Cozy Mystery Comedy

He's no Tony Soprano. Still, local crime boss Giustino "Tino" Fabrizio is one shady character that Tara would love to see behind bars. He operates a security business - or so he claims on his tax forms - but his clients don't feel so secure when it's time to pay up. Problem is, no one can get close enough to nail this wiseguy for extortion. No one, that is, except Tara. Going undercover, Tara lands a waitress job at Benedetta's Bistro - which is owned and operated by Tino's wife.

Tara's career comes with a lot of pros and cons - which is a nice way of saying that she's kick-ass in her fight against professional con artists. And she's tough enough to deal with all the money launderers, tax evaders, and other such criminals who cross her path...until her own boyfriend, Nick, joins their leagues. Now all bets are off. Nick is about to go deep undercover - and the stakes are higher than Tara could have ever imagined. It's all part of a joint task force with the DEA to bring down a powerful, violent drug cartel.

All Val Fremden wanted was a quiet holiday away from her oddball family. But that just ain’t gonna happen. When Val and her boyfriend arrive at her mother’s “country estate” in Hicksville, Florida, the annual family fruitcake competition is well underway. And there’s more than a few fruits and nuts in the running.

Becca, newly single and newly unemployed, wants to believe she has psychic powers. With nothing but time - and a desire for empowerment - she's studying to become a witch. What she doesn't know is that her three cats - Harriet, Laurel, and Clara - are the ones with the real power. And when Harriet, a cream-colored longhair with more fur than commonsense, conjures a pillow for her own comfort, Becca believes her spells are finally working. Could that be why Trent, the coven's devilishly handsome leader, has been showing her special attention?

Missing shoes, stolen paperclips, and stalkers. Oh, what an afterlife! Bridget finally gets her first assignment as an Independent Authority agent: The not-so-glamorous case of The Paperclip Theft. Regardless, she is determined to close the matter quickly and move on to something more challenging. And then, the dead body of the Afterlife Arrivals commander topples out of the stationery cupboard.

Liza B.—the only DJ who gives a jam—wants to take her neighborhood back from the soulless property developer dropping unaffordable condos on every street corner in DC. But her planned protest at a corporate event takes a turn after she mistakes the smoldering-hot CEO for the waitstaff. When they go toe-to-toe, the sparks fly—but her impossible-to-ignore family thwarts her every move. Liza wants Dorsey Fitzgerald out of her hood, but she’ll settle for getting him out of her head.

Lacey Luzzi's roller coaster of a life has been filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. She just never expected the lows to be so...sparkly. After falling on her face during an attempt to follow in her recently deceased mother's stripper boots, Lacey realizes she is not cut out for life on stage. She sets out on a yearlong investigation to find her true family, never expecting she'll find it with a capital F.

Fall is bursting out all over Vermont, and while the rest of the Congress enjoys its recess, Senator Bernie Sanders has returned to his beloved home state for a weekend of events in Eagle Creek, “America’s #1 Leaf Peeping Destination.” It’s up to intern and Eagle Creek native Crash Robertson to keep the senator on schedule—and out of trouble. Crash’s hopes for a quiet homecoming are dashed, however, when the lifeless body of a community banker with ties to “Big Maple” is found in Lake Champlain.

When the manuscript of a debut crime novel arrives at a Parisian publishing house, everyone in the readers’ room is convinced it’s something special. And the committee for France’s highest literary honor, the Prix Goncourt, agrees. But when the shortlist is announced, there’s a problem for editor Violaine Lepage: She has no idea of the author’s identity. As the police begin to investigate a series of murders strangely reminiscent of those recounted in the book, Violaine is not the only one looking for answers.

When Houston reporter Lucy Resnick cashes in her retirement to buy her grandmother's farm in Buttercup, Texas, she's looking forward to a simple life as a homesteader. But Lucy has barely finished putting up her first batch of Killer Dewberry Jam when an oil exploration truck rolls up to the farm and announces plans to replace her broccoli patch with an oil derrick.

A cop, a pig, and a serial killer walk into a bar. 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.

Detective Roger LeCarre. Scourge of crime. Guardian of Exeter. Amateur squash player. And now, party guest at Powderham, the manor house owned by mysterious billionaire tech genius Eli Quartz. It is a small and unconventional gathering: the Bishop, a fading radio star, a desperate aristocrat, the ageing butler and his absurdly beautiful daughter—and Detective Roger LeCarre. Then a snowstorm blows in and the group realise they are trapped. And when, completely against expectations for this kind of situation, someone winds up dead, it's obvious who must solve the crime.

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.

Northelm Boarding School on Lake Placid has the worst bully of all - a demon by the name of Hatchet Jack. M.J. Holliday, along with her partners Gilley and the handsome Dr. Steven Sable, are ready to send him back to the portal from whence he came. The school's summer construction, an uncooperative dean, and the very tempting Dr. Delicious are all trying to distract M.J. from her ghost hunting.

It’s Mardi Gras season in New Orleans, but PI Franki Amato has too many problems to celebrate. A proven Sicilian lemon tradition hasn’t landed her a proposal, so her nonna has amped up the meddling to get her married, and pronto. Franki’s also under pressure to solve the strange murder of a family friend’s nephew, Nick Pescatore, who was found on a Mississippi River steamboat rumored to be haunted.

Halloween is looming large in New Orleans, and Private Investigator Franki Amato is in a gloomy mood. Her boyfriend, Bradley, has to leave on an extended business trip, and her slacker brother is coming to town with her matchmaker Nonna, who’s determined to see a Sicilian lemon superstition bear fruit. Meanwhile, the entire city is spooked because a caped figure is targeting its blood banks. Things turn macabre when a psychic makes a dark prediction about Franki’s brother and a frat boy is found in a cemetery crypt with his blood drained.

Avery Shaw is back from her honeymoon and on the prowl for a story. She wants to prove that marriage has softened her - nothing ever could - and the way she’s going to do that is by rocking the news world with something monumental. Then a body drops in her neighborhood, only blocks away from her house, and the hunt is on. The victim is divorced, having an affair with a married coworker, and generally unlikable. Avery has multiple places to look for a suspect...and then another woman dies only a block away from Avery’s house, and the entire dynamic of the story changes.

The second in this hilarious cozy mystery series features a woman who is a talent agent for showbiz animals and discovers that she has a talent herself: solving crimes. Kay Powell, theatrical agent to non-human animals, is babysitting - that is, birdsitting - her client, a parrot named Barney, on the set of his new TV show, Dead City. When the show’s charismatic star is shot in his trailer between scenes, the only eyewitness to the crime is - you guessed it - Barney.

For all those craving more adventures of their favorite bookseller-by-day and burglar-by-night, The Burglar in Short Order for the first time ever collects all of Bernie Rhodenbarr's short-form appearances in one complete volume. From the story in which a prototype of Bernie first appeared (“A Bad Night for Burglars”) to his appearances in Playboy and (maybe? It's kinda complicated) Cosmopolitan...from an essay discussing Bernie's misadventures in Hollywood to a piece commissioned by a European publisher for a tourist guide to New York....

Avery Shaw wants things to go back to normal, but it’s not easy when she’s the current darling of the Detroit media market. Everybody wants a piece of her, and she prefers covering the news rather than being part of it. That’s why she jumps at the chance to cover a quadruple murder on the lake, even though it’s her day off. Avery realizes right away that the murders weren’t a crime of passion. No, this was a planned hit, and it leads her to look at the old mob faces in the county, who don’t exactly want to invite her into their homes.