Mystery Comedy Fiction

Kelp has a plan, and John Dortmunder knows that means trouble. His friend Kelp is a jinx, and his schemes, no matter how well intentioned, tend to spiral quickly out of control. But this one, Kelp swears, is airtight. He read it in a book.

In county lock-up for a traffic charge, Kelp came across a library of trashy novels by an author named Richard Stark. The hero is a thief named Parker whose plans, unlike Kelp and Dortmunder's, always work out. In one, Parker orchestrates a kidnapping so brilliant that, Kelp thinks, it would have to work in real life.

Violet Parker has big troubles these days—the ticking kind. To duck the Grim Reaper, she needs to get her hands on eighty-plus rare, mystical clocks locked up tight by a thick-headed detective. The solution? Hijack the truckload of ticking time bombs out from under Johnny Law’s nose. But no caper ever goes according to plan. What starts out as a game of clocks and robbers twists and turns into a chaos of cops and clobbers. Will Violet beat the detective in time? Or will she spend Valentine’s Day behind bars?

If the broken neon signs, shuttered storefronts, and sub-standard housing didn’t tip you off, you’ve just wandered into the city of “Undisclosed”. You don’t want to be caught dead here, because odds are you just might find yourself rising from the grave. That hasn’t stopped tourists from visiting to check out the unusual phenomena that hangs around our town like radioactive fallout. Interdimensional parasites feeding on human hosts, paranormal cults worshipping demonic entities, vengeful teenage sorcerers, we’ve got it all.

Alors qu’un typhon menace la baie de Hong Kong, la brigade policière de Jackie Thran encercle la cave à vin la plus sécurisée du monde, installée dans d’anciens bunkers de l’armée britannique. Un trio de braqueuses, aux agissements excentriques, s’y est infiltré et retient en otage l’impressionnant stock de M. Coetzer, estimé à trois cent cinquante millions de dollars…Revisitant avec brio les codes du film de braquage, Céline Minard signe un roman drôle et explosif, où la subversion se mêle à l’ivresse.

Lisa and Joe Stone, married for 20 years and sole partners in their small law firm in Henry County, Virginia, handle less-than-glamorous cases: domestic disputes, personal injury settlements, or a plethora of complaints from their cantankerous client Lettie VanSandt. When she dies in a freakish incident, the Stones think it's within the realm of possibility that she was cooking meth in her trailer. But details soon emerge that lead them to question how accidental Lettie's demise actually was.

Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon awakens in an Italian hospital, disoriented and with no recollection of the past thirty-six hours, including the origin of the macabre object hidden in his belongings. With a relentless female assassin trailing them through Florence, he and his resourceful doctor, Sienna Brooks, are forced to flee.

Finlay Donovan is killing it...except, she’s really not. The new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head.

After the death of his fiancee due to medical errors, hospital pharmacist Daniel O'Dwyer escapes to Oak Island, North Carolina. The only things on his mind are fresh sea air, fresh seafood, Fat Tire Amber Ale, and the avoidance of any type of healthcare institution. But fate and jellyfish draw him back, and reluctantly, he agrees to go undercover to combat narcotic drug diversion at nearby Boiling Grove Community Hospital.

Scarborough House is haunted, and it's not doing much for Donovan Scarborough's investment portfolio. No one wants to buy a place with levitating crockery, or (the wrong kind of) rhythmic pounding throughout the night. Luckily, Melody "I-See-Dead-People" Bittersweet has just launched her own ghostbusting agency with best friend Marina, geeky, keen Arthur, and a one-eared pug called Lestat. They're quick to take the case, even if it has already sort of (definitely) been given to Leo Dark, Melody's rakish, despicable ex.

On the 12th floor of the Acme Building, on a cold February day in St. Paul, Guy Noir looks down the barrel of a loaded revolver in the hands of geezer gangster Joey Roast Beef, who is demanding to hear what lucrative scheme Guy is cooking up with stripper-turned-women's-studies-professor Naomi Fallopian. Everyone wants to know, and Guy faces them one by one, as he and Naomi pursue a dream of earning gazillions by selling a surefire method of dramatic weight loss.

Senator Jim MacVeagh is proud to serve his country - and his president, Mark Hollenbach, who has a near-spotless reputation as the vibrant, charismatic leader of MacVeagh’s party and the nation. When Hollenbach begins taking MacVeagh into his confidence, the young senator knows his star is on the rise. But then Hollenbach starts summoning MacVeagh in the middle of the night to Camp David. There, the president sits in the dark and rants about his enemies, unfurling insane theories about all the people he says are conspiring against him.

1893 is a tough year in Montana, and any job is a good job. When Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer sign on as ranch hands at the secretive Bar-VR cattle spread, they're not expecting much more than hard work, bad pay, and a comfortable campfire around which they can enjoy their favorite pastime: scouring Harper's Weekly for stories about the famous Sherlock Holmes.

It's time for the Cherry Blossom Girls to become who we're meant to be. Solving murders? Taking on famous Hollywood actresses who have gone rogue? Exposing a terrible government program to the masses? Comes with the territory. One more mutant facility to destroy and we can set our sights on bigger things and faraway places. But it isn't going to be that easy, and there are other factors at play, risks we're going to have to take if we want to expose the truth. I just hope I'm ready to live up to the hype when the time comes.

The Byzantine Fire is much more than a flawless ninety-carat ruby. As a stone it's worth over a million dollars, a value vastly increased by its pure gold band - but its history is what makes it priceless. A ring that has been fought for with sword and pen and passed from nation to nation by all manner of theft and trickery, has finally made its way to the United States. The US agrees to return it to Turkey, but it's about to be stolen twice more.

London, 2044. Britain is a republic. President Jan Polak has vanished overnight from Buckingham Palace, just weeks before an election. Has he been kidnapped? Or even killed? One man is determined to find out - as soon as he's had his breakfast. His name is Pond. Howie Pond - the president's official spokesperson and wannabe secret agent. With just a love of James Bond films to guide him, Howie sets out on a mission to solve the missing-president mystery.

Spring comes to Crozet, Virginia, with a bang when a professor is gunned down in broad daylight. Now it's up to kitty sleuths Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, along with crime-solving corgi Tee Tucker, to sniff out the killer.

Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League” college—its location unknown to even those who study there—is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate.

Jim Wekle's first day as a trooper on an island in Alaska could have gone better. It was raining, the coffee was bad, and within hours of stepping off the seaplane, he found a bikini-clad girl floating in a kelp bed. As Jim investigates who might have put the bullet in her back, he stumbles across a uniquely diverse and extraordinarily hilarious batch of island inhabitants. Puffing on his imported cigars, Jim soon learns that no one on the island is more unique, diverse, or hilarious than his unlikely counterpart: a man simply known as Kram.

I'm not Goth to hide my Drow heritage, I'm Goth because I'm not a quitter. My name is Cheyenne Summerlin, remember that name. Somebody should. The world can't know I'm a Drow halfling. Not yet. I barely have these powers under my control, but time's up. I'm about to take magic for a test drive. Want to come along? The black ops government group believe they can run my life... But I have plans of my own. Watch out magical evil doers - I'm about to crash your party. But will my training be enough?

After her music career crashes and burns, Juliet Langley is forced to turn to the only other business she knows: food service. Unfortunately, bad luck strikes yet again when her fiancé robs her blind and runs off with her best waitress. Flushing what's left of her beloved cafe down the toilet with her failed engagement, Juliet moves back to her college stomping grounds in Nashville to manage an old friend's coffeehouse.