The Jessica James Mysteries

Murder doesn’t set much colder than on the icy shores of Lake Ontario, where Jesse James is hot on the trail of a real estate scam that really has the feisty reporter steamed. This sleazy operation is behind a string of costly accidents - but it's no accident when Jesse wakes up, bandaged head to toe, in a hospital where everyone insists she’s Daphne Malcross, a young socialite with more connections and cash than common sense.

Mystery usually follows murder, but when Baby Cakes Sloan bites the bullet, everybody in Rochester already knows whodunit. Beautiful Babs had been Marcus Andrelli’s lawyer—until she got iced on the crime king's yacht. Of course, all fingers of guilt point to Andrelli. But Jesse James smells something fishy. And she’s casting for the truth, even if she has to drag the bottom of Lake Ontario to get it. Nobody knows Andrelli better than Jess. Mafia don, certainly. Killer of the woman he loved, no.

Jessica James has a nose for a good story, but she isn’t sure how much she likes the story she’s getting from her mother’s charming, handsome new beau with the improbable name of Charlie Browne. Especially since the tale is attached to the Hare—a stolen painting that is now hidden under Jesse’s own bed. Jesse’s investigation into Charlie's background turns up a hole big enough to smuggle the Mona Lisa through, which has her worried about her romantic, not-altogether-practical mom.

It's springtime in upstate New York, where the lilacs are in bloom and love is all around—even for Jessica James, full-time investigative reporter and part-time fool. Well, why shouldn't she be? Everyone else is in love: her mother, still honeymooning with the mischievous Charlie Browne; and her sometime lover, mobster Marcus Andrelli, who seems to have forgotten Jesse and taken up with another woman. For Jesse, though, love is literally in the air, with a handsome pilot named Mac Devlin.

Jesse James has learned never to rely on the men in her life. When the going gets tough, they're sure to leave. Just like the grandfather she never knew. But now her grandfather is back--if the man who knocked on her door is who he claims to be. He's a down-and-out conman, a liar, and a thief, but he needs Jesse's help. "Gramps" has swindled a dangerous man and is in hiding for his life. Against her better judgment, Jesse allows herself to get involved.