Amateur Sleuth Suspense

Pen has just received an extremely rare collection of Edgar Allan Poe's complete works. Rumor has it a secret code, trapped within the books' leather-bound pages leads, to buried treasure. Well, it looks like they got the buried part right because, as Pen sells off the valuable volumes, everyone who buys - dies. Once these books go missing from their owners' cold hands, Pen will need resident ghost and hard-boiled P.I. Jack Shepard to help crack the case. The police are skeptical that the deaths involved foul play - so it's up to them to unravel these shocking endings.

Everyone in Sugar Creek Gap has tried to fix up widow and beloved mail carrier Bernadette Davis on several dates. They say she has to be lonely. What they don't know is how Bernadette's life is filled...filled with everyone's hidden secrets and obsessions. After all, she does deliver their mail and hears all the dirty laundry southern folks love to sweep secrets under the rug. While on her route, Bernadette finds out the beloved Sugar Creek Gap Country Club is being sold and turned into condos. The developer is Bernadette's best friend, Mac Tabor, and right now he's not very popular.

A grieving young widow, Charlene needed a new start - so she bought a historic mansion, sight unseen, and drove from Chicago to New England to start turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. On her first night in the house, she awakens to find a handsome man with startling blue eyes in her bedroom. Terror turns to utter disbelief when he politely introduces himself as Jack Strathmore - and explains that he used to live here - when he was alive. He firmly believes that someone pushed him down the stairs three years ago, and he won't be able to leave until someone figures out who.

Hi, I'm Dani Mackenzie and I'm the unfortunate soul who owns said diner. Looks like business is going to be slow for a little while as the whole town scrambles to find whodunnit. At first I just needed something to keep me busy while on my forced vacation, but now as the clues stack up, I'm caught in the middle of this crazy mixed-up murder. Too bad the only known witness to the crime is the victim's terrier, Pip, and no one believes she bludgeoned her owner to death. But if not her...then who? And, perhaps more importantly, who's next?

Bailey King's in New York wrapping up a six-week shoot on her first cable TV show, Bailey's Amish Sweets. But back home in Harvest, Stephen Raber keels over from an apparent heart attack - with Bailey and Raber's pet bunny as witnesses. Except it wasn't Raber's heart that suddenly gave out - a lethal dose of lily of the valley was mixed into a tasty piece of toffee. Who'd want to poison a jovial rabbit farmer who reminded Bailey of an Amish Santa Claus?

Antique dealer Sarah Byrne has never unspooled the truth about her past to anyone. But the enigmatic Aussie finally has the one thing she's searched for all her life - family. And now she and long-lost half-brother, Ted Lawrence, a wealthy old artist and gallery owner in town, are ready to reveal their secret connection. Ted's adult children are suspicious of their newfound aunt Sarah - especially after Ted, in declining health, announces plans to leave her his museum-worthy heirloom paintings. So when Ted is poisoned to death during a lobster bake, everyone assumes she's guilty.

The stitchers of the Embroiderers Guild raised over 20,000 dollars for charity - but the representative who accepted the check at the annual convention disappeared with it. It turns out that he's the husband of the local chapter president, Allie Germaine, who insists on his innocence. But if Bob Germaine didn't pocket the check, who did? And where is Bob now? Since needlework shop owner Betsy Devonshire has broken her leg horseback riding, solving the latest crime will have to be a group project.

Past midnight, Chyna Shepard, twenty-six, gazes out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend’s family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Foreman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed “homicidal adventurer,” Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse, or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.

Milwaukee bar owner Mackenzie "Mack" Dalton has a unique neurological condition that gives her extra perceptive senses, and police detective Duncan Albright is convinced Mack's abilities can be used to help catch crooks. Mack may be at pro at mixing drinks, but she's still an amateur when it comes to solving crimes - and she's not sure she should mix business with pleasure by working with a man who stirs up such strong feelings in her.

Mackenzie "Mack" Dalton and her barstool detectives are happy to help when Tiny, one of the bar's newest patrons, asks them to look into his sister's murder.Though the case has gone cold, Mack's heightened senses quickly put her on the killer's trail. But when a throng of reporters intrigued by her talents descends on Mack's Bar, her efforts are muddled as a real-life Moriarty begins putting her infamous skills to the test, leaving Mack feeling shaken and stirred.

