Mystery Comedy Fiction

Being a hit man has its perks, but I never thought getting an accidental mooning by an attractive PI while he’s caught on a fence would be one of them. While it’s not exactly love at first sight, he’s captured my interest and won’t let go. Suddenly, I find myself caught in a game of cat and mouse, determined to attract the attention of Jackson, the PI who should be my enemy. He pretends like he’s not flattered by my flowers and the mentions of my totally-not-fictitious blow-up doll, Randy (or was it Dandy?), but I know better.

When Brighton Longfield discovers her treasured protection amulet is missing, she finds a note in its place from Langoria Skeenbauer telling her that Tuttlesmiths are not welcome in Coventry. Brighton confronts the woman in the town square with a crowd of Coventry's residents watching. Of course, Langoria Skeenbauer is one of the town's most upstanding citizens, so people assume she's innocent and Brighton is nuts. When Langoria is found dead in the cemetery across from Hangman's House, Brighton becomes a suspect.

Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my newspaper career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff". Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba "accident", might be the stiff of Jack’s dreams - if only he can figure out what happened.

Everyone who's anyone wants to be seen at one of Emory Jackman's legendary parties, from royalty to politicians, tech billionaires to Instagram models. But something sinister is happening on Little Pearl. Journalist Sven Olsen has heard rumors about the Jackmans trafficking young girls, and a secret auction joined by the rich and famous. He's been invited under the pretense of writing a profile about Emory and his mysterious wife, Tess, and will do just about anything to get the scoop.

Stephanie was married to him for about fifteen minutes before she caught him cheating on her with her archnemesis, Joyce Barnhardt. Another fifteen minutes after that, Stephanie filed for divorce, hoping never to see either one of them again.

Meg Langslow is plying her blacksmith's trade at Caerphilly Days, a festival inspired by the town's sudden notoriety as "The Town That Mortgaged Its Jail". The lender has foreclosed on all Caerphilly's public buildings, and all employees have evacuated - except one. Phineas Throckmorton, town clerk, has been barricaded in the courthouse basement for over a year. But the lender seems increasingly determined to evict him, and may succeed after one of its executives is found shot, apparently from inside the basement.

Иоанна Хмелевская – настоящая «королева» иронического детектива: этот жанр стал популярным в России именно благодаря ей и повлиял на целую плеяду современных писателей. Читатели полюбили ее книги за юмор, легкость и живительную атмосферу, в которую они погружают: с пани Иоанной и ее персонажами хочется дружить. Однако ее умные и тонкие романы стоят гораздо выше простой «юмористической литературы». Они полны любви и интереса к жизни, азарта и любопытства и неизменно поднимают настроение даже в самый пасмурный день.

When Ellison Russell, reluctant finder of bodies, chairs a gala in conjunction with the museum's Chinese funerary exhibit, she expects disaster. So, she's not remotely surprised when a body turns up. Ellison is willing to leave the investigation to the police till an attempt is made on her life. Now she's juggling evading a killer, her aunt's overly-amorous beau, her dog's new love interest, and Mother's displeasure. With bodies piling up, if Ellison's not careful, staying alive might be impossible.

First, there's the media frenzy over the “Hollow Man,” a gutless corpse found on the beach. And yet people think it’s perfectly normal to find dead sharks in the middle of downtown boulevards - or to spot black mushroom clouds behind the airport. Then there are the roving bands of carjackers who suddenly find themselves inconvenienced. Not to mention people lurking outside sex-addiction meetings. Could this be the work of Serge, that eccentric trivialista and one-man vigilante? And why is he extensively photographing foreign consulates right before the critically important Summit of the Americas?

It begins as an innocent trip to the deli-mart, on a quest for nachos. But Stephanie Plum and her partner, Lula, are clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time. A robbery leads to an explosion, which leads to the destruction of yet another car. It would be just another day in the life of Stephanie Plum, except that she becomes the target of a gang—and of an even scarier, more dangerous force that comes to Trenton. With super bounty hunter Ranger acting more mysteriously than ever (and the tension with vice cop Joe Morelli getting hotter), she finds herself with a decision to make.

Meg Langslow’s in for a busy summer. Her husband is directing a production of Macbeth, and most of the cast and crew are occupying spare bedrooms in their house. She also has to keep an eye on Camp Birnam, where a group of medieval reenactors are commemorating the real-life Macbeth by setting up what they fondly believe is an authentic medieval Scottish military camp. And then there’s Damien Goodwin, a filmmaker who has been hanging around, trying to document the production.

Meg's husband has decided to escalate his one-man show of Dickens's A Christmas Carol into a full-scale production with a large cast including their sons Jamie and Josh as Tiny Tim and young Scrooge and Meg helping as stage manager. When a famous, although slightly over-the-hill, actor comes to town to play the starring role of Scrooge, no one expects that he's bringing a lot of baggage and enemies with him.

Meg Langslow is pregnant with twins when Michael asks if she wouldn't mind having a houseguest. One of his doctoral students is directing his new translation of a play by a minor Spanish playwright, who will come to town for the production. Señor Mendoza turns out to be a partygoer who loves to spend raucous evenings among adoring students...at Casa Langslow. Into this chaos arrives the dean of the English department, who insists the play be canceled. Then the dean is found murdered.

Precocious six-year-old Bertie joins the scouts to escape his mother, Matthew learns to handle the challenges of marriage, and Domenica deals with loneliness. Even four-legged Cyril gets in on the action, finding himself a bit of canine romance.

Perhaps best known for his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, #1 New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith delights fans around the world with his warmhearted 44 Scotland Street novels. In the series’ sixth entry, the residents of 44 Scotland Street grapple with problems both trivial and severe, but none so great as when six-year-old Bertie Pollock - who longs to be seven - mislays his mum and learns a valuable lesson about wish fulfillment.

Carlotta Wren desperately needs a vacation from her life. So when hunky Cooper Craft invites her to ride with him to Florida for some fun in the sun and a VIP body pickup, it seems like the opportunity she's been waiting for. Until her brother Wesley, eluding an irate loan shark, tags along to play chaperone until they arrive to pick up their VIP body and are greeted by three different men - each one laying claim to the celebutante they've been hired to move.

Harry Christmas is unable to cope with the death of his wife and has been bouncing from one bad decision to the next. After a terrifying assault by the son of a woman he has conned, he makes up his mind to leave the country. Now Harry Christmas is on the run.

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.

The Expo begins with a literal bang: a bomb wrecks the hotel, killing a housekeeper and causing extensive damage. Luckily for Pickax, Qwill is on the scene, his moustache twitching with suspicions that this bomb was intended as something stronger than a warning to someone. His evidence: Koko and Yum Yum's new interest in cheese, especially Gruyere, Brie and Feta. Qwill and the Siamese are on a case that will demand all their feline intuition and mustachioed insight!

During an early morning feeding for her four-month-old twins, Meg Langslow hears an odd noise and goes downstairs to find her living room filled with dozens of animals. She soon learns that financial woes have caused the local animal shelter to repeal its no-kill policy. Her kind-hearted father, her zoologist grandfather, and other like-minded citizens have stolen all the shelter animals, both as a gesture of protest and to protect them until the hated policy can be repealed. But the volunteer who was transporting animals to new homes has been murdered.