Dog Fiction Mystery

On a blustery day in late fall, Hank sneaks into the back of Slim's pickup and finds himself at a neighboring rancher's fall branding...the very neighbor, in fact, who owns the gorgeous Miss Scamper the Beagle! Unfortunately, Miss Scamper has always been a little hard to figure out, and he can't decide if she's crazy about him...or just plain crazy. And, as the day unfolds, it even begins to look like she's angling to land him in a heap of trouble with her pit bull boyfriend, Steel!

The little canal town is known for its grist mill, antique shops, and bed and breakfasts, not for hosting a parade of noisy motorcycles. Cameron Cripps Hayman's neighbors are up in arms about the Night Hounds Motorcycle Club and even start a petition to get the mayor to ban the new establishment. But the mayor says he doesn't have the power to kick a business owner out, and there's nothing in the town statutes against opening a bar.

Dogwalker Olivia has her hands full trying to build a life with her long-time love, Andrew. If only she could stop stumbling into mysteries, murders, and mayhem.

Kristy's newest sitting job is challenging. Ten-year-old Erin was recently blinded in an accident and is not ready to rely on people. At the same time, Kristy's family is training a puppy to be a guide dog.

After gunshots echo through the summer night on Mount Macedon, Detective Sergeant Zoe Mayer and her loyal service dog Harry race to the summit at first light. What they find looks like a grisly murder-suicide: an alleged fraudster named Piers Johnson, and his lawyer Antony Peterson, both dead from bullet wounds, a gun lying nearby. Something about the scene doesn't stack up.

It's summertime, and the weather on Hank's West Texas ranch is hot and dry. So dry, in fact, that everyone is on the lookout for prairie fires. So Hank bravely adds the title of Head of Fire Safety to his already impressive list of responsibilities and gets to work. But patrolling for fires is dull, and it's hard to do on an empty stomach. Despite the distractions - desperate hunger, a cruel trick at the hands of Pete the Barncat - Hank somehow manages to stay focused on the job at hand.

Hank learns about a tool thief on the loose who uses a monkey to help him do his dirty work. And before long, Hank finds himself face-to-face with the pilfering primate! Can Hank help to stop the criminals in their tracks, or will the crooks make a monkey out of the Head of Ranch Security?

An elderly man has been run down by a logging truck on the street in Vientiane just opposite the post office. His body is delivered to the morgue of Dr. Siri Paiboun, the official and only coroner of Laos. At the age of 73, Siri is too old to be in awe of the new communist bureaucrats for whom he now works. Before he can identify the corpse, he must decipher a letter in the man’s pocket—it is written in invisible ink and in code.

While investigating the death of one of Russia's top entrepreneurs, Renko, the chronically melancholic senior investigator in Moscow, follows a trail that eventually leads him to the desolate area of Chernobyl. In this bizarre wasteland, things might just be looking up for Renko.

Their captivity was traumatizing. And draining. But revenge is in the blood for a group of brave survivors in this chilling short story of conspiracies and youthful pleasures gone awry.

DeLillo's Running Dog, originally published in 1978, follows Moll Robbins, a New York City journalist trailing the activities of an influential senator. In the process, she is dragged into the black market world of erotica and shady, infatuated men, where a cat-and-mouse chase for an erotic film rumored to “star” Adolph Hitler leads to trickery, maneuvering, and bloodshed. With streamlined prose and a thriller's narrative pace, Running Dog is a bright star in the modern master's early career.

Divorced dog-trainer-turned-private-eye Rachel Alexander and her canine assistant Dash - short for Dashiell - are hired by a man named Dennis Keaton to investigate the hit-and-run death of his friend and neighbor Clifford Cole, whose body was found on an isolated Christopher Street pier. The police are treating the gay painter’s suspicious death as a hate crime, but Dennis insists Cliff hadn’t cruised the waterfront in months. Plus, Magritte, Cliff’s champion basenji - a competitor in the upcoming Westminster Dog Show - may have been a witness to the crime and is now missing.

There’s a new dog in town--a golden retriever named Luke, in training to be a seeing-eye dog. He and Rochester immediately bond, but there’s something odd about Luke’s human, Ben Ji. How can someone so young afford an expensive townhouse on Sarajevo Way? When Ben is shot, Steve begins to discover the lies he has been telling.

In Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, a century-old crime reawakens bad will - and stirs up a scandal that chills Sister to the bone. Sister Jane and the Jefferson Hunt Club have traveled from Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains to the Bluegrass State of Kentucky to ride with the members of the Woodford Hounds - in the teeth of foul weather. Sister knows better than anyone that an ill wind blows no good.

Hank the Cowdog could have told Slim that bringing an orphaned raccoon back to the ranch was not the best idea. But since Slim never pays any attention to Hank, Loper, and Sally May soon find themselves housing an adolescent coon with a mischievous streak a mile wide.

Reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan has built a new life for himself after prison, including a home with his fiancée and his golden retriever Rochester. It matters deeply to him, enough to risk it all to bring justice to a killer in his neighborhood.

Thirty-nine-year-old empty-nester, Megan Fallon is putting the fiance who left her well and truly out of her mind, and focusing on settling back into village life, and her new job. Meanwhile, her childhood friend, American, Jack Windsor, is renovating the old village school, and is looking for a four-legged friend to share his new home with. All is well in Bliss Bay until obituaries start appearing on the church noticeboard for villagers who are still very much alive, and the village is thrown into turmoil.

Standing quietly at the elevator door to the North Tower of the Ultimo Hotel in Las Vegas, JW watches the numbers go down as the elevator descends to him. He thinks—sixty-five floors? There is a serial killer up there! If the mission is a success, it means a second career chasing serial criminals with a special FBI task force. If not, the Lieutenant will be going home defeated and outsmarted by a warped criminal mind. JW needs this to work; he needs another chance at the man who shot him. The elevator doors open, and the team steps aboard.

Adam Streeter has covered international crises from Siberia to Cambodia. When disaster strikes, he grabs his battered typewriter and hops on a plane, hurling himself into danger wherever the story demands. He is brave, talented, and internationally renowned - so why would he turn a pistol on himself? Insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter has seen enough suicides to know that a journalist this successful would never take his own life. He digs into Adam's last story - an unpublished investigation into the whereabouts of a vanished South American strongman, called El Carnicero.

When a St. Pete native is killed in a hit and run, pet psychic Darwin Winters gets a vision from the victim's prized golden retriever that leads her to believe it was no accident. As suspects start piling up, Darwin finds herself in the middle of the dead woman's family and friends, not knowing who she can trust. Stories of artifacts and pirate legends, strange disturbances at the Pinellas Point Indian Mound, and show-dog shenanigans all add up to one thing...motive for murder.