Cozy Mystery Thrillers

Maplemead Castle is crawling with ghosts, and the new owners need them gone. When Melody Bittersweet and the Girls' Ghostbusting Agency arrive on scene, they quickly identify the troublemakers swinging from the chandeliers...literally. A century ago, stunning trapeze artist Britannia Lovell plunged to her death, and has done every night since. But did she really just fall, or was there something more to her demise?

When a shipwreck washes up on a beach across from Marlow House, Frederickport residents wonder what happened to the ship's crew. Danielle discovers the ship brought a stowaway - a spirit with ties to Frederickport that go back to the 1920's when Walt, Marlow House's resident ghost, was still alive.

Despite his trimmer waistline, his girlfriend Lucy's affections for him seem to have inexplicably cooled. So when Lindy suggests the supper club members join a Mexican cooking class, James leaps at the chance to try something new. The Flab Five's classmates include Shenandoah Star Ledger editor Murphy Alistair and twin sisters with supermodel physiques. When one of the sisters is murdered during a school field trip to Luray Caverns, the amateur sleuths set out to catch the killer.

There's never a good time for a ghost crisis. However, it's particularly inconvenient while I'm trying to tackle my first wedding season. Between 12-hour days, an assistant with a case of butterfingers (not the chocolate kind), and the flood of tourists in town, I'm struggling to keep a grip on my sanity. All I want is three months of peace from the spirit world. But when local ghosts start going missing, I have to do something.

Whisker Jog, New Hampshire, is a long way from Hollywood, but it's the place legendary actress Deanna Daltry wants to call home. The retired, yet still glamorous, septuagenarian has adopted two kittens from Lara Caphart's High Cliff Shelter for Cats. With help from her Aunt Fran, Lara makes sure the kitties settle in safely with their new celebrity mom. But not everyone in town is a fan of the fading star. After being frightened by some nasty pranks, Deanna finds herself the prime murder suspect when the body of a local teacher is found on her property.

It's hard to know who to trust when you're worth billions. Christmas brings uninvited family members to Marlow House, vying for Chris Glandon's favor. One of them may have already killed for it. In the midst of the mystery, Lily is distracted with one question - what isn't Danielle telling her?

Lola Pink is in all shades of trouble. Her shop is still under construction, she's sort-of fired from her job, and her hottest date this week is with a microwave burrito. However, when Dane Clark finds himself at the center of a murder investigation, Lola slips on her gorgeous vintage sunglasses and takes the case. She's determined to prove that her sometimes-boss, sometimes-boyfriend is innocent, even if that means dealing with Dane's "charming" parents and planning a "splendid" charity gala in under two weeks.

Zoe Chambers, paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania's tight-knit Vance Township, has been privy to a number of local secrets over the years, some of them her own. But secrets become explosive when a dead body is found in the Township Board president's abandoned car. As a January blizzard rages, Zoe and Police Chief Pete Adams launch a desperate search for the killer, even if it means uncovering secrets that could not only destroy Zoe and Pete but also those closest to them.

Lilly may be losing a husband, but she's gaining a toy poodle. That could be seen as a win-win, since her new adopted pooch, Aggie (named after Agatha Christie), is cute and adorable and Lilly's dirty dog of a spouse is cheating on her with a blonde bimbo - except for one problem: Albert Echosby's just been murdered, and Lilly is the number-one suspect.

As if a run-in with an old flame and a failed marriage proposal weren't enough to horrify Krissy for one night, a woman is found strangled to death in a room filled with ominous jack-o'-lanterns. All signs suggest a crime of passion - but when the hostess's jewelry disappears, malevolent intentions seem way more likely.

New to the historic town of Metamora, Indiana, Cameron Cripps-Hayman is looking to make friends with her neighbors. What she isn't looking for is one of their bodies floating in the canal. When she and her estranged husband, the town sheriff, are both named suspects for the murder, Cameron takes solving the crime into her own hands, teaming up with her eccentric coworkers who dub themselves The Metamora Action Agency.

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.

A romantic weekend at Marlow House Bed and Breakfast turns deadly when Earthbound Spirits founder, Peter Morris, is murdered. Plenty of people had a reason to want the man dead - especially Danielle's current guests. But it isn't Morris' ghost distracting Danielle on this deadly Valentine's Day weekend, it's her late husband, Lucas. She has her hands full with suitors coming from all directions - both living and dead - while she tries to figure out if there's a killer in Marlow House.

The house has sat empty for 15 years, taking up prime real estate along the picturesque coastline. Built by one of the founders of South Cove, its last known owner, Maryanne Demerit, vanished without a trace. Now her home will be demolished for a condo development, but until then, it's the perfect spot for a Halloween haunted house. Jill Gardner, her boyfriend, and three other couples are spending the weekend in the Demerit home. But what begins as an all-in-good-fun fright fest turns into a mystery begging to be solved as Jill is contacted by the ghost of Maryanne.

South Cove's local businesses are up in arms after volunteer fire chief Barry Gleason threatens to shut down anyone who doesn't comply with the fire code. But when Barry schedules a training burn in an old abandoned barn, he is the only one who doesn't come out alive. Jill Gardner - owner of Coffee, Books, and More - smells murder in the ashes. She'll have to work quickly to nab a killer with a short fuse - or else everyone's holiday will end with a fizzle.

What do steeplechase, playing cards, and daggers have in common? They all play vital roles in the intricately woven plot of Sneaky Pie and her human cohort Rita Mae Brown in this delightful mystery. While Mary "Harry" Haristeen and her cat Mrs. Murphy attend the annual steeplechase at Montpelier, Mrs. Murphy discovers something amiss. During the celebration following the race, one of the jockeys is found dead in the barn, a dagger through his heart and the queen of clubs impaled by the dagger.

A grieving young widow, Charlene needed a new start - so she bought a historic mansion, sight unseen, and drove from Chicago to New England to start turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. On her first night in the house, she awakens to find a handsome man with startling blue eyes in her bedroom. Terror turns to utter disbelief when he politely introduces himself as Jack Strathmore - and explains that he used to live here - when he was alive. He firmly believes that someone pushed him down the stairs three years ago, and he won't be able to leave until someone figures out who.

Delaney Nichols, originally of Kansas but settling happily into her new life as a bookseller in Edinburgh, works at The Cracked Spine in the heart of town. She's recently befriended a few medical school students after they came into the shop to sell some antique medical tomes. But when one of the students' friends is found murdered outside in the alley, Delaney takes it upon herself to help bring the murderer to justice.

After the recent death of her mother and the dissolution of her marriage, 30-something Eden Elliott is seriously in need of a fresh start. At the urging of her best friend, best-selling author Ami Pederson, Eden decides to embark on an open-ended trip to the picturesque village of Glenkillen in the Scottish Highlands, to do some hands-on research for a book of her own. But almost as soon as Eden arrives in the quaint town, she gets caught up in a very real drama....

Just when she thought she'd seen everything... Detective Lieutenant Anita McElone is one of Harbor Haven's finest. She's also a hard-boiled ghost skeptic. So when she shows up on the doorstep of Alison Kerby's Haunted Guesthouse to ask for supernatural help in solving the murder of her former partner, it's hard to tell which woman is more flabbergasted. But McElone is dead serious, so Alison promises to help in any way she can - even asking her resident ghosts, Paul and Maxie, for help with the case.