Mystery Comedy Fiction

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate. I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that.

In this masterful debut, Martin Clark proves to be the heir apparent of great Southern raconteurs and the envy of more seasoned novelists as he takes us on a frantic tour of the modern South. Hung over, beaten by the unforgiving sun, bitter at his estranged wife, and dreading the day's docket of petty criminal cases, Judge Evers Wheeling is in need of something on the morning he's accosted by Ruth Esther English.

Warning: You may have a huge, invisible spider living in your skull. This is not a metaphor. You will dismiss this as ridiculous fearmongering. Dismissing things as ridiculous fearmongering is, in fact, the first symptom of parasitic spider infection - the creature secretes a chemical into the brain to stimulate skepticism, in order to prevent you from seeking a cure. That’s just as well, since the “cure” involves learning what a chain saw tastes like. You can’t feel the spider, because it controls your nerve endings.

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....

Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC. But there are rules: He cannot look inside the box. He cannot ask questions. He cannot tell anyone. They must leave immediately. He must leave all trackable devices behind. As these eccentric misfits hit the road, rumors spread on social media that the box is part of a carefully orchestrated terror attack intended to plunge the USA into civil war.

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.

Detective Ulf Varg from the Department of Sensitive Crimes is often called upon to investigate unusual matters. But rarely is he asked to conduct an inquiry on behalf of his own family. Is such a thing ethical? Adding to Ulf's moral discomfort is the fact that he does not exactly see eye to eye with his younger brother Bjorn - a leading player in one of Sweden's right-wing parties, the Moderate Extremists. Still, family is family, so Ulf finds himself working to uncover the mole leaking secrets to a rival party, the Extreme Moderates.

London, 2045. Three months into the Coffee Wars, and Britain's caffeine supplies are at critical levels. Brits are drinking even more tea than usual, keeping a stiff upper lip and praying for an end to it all. A secret government coffee stockpile could save the day...but then mysteriously disappears overnight. One man is asked to unravel the missing-coffee mystery. His name is Pond. Howie Pond. And he's in desperate need of a triple espresso.

Autumn is in the air in the Blue Ridge Mountain community of Crozet, Virginia - and all the traditions of the changing seasons are underway. Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen cleans her cupboards; her husband, Fair, prepares the horses for the shorter days ahead; and the clamorous barking of beagles signals the annual rabbit chase through the central Virginia hills. But the last thing the local beaglers and their hounds expect to flush out is a dead body.

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.

Fashion designer Maddie Springer has just tied the knot and is on her way to honeymoon paradise in Tahiti with her hot new husband. Warm sand, cool surf, and a romantic suite all to themselves... what could possibly go wrong? That is until Maddie stumbles on the dead body of a Tahitian dancer, strangled with her own flower lei.

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.

Grower's Market is set in remote marijuana country peopled with characters whose backgrounds are diverse and whose futures are uncertain. Sunbeam, who entered adult life as a 1960s San Francisco hippie girl, moved north searching for peace and quiet in unspoiled nature. Eventually she ended up running the Bird of Prey Tavern and growing enough weed to support her tranquil life.

Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.

En el año 2007 Jorge Magano presentó al mundo a Jaime Azcárate: un licenciado en Historia del Arte metido a periodista -y héroe ocasional- que vive las más asombrosas aventuras en territorio desconocido tratando de desentrañar los más complicados misterios relacionados con nuestras creencias, nuestros orígenes...y las relaciones sociales, aunque no siempre con el mismo éxito. Por el momento es el protagonista de tres novelas.

When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline.

The continuing success of the beloved Mrs. Murphy mystery series is given its proper due with the publication of this 20th-anniversary tale. When a local mechanic gets his odometer turned back—for good—Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen steps in to investigate. There’s more to the crime than meets the eye, though, and sleuthing cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, along with faithful corgi Tee Tucker, do their level best to keep Harry out of harm’s way.

Monday mornings aren’t supposed to be fun, but they should be predictable. However, on this particular Monday, Stephanie Plum knows that something is amiss when she turns up for work at Vinnie’s Bail Bonds to find that longtime office manager Connie Rosolli, who is as reliable as the tides in Atlantic City, hasn’t shown up. Stephanie’s worst fears are confirmed when she gets a call from Connie’s abductor. He says he will only release her in exchange for a mysterious coin that a recently murdered man left as collateral for his bail.

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.

England, 1865: Newspaper columnist Lady Katherine Bascomb finds herself the subject of speculation when her latest article leads to an arrest in the murders plaguing London. The English believe women ought not to write about such vulgar things as crime, and a particularly attractive detective inspector is incensed that she's interfered with his investigation. To escape her sudden notoriety, Katherine heads to the country - only to witness a murder upon her arrival.