Amateur Detective

Forced to give up her career as a dentist, and still unemployed a year later, Valentina Knight has finally run out of options. With foreclosure looming she acts in desperation, lying to get a position as an assistant to the county medical examiner. Val's relieved. She won't be homeless. But Val didn't count on the lie trapping her in a dangerous game with a killer. Val quickly becomes involved in the case of Francine Donohue, who disappeared from her neighborhood and is discovered dead six months later. The bizarre circumstances surrounding the murder are not the first of their kind.

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.

Spring has come to charming Mayville Heights, and with it, some Hollywood glamour. The little town is abuzz because the reboot of a popular baking TV show is filming there. Librarian Kathleen Paulson is working as an advisor on historical facts for the show, local restaurants are providing catering for the camera crews, and Kathleen's faithful felines, Hercules and Owen, are hoping there is a cat treat challenge. But then Kathleen finds one of the judges dead.

When Jesse Camden, owner of the Gilded Lily Tea Room and Coffee House, agrees to meet her childhood friend, Winnie Rogers, for a morning of girl talk and reminiscing, or "fishing" as Winnie likes to call it, Jesse anticipates a morning of shared confidences over a picnic brunch in the countryside. But spring in Oklahoma can be unpredictable, and when a tornado drops out of a wall cloud practically on top of them, Jesse and Winnie find themselves stranded with a demolished pickup and a dead body before they've even opened the picnic basket.

It is a dark and misty night, and bachelors Nicholas and Ian are driving to the ball at Fordings, a beautiful concert hall in the countryside. There waits the charming Dilys Maine, and a party buzzing with rumours of one Rosemary Reeve who disappeared on the eve of this event the previous year. With thoughts of this mysterious case ringing in their ears, Dilys and Nicholas strike a stranger on the drive back home, launching a new investigation and unwittingly reviving the search for what really became of Rosemary Reeve.

Every small town needs a big hero. Silas Tucker is the biggest football hero Cross Rivers, North Carolina, ever produced. But his town is in big trouble. The All-American quarterback returns—not to play ball, but to solve a mystery. Who’s committing the Country Road Murders? Silas has...

Easy Rawlins, L.A.'s most reluctant detective, comes home one day to find Easter, the daughter of his friend Chrismas Black, left on his doorstep. Easy knows that this could only mean that the ex-marine Black is probably dead, or will be soon. Easter's appearance is only the beginning, as Easy...

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the first original novel to feature Ben the Cockney tramp, the unorthodox detective character created by J. Jefferson Farjeon, author of Mystery in White. Strange things are happening in the untenanted houses of Jowle Street. There are unaccountable creakings and weird knockings on the door of no.29, where a homeless ex-sailor has taken up residence.

Written with the voice and vision that have made Mosley one of the most entertaining writers in America, "Fear Itself" marks the return of a master at the top of his form...

Sixty-year-old widow Ginny Cole thought she’d used up her life quota of bad luck. So she’s dismayed when her move to the quaint village of Little Shaw begins with finding the murdered body of rude and dislikeable library manager, Louisa Farnsworth. Has misfortune followed her cross-country? When suspicion falls on the daughter of her friend Hen, because of a perfectly innocent threatening letter, Ginny’s sure the police are letting the real killer walk free, and together with fellow widows JM, Tuppence, she’s determined to find the truth.

When movie producer Cody Ziegler goes missing from The Homestead’s Millionaires’ Row, his wife, retired actress Olivia, immediately claims there’s foul play afoot. A million-dollar ransom demand soon follows, with clear instructions not to involve the cops. In desperation she enlists the help of Moira, Rick, Philip and Lizzie, aka the Retired Detectives Club. Racing against the clock, the four retirees set to work.

When a Western star is gunned down at a rodeo, Ellery Queen saddles up to solve the mystery.

Buck Horne has roped thousands of cattle, slugged his way out of dozens of saloons, and shot plenty of men dead in the street - but always on the back lot. He's a celluloid cowboy, and his career is nearly kaput. The real box-office draw is his daughter, Kit, a brawling beauty who can out shoot any rascal the studio has to offer. Desperate for a comeback, Buck joins Wild Bill Grant's traveling rodeo for a show in New York, hoping to land one last movie contract.

Trapped on a burning mountain, the Queens take refuge with a killer. Dashing detective Ellery Queen and his father are driving over the pothole-scarred Arrow Mountain Road when they come face to face with a wall of flame. They tear back in the other direction, fire at their fenders, and finally find safety in a clearing, at the home of Dr. Xavier, a renowned surgeon. He is a genial man, but his distracted, mysterious smile conceals dark secrets.

The third gripping thriller in this daring suspense series about a woman with a thirst for vengeance – a charged revenge drama of betrayal, redemption and sisterhood. Faye's ex-husband is dead, but she is threatened by her father who is still on the run from prison. The man who should be her...

Inspired by the true story of Jamaica’s first serial killer. Jamaica, 1772. Caribbean jewel, or a killer's playground? On the island of Jamaica, people have started disappearing without trace. Have they run away, trying to start new lives in the British colony under assumed names, or is...

An impossible death. A seaside town on the brink. Stay tuned for murder… Sidmouth is gearing up for summer – but murder is all year round… When a doctor is found dead in the woods, shot through the heart with a crossbow, his wife is the prime suspect, despite an ironclad alibi. Desperate...

"This is a writer that understands people down to the bones. Her characters are fallible and hopeful, flawed and loving, and so real they have stayed with me." --Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author "A knockout." --Booklist Starred Review This is a story of the rich and the very...

Things are always odd and strange in Metamora, but when the proprietor of the curiosity shop, Odd and Strange Metamora, hosts a spring carnival showing off his collection of oddities, the day goes right in the garbage - or rather, out of the garbage when a raccoon overturns a trash can in the middle of town scattering human bones around the park. When it's discovered that the remains date back over a century, rumors start to run as rampant as the pack of furry bandits taking over the town at night.

London, 1920: Boston-bred Enoch Hale, working as a reporter for the Central News Syndicate, arrives on the scene shortly after a music-hall escape artist is found hanging from the ceiling in his dressing room. What at first appears to be a suicide turns out to be murder...the first of several using the same modus operandi. What's the connecting factor among all the victims? Or isn't there one? That's what the dogged journalist Hale aims to find out.

I've only been back home a few weeks and already strange events are happening all over town. Wishes are coming true to the delight of those affected. Despite the seemingly good fortune, I need to put on my federal bureau of magic badge and get to work. I can't let supernatural shenanigans disrupt the natural order of life here, no matter how awesome they seem. When their good luck starts to take a dark turn, I have to kick my efforts into overdrive. Can I crack the case before these dreams-come-true turn into nightmares?