Money Mystery

For Janet MacPhail, photographing retrievers in training is the perfect way to spend an evening. But a photo session at Twisted Lake takes a peculiar turn as Drake, her friend Tom's Labrador, fetches a blood-soaked bag holding an exotic feather and a torn $100 bill. When one of her photography students turns up dead at the lake, Janet investigates a secretive retreat center with help from Australian Shepherd Jay and her quirky neighbor Goldie.

When your partner is murdered, you’re supposed to do something about it—even if he is a useless drunk. But for private detective Danny Diamond, it’s a little more complicated than that. He’s been sleeping with his partner’s wife. The womanizing detective is a ready-made fall guy for the murder. To make matters worse, the new widow thinks they’re an item now. His secretary is full of “I told you so’s,” the police are knocking on his door, and a vicious pornographer is convinced Diamond has a set of negatives he’s never even heard of.

P.Q. Winston Rutledge is the richest man in Copper City, Arizona, and he believes someone will soon try to kill him. The story quickly deteriorates into murder and the ambitions of relatives in pursuit of his fortune. PQ’s family is a collection of oddballs with a common bloodline. Fascinating people you’d love to have at your next dinner party...but each comes with their own set of secrets and entanglements.

It's 3:30 A.M. when Bink Hanover bursts into Ronnie's apartment reeking of liquor and fear. Outside are four Uzi-toting thugs and a femme fatale who have chased him to her door. Before you can say "safe house", Ronnie recruits Blackie Coogan, ex-boxer and over-the-hill P.I. Then she's off to find the woman whom Bink calls the "Black Widow", whose previous well-connected lovers have all come into sudden riches: and sudden death. Now Ronnie is bull's-eye in a nasty high-stakes game.

Charles Tremayne is a spy out of his time. After a long career spent rescuing prisoners from the KGB or helping defectors across the Berlin Wall, the world has changed. The Wall has gone, and no longer is there a need for a Russian-speaking ice-cold killer. Nowadays, state secrets are transmitted via satellite using impenetrable blowfish algorithms. Counting down the days to his retirement by babysitting drunken visiting politicos, he is seconded by MI6 for one last case.

Madison is booming with dreamers and drifters, visionaries and entrepreneurs. Among them is Sydney Richardson, the daughter of a cop who died on these streets and now the proud, stressed-out owner of Hush Money, one of the city's top new restaurants. Like everyone else in town, Sydney is shocked when Madison's popular mayor - a crusty, charismatic man of the people - is shot to death in his own home. But the news hits especially close to home for Sydney because one of her own stands accused of the brutal crime. Sydney's the one person that Wanda Fields, a quiet, hardworking waitress and single mother, can think to call after her arrest.

Nolan was still alive; his wounds healed and his money was safe - all $800,000 of it. It was Nolan’s birthday, and he was sitting happy. Until Planner was killed. Planner was an eccentric antique dealer; Planner had the $800,000 in his safe. But now he was dead, and the money was gone. Caught up in the sizzling crossfire of double-dealing, danger, and death, Nolan was up against the “Family” again.

DI Jade Tanner has been plunged into managing the Complex Crimes Unit, Police Scotland's newest investigating team. She's recruited Dr Petra McBride, fresh from losing her job at Dundee University, and DS Mo Uddin, who's reluctantly transferred from Birmingham. When America's newest internet billionaire is shot on the shores of Loch Lomond, the team is brought in. Jade suspects a connection with the shooting of a local millionaire, an unsolved case which has been haunting her.

Mayor Victoria Dobbs Overstreet is a Harvard-trained attorney and Spelman alum, married to a celebrated heart surgeon, mother to beautiful twin girls, and a political genius. When her mentor, ally, and friend Congressman Ezra Hawkins is gunned down in Ebenezer Baptist Church, Victoria finds a strange piece of origami - a “paper god” - tucked inside his Bible. These paper gods turn up again and again, always after someone is killed. Someone is terrorizing those who are close to Mayor Dobbs, and she can't shake the feeling that the killer is close to her, too.

Me and the legendary Zimmerman twins - it's a friendship made in geek heaven. And it all started back when I worked for the NSA... My best friend Basia dragged me to the beach for her idea of a vacation. All those annoying people, sand in embarrassing places - not exactly R & R for a girl who doesn't like the sun, the ocean, or bathing suits. I couldn't wait to get back to work. But things started looking up when I ran into Elvis and Xavier Zimmerman. We discovered we had a lot in common: gaming, anchovies, hacking.

