Mystery Comedy Fiction

Junior Bender is a Los Angeles burglar with a magic touch. Since he first started breaking into houses at age fourteen, he's never once been caught. But now, after twenty-two years building an exemplary career, Junior has been blackmailed by Trey Annunziato, one of the most powerful crime bosses in LA, into acting as a private investigator on the set of Trey's porn venture, which someone keeps sabotaging.

Saffy Huntley-Oliver is an intelligent and glamorous socialite; she also happens to be a proficient serial killer. For the past fifteen years, she’s hunted down and dispatched rapists, murderers, domestic abusers—bad men all. But leading a double life has left her lonely—dating’s tough when your boyfriend might turn out to be your next victim. Saffy thinks she’s finally found a truly good man in Jonathan Desrosiers, a true-crime podcaster who’s amassed legions of diehard fans for cracking cold cases and bringing justice to victims.

The New York Times bestselling author of Reaper’s Stand is back in her “uber-alpha rough world of MCs”* as one woman’s future is rocked by the man whose hardcore past could destroy her… He never meant to hurt her. Levi “Painter” Brooks was nothing before he joined the Reapers...

To his chagrin, Alaskan PI Cecil Younger learns his teenage daughter has launched her own detective agency. But when her first case goes awry, she’s going to need some help from an unlikely source: her father, who’s currently locked up in prison.

Criminal defense investigator Cecil Younger spends his days coaching would-be felons on how to avoid incriminating themselves. When Sherrie, a returning client with a good heart but a penchant for bad boys, asks him to track down some evidence that will help with her case, Cecil agrees. Cecil treks out to the shady apartment complex she mentioned, only to find his teenage daughter, Blossom, inside. He manages to get both the box Sherrie wanted and his daughter safely home, and later discovers the "evidence" is a large pile of cash - fifty thousand dollars, to be exact.

Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, “plotting to resurrect my newspaper career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff.” Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba...

The Byzantine Fire is much more than a flawless ninety-carat ruby. As a stone it's worth over a million dollars, a value vastly increased by its pure gold band - but its history is what makes it priceless. A ring that has been fought for with sword and pen and passed from nation to nation by all manner of theft and trickery, has finally made its way to the United States. The US agrees to return it to Turkey, but it's about to be stolen twice more.

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.

Fletch, as unbridled as ever and still living the good life in Italy on his ill-gotten fortune, gets a surprising visit from two surly FBI agents. The pair offers him a deal: either he attend the American Journalism Alliance convention and work as an undercover spy for them, or be shipped back to headquarters and face jail time for tax evasion. Reluctantly agreeing to the scheme, he catches a red-eye flight back to the States. But just as rubber hits tarmac in Virginia, news breaks on a murder at the convention.

Veranix Calbert is the Thorn - the street vigilante who became a legend to the people of Maradaine, especially the gangs that run the neighborhood of Aventil. The Thorn continues to harass Willem Fenmere, the drug kingpin of the Dentonhill neighborhood. Veranix is still determined to stop Fenmere and the effitte drug trade, especially when he discovers that Fenmere is planning on using the Red Rabbits gang to bring the drug into Aventil. But it’s also Exam Week at the University of Maradaine, where Veranix is a magic student.

Retired school teacher Patricia Anne has a knack for landing right in the middle of murder investigations, but this time she is fighting to clear the accused. Patricia Anne has been good friends with her neighbor Mitzi for 40 years. She’s surprised when she sees Mitzi’s husband Arthur having lunch at the Hunan Hut with an attractive woman. She’s positively shocked when that same woman drops dead moments later. Then Arthur is accused of murder, their home catches fire, and he gets shot in the butt.

Three years ago, someone brutally killed four people on the scow Mygirl. In a crowded courtroom, Cecil Younger helped the accused go free. Now the man charged with the Mygirl murders has disappeared. As a new father, Cecil just wants to move on from the Mygirl killings, but finds he can't just walk away when more and more people associated with the case end up dead. Younger is certain someone is trying to finish the grisly job begun on the Mygirl. He must discover the truth behind what happened three years ago before he can settle what's happening now.

Cecil Younger never thought it would come to this: providing surveillance for a chicken coop being raided by a fowl thief. But things have not exactly been breaking right lately for the Alaskan P.I. The logical thing to do? Take a vacation, of course. Well, it's not exactly a vacation. Younger has been paid to investigate a doctor aboard a luxurious first-class cruise ship up the Alaskan coast. Except passengers are dying. Now Younger finds himself trapped on a ship of fools with a murderer who is leaving a trail of well-to-do passengers in his wake...and leaving evidence pointing an accusing finger at Cecil!

In the third entry to the series, Alaska P.I. Cecil Younger is fresh out of rehab, sporting a fresh head wound, with a child custody case from hell, and with the clients to match. Confrontational and obsessed, Priscilla DeAngelo is sure her ex is conspiring with a state senator to wrest her son from her, and thus, hires Cecil Younger to investigate. This is the first time Younger has to deal with lawyers in flashy suits and overused paper shredders. When she storms off to Juneau for a showdown, Younger's custody case swiftly turns into a murder.

It's the score of a lifetime: easy access to a lavish New York City apartment, hordes of valuables, and an absentee owner avoiding the lawyers of his unhappy ex-wives. But before they pull the job, Dortmunder's crew is startled to find their beloved gin joint, the OJ, in the clutches of the Mafia--who consider it perfect for a little fraud, courtesy of a nice big fire. For tactical and highly superstitious reasons, the fate of the OJ is even more important to the crew than the enormous score.

Autumn is in the air in the Blue Ridge Mountain community of Crozet, Virginia - and all the traditions of the changing seasons are underway. Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen cleans her cupboards; her husband, Fair, prepares the horses for the shorter days ahead; and the clamorous barking of beagles signals the annual rabbit chase through the central Virginia hills. But the last thing the local beaglers and their hounds expect to flush out is a dead body.

Oh, what fun it is to die! When Austin’s parents drag him and his little sister Fiona to a remote cottage for Christmas, he’s less than thrilled about the forced bonding exercise. But after learning that their holiday getaway was the site of a horrific crime, this family on the rocks will have to fight for their lives against a legendary killer because Candy Cain is slashing through the snow with a very long naughty list.

It would take a miracle to keep Dortmunder out of jail. Though he cased the electronics store perfectly, the cops surprised him, turning up in the alley just as he was walking out the back door, a television in each hand. Already a two-time loser, without divine intervention he faces a long stretch inside. Then God sends J. Radcliffe Stonewiler, a celebrity lawyer who gets Dortmunder off with hardly any effort at all. Stonewiler was sent by Arnold Chauncey, an art lover with a cash-flow problem. He asks the thief to break into his house and make off with a valuable painting in exchange for a quarter of the insurance money.

Emma Trafford's new neighbor is a lady killer - but is the scoundrel with the scar capable of murder? Emma can barely contain her precocious younger sister, Lily - the child swears she spied their neighbor engaged in foul play in his Bloomsbury love nest. But when Lily goes too far searching for "evidence," Emma must save the imp by distracting Simon - with an all-consuming kiss rife with danger and desire.

In this episode, the graceful Southern lady’s impeccable manners are pushed to the brink. When she learned her philandering (and late) husband left behind a lover and illegitimate son, Miss Julia could have gotten nasty. Instead, she kept her cool, adding Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd to her makeshift family. But now rumors are surfacing that call Little Lloyd’s patrilineage into question. Has Miss Julia been duped?