Cozy Humor

Maplemead Castle is crawling with ghosts, and the new owners need them gone. When Melody Bittersweet and the Girls' Ghostbusting Agency arrive on scene, they quickly identify the troublemakers swinging from the chandeliers...literally. A century ago, stunning trapeze artist Britannia Lovell plunged to her death, and has done every night since. But did she really just fall, or was there something more to her demise?

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.

After a series of high-profile cases at my cyberintelligence firm, I was looking forward to a simple job. All I had to do was personally deliver a revolutionary microchip to a manufacturing plant in Indonesia. Easy, right? Wrong. Someone else wants the design and is willing to kill to get it. A failed hijacking attempt lands me; my best friend, Basia; and our boss, Finn, in the middle of the jungle.

Eli’s asked to perform his magic act at a swanky charity gala, the Zombie Ball - a former zombie pub crawl which has grown into an annual high-class social event. What begins as a typical stage show for Eli turns deadly when two of the evening’s sponsors are found murdered under truly unusual circumstances. Compounding this drama is the presence of Eli’s ex-wife and her new husband, Homicide Detective Fred Hutton. Under pressure to solve the crime before the 800 guests depart, Eli and his detective nemesis go head-to-head.

Meg Langslow is spending the summer at the Biscuit Mountain Craft Center, helping her grandmother Cordelia run the studios. But someone is committing acts of vandalism, which threaten to ruin the newly opened center's reputation.

Nora, the owner of a diner, is happy serving up apple cider donuts. But her life is soon shaken when she discovers she and her younger sister Kit stand to inherit the home and land of the town's beloved cake lady, Peggy Johnson. Kit, an aspiring - and broke - filmmaker thinks her problems are solved when she and Nora find out Peggy was in the process of selling the land to a big-box developer.

Being an undercover poison taster for the rich and famous might sound glamorous, but for Isobel Avery it means stomaching bad clients and even worse coffee. The one side of the job that lives up to expectations is the money. Which is just as well for Izzy, since she needs an awful lot of it. Who knew when she made a lifelong commitment to a man that it would be one year living with him and the rest of her life paying for it?

Mumbai is a city that thrives on extravagant spectacles and larger-than-life characters. But as Chopra is about to discover, even in the city of dreams, there is no guarantee of a happy ending.

For centuries, the Koh-i-Noor diamond has set man against man and king against king. Now part of the British Crown Jewels, the priceless gem is a prize that many have killed to possess. So when the Crown Jewels go on display in Mumbai, security is everyone's principal concern. And yet on the very day Inspector Chopra visits the exhibition, the diamond is stolen from under his nose. The heist was daring and seemingly impossible. The hunt is on for the culprits.

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.

Meg Langslow's eccentric parents have a new hobby: growing roses and entering them in highly competitive shows. Dad's gardening skill and Mother's gift for selecting and arranging the blossoms should make them an unbeatable team - and Meg is relieved they've taken up such a safe, gentle hobby. She even volunteers to help when the Caerphilly Garden Club sponsors its first annual rose show. But after a few hours of dealing with her parents' competitors, Meg sees trouble....

Isabel Spellman's life consists of 24-hour surveillance, routine investigations into her acquaintances, and listening devices planted in her deadbolt-locked room. For a 28-year-old in a family composed almost entirely of private investigators or former cops, the tools of the trade turn typical family dysfunction into commonplace espionage.

Léopoldine Courtecuisse est coiffeuse dans le bourg alsacien de Wahlbourg. Entre teintures, shampoings et coupes de cheveux, cette trentenaire peine à gérer ses deux adolescents, depuis que leur père l'a quittée pour sa jeune sœur. Depuis toujours, elle déteste son nom de famille et supporte de moins en moins ses parents qui ne jurent que par leur cadette. Mais elle reste résolument optimiste grâce à ses séries policières préférées qui n'ont pas plus de mystère pour elle que les petits secrets des clientes de son salon.

Meg's husband has decided to escalate his one-man show of Dickens's A Christmas Carol into a full-scale production with a large cast including their sons Jamie and Josh as Tiny Tim and young Scrooge and Meg helping as stage manager. When a famous, although slightly over-the-hill, actor comes to town to play the starring role of Scrooge, no one expects that he's bringing a lot of baggage and enemies with him.

Meg Langslow is pregnant with twins when Michael asks if she wouldn't mind having a houseguest. One of his doctoral students is directing his new translation of a play by a minor Spanish playwright, who will come to town for the production. Señor Mendoza turns out to be a partygoer who loves to spend raucous evenings among adoring students...at Casa Langslow. Into this chaos arrives the dean of the English department, who insists the play be canceled. Then the dean is found murdered.

When Ellison Russell, reluctant finder of bodies, chairs a gala in conjunction with the museum's Chinese funerary exhibit, she expects disaster. So, she's not remotely surprised when a body turns up. Ellison is willing to leave the investigation to the police till an attempt is made on her life. Now she's juggling evading a killer, her aunt's overly-amorous beau, her dog's new love interest, and Mother's displeasure. With bodies piling up, if Ellison's not careful, staying alive might be impossible.

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.

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.

Problem number one: Bootsy Howard. Davis Way Cole lives a (relatively) quiet, (somewhat) simple, and (completely) witch-free life with her husband and twin daughters on the 29th floor of the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. Until Bootsy Howard shows up demanding a million dollars. Problem number two: Princess Smucker. What was marketing thinking when they booked the Southern Canine Association's annual dog show at the Bellissimo? And what was Davis thinking when she agreed to let a dog stay with her? For a week? In her home?

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.