Amateur Sleuth Suspense

Computer programmer and tole painting enthusiast Aurora (Rory) Anderson doesn't envision finding either when she steps outside to investigate the frenzied yipping coming from her own backyard. After all, she lives in Vista Beach, a quiet California beach community where violent crime is rare and murder even rarer. Suspicion falls on Rory when the body buried in her flowerbed turns out to be someone she knows - her tole painting teacher, Hester Bouquet.

To Clare Cosi's surprise, this fall's hottest fashion trend is anything caffeinated - because designer Lottie Harmon, a loyal coffeehouse customer, has just created an ingenious collection of coffee-inspired fashion accessories. So naturally Lottie chooses the Village Blend as the perfect backdrop for fall Fashion Week insiders to view her new line of "Java Jewelry." When barista Tucker unwittingly serves a poisonous latte to a prominent figure on the fashion scene, Clare suspects that the real target may have been Lottie. Now she must protect her thriving business, Lottie, and Tucker....

fter an elegant new customer has a breakdown in her shop, Penelope suspects there is something bogus behind the biggest best-seller of the year. This popular potboiler is so hot that folks in her tiny Rhode Island town are dying to read it - literally. First, one customer turns up dead, followed by another mysterious fatality connected to the book, which Pen discovers is more than just fiction. Now, with the help of her gumshoe ghost, Pen must solve the real-life cold case behind the bogus best-seller before the killer closes the book on her.

The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine is another mystifying manor-house stumper for Wodehousian bon-vivant and problem-solver Anty Boisjoly, when his clubmate asks him to determine who died first after a duel is fought in a locked room. The untold riches of the Tenpenny Tontine are in the balance, but the stakes only get higher when Anty determines that, duel or not, this was a case of murder.

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.

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.

When Alex arrives in Provincetown to patch things up with his new wife, Mina, he finds an empty wine glass in the sink, her wedding ring on the desk, and a string of questions in her wake. The police believe that Mina, a successful romance author, simply left, their marriage crumbling before it truly began. But what Alex finds in their empty cottage points him toward a different reality: Mina has always carried a secret. And now she's disappeared.

Olivia Greer dreads returning to Lily Rock. But the dead tenant on her doorstep has made the trip a necessity. Without a doubt, reconnecting with the people she abruptly abandoned a year ago will be agonizing. None more so than Michael Bellemare, whose smile made her heart race.

Rumford, Kentucky has glowing fields of bluegrass, a fine selection of bourbons, and now a professional pastry chef. Broken-hearted Sophia Cummings has come home from New York City. She's not there a minute before she's charmed into making her high school friend Charlotte's wedding cake. The kitchen at the Rumford Country Club seems perfect until Chef Emile's body is discovered, sprawled near the stove, a cast iron skillet on the floor close by. With one look at the shiny, new pan, Sophia knows it's not Emile's. She offers her knowledge to Sheriff Carter and her talents to the manager.

After Lindsey Bakeswell catches her celebrity chef fiance sizzling in the arms of another woman, Lindsey leaves big city Wall Street for small town Beacon Harbor, Michigan, to pursue her own passion as a pastry baker - and gets mixed up in someone's sweet taste of revenge.

Pamela is hosting the next Knit and Nibble meeting and can't wait to liven up her otherwise empty home with colorful yarn, baking, and a little harmless gossip. She even recruits Amy Morgan, an old friend who recently moved to town, as the group's newest member. But on the night of the gathering, Amy doesn't show. Not until Pamela finds the woman dead outside - a knitting needle stabbed through the front of her handmade sweater....

Mackenzie "Mack" Dalton is a Milwaukee bar owner with a nose for trouble - literally. A neurological glitch has left her with extra-perceptive senses. So when she stumbles upon a dead body in the alley behind the bar - the same spot where her own father was shot eight months earlier - she can tell right away there's something fishy in the air. The lead detective thinks there's a link between the two deaths, and he'll need Mack's help to sniff out the murderer. But when all the evidence points to her as the most likely culprit, it could be an early last call for Mack.

The wealthy Agatha Dawson is dead and there are no apparent signs of foul play. Lord Peter Wimsey, however, senses that something is amiss and he refuses to let the case rest - even without any clues or leads. Suddenly, he is faced with another murder - Agatha's maid. Can super-sleuth Wimsey find the murderer and solve the case before he becomes the killer's next victim?

Moving four times in five years has honed air force wife Ellie Avery's packing and unpacking skills. But moving with a newborn daughter and husband Mitch in tow, during a heat wave, is enough to make her turn to chocolate for comfort. And when Ellie finds a local environmentalist dead on the side of the road, her instincts tell her this was no accident.

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 the captain of Field County's ice rescue dive team, Callum Cook is driven to perfection. But when he meets new diver Louise "Lou" Sparks, all that hard-won order is obliterated in an instant. Lou is a hurricane. A walking disaster. And with her, he's never felt more alive... even if keeping her safe may just kill him. Lou's new to the Rockies, intent on escaping her controlling ex, and she's determined to make it on her own terms...no matter how tempting Callum may be.

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.

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?

Katherine Hamilton's goal in high school was to escape from her dead-end hometown of Asheboro, Maryland. Fifteen years later she's got a degree in hospitality management and a great job at a high-end boutique hotel in Baltimore. Until, that is, the hotel is acquired by a chain, and she's laid off. When Kate's high school best friend calls with a mysterious invitation to come talk with the town leaders of Asheboro, she agrees to make the trip, curious about where this new opportunity might lead.

After leaving a decade ago, Angie Curtis has been called back to Harbor Haven, Maine, by her grandmother, Charlotte, who raised her following her mother's disappearance when she was a child. Her mother has been found, and now the question of her whereabouts has sadly become the mystery of her murder. The bright spot in Angie's homecoming is reuniting with Charlotte, who has started her own needlepointing business with a group called the Mainely Needlepointers.