Comedy Mystery Thrillers

Meg Langslow's summer is not going swimmingly. In her small Virginia hometown, she's the maid of honor at the nuptials of three loved ones - each of whom has dumped the planning in her hands. One bride is set on including a Native American herbal purification ceremony while another wants live peacocks on the lawn. But when an offensive newcomer, who hints at skeletons in the guests' closets, is found dead under suspicious circumstances, level-headed Meg's to-do list extends from flower arrangements and bridal registries to catching a killer - before the next event is her own funeral.

Grange, Florida, is famous for its miracles - the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road-Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery. Unfortunately, JoLayne's winning ticket isn't the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they're entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot. And they need it quickly, to start their own underground militia before NATO troops invade America. But JoLayne Lucks has her own plans for the Lotto money - an Eden-like forest in Grange must be saved from strip-malling.

England, 1867: Miss Poppy Delamare is living a lie. To escape an odious betrothal, she fled to London where she’s been hiding as the unassuming secretary Flora Deaver. However, when her beloved sister is accused of murder, Poppy cannot leave her to the wolves. Only a most unexpected—and unwelcome—collision interrupts her journey home.

Best-selling author Jasper Fforde begins an effervescent new series. It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town.

I never thought I would date a dragon, or feed him chicken strips late at night, but life has gotten interesting. My steady dragon - you may know him as Lord Zavryd’nokquetal, but I get to call him Zav - is offering to take me to the elven homeland to meet my father and learn to harness the magic in my blood. Sure, I’m wary about his plans to force the elves to train me, but I need every advantage I can get. Especially when vampire attacks start cropping up all over Seattle, and my friend and business partner, Dimitri, disappears.

The beloved writing tandem of Rita Mae Brown and her feline collaborator Sneaky Pie craft another tantalizing mystery with Hiss of Death. Spring is in the air in Crozet, Virginia, and Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen looks forward to her first season of harvesting grapes. But then Harry falls ill and finds herself in a hospital—where a nurse turns up dead. When another hospital staffer kicks the bucket soon after, it falls to Harry’s animal friends to crack the case.

Straight arrow FBI agent Kate O’Hare always plays by the rules. Charming con man Nicholas Fox makes them up as he goes along. She thinks he’s nothing but a scoundrel. He thinks she just needs to lighten up. They’re working together to tackle the out-of-bounds cases ordinary FBI agents can’t touch. And their relationship? Well, there hasn’t been so much explosive chemistry since Nitro was introduced to Glycerin. Next on the docket: The mysterious disappearance of the Silicon Valley billionaire known as the Big Kahuna.

America's favorite bounty hunter is back behind the wheel in her fifth hilarious, high-octane thriller. Out of bail skippers and rent money, Stephanie Plum strikes out on her own. Okay, so a scumball blows himself to bits on her first day of policing a crack house, and the sheik she was chauffeuring steals the limo. But hey, nobody's perfect.

Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics - carry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people's bank accounts - without having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom - two boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-ex-husband Horst - till Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm....

When a freak accident hospitalizes Marty Golden's sister and condemns him to babysitter duty, he thinks it's just another case of hardwired bad luck in Silicon Valley. Until a suspicious murder suggests the mishap was no mere coincidence. Something must be done. Too bad this quirky, fashion-backward uncle isn't exactly hero material. Convinced his sister is in mortal danger, he follows clues to an oddball array of suspects. Armed with nothing but an eye for detail and powers of self-delusion, Marty tangles with gangsters, a cantankerous school secretary, and a perplexing woman.

Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my newspaper career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff". Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba "accident", might be the stiff of Jack’s dreams - if only he can figure out what happened.

Dublin is in the middle of a heat wave, and tempers are running high. The Celtic Tiger is well and truly dead, activists have taken over the headquarters of a failed bank, the trial of three unscrupulous property developers teeters on the brink of collapse, and in the midst of all this, along comes a mysterious organisation hell-bent on exacting bloody vengeance in the name of the little guy. Paul Mulchrone doesn’t care about any of this; he has problems of his own.

New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith's critically acclaimed No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series continues in this engaging book that won the first ever Saga Award for Wit, given to the wittiest British book of the year.

Agnes Crandall's life goes awry when a dognapper invades her kitchen one night, seriously hampering her attempts to put on a wedding that she's staked her entire net worth on. Then a hero climbs through her bedroom window. His name is Shane - no last name, just Shane - and he has his own problems.

Meg Langslow was actually looking forward to renovating the old Victorian mansion she and her boyfriend Michael bought. But she wasn't thrilled by the lifetime of junk accumulated by the house's eccentric previous owner, Edwina Sprocket. The easiest solution: hold the end-all and be-all of gigantic yard sales.

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all.

After an eventful first week on the job, Game Warden Jadyn St. James is happy the small bayou town of Mudbug, Louisiana, seems to have fallen back into its normal routine. But when FBI agent Raissa Bordeaux is kidnapped, Jadyn is certain the short-lived peace has come to an abrupt end. Statistics don’t lie, and Jadyn knows that the longer Raissa remains missing, the less likely she’ll be found alive. Sheriff Colt Bertrand knows the FBI won’t let him participate in their investigation, but is certain the federal agents aren’t as qualified as he is to locate someone missing in the swamps surrounding Mudbug.

Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has become a worldwide phenomenon thanks to the appeal of endearing protagonist Precious Ramotswe and the author’s charmingly quirky prose. In this 13th installment, Mma Ramotswe’s attention is focused on a pesky disciplinary problem at her adopted daughter’s school - while Grace Makutsi adjusts to wedded bliss and the famed Clovis Andersen arrives in Botswana looking for more than bush tea.

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.

Poor Meg Langslow. She's blessed in so many ways. Michael, her boyfriend, is a handsome, delightful heartthrob who adores her. She's a successful blacksmith, known for her artistic wrought-iron creations. But somehow Meg's road to contentment is more rutted and filled with potholes than seems fair.