Mystery Comedy Fiction

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. From her time on the Atlanta police force, Callahan has excelled at mopping up messes of all kinds. But she has no idea what she's getting into when she agrees to work for infamous antiques dealer Elliot Littlefield. The first day on the job, she and her crew are on the trail of a stolen Civil War diary.

LA shoe designer Maddie Springer lives her life by three rules: Fashion. Fashion. Fashion. But when she stumbles upon the work of a brutal killer, her life takes an unexpected turn from Manolos to murder. And things only get worse when her boyfriend disappears - along with $20 million in embezzled funds - and her every move is suddenly under scrutiny by the LAPD's sexiest cop. With the help of her post-menopausal bridezilla of a mother, a 300-pound psychic, and one seriously oversexed best friend, Maddie finds herself stepping out of her stilettos and onto the trail of a murderer.

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.

For centuries, the Koh-i-Noor diamond has set man against man and king against king. Now part of the British Crown Jewels, the priceless gem is a prize that many have killed to possess. So when the Crown Jewels go on display in Mumbai, security is everyone's principal concern. And yet on the very day Inspector Chopra visits the exhibition, the diamond is stolen from under his nose. The heist was daring and seemingly impossible. The hunt is on for the culprits.

From Emmy Award-winning author David Quantick, All My Colors is a darkly comic novel about a man who remembers a book that may not exist, with dire consequences. A bizarre, mind-bending story at the intersection of Richard Bachman, Charlie Kaufman, and Franz Kafka.

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.

For the first time in Spellman history, Isabel Spellman might be the most normal member of her family. Mom has taken on an outrageous assortment of extracurricular activities. Dad has a secret. Her brother and sister are at war, but neither will reveal the source of the conflict. While domestic disturbances abound, there is one source of sanity in the Spellman household: Demetrius Merriweather, employee of the month for 18 months straight. Things aren't any simpler on the business side of Spellman Investigations....

Lora Weaver follows romance from New York to Montreal and expects to find a touch of Paris in North America — cobblestone streets, sidewalk cafés, fabulous shopping, and a little joie de vivre [zest for life]. Not dangerous liaisons. But, when she takes a job at a PI agency owned by a French brother and sister team, her life takes on more twists and turns than a Cirque du Soleil show.

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.

The Extravaganza of the Seas is a 5,000 ton cash cow, a top-heavy tub whose sole function is to carry gamblers three miles from the Florida coast, take their money, then bring them back so they can find more money.

A woman falls from a tour helicopter to the horror of the 8:30 pirate show crowd. Was it suicide? An accident? Could she have been pushed? Lucky's day began with the invasion of the Adult Video Awards and trade show convention. It got more hectic when the spouse-swapping annual event checked in. And if adding a body to the mix wasn't enough, Lucky's got a new suitor. Her best friend, Teddie, a female impersonator who is pressing to take their relationship to the next level. Can she really date a man who looks better in a dress? What happened to the woman over the pirate show?

The Aventine is full of fracturing families. Wives plot to leave their husbands, husbands plot to spend more time with their mistresses. Masters must endure slaves taking obscene liberties, while aggressive slaves are learning to ape dangerous masters. But no one wants to hire an investigator during the holiday. Albia is lumped with her own domestic stress: overexcited children and bilious guests, too many practical jokes and her magistrate husband Tiberius preoccupied with local strife.

Seal Island is home to a moonshine-making billionaire, a pot-growing fisherman, a celebrity flower child, a handsome romance writer, a sex-addicted realtor, a womanizing pub owner, a cop, a pot-bellied pig…and a serial killer. The island is serene and remote. It is only accessible by boat. The residents like it that way, until those with the deepest and darkest of secrets start dying in the most bizarre of ways.

Dilbert Pinkerton's not the greatest private detective, but he's good at sniffing out clues. Of course, it's hard to take a five-foot-nothing mutant armadillo in a trench coat and fedora seriously. He sticks his snout where it doesn't belong far too often while digging for the truth. So when some rich dame asks him to steal - ahem, retrieve - a pearl necklace from her ex-husband, Dill almost reconsiders. Until, that is, she offers him so much money that he can't refuse.

Italy might seem like a long way to go to hide after a disastrous date. But when sexy uberhacker Slash (no, that's not his real name) asks me to go with him to Rome on an investigation, the timing is sort of perfect. My messed-up love life becomes the least of my worries, though, after the dead body, the near-kidnapping and the discovery of a top secret encrypted file that even I can't hack.

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?

'What? You mean the earl does it for money? That's way beyond the barbed wire!' This explosion of disgust from Blotto is provoked when Twinks informs him of the activities of the Earl of Woking. The gentleman in question is owner of Clusters, a stately home not far from Tawcester Towers, and he has been renting out parts of Clusters for private functions - and charging his guests! The discovery of this appalling lapse in aristocratic behaviour sets Blotto and Twinks off on their latest adventure.

That’s what the tour guide promises Dr. Linda Farmer and her family when they move to Plymouth Valley. Sure, the locals are privileged hot house flowers who observe a weird religion Hollow, but the schools are blue ribbon, the air’s clean, the food’s fantastic, and Linda’s out of options. With the outside world in shambles, this move is her family’s last chance.

Eve Dallas untersucht die brutale Ermordung eines jungen Liebespaares, als ihre Freundin Mavis sie um Hilfe bittet. Tandy Willowby, eine werdende Mutter aus Mavis' Geburtsvorbereitungskurs, ist spurlos verschwunden. Tandy war gerade von London in die USA ausgewandert und hat bislang nur wenige Freunde in New York. Ist sie womöglich entführt worden?

Within months of having taken control of the family detective business, Izzy Spellman is accused of embezzling from a former client, the ridiculously wealthy Mr. Slayter, who happens to have Alzheimer's, which Izzy and he are diligently trying to keep under wraps. Not only is Slayter's business and reputation on the line, but if Izzy gets indicted for embezzlement, she'll lose everything - her business, her license, and her family's livelihood. Is this the end of Izzy Spellman, PI?