Detective Mysteries Humor

After a long period of "resting", life is looking up for Charles Paris, who has been cast in a new production of Hamlet. But rehearsals are fraught. Ophelia is played by Katrina Selsey, who won the role through a television talent show. Hamlet himself is also played by a reality TV contestant, Jared Root. But when the company reaches the first staging post of their tour, matters get more serious, with one member of the company seriously injured in what appears to be an accident, and another dead. Once again, Charles Paris is forced to don the mantle of amateur detective to get to the bottom of the mystery.

It’s all Tinkler’s fault. If it weren’t for his obsession with the 1970s band Black Dog, none of this would have happened. The members of Black Dog performed an infamous publicity stunt on Halig Island: they burned a million dollars on an enormous bonfire. But the stunt backfired, splitting the band for good and increasing the value of their final, recalled album tenfold.

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.

Richard's cousin is missing, and his best hope of finding her rests with the wily, one-eyed, ex-governor of Florida. Carl Hiaasen introduces his iconic character Skink to a younger audience in this nail-biting adventure! Classic Malley: Her parents are about to ship her off to boarding school, so she takes off with some guy she met online...Poor Richard: He's less of a rebel than Malley, and a lot less trusting. He knows his cousin is in trouble before she does. Wild Skink: He's a ragged, one-eyed, ex-governor of Florida, and enough of a renegade to think he can track Malley down.

Business is slow at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, so slow in fact that for the first time in her estimable career Precious Ramotswe has reluctantly agreed to take a holiday. The promise of a week of uninterrupted peace is short-lived, however, when she meets a young boy named Samuel, a troublemaker who is himself in some trouble. Once she learns more about Samuel's sad story, Mma Ramotswe feels compelled to step in and help him find his way out of a bad situation.

One postman! Two postmen! Three postmen! All murdered! John J. Malone sticks his nose into the case of the dead postmen and picks up a crack on the head, an Australian beer hound, and six redheaded twins. It all begins when he takes on a new client, Rodney Fairfaxx. Rodney was tabbed for the postmen murders because he hadn’t received a letter from a dead girl for more than 30 years. Malone doesn’t think that this is enough reason to kill, but he can’t prove it.

It's Carnival time in Rio, and Fletch has plenty of money, thanks to a little arrangement he made stateside. But between the American widow who seems to be following Fletch and the Brazilian widow who's fingered Fletch as her long-dead husband, he suddenly doesn't have much time to enjoy the present or even get a wink of sleep. A 30-year-old unsolved murder, a more recent suicide, an inconvenient heart attack - somehow Fletch is connected to all of them, and one of those connections might just shorten his own life.

Cecil Younger never thought it would come to this: providing surveillance for a chicken coop being raided by a fowl thief. But things have not exactly been breaking right lately for the Alaskan P.I. The logical thing to do? Take a vacation, of course. Well, it's not exactly a vacation. Younger has been paid to investigate a doctor aboard a luxurious first-class cruise ship up the Alaskan coast. Except passengers are dying. Now Younger finds himself trapped on a ship of fools with a murderer who is leaving a trail of well-to-do passengers in his wake...and leaving evidence pointing an accusing finger at Cecil!

Stephanie Plum is thinking her career as a fugitive apprehension agent has run its course. She's been shot at, spat at, cussed at, fire-bombed, mooned, and attacked by dogs. Time for a change, Stephanie thinks. Time to find the kind of job her mother can tell her friends about without making the sign of the cross. So Stephanie Plum quits. Resigns. No looking back. No changing her mind. She wants something safe and normal. As it turns out, jobs that are safe and normal for most people aren't necessarily safe and normal for Stephanie Plum.

When a suspect explodes mid-interrogation and his office is taken over by an intergalactic despot, undead detective Dan Deadman reckons he's finally hit rock bottom. Banished to a dangerous underground hostel network, Dan becomes embroiled in a mass-murder investigation that will take him from the bowels of Down Here to the depths of the ocean. As the clues run out and the case collapses around him, Dan discovers a sinister plot that could wipe out two whole civilizations, and plunge the planet of Parloo into an endless bloody war.

