Humorous Fiction Mysteries

Life is never quiet at the Homestead. First, it was disappearing animals, then a power-hungry dairy queen. Now it’s a Renaissance Faire, a noisy, stinky spectacle that drives Horace to distraction. Bunwinkle, on the other hand, can’t get enough of the festivities—she loves the thrilling jousts, the court intrigue…and especially the pickles on a stick.

Retired private detective and current seventh grader Steve Brixton has a new career: taking out the garbage on Wednesdays for five bucks a week. But it’s hard to leave the old game behind, and on a train trip down the California coast, Steve finds himself pulled back into sleuthing. Soon he’s in over his head in four feet and eleven inches of mystery involving a fleet of priceless automobiles, a deadly assassin (or maybe just a faulty lock on a sauna door), and a secret train car filled with intrigue. Plus there’s a girl involved, which complicates everything.

Rex Dexter is cursed...with brains...and daring...and more than his fair share of devilish good looks. But also with an actual curse: dead animals keep showing up in his bedroom, wanting him to solve their murders. After successfully sleuthing a series of endangered animal assassinations, Rex is pretty sure he's home free, spiritually speaking. But that's when he finds a 2,000-pound narwhal in his beanbag chair. And this tough guy is dead. And super crabby about it.

It's basically the worst school detention ever. When classmates (but not mate-mates) Hallie, Angelo, Gustav and Naira are forced to come to school on a SATURDAY, they think things can’t get much worse. But they’re wrong. Things are about to get seriously scary.

A body has been dredged from the San Francisco Bay. Kate Connolly, pregnant and ready to pop, has reason to fear that the it may be her long-lost brother-in-law. When a private investigator begins nosing around, Kate decides on a new career path. Battling sleep deprivation, diaper blowouts, and breastfeeding mishaps, she muddles through her own murder investigation, ‘Mommy style’.

After a life long battle with his inner demons, Alan Reed must face his after a girl is abducted, and the cops think he may have something to do with it.

What’s Mac B.'s newest top-secret mission? Travel to Iceland and retrieve the ravens that were stolen from the Tower of London...before Britain is ruined. In Iceland, he discovers secret submarines, hungry polar bears, mysterious blueprints...and his old archnemesis! Is the KGB man behind this birdnapping? Can Mac get the ravens to safety? It's time for an epic top-secret smackdown between these two secret agents!

What sort of madman would unleash an army of stilt-walking, laser-beaming, thoroughly angry whales upon the world? Who cares! All that matters is that his dastardly plan be foiled. Lucky for Lily Gefelty, her two best friends are the intrepid stars of their own middle-grade series novels: Jasper Dash (better know as the Boy Technonaut) and Katie Mulligan (beloved by millions as the heroine of the Horror Hollow series). It's going to take all their smarts to stop this insane, inane plot from succeeding.

Twelve-year-old Kimmy Jones wants to excel at the unique (and secret) aspect of her family’s funeral home business. Under the watchful eye of Grandma Bev, Kimmy learns how to raise the recently deceased, request their last wish, and break the connection to send them on. But when Grandma unexpectedly dies herself, Kimmy can’t reach her spirit, and nothing seems like it’s ever going to be right again.

A family-run haunted hotel’s livelihood is threatened when a bigger haunted hotel opens nearby in this hilarious, spooky story. Twelve-year-old Willow Ivan’s family has run the Hotel Ivan for 400 years. Through thick and thin, they’ve held on tight to their title as the Best Haunted Hotel on Mercer Street. That is, until the Hauntery – a corporate chain of haunted hotels – moves in down the street. As the Ivan’s business fades, so do their ghostly staff. And Willow begins to worry that the Ivan’s days are numbered.

Stevie and Maison have a great friendship where they travel back and forth between the Overworld and the human world. Maison has earned some fame for battling off the mobs at her school, but the attention has also brought about cyberbullies DestinyIsChoice123 and TheVampireDragon555, who have hacked her computer and discovered the portal! Now, through complex coding, the cyberbullies have turned the Overworld into eternal night and unleashed a pack of zombies.

Harold, Chester, and Howie return to Chateau Bow-Wow, and it's as creepy as ever. The Monroe pets, alongside cat burglars, Felony and Miss Demeanor, with Hamlet, a Great Dane, and Weasel (a weasel, of course) , work together to solve the mysterious disappearance of fellow boarder named Rosebud.

Between her regular job in Afterlife Arrivals, training for her second job with IA, her community service on The Bus of Death, GA meetings, taking care of her housemates, and every other ghostly commitment in between, Bridget Sway is already stretched pretty thin. Then, her best friend, Sabrina, drops a bombshell. Sabrina thinks she was murdered. And, in the afterlife, murdered dead people usually turn into homicidal maniac dead people. Despite that, Sabrina thinks if they can work out who killed her, then she might be able to get the closure she needs.

When last we met, good people, the biggest wish I've ever made came to fruition. My outrageously handsome, smart, sometimes persnickety (read mostly persnickety) Spy Guy, Winterbottom, is finally here on earth with me, recuperating from his afterlife jaunt. Sure, he can be a difficult patient. Add in the fact that some of the spells I've cast to make this dream a reality have had repercussions (an understatement), and it's been sheer chaos. When my favorite men decide that I should take a day for myself, I hesitantly head out. And then I die. You can imagine, it only goes downhill....

Cupcake-loving croupier Tiffany Black is determined to leave her job at the casino for good. She's one small step away from acquiring her private investigator license and has her eye on the prize. Accepting her first real case - investigating the murder of casino-mogul Ethan Becker - should be exciting. Instead, things spiral out of control, and Tiffany finds herself in over her head as she confronts secretive suspects, corrupt casino henchmen, and a bodyguard with a mysterious past.

When someone is dead and buried, they’re supposed to stay that way...aren’t they? Claire Morgan thought so, but now she suspects the dead guy whose treasures she’s been digging up is not only breathing, but spying on her, too. Crap! When someone is divorced from a pain in the ass, they’re supposed to stay that way....at least, that’s what Ronnie Morgan had hoped when she dumped her husband. But then he rolled over on some bloodthirsty criminals. With him tucked away in prison, they’ll settle for taking their revenge on her. Fudge!

No sooner has Sally May finished planting her vegetable garden when some kind of unearthly being decides to burrow in the neatly planted rows of tomatoes and peppers. It looks like a job for the Head of Ranch Security, so Hank sets straight to work trying to dig the space monster robot out of its hole.

While taking baby Laurie to her very first Photo Shoot, sleuth and first-time mom Kate Connolly and her baby are the victims of a hit-and-run. Fortunately they escape unharmed, but when a witness identifies the car's French diplomatic license plates, Kate and her hubby try to get some answers. Soon they discover there's something going on at the French consulate that's dirtier—and far deadlier—than any diaper. It's up to Kate to keep Family Life on track while solving another puzzling whodunit!

The Bobton-Trent seniors certainly know how to make the most of their extravagant wealth - socialising, doing things, buying things and generally being more than a little bit...irresponsible.... Luckily for them, their son, Hubert Horatio, is an exceptionally intelligent, talented and sensible child. Unluckily for Hubert, this tends to mean that a lot of his spare time is spent steering his rather unruly set of grown-ups out of trouble.

Chet and his friends Natalie the bird and Waldo are at it again, and in this mystery, Chet must stop all the students from becoming zombies at Emerson Hicky Elementary.