Amateur Sleuth Mystery

This quartet of crime stories about deadly books, penned by award-winning contemporary mystery writers, includes The Little Men, What's in a Name?, The Book of the Lion, and From the Queen.

Reporter Vera Vixen is a relative newcomer to Shady Hollow. The fox has a nose for news, so when she catches wind that the death might be a murder, she resolves to get to the bottom of the case, no matter where it leads. As she stirs up still waters, the fox exposes more than one mystery, and discovers that additional lives are in jeopardy. Vera finds more to this town than she ever suspected. It seems someone in the Hollow will do anything to keep her from solving the murder, and soon it will take all of Vera’s cunning and quickness to crack the case.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me—well, actually, my true love, Darcy O’Mara, is spending a feliz navidad tramping around South America. Meanwhile, Mummy is holed up in a tiny village called Tiddleton-under-Lovey with that droll Noel Coward! And I’m snowed in at Castle Rannoch with my bumbling brother, Binky, and sourpuss sister-in-law, Fig.

London, 1883. Actress Lizzie Dixie drowned in the River Thames, so how was she murdered five years later in Highgate Cemetery? Intrepid Fleet Street reporter Penny Green was a friend of Lizzie's, and Scotland Yard needs her help. Does Penny unwittingly hold clues to Lizzie's mysterious death? Penny must work with Inspector James Blakely to investigate the worlds of theater, showmen, and politicians in search of the truth. But who is following her? And who is sending her threatening letters?

In The Revenge Podcast, two scorned lovers, Deb and Avantika, dive headfirst into a whirlwind of raw emotions and burning questions with their podcast that they start to bitch about their partners who cheated with each other. Together, they unravel the truths behind their partners' deceit, wrestling with the thoughts of revenge and forgiveness.

It looks like Fletch is finally getting hitched. It's a small affair - just a few friends, the bride's parents, the groom's mother, and, just maybe, his father. Except Fletch's father is supposed to be dead. But somebody delivered the letter, signed "Fletch Senior" and containing an invitation (and a pair of plane tickets) to visit the old man in Nairobi for the honeymoon. No sooner does the couple land in Africa then the search for Fletch's father begins. There's a murder at the airport and reports of the old man's incarceration.

Until now, Odessa Jones's inherited ability to read emotions and foretell danger has protected her. But second sight didn't warn her she would soon be a widow - and about to lose her home and the catering business she's worked so hard to build. The only things keeping Dessa going are her love for baking and her sometimes-mellow cat, Juniper. Unfortunately, putting her life back together means taking a gig at an all-kinds-of-shady real estate firm run by volatile owner Charlie Risko. Until Charlie is brutally killed - and Dessa's bullied coworker is arrested for murder.

At Midnight's local pawnshop, weapons are flying off the shelves - only to be used in sudden and dramatic suicides right at the main crossroads in town. Who better to figure out why blood is being spilled than the vampire Lemuel, who, while translating mysterious texts, discovers what makes Midnight the town it is?

When a young man's body is found near a remote northern California town sprawled over jagged rocks at the base of a seaside cliff, the authorities dismiss the death as an accident or suicide. But there are suspicious circumstances surrounding the tragic event. Sent to investigate, San Francisco reporter Arnold Rednapp soon discovers that the boy's unorthodox beliefs had turned a large section of the small town against him, leading the journalist to suspect a community-wide conspiracy to hide the truth of what happened.

Field reporter Lee Barrett is not happy that her hours are being cut back at WICH-TV, although it is nice to spend more time volunteering with Aunt Ibby, a research librarian. But Lee's least favorite task is going up to the stacks, a spooky, seldom-frequented upper section of the library. On this day she has good reason to be afraid - she finds a dead man, surrounded by hundreds of scattered books and torn-out pages. Her police detective beau, Pete Mondello, is soon on the scene, and the deceased is identified as a former minor league baseball player - and ex-con....