Sydney Richardson's enjoying a rare night out in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, when she learns that one of her friends has been shot. Rick Sheffield thought he was staking out a drug deal; turns out he had a front-row seat to a million-dollar cash drop gone wrong. Meanwhile, at a construction site across town, a young vagrant is killed execution-style after spreading some serious wealth among his street friends. Sydney sees no reason to link the shootings, until the money disappears from the evidence locker.

Izzy Harrington's fiancé is a successful entrepreneur and everyone's friend, but today she's waiting for him to get home so she can tell him they're over. Except Brad never arrives. Instead, three angry men knock on the door and insist on talking to Brad. When the police arrive asking difficult questions and demanding to see his passport, Izzy's packed suitcases suddenly take on a whole new meaning.

Until she stumbles across the dead body of judge Amanda Scott-Saunders. ? What starts out as a bad day for Lexy becomes even worse when the police discover the judge was strangled with Lexy's apron. Now Lexy's sitting at the top of the suspect list with a motive, means and opportunity...but no solid alibi. Lexy soon finds herself in a race against time to find the real killer before she ends up disqualified from the contest, or worse, in jail. But that's no easy task. There's a bakery competition full of suspects who all hated the victim and have a $100,000 motive for murder. And then there's the gorgeous, smart police detective who has mysterious ties to Lexy's boyfriend and thinks Lexy is the killer.

When Robin Nevins, the son of Hawk's boyhood mentor, is denied at an exclusive university, Hawk asks Spenser to investigate. It seems the denial is tied to the suicide of a young gay activist, and as Spenser digs deeper, he is nearly drowned in a multicultural swamp of politics: black, gay, academic, and feminist. At the same time, Spenser's inamorata, Susan, asks him to come to the aid of an old college friend, K.C. Roth, the victim of a stalker. Spenser solves the problem a bit too effectively when K.C. turns the tables and begins to stalk him.

Henry Krakow, loving husband, devoted dad, and lawyer to the down-and-out fights for his family through an underworld of vicious mobsters and corrupt power brokers conspiring to steal millions of dollars meant for rebuilding Coney Island in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy - a conspiracy that ultimately forces Henry to confront the legacy of his legendary father. Henry’s friend, Abdul (Shatterproof) Rahman is a struggling boxer and single father. When Abdul’s license to box is threatened by a brain bleed, he puts Henry in an impossible situation.

Jane Whitefield, the fearless "guide" who helps people in trouble disappear, has just begun her quiet new life as Mrs. Carey McKinnon when she is called upon again to face her toughest opponents yet. Jane must try to save a young girl fleeing a deadly mafioso. The deceptively simple task of hiding the girl propels Jane into the center of horrific events and pairs her with Bernie the Elephant, the Mafia's moneyman.

Many of the prices we pay seem to make little sense. We shell out $2.29 for a coffee at Starbucks when a nearly identical brew can be had at the corner deli for less than a dollar. We may be less willing to give blood for $25 than to donate it for free. Americans hire the cheap labor of illegal immigrants to fix the roof or mow the lawn and vote for politicians who promise to spend billions to keep them out of the country.

The Save the Environment gala has Molly DeWitt and dashing detective Michael O’Hara swimming with society sharks when Molly hooks the most endangered species of all: the late chairwoman of the affair. Tessa was no saint, and the rich shed crocodile tears for the departed philanthropist. Now the question Molly needs to answer isn’t who wanted Tessa dead, but who killed her - and why.

On opening day of dove season in Blanco County, Jimmy Ray Gladstone is confronted, then shot, by an attractive stranger with an unusual physical characteristic. But who is she, and how did she know about the robbery Jimmy Ray and his brother Russell had been planning? Game Warden John Marlin will have to figure it out on his own, because the sheriff’s office is stretched thin, Jimmy Ray has a head injury and isn’t making much sense, and Russell is nowhere to be found.

When Robin Nevins, the son of Hawk's boyhood mentor, is denied at an exclusive university, Hawk asks Spenser to investigate. It seems the denial is tied to the suicide of a young gay activist, and as Spenser digs deeper he is nearly drowned in a multicultural swamp of politics: black, gay, academic, and feminist. At the same time, Spenser's inamorata, Susan, asks him to come to the aid of an old college friend, K.C. Roth, the victim of a stalker. Spenser solves the problem a bit too effectively when K.C. turns the tables and begins to stalk him.