Amateur Detectives Mystery

As Greenwich, Connecticut, slows down during a bitterly cold February, Melanie and her spunky Aunt Peg head to the city that never sleeps for the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. Aunt Peg can't wait to demonstrate her judging chops on national TV, even after being hounded by frustrating mishaps - all seemingly orchestrated by Victor Durbin, an ousted Paugussett Poodle Club member with a bone to pick. But the bright lights of the show ring grow dim when Victor is found murdered, and she's the one topping the suspect list.

Lady Dunbridge was not about to let a little thing like the death of her husband ruin her social life. She’s come to New York City, ready to take the dazzling world of Gilded Age Manhattan by storm. The social events of the summer have been amusing, but Lady Phil is searching for more excitement - and she finds it, when an early morning visitor arrives begging for her help. After all, Lady Phil has been known to be useful in a crisis. Especially when the crisis involves the untimely death of a handsome, young business tycoon.

Mayor Parish is determined Silverlake should win the prestigious Best Fall Getaway award for Witch Reader's Magazine—especially since the town is already a top contender. But when the journalist covering Silverlake writes a scathing review and is found dead, things go from fall festive to fatal misfortune. The Mystic Inn guest had his fair share of critics, but the killer couldn't possibly be someone living in Silverlake, could they? Angelica and her friends are racing to find out.

It gives us considerable pleasure to be able to offer to the public the “inside” record of those of former District Attorney Markham’s criminal cases in which Mr. Philo Vance figured so effectively. The true inwardness of these famous cases has never before been revealed by S. S. Van Dine, Mr. Vance’s lawyer and almost constant companion, being the only person who possessed a complete record of the facts and has only recently been permitted to make them public.

I was done with being a crime reporter in Washington, DC, tired of all the violence. So I packed up and moved to the small town of Laurel Falls, NC. It looked like heaven to me—ancient mountains brimming with tall trees and songbirds, peace and quiet. Until I found the body. The sheriff took the easy path, calling it a suicide. No way. I’d found that young woman, and I knew she hadn’t taken her own life. I’d spent my whole career searching for the truth, and I wasn’t about to stop now. Trouble was, without my usual sources, how much of a murder investigation could I pull off?

As an ex-star of a hit teen detective show, Maizie Albright gets the youth demographic, or so she thought. Now that she’s adulting, today’s kids make Maizie feel out of date. But at least the teen YouTube stars of Bigfoot Trackers want to hire her to look into the disappearance and possible murder of their producer, a murder the police find as likely as Bigfoot.

Leilani Santiago is back in her birthplace, the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, to help keep afloat the family business, a shave ice shack. When she goes to work one morning, she stumbles across a dead body, a young pro surfer who was being coached by her estranged father. As her father soon becomes the no. 1 murder suspect, Leilani must find the real killer and somehow safeguard her ill mother, little sisters, and grandmother while also preserving a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend in Seattle.

Following a long but successful book tour, Joe Biden has one more stop before he can return home: Chicago. His old pal Barack Obama has invited him to meet a wealthy benefactor whose endorsement could turn the tide for Joe if he decides to run for president. The two friends barely have time to catch up before another mystery lands in their laps: Obama’s prized Blackberry is stolen. When their number one suspect winds up full of lead on the South Side, the police are content to write it off as just another gangland shooting. But Joe and Obama smell a rat....

Jeanie’s getting married, and – despite her completely impossible four sisters – her best friends Clio and Amber are determined to give her a bachelorette weekend to remember. They’re in matching pink T-shirts and the drinks are flowing... But the night turns out to be unforgettable for all the wrong reasons when a girl turns up dead on the dancefloor. And – even though she’s a stranger – she is wearing one of Jeanie’s hen T-shirts.

Alvin Benson is found slumped over an easy chair in a room locked from the inside with a bullet in his head, and Wall Street and the high society of Manhattan are set ablaze with the news of the playboy stockbroker’s death. But when NYPD’s top detectives and ballistics experts can’t solve the mystery, it falls to Philo Vance, an art connoisseur and amateur sleuth, to find the killer. Vance’s intellectual and artistic background helps him uncover a series of odd clues, starting with a missing toupee and false teeth, and soon he is delving deep into the case.