Having delivered a particularly stirring speech at his recently deceased colleague's funeral, Monsieur Pamplemousse is more than a little disturbed when the coffin explodes during the ceremony. Luckily, his faithful hound Pommes Frites gave out a warning cry just in time, so there were no casualties. But, who exactly is behind this explosion? And was the same person responsible for his late co-worker's demise?

Gideon’s short-lived run as a locally famous boy detective ended when middle school started, and everyone else—including his best friend, Lily—moved on while Gideon kept holding on to his trench coat, fedora, and his treasured film noir collection. Now he’s sixteen and officially retired. That is, until Lily shows up suddenly at Gideon’s door, needing his help. He might be mad at her for cutting him off with no explanation, but Gideon can’t turn down a case.

When hordes of people descend on the picturesque village of Nasely for the annual celebration of its most famous resident, murder mystery writer Agnes Crabbe, events take a dark turn as the festival opens with a shocking death. Each year the residents are outnumbered by crowds dressed as Crabbe’s lady detective, Millicent Cutter. The weekend is never a mild-mannered affair as fan club rivalries bubble below the surface, but tensions reach new heights when a second Crabbe devotee is found murdered. Though the police are quick to arrive on the scene, the facts are tricky to ascertain as the witnesses, suspects and victim are all dressed as Miss Cutter.

Alone in the midnight hours with nothing but dead leaves, stray cats, and legends of ghosts and ghoulies to accompany him. A sleeping village doesn’t mean a simple shift, though. Between the early risers of the farming community, a badger with a sweet tooth, and getting to know his new workmates, there’s no time for Nick to kick his feet up in the station. And of course there’s Claude Jeremiah Greengrass! Why did he have to retreat hastily down a ladder from a lady’s bedroom and what happened to his trousers and shirt?

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.

When someone burns down the home of the school janitor and he dies in the blaze, everyone in Addamsville, Indiana, points a finger at Zora. Never mind that Zora has been on the straight and narrow since her father was thrown in jail. With everyone looking for evidence against her, her only choice is to uncover the identity of the real killer. There’s one big problem - Zora has no leads. No one does. Addamsville has a history of tragedy, and 30 years ago a similar string of fires left several townspeople dead. The arsonist was never caught.

Radio star Nelle Brown is known coast-to-coast for her sweet and sultry voice. But her press agent and manager, Jake Justus, is familiar with another side of the darling of the airwaves: her crackpot marriage to a penniless tycoon, disastrous string of lovers, and propensity for flying into spectacular fits of rage. Now, it appears she’s being burned by an ex-flame who’s holding her scandalous love letters for ransom. The missives could ruin Nelle’s career, but so could the scoundrel’s murder.

Written in reaction to what Bentley perceived as the sterility and artificiality of the detective fiction of his day, Trent's Last Case features Philip Trent, an all-too-human detective who not only falls in love with the chief suspect but reaches a brilliant conclusion that is totally wrong. Trent's Last Case begins when millionaire American financier Sigsbee Manderson is murdered while on holiday in England. A London newspaper sends Trent to investigate, and he is soon matching wits with Scotland Yard's Inspector Murth.

Cataclysmic events have occurred in the decorous upper middle class enclave within Southsea, Portsmouth, on the south coast of England. But what were the circumstances that contributed to this violent clash involving a Sherman tank and a bazooka? The strange occurrence is Investigated by Lord Everard Pimple, a naive upper-class twit who not only inadvertently opens a can of worms, but has an introduction into the world of womanly wiles.

Maeve has everything. A high-powered job, a beautiful home and a string of uncomplicated one-night encounters. She’s also an addict - a functioning alcoholic with a dependence on sex and an insatiable appetite for killing men. When she can’t find a support group to share her obsession, she creates her own. And Psychopaths Anonymous is born. Friends of Maeve. Now in a serious relationship, Maeve wants to keep the group a secret. But not everyone in the group adheres to the rules.