacher. Instead all she inherits is the widow's hostile hissing tabby, Lovey, and a vintage ambulance, restored by Gertrude's late husband. As her dream crumbles, Winnie makes her final delivery - a peach pie to an elderly widower. But she finds Bart Wagner lying on his kitchen floor, smothered by a pillow.

Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side - and its crime buffs. One of them is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime - until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss.

K9 Officer Otto Gunnersen always had a soft spot for anyone in need. As Monroe's very own Dr. Doolittle, he dedicates himself to rehabilitating the injured souls that cross his path - but for all his big heart, he's never been in love. Until he meets Sarah Clifton's haunted eyes. Until he realizes he'll do anything to save her. All Sarah wants is to escape a life caught between ambitious crime families, but there's no outrunning her past. Her power-mad brother would hunt her to the ends of the Earth...but he'd never expect Sarah to fight back.

Newly widowed and stuck in a middle-aged funk, Poppy has been running on cookies, infomercials, and one-sided chats with her cat for months. There's no way on earth she's attending her 25-year class reunion - especially after receiving a very bizarre letter from Barbie, the popular cheerleader who taunted her all through high school. At least, not until Poppy's best friend practically drags her to the event.... Using the dreaded homecoming as an excuse to visit her eccentric Aunt Ginny, Poppy vows to leave Cape May with pride and Spanx intact. Too bad Barbie is still the queen of mean.

Allie McMurphy is up to her neck in renovations at the grand old hotel that's been in her family for generations. With its quaint Victorian charm - and world-famous fudge shop - the place is one of Mackinac Island's most beloved landmarks.

Crishell "Shell" McMillan sees the cancellation of her TV series as a blessing in disguise. The former actress can now take over her late aunt's pet shop, the Purr N Bark, and do something she loves. While getting the shop ready for re-opening, Shell is asked to loan her aunt's Cary Grant posters to the local museum for an exhibit. She finds the prospect exciting - until a museum board member, who had a longstanding feud with Shell's aunt, votes against it.

When widowed Millie Fisher moves back to her childhood home of Harvest, Ohio, she notices one thing right away - the young Amish are bungling their courtships and marrying the wrong people! A quiltmaker by trade, Millie has nevertheless stitched together a few lives in her time, with truly romantic results. Her first mission? Her own niece, widowed gardener Edith Hochstetler, recently engaged to rude, greedy Zeke Miller. Anyone can see he's not right for such a gentle young woman - except Edith herself.

Sarah knew starting over would be messy. But things fall apart completely when her ex drops dead, seemingly poisoned by her twin sister Emily's award-winning rhubarb crisp.

Pen has just received an extremely rare collection of Edgar Allan Poe's complete works. Rumor has it a secret code, trapped within the books' leather-bound pages leads, to buried treasure. Well, it looks like they got the buried part right because, as Pen sells off the valuable volumes, everyone who buys - dies. Once these books go missing from their owners' cold hands, Pen will need resident ghost and hard-boiled P.I. Jack Shepard to help crack the case. The police are skeptical that the deaths involved foul play - so it's up to them to unravel these shocking endings.

Between trying to get her gluten-free baking business off the ground and helping her aunt remodel her old Victorian into the Butterfly House Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, New Jersey, Poppy is ready to call "Mayday"! And now Aunt Ginny - who's a handful wide-awake - is sleepwalking on her new sleeping-pill prescription and helping herself to neighbors' snacks and knickknacks. Even more alarming, a local humanitarian who worked with troubled teens is found murdered, and the police suspect the "Snack Bandit".

Most folks associate the city of Salem, Massachusetts, with witches, but for Lee Barrett it's home. This October she's returned to her hometown - where her beloved Aunt Ibby still lives - to interview for a job as a reporter at WICH-TV. But the only opening is for a call-in psychic to host the late-night horror movies. It seems the previous host, Ariel Constellation, never saw her own murder coming.

Returning to Charm, North Carolina, for a fresh start on her wilting life is an easy decision for Everly, and opening a new seaside cafe and iced-tea shop puts the proverbial icing on her legendary lemon cakes. Everything is just peachy until a body turns up on the boardwalk outside her home and a jar of her proprietary tea is found at the victim's side. Now, Detective Grady Hays, Charm's newest and most mysterious lawman, has named Everly as his number-one suspect, and Everly's new start is about to go up in smoke unless she can dish up the real killer.

Hope's schedule is already jam packed with recipe testing and shameless plugs for her food blog as she rushes off to attend a spring garden tour in the charming town of Jefferson, Connecticut. Unfortunately, it isn't the perfectly arranged potted plants that grab her attention - it's the bloody body of reviled real estate agent Peaches McCoy.... One of the tour guests committed murder, and all eyes are on Hope's older sister, Claire Dixon - who, at best, saw Peaches as a professional rival. And suspicions really heat up when another murder occurs the following night.

Duchess Day Radley is a 13-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids. Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.

As owner of Coffee, Books, and More, Jill Gardner looks forward to the hustle and bustle of holiday shoppers. But when the mayor ropes her into being the liaison for a new work program, 'tis the season to be wary. Local businesses are afraid that the interns will be delinquents, punks, or worse. For Jill, nothing's worse than Ted Hendricks - the jerk who runs the program. After a few run-ins, Jill's ready to kill the guy. That, however, turns out to be unnecessary when she finds Ted in his car - dead as a doornail.

Young widow Penelope Thornton-McClure and her old Aunt Sadie are making ends meet by managing a mystery book shop - a quaint Rhode Island landmark rumored to be haunted. Pen may not believe in ghosts, but she does believe in good publicity - like nabbing Timothy Brennan for a book signing. But soon after the bestselling thriller writer reveals a secret about the store's link to a 1940s murder, he keels over dead - and right in the middle of the store's new community events space. Who gives Mrs. McClure the first clue that it was murder?

When Fletch arrives as the new press representative for Governor Caxton Wheeler's presidential campaign, he isn't sure which mystery to solve first - what his new job actually is, or why the campaign has been leaving dead women in its tracks. He finds himself on the other side of the press, a human shield, deflecting the same questions he is asking himself. Are the murders just coincidence, or is a coldhearted killer looking for a job in the White House?