Cozy Humor

For the residents of 44, Scotland Street, life in Edinburgh's intriguing New Town is a thing to be relished. After all, there are new faces to excite Domenica's anthropological imagination, precious moments with his triplets for Matthew to savor, and the prospect of a trip to the promised land of Glasgow for young Bertie.

Callahan Garrity is the owner of House Mouse, a cleaning service that tidies up after Atlanta’s elite. She’s also a former cop and a part-time sleuth. She and her coterie of devoted helpers can ransack a house for clues faster than it takes a fingerprint to set. When Callahan Garrity gets caught in a liquor store holdup on the way home from a St. Paddy’s Day party, one of her best friends is shot.

Italy might seem like a long way to go to hide after a disastrous date. But when sexy uberhacker Slash (no, that's not his real name) asks me to go with him to Rome on an investigation, the timing is sort of perfect. My messed-up love life becomes the least of my worries, though, after the dead body, the near-kidnapping and the discovery of a top secret encrypted file that even I can't hack.

The summer season on Cape Cod is over - now it's time for the real fun to begin. Dominick is always just passing through. He is a professional houseguest who follows the sun and the leisure class from resort to resort. But this winter he lingers on a quaint New England island and, in spite of his best intentions, becomes involved in the travails of his eccentric geriatric hosts. An environmental protest against a proposed liquid natural gas terminal turns ugly, and by accident and happenstance Dominick becomes a mistaken suspect in terrorist bombings.

Molly is terrified that she may lose her farm because her idle husband has left her for a rich hobby winemaker and is demanding his half of the land. Meg enlists Mother's help to find Molly a divorce lawyer, which Mother is all the more willing to do because the unfaithful husband's new girlfriend is the bete noire of the wine pavilion. She is so universally disliked that Meg begins to worry about her safety. But it's the unfaithful husband whose murdered body she and Michael find that night.

As the chief problem solver for Babylon, Las Vegas’ most over-the-top destination, murder is a bit outside of her normal. But armed with a wicked wit and an even more wicked right-cross, Lucky takes it all in stride. But tonight taxes even Lucky’s formidable skills. Lucky’s former lover, Teddie, shows up, hat in hand. A gaggle of egomaniacal chefs appear for a televised cook-off. And Lucky’s current lover, Jean-Charles, stops answering his phone. Since trouble comes in threes, Lucky is sure this is the extent of tonight’s trouble. As usual, she’s a tad optimistic.

Deputy coroner Mattie Winston knows a thing or two about dead bodies. That's why she's on the case of Derrick Ames, a high school math teacher stabbed to death with a barbecue fork straight to the heart. Sure, she's turned up some motives and a few suspects, but nothing adds up. Especially when the evidence points to Ames's teenage son. Newly pregnant Mattie can't believe it, even as her own long-estranged father may be following her.

Nothing sets the gossips of Tequila Key on fire as much as a new mystery to solve, and word on the street is that a flamingo statue for the new mini-golf course has been stolen. When the Flamingo King himself arrives in town to investigate, no one is more shocked than Althea when Miss Elva takes a shine to the man. Despite her protests, Althea is dragged into chaperoning Miss Elva on their dates, all while doing her best to not to cringe every time she hears Miss Elva giggle.

Lexi Carmichael: helping geeks everywhere get some. Okay, so it's not exactly as it seems, but that's what's happening on the dating reality show called Geeks Get Some that I, geek extraordinaire Lexi Carmichael, have been called to work on. Not that I'm a fan of reality shows (I can barely deal with my own reality). Still, I've been sent to Hollywood to find a hacker who's screwing with the results of the show's online voting system.

Meet Conrad. You’ve never met a cat like him before. Neither has Lulu Lewis when he walks into her life one summer’s day. Mourning the recent death of her husband, the former police detective had expected a gentle retirement, quietly enjoying life on her new canal boat, The Lark, and visiting her mother-in-law Emily in a nearby care home. But when Emily dies suddenly in suspicious circumstances, Lulu senses foul play and resolves to find out what really happened. And a remarkable cat named Conrad will be with her every step of the way.

