Humorous Mysteries

Sometimes I take an opportunity to say good-bye to the cattle and wish them a safe journey. "Well, good-bye, you morons. It was nice having you here at the ranch, but it'll be even nicer having you gone. You ate all our grass and taking care of you was a pain in the neck. Good-bye, good riddance, and don't ever come back."

England is in trouble! A priceless violin has been stolen, and there's only one person who can help: Mac B., kid spy. Mac's adventure takes him on a top-secret museum night watch, zip-lining in Italy with his trusty corgi sidekick, and on an undercover mission in the heart of enemy territory. But when he ends up as a captured prisoner, is the mission lost for good?

Plato is back...that is, back on the scene. Once again, he's lost and Beulah is worried. However, when she calls on Hank to head up a rescue effort, little do either of them realize that their search will lead them right into the path of the hungry cannibal brothers, Rip and Snort. Will Hank be able to protect Miss Beulah and find Plato, or will help–for both of them–come from an unexpected source? Find out in this new mystery from everyone's favorite Head of Ranch Security!

A bloodbath is a shocking new challenge for Megan and Brigit when Detective Audrey Jackson calls them to the scene of what could only be a brutal murder. But the one thing the nightmarish scene is missing is a victim. The frantic homeowner's husband is gone, seemingly without a trace - and so is the money he was holding. Has a vicious killer committed what might just be the perfect crime?

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.

Leroy Ninker is a small man with a big dream: he wants to be a cowboy, but for now he's just a thief. In fact, Leroy is robbing the Watsons' kitchen right this minute! As he drags the toaster across the counter ( screeeeeech) and drops it into his bag ( clannngggg), little does he know that a certain large pig who loves toast with a great deal of butter is stirring from sleep.

It's summertime, and the weather on Hank's West Texas ranch is hot and dry. So dry, in fact, that everyone is on the lookout for prairie fires. So Hank bravely adds the title of Head of Fire Safety to his already impressive list of responsibilities and gets to work. But patrolling for fires is dull, and it's hard to do on an empty stomach. Despite the distractions - desperate hunger, a cruel trick at the hands of Pete the Barncat - Hank somehow manages to stay focused on the job at hand.

As Head of Ranch Security, Hank knows that it's his job to clear the ranch of all intruders - and that includes gophers. But when Hank's efforts to rid the yard of one such critter causes a stampede in the middle of the cattle roundup, Loper decides that he just can't take it any more. He wants Hank to learn some manners, so he's sending him to - gulp! - obedience school.

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.

Steve Brixton is America’s next great kid detective (and now he has his own agency to prove it)...When 12-year-old detective Steve Brixton gets a call that the Fairview diamond has gone missing, there are only two things to do: Grab his new business cards and take the case! But Steve quickly learns there’s an even bigger mystery afoot. MacArthur Bart, a.k.a. Steve’s hero, a.k.a. the author of the Bailey Brothers Mysteries series, has been kidnapped!

Baton. Light. Chocolate. Duck. This is not DS Adams' usual kit. This is not DS Adams' usual case. She doesn't think it's anyone's usual case, not with the vanishing children and the looming bridge and the hungry river. Not with the snap-snap-snap. But six kids are missing, and she's not going to let there be a seventh. Not on her watch. And she knows how to handle human monsters, after all. How different can this really be?

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.

Will Noah and Violet finally defeat Daniel and his crew of rainbow griefers? Violet and Noah's village is celebrating the new amusement park opening in town. Everyone is enjoying the fun rides and tasty food. But when Noah spots a rainbow griefer in the village carrying blocks of TNT, the celebration suddenly stops. Before the townspeople can do anything about the dangerous interloper, the roller coaster explodes! The accident with the roller coaster is blamed on Noah and Violet's frequent enemy, Daniel.

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.

In their lovely old Cotswolds village, Janet and Susan are known to all the other villagers as “the girls”—a fixture. Partners in love and work, co-proprietors of a picturesque shop specializing in the work of local artisans and farmers, they lead an enviable, enviably settled life. So it’s no catastrophe when Sue, the younger of the two, feels the need to take a month to travel on her own, leaving Jan alone to run their stall at the Inland Waterways Rally Craft Fair.

Toby Harbinger, an eighth grader at Hubble Middle School near Washington, D.C., is in big trouble. He made the mistake of selling his dad's priceless original Star Wars blaster to a lunatic who thinks he's Darth Vader and travels with a large, hairy sidekick known as the Wookiee. Now the lunatic wants more from Toby, whose only hope of getting out of this mess is to win first prize at the school science fair: $5,000.

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....

The Kalamazoo City mayoral race is heating up, and Frank Pandini, Jr., has been threatened by a mysterious assailant. He requests a special Platypus Police Squad protection detail: Detective Rick Zengo. This leaves O'Malley to be partnered up with Jo Cooper, the newest detective on the force. Can Zengo get to the bottom of the attacks - without O'Malley backing him up?

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.

It’s autumn in New England and Truly and her fellow Pumpkin Falls Private Eyes are gearing up for the annual Halloween Festival. Aunt True and her new husband, Rusty, have bought Ethel and Elmer Farnsworth’s dilapidated old farm on the edge of town, where they’re going to raise sheep and where Truly and her grandparents have volunteered to farm- and sheep-sit while the newlyweds are on their honeymoon. But as always, there are mysteries and secrets afoot in Pumpkin Falls. Jack-o’-lanterns outside the shops downtown are going missing—in broad daylight!