Amateur Sleuth Suspense

When Alex arrives in Provincetown to patch things up with his new wife, Mina, he finds an empty wine glass in the sink, her wedding ring on the desk, and a string of questions in her wake. The police believe that Mina, a successful romance author, simply left, their marriage crumbling before it truly began. But what Alex finds in their empty cottage points him toward a different reality: Mina has always carried a secret. And now she's disappeared.

Cash and Sheriff Wheaton make for a strange partnership. He pulled her from her mother's wrecked car when she was three. He's kept an eye out for her ever since. It's a tough place to live - northern Minnesota along the Red River. Cash navigated through foster homes, and at 13 was working farms. She's tough as nails, five feet two inches, blue jeans, blue jean jacket, smokes Marlboros, drinks Bud Longnecks. Makes her living driving truck. Playing pool on the side.

Savannah Webster is trying to find her way forward. She and her husband, Hez, have been separated since tragedy tore them apart and he began numbing his grief and guilt with alcohol. She returned to Tupelo Grove University, which her family helped found over a century ago, to teach history. When Hez turns up in her classroom asking for a second chance, she rejects the idea immediately. But twenty-four hours later she’s under suspicion for murder, and since Hez is the best attorney she knows, she reluctantly asks him for help.

Blossom Valley, West Virginia, is home to Smythe Orchards, Winnie and her Granny's beloved 25-acre farm and family business. But any way you slice it, it's struggling. That's why they're trying to drum up business with the "First Annual Christmas at the Orchard", a good old-fashioned holiday festival with enough delicious draw to satisfy apple-picking locals and cider-loving tourists alike - until the whole endeavor takes a sour turn when the body of Nadine Cooper, Granny's long-time, grudge-holding nemesis, is found lodged in the apple press.

Aristocratic adventurer Atlas Catesby has spent the last year trying to forget Lady Lilliana Warwick, but when she reappears in his life imploring him to help her solve a murder, Atlas feels compelled to say yes. The ner're-do-well brother of Lilliana's maid died of arsenic poisoning. Authorities are ruling his death an accident, but his sister suspects he was murdered.

After leaving a decade ago, Angie Curtis has been called back to Harbor Haven, Maine, by her grandmother, Charlotte, who raised her following her mother's disappearance when she was a child. Her mother has been found, and now the question of her whereabouts has sadly become the mystery of her murder. The bright spot in Angie's homecoming is reuniting with Charlotte, who has started her own needlepointing business with a group called the Mainely Needlepointers.

Joe Talbert, Jr. has never once met his namesake. Now out of college, a cub reporter for the Associated Press in Minneapolis, he stumbles across a story describing the murder of a man named Joseph Talbert in a small town in southern Minnesota. Full of curiosity about whether this man might be his father, Joe is shocked to find that none of the town's residents have much to say about the dead man - other than that his death was long overdue....

Shocking news reaches them—an old friend has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing. The gang's search leads them into the antiques business, where the tricks of the trade are as old as the objects themselves. As they encounter drug dealers, art forgers, and online fraudsters—as well as heartache close to home—Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim have no idea whom to trust.

At the Great New York Cookie Swap, pastry chefs bake up their very best for charity. Clare is in charge of the beverage service, and her famous Fa-la-la-la Lattes make the gathering even merrier. But her high spirits come crashing down when she discovers the battered body of a hard-working baker's assistant. Police suspect a serial attacker whose escalating crimes have become known as "the Christmas Stalkings". Clare'sboyfriend, NYPD detective Mike Quinn, finds reason to believe even more sinister forces are involved.

Arnold Landon can’t help but feel drawn to Oldham Manor, an atmospheric medieval house in the middle of nowhere. When he is invited to catalogue the library there, he jumps at the chance. The place is a maze of musty old papers and books. And that’s not all. Late one night, he stumbles on a secret passage, twisting deep under the ground. Where will it take him? And why was it walled up? When a stranger turns up dead in a ditch, Landon begins to realize that someone is watching his every move. And they have a plan to ensure the past stays buried for good.

