Cozy Comedy

Cookie Berelli, Brooklyn-born smart-mouth, and plus-size owner of a dress design studio for full-figured women is back in this second mystery in the series. Cookie's preparing for a spring Flaunt Your Fashion show, when she finds her head dress cutter dead in her design studio.

Cookbook author Mattie Carrington, Pine County's one and only celebrity, narrowly escapes being burned to a crisp when her kitchen explodes. Then someone tries to poison her. Luckily, Sheriff Cas Larkin is on the case. But when Cas visits the secluded cabin Mattie rented to finish her next book, he finds her nearly dead. With no signs of foul play and just as many clues, Cas is getting more "help" than he needs from the eagle-eyed locals as he tracks an experienced killer with the patience and skill to watch... and wait.

Bad news comes in . . . fours? For romance author and former pool shark Jessie Hewitt it does. She hasn't written a decent sex scene in months, she hasn't shot a decent game of eight ball all year, and don't even ask about her supposed love life. And just when Jessie thinks things can't get any worse, a body lands on her car. Uber-hunky and altogether infuriating cop Wilson Rye suggests she concentrate on solving her other problems and leave the murder investigation to the experts. But does Jessie agree? Take a guess.

Murder meets menopause. Take a guess which wins. A romantic vacation for...five? This wasn't exactly what Jessie and Wilson had in mind when they planned their trip to the tropics. The fun begins when Jessie's delightfully spry mother, Wilson's surfer dude son, and Jessie's rabidly hyperactive New York agent decide to tag along. What kind of trouble can these three oddest of odd balls possibly get into? Take a guess.

Organizing a conference for Professor Philip Putzel isn't high on Nina Spark's to-do list. All she wants is to enjoy the sun and sand at her new home on Pineapple Cay, hopefully with handsome fishing guide Ted Matthews by her side. But saying no to Philip isn't easy, especially after a mysterious assailant tried to kill him following his delivery of a scathing keynote address.

A mysterious letter-writer causes havoc on the idyllic Bader University campus. After a professor receives numerous poison pen letters more and more threatening in nature, Josie Tucker is on the case...grudgingly.

Pepe, aspiring PI Geri Sullivan's muy clever Chihuahua, has stopped talking. But why now, with Geri's best friend Brad missing and her ditzy sister in grave danger? Geri's lost without Pepe's dogged detective work, especially when a client of Brad's expires under very murky circumstances. Luckily, Pepe turns out to be an excelente blogger, and his nose for clues soon has the detective duo chasing down leads.

When a local woman goes missing and is later found dead, Avery finds a tangled web of sex, lies, and...well...just overall freaky people to focus on. One man is identified by witnesses, but another may be guilty: the woman's husband.

After her music career crashes and burns, Juliet Langley is forced to turn to the only other business she knows: food service. Unfortunately, bad luck strikes yet again when her fiancé robs her blind and runs off with her best waitress. Flushing what's left of her beloved cafe down the toilet with her failed engagement, Juliet moves back to her college stomping grounds in Nashville to manage an old friend's coffeehouse.

Things aren't going well for private investigator and mom Margie Peterson. Her husband, Blake, is claiming his taste for drag queens is "just a phase." Her first-grade daughter isn't fitting in at her new posh elementary school, Holy Oaks Catholic School. And her hippie mother has swept into town and replaced the family's store of processed foods with seaweed snacks. To top it all off, a late-night phone call from her boss, Peaches Barlowe, has pulled Margie into a very strange murder case, one that involves the Holy Oaks headmaster, George Cavendish.

When Laurel McKay attends a Hawaiian wedding, her vacation soon becomes more deadly than the calorie count in her daiquiri. Her post-wedding holiday upends after a beautiful hula dancer is found dead on the rocks below the oceanfront restaurant owned by Laurel's brother and sister-in-law. When a family member is arrested for the murder, Laurel is plunged into a mystery where exotic Big Island locations - a coffee plantation, black sand beaches and a volcano - reveal their deadly side.

After a series of high-profile cases at my cyberintelligence firm, I was looking forward to a simple job. All I had to do was personally deliver a revolutionary microchip to a manufacturing plant in Indonesia. Easy, right? Wrong. Someone else wants the design and is willing to kill to get it. A failed hijacking attempt lands me; my best friend, Basia; and our boss, Finn, in the middle of the jungle.

Cameron Dakota is the L.A. Informer's staff photographer and paparazzi extraordinaire. Her latest subject is Trace Brody, top-shelf actor and half of America's favorite Hollywood couple. Trace is about to get married in a blow-out wedding, and Cam’s editor, Felix Dunn (from the High Heels Mysteries), has assigned her to get the first shots of the bride and groom.

Jessie Hewitt thought her pool-hustling days were long gone. But when uber-hunky cop Wilson Rye asks her to go undercover to catch a killer, she jumps at the chance to return to a sleazy poolroom. Jessie is confident she can handle a double homicide, but the doubly-annoying Wilson Rye is another matter altogether. What's he doing flirting with a woman half his age? Will Jessie have what it takes to deal with Tiffany La-Dee-Doo-Da Sass and solve the murders? Take a guess.

Italy might seem like a long way to go to hide after a disastrous date. But when sexy uberhacker Slash (no, that's not his real name) asks me to go with him to Rome on an investigation, the timing is sort of perfect. My messed-up love life becomes the least of my worries, though, after the dead body, the near-kidnapping and the discovery of a top secret encrypted file that even I can't hack.

After a long winter, spring has finally hit Hemlock Cove, and Bay Winchester thinks things are finally settling down in the town - and with her family. Unfortunately, just the opposite is true. As a way to distract Aunt Tillie, the Winchester family has decided to give her a new project: her own greenhouse. As construction starts, though, Bay is approached by a young girl - one she quickly realizes is no longer among the living - and given a task. The little girl wants her mother - and she wants Bay to find her.

Ivan Sorokin is missing. Who wants him out of the picture - his wife, his business partner, or the stripper who holds his heart? Josie Tucker stands on Beach Street with her back to the San Francisco wharf. Above her, the Ghirardelli sign winks in the dusky twilight, seducing her. The ice cream parlor lights beckon like a lactose lothario, a casein casanova, trying hard to woo her. But her heart longs for dumplings, for dim sum.

Aspiring P.I. Geri Sullivan's new case has got her talking Chihuahua, Pepe, hot under the collar. Wealthy widow Lucille Carpenter left her entire fortune to her beloved dogs, and someone is trying to poison them. Anyone who would hurt a perro is lower than a cucaracha in Pepe's book. But when Geri and Pepe investigate, they discover that it's not just the coddled canines who are in danger. Now there are human targets too.

In Improbable Fortunes, Jeffrey Price takes us on a wild ride into Vanadium, a dusty, down-on-its-heels mining town in Southwest Colorado where it would be fair to assume that nothing has ever happened. But you'd be wrong. As it turns out, quite a lot has happened, starting with a suspicious mudslide that destroys the town's Main Street and a cowboy, Buster McCaffrey, arrested for the death of one of the richest men in America, Marvin Mallomar.

Goldie and Godiva are twins who live in very different worlds. Goldie Silver, an aging flower child, runs the Silver Spoon Antique Shoppe in Juneau, Alaska. Rich, manipulative Godiva Olivia Dubois authors her syndicated advice column, "Ask G.O.D.", from her Beverly Hills mansion. When Goldie finally receives a lost shipment of antique Russian tea urns, she realizes they are not the ones she ordered. The samovars sell quickly, but murder and mayhem follow each of the new owners.