Nature Mysteries

On the eve of Shiloh, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, a mysterious visitor appears at General William Tecumseh Sherman's camp. Without family or home, with only a uniform and the name of Jesse, this prepossessing stranger is an intriguing mix of naiveté and wisdom, ignorant of the most basic conventions of warfare yet uncannily familiar with even the most intimate details of Sherman¿s personal life and career.

Rome, 1948. Twenty women are brutally murdered, their throats slit and their faces removed with surgical precision. Then the murders stop as abruptly as they started, and the horrifying crimes and their victims are lost to history. Now over 60 years later, the killings have begun again. This time in America. It's up to homicide detectives Marcus Carter and Angela Darden to stop the murders, but how can they catch a serial killer who leaves no traces of evidence and no apparent motive?

The Chameleon Wore Chartreuse: Chet Gecko loves a good mystery. Almost more than he loves his fee - stinkbug pie. So when fellow fourth grader Shirley Chameleon asks him to find her missing brother, Billy, Chet expects the case to be as easy as pie. But Billy's disappearance is part of a larger plot. The Mystery of Mr. Nice: Most folks know him as the best lizard detective at Emerson Hicky Elementary, but it's not all knuckles and know-how with Chet Gecko. He's also got his artistic side. If it wasn't for his art, he might never have been sent to Principal Zero's office, where he stumbled onto the mystery of Mr. Nice.

A local schoolteacher is missing, and the only thing fishier than the circumstances surrounding his disappearance is the smell coming from the bag he left behind. All clues point to billionaire businessman Frank Pandini Jr. - but why would Pandini get his paws into the illegal fish trade?

When we turn our attention to the subject of elemental Intelligences or Nature-Spirits, we are confronted by this immediate difficulty, that we are led at the very beginning beyond and behind the world which we know through the channels of the senses. Sense perception does not help us at all in our study of that mysterious realm of life which constitutes the invisible background of physical manifestation. Madame Blavatsky warned us long ago that to describe Nature-Spirits or Elementals as having definite and corporeal form was likely to lead into great error.

The Tarpon Anglers Rodeo is back in Sanibel Island, and Doc Ford is watchful of the million-dollar competition. When Lucas O. Jones notices a boat rigging a net to injure fish, Doc and Luke are certain there's something wrong happening behind the scenes. The kids of Sharks Inc. have a special talent of finding themselves in odd situations. So when they stumble onto a private island protected by a gate, "No Trespassing" signs, and three scar-faced dogs, they ask a detective to visit the island, but find it empty when police arrive.

Case brief: The opening of the Kalamazoo City Dome - the world's largest indoor/outdoor amusement complex - has everyone in the city buzzing, especially because it's going to be the shooting site for Chase Mercy's new blockbuster film. But that's when things start to go haywire, and Mayor Saunders suspects foul play. Who would want to sabotage the Dome, and why?

Peter Bell the Third, accidentally named from the title of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, is called upon to renew his old friendship with Rowland Usher, who was deliberately named after the protagonist of a story by Edgar Allan Poe. In the new House of Usher that Rowland is building in the Orinoco Delta, Usher explains the scientific work in genetics that he's doing there to Peter, while they both mourn Rowland's dead twin sister, Magdalen, who has apparently committed suicide for reasons that no one quite understands.

The Great Zoodini—aka Radar the fennec fox—has never fit in. In fact, his only friend is a stuffed rabbit. Ever since his first family abandoned him, he’s had one goal: become world famous and show everyone how wrong they were about him. But no matter how many daring escapes Zoodini’s tried, he’s never even made the Association of Animal-Themed Attractions newsletter.

Der gefährlichste Kriminalfall des faulen Palastkaters. Ra, der faule und verfressene Kater des Pharao, begleitet den Kronprinzen Dedi und seine kleine Schwester Kija auf einer Reise den Nil hinauf. Ihr Ziel ist ein furchterregender Palast, um den es von Krokodilen nur so wimmelt. Die dortige Herrscherin Satiah verhält sich sehr seltsam und auch andere merkwürdige Gestalten treiben ihr Unwesen. Als der Sohn des Pharao plötzlich verschwindet, wittert Ra ein Komplott. Zum Glück ist sein treuer Gefährte Kepri, der Mistkäfer, bei ihm. Gemeinsam versuchen sie, den Prinzen zu retten.