The Queens are intrigued when a grisly murder mars a small town's Christmas. It's Christmas in Chicago, and Detective Richard Queen is enjoying a busman's holiday at a conference on gangland violence - but his son, amateur sleuth Ellery, is bored silly. Until, that is, Ellery reads of an unusual killing in rural Arroyo, West Virginia. A schoolmaster has been found beheaded and crucified. Ellery hustles his father into his roadster and heads east, since there is nothing he'd like better for Christmas than a juicy, gruesome puzzle.

Everyone is dying to read the latest book in the popular Gap Lake mystery series, and Addison is no exception. As the novel's biggest fan, she's thrilled when the infamously reclusive author, R. J. Rosen, contacts her, giving her inside information others would kill for. Addison's always dreamed of what it would be like if the books were real. But then she finds the most popular girl in school dead. Murdered. And realizes that life imitating fiction is more dangerous than she could have imagined.

A note from bartender Brian McNulty, Raymond Ambler’s friend, confidant, and sometimes adviser, sets the librarian sleuth off on a murder investigation - one that he pursues reluctantly until a second murder upends the world as he knows it. The second victim is a lady friend of McNulty’s - and the prime suspect is McNulty himself.

As yuletide settles upon Gwenafwy Abbey, the rural Welsh convent's peace is shattered when Tiffany Reese, president of the Village Art Society, is found dead on the floor of the parish hall. Sister Agatha, whose interests lie more with reading and writing mystery stories than with making the abbey's world-renowned organic gouda, is not shy about inserting herself into the case. With the not-entirely eager assistance of Father Selwyn, she begins her investigation.

When a murder desecrates the halls of New York City's iconic 42nd Street Library, Raymond Ambler, the library's curator of crime fiction, has a personal interest in solving the crime. But his quest to solve the murder is complicated by personal entanglements involving his friend - or, perhaps, more-than-friend - Adele Morgan. Not only does Adele's relationship with the staffer who was murdered get in the way of Ambler's investigation, but her growing interest in a darkly handsome Islamic scholar disturbs him.

Murder at the 42nd Street Library follows Ambler and his partners in crime-solving as they track down a killer, shining a light on the dark deeds and secret relationships that are hidden deep inside the famous flagship building at the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. In their search for the reasons behind the murder, Ambler and his crew uncover sinister and profoundly disturbing relationships among the scholars studying in the iconic library.

Ellery Queen is persuaded to accompany an old friend and sculptor to his ancestral home when the latter arrives at Ellery's house covered in blood and unable to remember anything from the past few weeks. Once there, tensions erupt and foul play results in the murder of one of the household's members. Among the many transgressions Ellery will uncover are adultery, blackmail, and deceit.

For Ellery Queen, there is no puzzle that reason cannot solve. In his time, he has faced down killers, thugs, and thieves, protected only by the might of his brain - and the odd bit of timely intervention by his father, a burly New York police inspector. But when a university professor asks Queen to teach a class, the detective finds there are people whom reason cannot touch: college students. Queen's adventure on campus is only the first of this incomparable collection of short mysteries.

Professor Craig Kennedy and his loyal sidekick, newspaper reporter Walter Jameson, first learn of the Clutching Hand and his gang when they investigate a string of murders involving the policyholders of Taylor Dodge's insurance company. After receiving a threatening note, Dodge himself is robbed and killed, and his daughter, Elaine, turns to Kennedy for help. Using the latest advances in forensic science, the professor uncovers the exotic and deadly scheme behind the murders. But when the Clutching Hand and his band of evildoers kidnap Elaine, Kennedy must leap into action.

Jay and his friends are on the cusp of perpetrating the greatest heist in Leif Erickson High history when they unwittingly find themselves dangerously close to a murder scene. Consumed with an irrational obsession, he is determined to do anything to solve the crime, including hiring a private investigator, infiltrating a sex club, and indulging in a 90-day LSD binge. Forced to confront his demons, both real and imagined, he must unravel the conspiracy of an elusive octopus and his lascivious minions to find the killer.