Comedy Mystery Thrillers

Jasper Fforde's delightfully zany Thursday Next series shows no signs of slowing down with its seventh entry, The Woman Who Died a Lot. Despite being semihappily semi-retired from SpecOps, Thursday accepts the head librarian position at the Swindon library. But soon threats from a supreme Deity, a mnemonomorph, and the nefarious Goliath corporation press Thursday back into active duty.

The hilly terrain next to the old Sprocket house that Meg Langslow and her fiancé, Michael, are refurbishing is the perfect location for an extreme croquet field - even the legs of cows and sheep are convenient extra wickets. Croquet has become all the rage in Caerphilly...until it appears someone in town has taken the rage a bit too literally. While stumbling down a steep bank after her ball, Meg encounters the body of a fresh female corpse with a mallet-sized dent in her head.

Real estate agent Violet "Spooky" Parker stumbles upon a body-part theft ring at the local funeral parlor and suspects her caustic coworker has a hand in it - or maybe a foot. Can Violet discover what's in the crates that the crooks are sneaking out of the mortuary in the dark of night? Or will she end up in one of them herself - in pieces?

Serge and Coleman are back on the road, ready to hit the next stop on their list of obscure and wacky points of interest in the Sunshine State. This time, Serge’s interest is drawn to one of the largest retirement villages in the world - also known as the site of an infamous sex scandal between a retiree and her younger beau. What starts out as an innocent quest to observe elders in their natural habitats, sample the local cuisine, and scope out a condo to live out the rest of their golden years soon becomes a Robin Hood-like crusade to recover the funds of swindled residents.

Anisa Ellahi dreams of being a translator of “great works of literature,” but instead mostly spends her days subtitling Bollywood movies, living off her parents’ generous allowance, and discussing the “underside of life” with her best friend, Naima. Anisa’s mediocre white boyfriend, Adam, only adds to her growing sense of inadequacy with his savant-level aptitude for languages, successfully leveraging his expansive knowledge into an enviable career. But when Adam learns to speak Urdu with native fluency practically overnight, Anisa forces him to reveal his secret.

When her old friend Karen drops by with her two-year-old son, Meg Langslow reluctantly agrees to babysit. But when night falls, the toddler is still in residence, and Karen isn't answering her phone. Concerned, Meg spends the next morning retracing her friend's steps - and what she discovers makes her begin to suspect that Karen has either been killed or kidnapped or is on the run. Since the police don't seem to care, Meg once again plays sleuth.

Nell Dysart's in trouble. Her divorce is 18 months old, she's been sleepwalking through life, and the best job she can get is with a detective agency that specializes in relationship work. Determined to turn her life around, Nell flings herself into making McKenna Investigations a better place.

A mysterious red door has appeared inside 24/7 Demon Mart, but when Lloyd opens it and steps in, nothing happens. Nothing bad, at least. He finds a lost room filled with treasures so good, so perfect, it seems like the Demon Mart crew's wishes have all come true. Kevin finds the solution to his mid-afterlife crisis and his roommate problems. Faust finds a renewed interest in the carnal delights of earth. Lloyd, dead tired from fighting off angry poltergeists, finally gets the one thing he so desperately desires: A nap. DeeDee? Well, she's just angry. Really, really angry.

Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen—and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster.

There are three things you should know about Elsie. The first is that she's my best friend. The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better. And the third...might take a little bit more explaining. Eighty-four-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat. As she waits to be rescued, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light; and, if the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly like a man who died 60 years ago?

Serge is back with a bullet, torn between homicide and souvenirs. So is Coleman, torn between getting hammered and getting more hammered. Then there's good ol' Jim Davenport, the E-Team, the Diaz Brothers, and Johnny Vegas, the Accidental Virgin, cranking up the fevered action as the pot boils over on a street called Lobster Lane.

From the author of Fight Club, the classic portrait of the damaged contemporary male psyche, now comes this novel about the apocalyptic marketing possibilities of female pleasure. Beautiful You is Palahniuk's much-anticipated satire of the emerging erotic thriller genre, a mash-up of mommy porn and chick lit à la Sex and the City, and fantasy lit à la Clan of the Cave Bear. Imagine if Ira Levin had a baby with Jean Auel.

Pursued by police and bounty hunters, Dan Lambert flees south toward the Louisiana bayous. In the swamplands he meets Arden Halliday, a young woman who bears the vivid burdens of her own past and who is searching for a legendary faith healer called the Bright Girl. Looking for simple kindness in a world that rarely shows it, bound by a loyalty stronger than love, Dan and Arden set off on a journey of relentless suspense and impassioned discovery...over dark, twisting waterways into the mysterious depths of the human heart.

That’s what the tour guide promises Dr. Linda Farmer and her family when they move to Plymouth Valley. Sure, the locals are privileged hot house flowers who observe a weird religion Hollow, but the schools are blue ribbon, the air’s clean, the food’s fantastic, and Linda’s out of options. With the outside world in shambles, this move is her family’s last chance.

Idealistic, independently wealthy, and pathologically short-tempered, Twilly Spree has dedicated himself to saving Florida's wilderness from runaway destruction. When Palmer Stoat drops litter, Twilly decides to teach him a lesson.

Most people flee to Hawaii for gorgeous weather, white-sand beaches, and cocktails at sunset. Charlotte Gibson, however, is fleeing for her life after a vengeful mobster leaves a severed finger on her doorstep as a warning. Message very much received. That’s how Charlotte - Charlie to everyone except her mom - finds herself on Maui with six dollars to her name, living with a mother who can’t stop giving her advice on how to land herself a husband

Welcome to another typical summer in Florida, the season of the storms. Serge Storms. That loveable serial killer, an under-under-medicated dispenser of truth, justice, and trivia, is back with a vengeance. And not a weirdness-laced moment too soon. His cherished home state is about to take a beating, and from far more than the way-too-routine conga line of hurricanes bearing down on the peninsula. Corpses have begun turning up at a disturbing rate, even for Florida.

Precocious six-year-old Bertie joins the scouts to escape his mother, Matthew learns to handle the challenges of marriage, and Domenica deals with loneliness. Even four-legged Cyril gets in on the action, finding himself a bit of canine romance.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he's brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn't deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart companion. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.

Elderflower Tea Shop is next door to Cardinal Woolsey's, the yarn shop Lucy runs and home to the late-night Vampire Knitting Club. The tea shop owners are a pair of octogenarian spinsters and old family friends, so Lucy wants to help clear up the mystery that's keeping their shop closed. But murder isn't the only issue troubling the Miss Watts. A man has come between them. Miss Florence Watt is being romanced by an old flame, one Mary Watt distrusts.