Meg Langslow’s in for a busy summer. Her husband is directing a production of Macbeth, and most of the cast and crew are occupying spare bedrooms in their house. She also has to keep an eye on Camp Birnam, where a group of medieval reenactors are commemorating the real-life Macbeth by setting up what they fondly believe is an authentic medieval Scottish military camp. And then there’s Damien Goodwin, a filmmaker who has been hanging around, trying to document the production.

Planning for a rainy day has never been Val’s forte. But when a storm brews up right in her own backyard, Val’s forced to get off her lounge chair and spring into action. A shady, ham-fisted developer’s threatening to knock down Val’s favorite beach haunt, along with all the precious memories held within its shabby walls. With the owner’s signature on the bill of sale, the plan seems like a done deal. Or is it? Something fishy is going on at the beach, and it’s going to take all the wits Val can muster to put a pig-headed developer out to pasture.

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.

On the weather front, category four Hurricane Kevin took a last-minute left and is headed straight for the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. In breaking news, undercover casino operative Davis Way has one foot out the evacuation door when 50 million dollars disappear, and in its place, a dead body. In other news, if forced to ride out the storm on the hotel's 13th-floor fortress, Davis won't be alone.

The Expo begins with a literal bang: a bomb wrecks the hotel, killing a housekeeper and causing extensive damage. Luckily for Pickax, Qwill is on the scene, his moustache twitching with suspicions that this bomb was intended as something stronger than a warning to someone. His evidence: Koko and Yum Yum's new interest in cheese, especially Gruyere, Brie and Feta. Qwill and the Siamese are on a case that will demand all their feline intuition and mustachioed insight!

Going undercover is second nature for Private Investigator Lola Cruz, but she’s out of her league when the case of a murdered Royals Courtside Dancer leads her to a local nudist resort. Parading around the sidelines of Sacramento’s professional basketball scene in a barely there cheerleading outfit is one thing - but parading around in nothing but a smile? If she’s going to have any chance of hiding this from her traditional family and on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jack, she’s going to have to keep a lot more than her duct tape bra and killer dance moves under wraps.

Meg Langslow is plying her blacksmith's trade at Caerphilly Days, a festival inspired by the town's sudden notoriety as "The Town That Mortgaged Its Jail". The lender has foreclosed on all Caerphilly's public buildings, and all employees have evacuated - except one. Phineas Throckmorton, town clerk, has been barricaded in the courthouse basement for over a year. But the lender seems increasingly determined to evict him, and may succeed after one of its executives is found shot, apparently from inside the basement.

When Chet the dog, "the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction" (Boston Globe), and his partner, PI Bernie Little of the desert-based Little Detective Agency, arrive to a meeting with hydrologist Wendell Nero, they are in for a shocking sight - Wendell has come to a violent and mysterious end. What did the hydrologist want to see them about? Is his death a random robbery, or something more? Chet and Bernie, working for nothing more than an eight-pack of Slim Jims, are on the case.

Seal Island is home to a moonshine-making billionaire, a pot-growing fisherman, a celebrity flower child, a handsome romance writer, a sex-addicted realtor, a womanizing pub owner, a cop, a pot-bellied pig…and a serial killer. The island is serene and remote. It is only accessible by boat. The residents like it that way, until those with the deepest and darkest of secrets start dying in the most bizarre of ways.

Constable Nick’s beat is modernized, with his police bike replaced by a mini-van. He gets more than he bargained for as his work draws him into closer contact with villagers, in more ways than one. There are compromising positions aplenty in this next charming installment of Aidensfield life. Nick finds himself lost in heavy fog and runs across a couple of illicit lovers trapped in their car. He advises the village grocer about his very respectable lady shoplifter and discovers how farmer Owens copes with his bossy wife.