Amateur Detective

The neighborhood of Oleander Court is the poster child for suburban bliss. The residents compare lawns beautified by hired help. They monitor home values. They toss perfect furniture because they wanted tapioca, not beige. But when a string of murders rips through the neighborhood, suspicions abound as new secrets come to light. And as more and more bodies are taken away, it becomes clear that the killer is strategically selecting each and every victim, picking off the shallowest, most wasteful of the lot in spectacular fashion and leaving everyone in the neighborhood to wonder Who’s next?

Murder isn't a walk in the park...War widow fashionista, Ginger Gold, makes a gruesome discovery while walking her Boston terrier, Boss, through Kensington Gardens. A woman of ill-repute is dead. When Chief Inspector Basil Reed becomes a suspect, the blustery and often times pigheaded Superintendent Morris pulls him off the case. Ginger’s not about to be pushed around by the superintendent despite his warnings.

A group of vigilantes are carrying out a campaign of harassment against the homeless, hounding them both verbally and physically to get them off the streets. Jimmy Mullen is approached by his friend Gadge, who wants to confront the people behind it, but Jimmy has finally got his life back on track. He's working at a hostel for 18- to 25-year-olds, and he's reluctant to get involved in anything dodgy.

Just as a murderer dumps his corpse into the lake across Valley View in Lily Dale, Bella Jordan happens to be at her window, not quite realizing what she's seeing. Jiffy Arden, a neighborhood kid looking for the black cat and stumbling across the killer, begins to have premonitions of being kidnapped during the season's first snowstorm. Sure enough, he vanishes. A body shows up in the lake. Now everyone is pulling out all the stops to find the missing child, identify the victim, and collar the killer - and fast, because he's coming for Bella next in Dead of Winter.

After a long career as a police officer, Moira hopes a move to a luxury retirement community will mean she can finally leave the detective work to the youngsters and focus on a quieter life. But it turns out The Homestead is far from paradise. When she discovers the body of a young woman floating in one of the pools, surrounded by thousands of dollar bills, her crime-fighting instinct kicks back in and she joins up with fellow ex-cops - and new neighbours - Philip, Lizzie and Rick to investigate the murder.

Bexley Simon and Sam Farmer aren't detectives, but they play them on TV. Well, played, past tense. The iconic cult hit that was Craven's Daughter ended five years ago, and their friendship died along with it. Fans were disappointed that the pair's legendary chemistry went unfulfilled—and other fans were crushed that the actual spark between actresses Bex and Sam didn't pay off, either. The network never intended for two women to get romantic, in life or onscreen, despite the fans. But the bigger tragedy was the loss of their dear friend, makeup artist Jen Arnot.

After losing her copywriting job, young Gwynne Dacres seeks a place to live when she stumbles upon Mrs. Garr's old boarding house. Despite the gruff landlady and an assortment of shifty tenants, Gwynne rents a room for herself. She spends her first few nights at 593 Trent Street tensely awake, the house creaking and groaning as if listening to everything that happens behind its closed doors. A chain of chilling events leads to the gruesome discovery of a mutilated body in the basement kitchen, dead of unknown circumstances. Was it an accident or murder?

With her twins, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, back in school, Jane Steward can finally focus on her work again - managing Storyton Hall and breaking ground on the resort's latest attraction: a luxurious, relaxing spa named in honor of Walt Whitman. But when the Earth is dug up to start laying the spa's foundation, something else comes to the surface - a collection of unusual bones and the remnants of a very old book. The attendees of the Rare Book Conference are eager to assist Jane with this unexpected historical mystery - until a visitor meets an untimely end in the Henry James Library.

Jon Talbot is a history professor who makes sense of the past by examining facts. He also knows how to speculate about the what-ifs. Jon’s doing both following the death of his wife, Pax. Driving home late from a volunteer assignment, she plunged off a mountain highway and died. The police find nothing suspicious about the facts: a deer in the road, a blown tire, a broken neck. But the what-ifs are leading Jon down a twisting trail of secrets. After five years of marriage, he is finally getting to know his wife.

He's no Tony Soprano. Still, local crime boss Giustino "Tino" Fabrizio is one shady character that Tara would love to see behind bars. He operates a security business - or so he claims on his tax forms - but his clients don't feel so secure when it's time to pay up. Problem is, no one can get close enough to nail this wiseguy for extortion. No one, that is, except Tara. Going undercover, Tara lands a waitress job at Benedetta's Bistro - which is owned and operated by Tino's wife.