Hidden beneath her British reserve, Edwina has a secret: she’s finished her novel and is bravely mailing the manuscript to a publisher. Beryl also has a secret: as thanks for solving a case, the American adventuress has been gifted an airplane. After swooping over the fields and hedgerows of Walmsley Parva, livestock scattering beneath her, she flamboyantly lands the plane on the village green, prompting a startled Edwina to consider a stiff gin fizz. Beryl’s aircraft is not the only disruption of village peace. Miss Dinsdale, a psychic medium, has started holding séances.

Resourceful Bingo Riggs and his partner, Handsome Kusak, are in the sucker-bait business, snapping candid pics of tourists off Central Park. Their fly-by-night enterprise can be irresistible to souvenir lovers, but with one camera in a pawnshop and their developing room in the bathtub of a two-room dump near Hell’s Kitchen, their venture is wretchedly underexposed - until they stumble upon an insurance fraud scheme between the allegedly dead eccentric Mr. S. S. Pigeon and his business partner and beneficiary.

Arnold Landon finds himself drawn into another bitter dispute over land—in which a defenseless old woman pays the ultimate price. To the casual observer, Penbrook Farm might seem like a ramshackle hovel, buried deep in the woods of Northumberland. But to fragile old Sarah Ellis, it’s home. And the developers can have the place over her dead body. Of course, no one ever expected it to come to that.

When Betsy Devonshire arrived in Excelsior, Minnesota, all she wanted was to visit her sister Margot and get her life in order. She never dreamed her sister would give her a place to stay and a job at her needlecraft shop. In fact, things had never looked so good - until Margot was murdered. In a town this friendly, it's hard to imagine who could have committed such a horrible act, but Betsy has a few ideas. There's an ex-employee who wants to start her own needlework store. And there's the landlord who wanted Margot out. Now Betsy's putting together a list of motives and suspects....

Just before two dueling book clubs are set to square off at Death by Coffee, one of the competitors turns up dead - bludgeoned with the silver teapot that was to serve as the prize. Suspicion immediately falls on Krissy, who was seen skulking around town in dark clothes on the night of the murder.

James Henry, a kind-hearted professor of English literature, is forced to move back home to Quincy's Gap, a tiny town in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, to care for his aging father. Shortly after moving into a house that hasn't changed since his childhood, the overweight, divorced, book-loving cheese puff addict accepts a position as head librarian and joins a supper club for dieters who call themselves the "Flab Five". Avoiding carbs is almost impossible in this deep-fried, all-you-can-eat Southern town.

Angie Turner's restaurant, The County Seat, is conveniently located near a first-class farmers market - so her menu is full of fresh ingredients. But a visiting culinary professor has just had a taste of something very unhealthy.... Angie first meets Daniel Monet at a local mission, where she and her chef-in-training, Hope, are serving barbecued chicken poutine to the homeless. Monet is one of Hope's teachers - but Angie's boyfriend knows him from his youthful days in England. But soon, the bon vivant is no longer vivant.

Clare's been hired to create a gourmet coffee and dessert bar for a New York wedding to be held at the world-renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art. Famous chefs will be there, celebrities, members of the press, well-known politicians - so why isn't she thrilled to have this chance to shine? Because the person tying the knot is Matteo Allegro, her ex-husband and current business partner. And while Clare has no plans to ever marry Matt again, she's afraid he's making a terrible mistake....

L’hiver s’est installé en Caroline du Nord et, avec lui, une baisse de la criminalité. Tempe Brennan profite d’un emploi du temps moins chargé pour passer du temps avec sa fille, Katy, qui vient de quitter l’armée. Mais un soir qu’elles se retrouvent chez Tempe, les deux femmes découvrent une mystérieuse boîte, déposée sur le perron. À l’intérieur : un globe oculaire humain fraîchement prélevé. Les coordonnées GPS gravées sur l’organe mènent à un monastère bénédictin où une découverte tout aussi macabre attend Tempe Brennan et l’inspecteur Slidell.

It's a rockin' New Year for Angie and her crew as they cater a bash for a famous band-and as a bonus, they'll get to stay at the singer's Sun Valley house for a whole week once the party's over. But there are hints of discord, and the event hits a sour note when one of the musicians is found with a drumstick in his chest. Is this a case of creative differences turned lethal or is there another motive at play? Angie's jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire as she and her fellow foodies try to solve the case before the killer comes out for an encore.