Mystery Comedy Fiction

It’s been seven years since Gloomy Knob landed in the Ted Stevens High-Security Federal Penitentiary and five years since the end of the war, the one North Korea started when they sent a missile to Cold Storage, Alaska. Serving a life sentence for the murder of his sister, Gloomy spends his time trying to forget about the past. Then one day, Gloomy is snatched from his off-site work station. Instead of celebrating his newfound freedom, Gloomy comes unmoored - he feels he belongs in prison. But his kidnappers believe Gloomy knows where a second nuclear warhead is hidden.

As a tabby cat with criminal tendencies, MacGyver is always a whisker away from trouble. But when he stumbles upon a litter of four motherless kittens, he really has his paws full. It's clear Mac has to take care of the cuddly little furballs, at least until he finds them each a human. That's not going to be easy though. Not when Mac's the prime suspect in a series of thefts at Storybook Court - and his loving but concerned owners, Jamie and David, have put him under house arrest. As if that could stop a clever cat like Mac....

Problem number one: Bootsy Howard. Davis Way Cole lives a (relatively) quiet, (somewhat) simple, and (completely) witch-free life with her husband and twin daughters on the 29th floor of the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. Until Bootsy Howard shows up demanding a million dollars. Problem number two: Princess Smucker. What was marketing thinking when they booked the Southern Canine Association's annual dog show at the Bellissimo? And what was Davis thinking when she agreed to let a dog stay with her? For a week? In her home?

Sammy Dee is a mid-level Long Island mafioso in witness protection. Didier Onyekachukwu was the corrupt minister of finance of the former Upper Volta. Both men find themselves in middle age, living in the Southern California version of genteel poverty in a down-market condo complex called Paradise Gardens. Enter Marcy Gray, a "mature" actress barely getting by on a meager SAG pension.

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?

All of a sudden the streets of your city are so overpopulated with security cameras and closed-circuit TV that you have to lock yourself in the bathroom to have an undocumented moment. And locks, which used to provide the recreational pleasure of a moderately challenging crossword puzzle, have become genuinely pickproof.

When Jude agrees to lend her vintage chaise longue for the local Amateur Dramatic Society’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple, little does she realise she’ll end up in a starring role. It’s an ambitious play, culminating in a dramatic execution scene: a scene that’s played for real when one of the leading actors is found hanging from the specially constructed stage gallows during rehearsals. A tragic accident - or something more sinister?

Though another devastating hurricane is raking Florida, its awesome power can’t stop the Sunshine State’s most loyal son, Serge A. Storms, from his latest scenic road trip: a cemetery tour. With his best bro Colman riding shotgun, Serge hits the highway in his ’69 gold Plymouth Satellite, putting pedal to the metal on a grand tour of the past.

Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages, and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. Flash Harry is back! The first new Flashman novel since Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, this is the long-awaited new installment of the Flashman Papers.

Rhiannon Lewis thought she finally had it all: thanks to the pandemic she’s had to keep a much lower profile but has found happiness with her fiancé Rafael and his family. For once, she is surrounded by people who love her for who she is (or who they think she is). After over 800 days without murdering anyone, the woman formerly known as the Sweetpea Killer thinks she might have finally turned over a new leaf. That is until her soon-to-be sister-in-law has a run in with her abusive ex, and Rhiannon rediscovers her taste for revenge.

Is someone systematically killing the judges called to the British Columbian bar? At least one has been murdered and several have disappeared. Arthur Beauchamp returns from retirement once again to take on the case, this time defending his former nemesis, backwoods poet Cudworth Brown. He finds himself chasing all kinds of leads, including tracking down a mystery novel that Brown’s unreliable former lawyer has been writing, just as Beauchamp’s own wife, Margaret, has announced her candidacy for the Green Party.

Ava doesn't mind raising the dead. It's all a part of being a necromancer. And people keep telling her that she's one of the strongest ones to ever live, but she doesn't believe it. Except she can also heal people, living or dead, which is unheard of.

Things are going well for Jane Murphy, or so it seems. She’s making it in New York, a sort of wunderkind at the social media marketing startup where she works. She’s put an experimental writer, Jeremy Miller, on the map by helping him concoct a viral internet novel, told in fragments through various fake social media accounts. But privately, Jane feels trapped, ruled by her routines and her compulsions, caught up in an endless cycle of soothing and punishing herself.

Mallory Devereaux is known throughout the town of Royal Flush, Louisiana, as a walking disaster, and her luck just got worse. She needs to raise $10,000 in one week to keep the IRS from seizing her adoptive father’s business, where she works as the demolition foreman. When the opportunity to cool cards at her uncle’s casino comes up, Mallory hopes her luck is changing. But when she realizes her uncle has assembled a tournament of criminals, she wonders what she’s stepped in the middle of.

Coalville is on fire—from below. The old mines are burning, and everyone has poison gas in their brain. Maybe that’s why the town is so corrupt. Now that he’s a Benedictine monk, Tommy Martini never wants to see the place again—hell-raisers there hold a grudge till they die, and he’s on their wish list. But a girl he once loved has gone missing, and his best friend from childhood has been murdered. Among the living is a shy girl from Tommy’s past, who wants to help. Together, they learn the secret of the elephant’s graveyard, and it’s not in Africa.

What do you get when you combine a chicken named Elvis, a locked diary, and a secret Violet Parker does not want share with her daughter? Seeing Trouble is the first of many short stories involving the characters of the Deadwood Mystery series.

It's Christmas time in Caerphilly, and the town is preparing for their live nativity. During rehearsals, Meg discovers a real baby in the manger, with a note attached that says the mother is leaving the baby girl there so that her father can take care of her, and the wording of the note implicates Meg's brother, Rob, as the father. Rob protests that he can't possibly be the father, but the town's suspicion creates a rift between him and his new girlfriend. Rob asks Meg to investigate on his behalf‚ to clear his name and to find the real parents of the baby.

When a freak accident hospitalizes Marty Golden's sister and condemns him to babysitter duty, he thinks it's just another case of hardwired bad luck in Silicon Valley. Until a suspicious murder suggests the mishap was no mere coincidence. Something must be done. Too bad this quirky, fashion-backward uncle isn't exactly hero material. Convinced his sister is in mortal danger, he follows clues to an oddball array of suspects. Armed with nothing but an eye for detail and powers of self-delusion, Marty tangles with gangsters, a cantankerous school secretary, and a perplexing woman.

The witches of Coventry are all on edge when the crew of a famous ghost hunting show arrives in town. Coventry has been good at hiding its secrets from the world for hundreds of years, but in the deep dark corners of the web, whispers of a town full of witches and ghosts circulate among those who are true believers of the paranormal. When it's decided that denying them a filming permit would just make them more suspicious, Brighton is elected by the town council to be their official Coventry escort. Her job is to ensure they don't catch any convincing evidence of the paranormal.

The winds of change are blowing, bringing gentrification to Callahan Garrity's funky Atlanta neighborhood. Though it probably won't harm her House Mouse housecleaning service, not everyone welcomes the rebirth. And when the body of a murdered microbrewer is discovered in the aftermath of a furious Halloween gale, suspicion falls on the aging "flower child" shopkeeper whom the victim put out of business.