When an old woman dies onboard the lettering shop with a Cajun curse on her lips, the bad luck really starts to rain on Mila Breaux. She's not sure she believes in the supernatural, but the more strange events take place, the more it seems to believe in her! With the help of her best friend Critter Girl, and a handsome game warden named Xavier Ordoyn, Mila will need to dodge the hex while getting vengeance for the dead woman. Misfortune is not the only thing trying to stop her, however, and she'll have to act fast to get to the bottom of things, before it is too late!

Amateur sleuth Mordecai Tremaine is back in another classic mystery from the author of Murder for Christmas. Mordecai Tremaine and Chief Inspector Jonathan Boyce are never pleased to have a promising game of chess interrupted - though when murder is the disrupting force, they are persuaded to make an exception. A quick stop at Scotland Yard to collect any detective's most trusted piece of equipment - the murder bag - the pair are spirited away to Bridgton.

Greetings from Monchac, Louisiana. Home to fifty-seven souls and the world's only floating stationery store! When Mila Breaux's LA dreams go up in smoke, she'll move her cozy lettering shop down to bayou country, and pile her pens and paper onto her late uncle's houseboat. But the discovery of human bones just feet from her new store will rock the foundations of the sleepy swamp town. It will be up to Mila and a quirky band of characters to get to the bottom of things before it is too late!

Alex Torkelsson has just gotten word: His late uncle Magnus's plane has been found south of Hawaii's Big Island after 10 long years. So too have Magnus' few skeletal remains, now handed over to the only man who can fit together the pieces of this mystery. What forensic detective Gideon Oliver discovers could shake the Torkelsson family tree to its very roots. But this time his work is yielding more questions about the past than answers. Questions about the long-ago execution-style murder of Magnus's brother...about a mysterious will that benefits - as well as incriminates - its heirs.

Private Investigator Kitt Hartley and her twin sister, Rebecca, are preparing for a holiday in Scotland when cruise ship entertainer Errol Jackson appears at the door. Errol breaks the news that Bryce Griffin, a former smuggler and an old friend of Kitt's, has been murdered; his body found washed up by a lighthouse, bearing a gunshot wound. Kitt persuades Rebecca to cancel their trip, and, together with Kitt's assistant, Grace Edwards, and best friend, Evie Bowes, book onto the next cruise to Norway to help with the ongoing murder investigation.

January 1916. Britain is on the brink of enforcing conscription. Eligible young men who have not yet signed up to fight are despised as ‘conchies’ and ‘shirkers’, subjected to hatred and verbal abuse. Cyril Ablatt, leader of Shoreditch’s group of conscientious objectors, makes a rousing speech at a meeting of the No-Conscription Fellowship, refusing to be ‘an instrument of slaughter in a khaki uniform’.

As the hotel launches an addition to its overnight amenities on a neighboring property, Delia Sanchez MacBride, the Loring’s principal owner and hospitality manager, is haunted by premonitions of disaster. Delia’s worst fears begin to materialize when the hotel’s most macabre secret is literally unearthed, namely when the bodily remains of The Forgotten Fifty, a group of townspeople who vanished without a trace a century ago, are revealed as being buried in the Loring’s basement.

June wedding bells are ringing! Cameron Cripps Hayman is the matron of honor, and her five furry good boys are all ushers, so what could go wrong? The day before the wedding, the new pastor is found hanging from the choir loft. It's ruled a suicide by the police, but Cam and her Action Agency suspect foul play. Cam's police-officer husband warns her to not stir up trouble where none exists, but when the pastor's home is ransacked, it's clear to Cam that she was murdered.

As night falls, 17-year-old Cassie Baker leaves Winchcome and takes her usual shortcut down a moonlit country lane. She never makes it home. With no body and no evidence, she's just another teenage runaway.

When Cookie Berelli, a dress designer for full-figured women, discovers her private investigator dead in her salon, she calls on a few friends to get her out of trouble. This cozy mystery with a dog includes a cute little dachshund she named Sigmund Freud because he's such a good listener. She has a bunch of crackpot ideas for how to catch the murderer, and Sigmund, the trustworthy dog he is, follows right along, sometimes even discovering a clue or two himself.