The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine is another mystifying manor-house stumper for Wodehousian bon-vivant and problem-solver Anty Boisjoly, when his clubmate asks him to determine who died first after a duel is fought in a locked room. The untold riches of the Tenpenny Tontine are in the balance, but the stakes only get higher when Anty determines that, duel or not, this was a case of murder.

Christmas has come to Lighthouse Cove, but business hasn’t slowed down for Shannon Hammer. She’s been contracted to renovate a local hotel owned by the Garrisons, a family that’s so devoted to the holidays they serve a seven-course dinner every night from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Last year’s festivities featured a train that transported guests around the breathtaking Cliffside property. This year, Shannon and her crew have been commissioned to build a Victorian-style carnival midway with games and prizes galore.

Clare's grown very fond of Alfred Glockner, the part-time comic and genuinely jolly charity Santa who's been using her coffeehouse as a place to warm his mittens. When she finds him gunned down in a nearby alley, a few subtle clues convince her that Alfred's death was something more than the tragic result of a random mugging, despite the conclusions of the police. Between baking delicious Christmas goodies and fending off the attentions of a persistent professional elf, Clare sets out to solve St. Nick's murder.

It's late 1936, and King Edward is in turmoil, having fallen in love with the scandalously divorced and even more scandalously American Wallis Simpson. He wants to marry her but knows that doing so will jeopardize his crown. Edward confides in his dear friend Darcy, Georgie's husband, and the couple agree to hide Wallis in their home while Edward figures out what to do. But unbeknownst to Georgie and Darcy, Sir Hubert, the owner of the estate, has given a film crew permission to shoot a motion picture about Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn on the grounds

South Cove's local businesses are up in arms after volunteer fire chief Barry Gleason threatens to shut down anyone who doesn't comply with the fire code. But when Barry schedules a training burn in an old abandoned barn, he is the only one who doesn't come out alive. Jill Gardner - owner of Coffee, Books, and More - smells murder in the ashes. She'll have to work quickly to nab a killer with a short fuse - or else everyone's holiday will end with a fizzle.

When coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi awakens on a bench in Washington Square Park, she has no idea she’s been missing for the past week, or that her friends and family have been frantic with worry. Now that she’s back, everyone is overjoyed, including a handsome NYPD detective who claims to be her fiancé. But to Mike Quinn’s crushing distress, Clare doesn’t remember him, or much of anything about the last decade of her life.

Melanie West is getting her life back on track after a messy divorce when her grandmother, Liza Harris, asks her to join her in opening a bed-and-breakfast inn. Together, Liza and Melanie purchase a purportedly haunted mansion on the Oregon coast and jump right into clearing out the cobwebs. But while attempting to remove wallpaper in an upstairs bedroom, the new B&B owners stumble upon a very real skeleton in their closet.

When Ellison's friend Kay Morrison visits Kansas City from New York, there are certain women who turn green with envy. After all, Kay works in the fashion industry, she actually attended the Battle of Versailles, and her clothes are to die for. Maybe literally. Ellison is convinced someone is trying to kill her friend. Kay is convinced that finding too many bodies has made Ellison paranoid. Both of them are right. Can Ellison catch a killer before it's too late?

The first three books in the Irish Village Mystery series are included in this edition: Murder in an Irish Village, Murder at an Irish Wedding, and Murder in an Irish Churchyard.

When a car bomb nearly kills the charming young tech whiz Eric Thorner, Clare comes to his aid and receives a priceless thank you. Not only does the billionaire buy her a barista's dream espresso machine, he hires her for an extraordinary project: creating the world's most expensive coffee blend. The police arrest Eric's alleged attacker, yet death continues to surround the unlucky mogul, leading Clare to question whether the lethal events are premeditated or merely freak accidents.