It's convention season at the Bellissimo Resort and Casino, and Davis Way Cole barely notices. It's hard to pay attention when you live in a Jambalaya Junkyard. But when special events coordinator Holder Darby walks off the job just as 500 Alabama bankers pour in the front door, Davis steps up - or would that be in? Definitely in. Davis steps in it. Not only has the convention director vanished, but a certain Bellissimo guest is missing - one who forgot to pack the million dollars he left in the bathtub.

Almost-authentic medium Claire and her best friend, Sophie, agree to take on a seemingly simple job at a crumbling old manor in the English countryside: performing a seance for the family matriarch's 80th birthday. The pair have been friends since before Sophie went missing when they were seventeen. Everyone else is convinced Sophie simply ran away, but Claire knows the truth. Claire knows Sophie was murdered because Sophie has been haunting her ever since.

The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn't be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration. With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message, and gives her a priceless - and supposedly cursed - copy of Goethe's Faust for safekeeping.

Fletch's newfound son, Jack, has just heard from an old flame who's about to marry a billionaire's son - that is until her future father-in-law suffers several near-fatal accidents. The potential victim - the inventor of the perfect mirror, which allows people to see themselves exactly as others do - lives in his own secluded compound, so Jack gets a job as poolhand on the estate to get closer to the action. Now, Jack's life may be in danger, and he will need his inimitable father's help to discover - before it's too late - whose reflection hides a killer's heart.

Just before fiery food-critic Hayley Snow's mother's decadent flan is put to the test, Key West's most prized possession, Hemingway's Nobel Prize gold medal for The Old Man and the Sea, is discovered stolen from its case. Unsavory suspicions point to Gabriel, a family friend and one of the new busboys working the event, who mysteriously goes missing moments later. Anxious to clear his name, Gabriel's family enlists Hayley to help find him, but right as they begin their search, his body is found stabbed to death in the storeroom.

Fledgling reporter Fletch's first big interview is with a millionaire lawyer with a crooked streak and an itch to give away some of his ill-gotten gains. He ends up dead in the News-Tribune's parking lot before Fletch can ask question number one. So Fletch goes after the murderer instead and ends up learning a thing or two about crime and punishment. At the same time, he's supposed to be covering (or maybe uncovering) a health spa that caters to all its clients' needs and gets hired as a very personal trainer.

A twister, a kidnapping, and a murder - oh my! Scumble River may never be the same. For school psychologist Skye Denison, there's certainly no place like home. When a violent tornado devastates her small hometown of Scumble River, she can't see how the community will ever recover - especially since town councilman Zeke Lyons appears to have perished in the twister. But things get even worse for Skye when her police chief husband, Wally, disappears in the midst of investigating Zeke's death, and evidence arises pointing to foul play.

Mason “Mace” Reid lives on the outskirts of Chicago and specializes in human-remains detection - that is, he trains dogs to hunt for dead bodies. He calls his pack of cadaver dogs The Finders, and his prize pupil is a golden retriever named Vira. When Mace Reid and Vira are called in to search Washington Park at three o'clock in the morning, what they find has them running for their very lives.

Chaque année, des personnes disparaissent en zone urbaine dans des circonstances étranges. Elles se volatilisent parfois en plein jour, au milieu de la foule. Et les téléphones portables, caméras de surveillance et GPS n'y changent rien. La plupart du temps, on ne les retrouve jamais et la police est perplexe. Où sont passés tous ces gens ? Que leur est-il arrivé ? Un étudiant qui rentre dans un bar et qu'on ne voit jamais ressortir... Une famille en voiture qui s'évapore sur la route un soir de Noël.

When bookstore event coordinator Molly Pink stumbles across the dead body of a crochet group's leader, her complicated past with the woman makes her a prime suspect. But while Molly's fending off a detective with a personal grudge and navigating the pitfalls of crochet group politics, the real killer remains at large. And it's up to her to catch the culprit - before she winds up in a tight knot....