Humor Thriller

Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn't know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he's found a way, doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic.

Everyone has a hidden talent. For Lucky O'Toole it's murder...solving it. Tonight she feels like committing it. Her live-in lover, Teddie, has rock-starred out and taken his show on the road. Her mother is a pregnant hormonal weapon of mass destruction. But, as the Chief Problem Solver for the Babylon, Las Vegas's most over-the-top destination, murder isn't in her job description. So damn lucky.

Tonight, someone turned a young woman, a Jimmy Choo embedded in her carotid, into a hood ornament for the latest Ferrari in the Babylon's dealership. And one of the big-name players in a huge poker tournament ends up dead. Are the two deaths related? Lucky starts making connections putting her in the crosshairs of a killer. Her former lover, Teddie, comes back from his rock tour to deliver a bombshell. Then, life deals another major complication to her personal life...and it's not going to be pretty. Can Lucky handle the fallout and catch a killer?

Lucky’s story comes full circle in the conclusion of the Lucky O’Toole Vegas Adventures. Home: A refuge. An escape. Where the heart is. After a high-body count trip through Europe, Lucky O’Toole, the Chief Problem Solver for the Babylon, Las Vegas’s most over the top Strip casino, is home and searching for peace, quiet and a quick fix for a broken heart. She should know better.

Poppy Fields has a movie-star mother, 84 million Instagram followers, paparazzi following her every move, and a problem. Her Mexican vacation just went sideways (abducted-by-a-drug-lord sideways). Suddenly her life resembles one of her mother's movies, except the bullets are real, people are dying, and there's no guarantee of a happy ending. Surrounded by trained killers and unsure who she can trust, only one thing is certain - if Poppy doesn't escape, this vacation will be her last.

Tempest Michaels is once again investigating ridiculous cases that are clearly not even slightly paranormal in nature, but his daily menu of fun is interrupted by a plague of men dressed in garish outfits with twisted clown makeup as they terrorize the Kent towns and villages with ever-escalating and more-frequent attacks.

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.

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. Some people might call Callahan Garrity nosy, but she prefers to think of her tendency toward snooping as a healthy interest in the truth. So when news reaches her of her cousin Patti's death during a carjacking, Callahan shakes off her House Mouse cleaning uniform to don her detective's cap.

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!

Though she's the vampire queen, Betsy Taylor is much more like a princess. In MaryJanice Davidson's novels, this high-maintenance monarch is finally coming to terms with her new status.

Aaron Tucker isn't a detective. So he's baffled when the richest guy in his New Jersey town insists that Aaron, and Aaron alone, investigate the disappearance of his wife, who has inexplicably vanished from their home in the middle of the night. Funny, down-to-earth, lovable, and resourceful, Aaron Tucker, family man and freelance writer, reluctantly says yes, and continuously wishes he hadn't.

Andie Stern thought she'd solved her final homicide. Once a budding FBI profiler, she gave up her career to raise her four (soon to be five) children in West Windsor, New Jersey. But one day, between soccer games, recitals, and trips to the local pool, a very pregnant Andie pulls into a gas station—and stumbles across a murder scene. An attendant has been killed, and the local cops are in over their heads. Suddenly, Andie is obsessed with the case, and back on the trail of a killer, this time with kids in tow.

Three young Laotian women have died from fencingsword wounds. Each of them had studied abroad in an Eastern bloc country. Before he can complete his investigation, Dr. Siri is lured to Cambodia by an allexpensespaid trip. Accused of spying for the Vietnamese, he is imprisoned, beaten, and threatened with death. The Khmer Rouge is relentless, and it is touch and go for the dauntless, 74-year-old national—and only—coroner of Laos.

Taking down a killing team means Avery Shaw is getting a lot of attention. It’s almost too much attention. That’s why she’s ready for a new story, and when one falls in her lap, she’s more than ready to flip the script. When leaving the courthouse, she witnesses two men in a car trying to abduct a local woman. She intervenes, but when the dust settles, the woman is nowhere to be found, and people are telling her that she’s reading too much into the situation. She knows better. Unfortunately, nobody will listen.

Who would want to kill a clown? Lucky O’Toole, Chief problem solver for the Babylon Hotel, the primo property on the Las Vegas Strip, isn’t in any mood to find out. For one, it’s New Year’s Day and Lucky’s birthday. And she hasn’t caught her breath after a chase to the death in Hong Kong and Macau. Her French chef is pushing to set the wedding date. Her former lover, wounded in the China chase, needs TLC. A young woman, in town with the rodeo, shows up at her office with a secret that could blow the lid off Lucky’s life as she knows it.

Death by future mother-in-law. It’s a thing. Lucky O’Toole is sure of it. What she isn’t sure of is how to deal with it. In Paris, far away from her Vegas home, Lucky is out of her element and out of ideas. Especially when a fortune of rare wine is stolen from her fiancé’s family in a daring heist using the tunnels under Paris.

If Lucky O’Toole, Chief Problem Solver for the Babylon, Vegas’ primo Strip property, knows one thing, it's where money goes, trouble follows. So, when the NFL announces it’s moving a team to Vegas, Lucky is left on the fence until the trouble she feared lands in her lap. Nolan Ponder, one of the key players in the negotiations to get the NFL to Sin City, staggers into the Babylon covered in blood and holding a knife. With the mountains of money and careers on the line, Lucky figured someone would try to kill the deal. But murder?

Fledgling reporter Fletch's first big interview is with a millionaire lawyer with a crooked streak and an itch to give away some of his ill-gotten gains. He ends up dead in the News-Tribune's parking lot before Fletch can ask question number one. So Fletch goes after the murderer instead and ends up learning a thing or two about crime and punishment. At the same time, he's supposed to be covering (or maybe uncovering) a health spa that caters to all its clients' needs and gets hired as a very personal trainer.

From the author of Fight Club, the classic portrait of the damaged contemporary male psyche, now comes this novel about the apocalyptic marketing possibilities of female pleasure. Beautiful You is Palahniuk's much-anticipated satire of the emerging erotic thriller genre, a mash-up of mommy porn and chick lit à la Sex and the City, and fantasy lit à la Clan of the Cave Bear. Imagine if Ira Levin had a baby with Jean Auel.

Fletch's newfound son, Jack, has just heard from an old flame who's about to marry a billionaire's son - that is until her future father-in-law suffers several near-fatal accidents. The potential victim - the inventor of the perfect mirror, which allows people to see themselves exactly as others do - lives in his own secluded compound, so Jack gets a job as poolhand on the estate to get closer to the action. Now, Jack's life may be in danger, and he will need his inimitable father's help to discover - before it's too late - whose reflection hides a killer's heart.