Marine Biologist Doc Ford has a new mission for Sharks Inc.: visit Sanibel Island’s remote Bone Field to find a wild orange tree that's survived a disease destroying Florida’s citrus. There, the members of Sharks Incorporated find oranges unlike any they’ve ever seen but can’t find the tree Doc needs. Worse, the area is protected by a massive saltwater crocodile.

Lily is not your usual terrier. In fact, she's not a terrier at all. She's a pterodactyl who has the power (among others) of clouding people's minds. Join Lily, her owner - 13-year-old Celeste, and the other members of PAWS (Private Army of Warrior Sleuths): Fuzzy Wally MacGee (a Chinese crested/rhino), Lucy Marmoset Higgins (a Great Dane/orangutan), and Prince Alphonse Saed (a miniature dachshund/mountain lion) as they fight crime wherever they encounter it.

The O’Malleys have fostered dozens of cats in their bookshop over the past several years, but a new arrival named Regular is unlike any of their previous feline guests. This is Regular’s tale, but it is also Mack and Mavis O’Malley’s. It is about two “finds of a lifetime”: Kris, their young apprentice, opens a box to reveal a book that may be so valuable that it could make national headlines, and the O’Malleys discover something even more wonderful that will change their lives forever.

CRIME ALERT BULLETIN When surly cop Spencer is killed on a cyber crime case, he finds himself stuck outside the gates of heaven. He can only redeem himself through the J.R.P. (The Jerk Redemption program.) His task is to return in the body of his K-9 Partner and help Justin, a troubled teenage boy and his dysfunctional family. But, when he learns that the cyber crime gang is framing the family, Spencer must, with the help of the teenage boy, take down the gang once and for all.

The Jules Rimet Trophy (“World Cup”), the most famous sporting trophy in the world, was loaned by Football Association of England (FA) to a Stamp Exhibition in Westminster Central Hall as a promotion for the upcoming 1966 World Cup games. From this location, a block from Scotland Yard, thieves stole the World Cup on Sunday March 20, 1966. My story explains how a group of soccer-loving kids found out about the proposed theft, and with the help of their dogs, outsmarted the robbers by stealing back the Cup through a spine-tingling adventure to save the day for England.

Ein Stubentiger im Tal der Könige. Ra liebt sein Faulenzerleben als Pharaos Katze: Nickerchen am Pool und jede Menge Snacks. Aber wenn es um das ewige Leben im Jenseits geht, kennt er plötzlich keinen Müßiggang mehr. Und so ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass Ra und seine Freunde, der Mistkäfer Khepri und die fusselige Straßenkatze Miu, Ermittlungen einleiten, als ein königliches Grab aufgebrochen und ausgeraubt wird. Eine pelzaufreibende Verfolgungsjagd im Tal der Könige beginnt.

Baker Street mice - beware! So far the twins are safe. They'll stay that way if you do what we say. We've decided to make your Baker Street cellar the headquarters for our gang. Everybody must be out in 48 hours. It's Basil's job to move you all out, just the way he moved you in. Better make it fast! And leave the furniture - we need it. This is the only warning you'll get. And listen - if you don't follow our orders, you'll never set eyes on those twins again!

England, 1888. Fourteen-year-old Indigo Taylor dreams of becoming a detective, which as a young child is what she thought her solicitor father was. A local murder that seems too quickly solved inspires Indigo to do some investigating of her own. The thread she finds leads to a dangerous chain of events. Meanwhile, Indigo is befriended by a group of circus artists who live a refreshingly different way of life than the stifling society in which finds herself. For fans of Sherlock Holmes, Flavia de Luce, and The Mysterious Benedict Society.

Frog Squad comes to the rescue of a mega tanker in distress—and it's full of ice-cream! Will these brave rescue frogs be fast enough to stop Professor Cain and The Organisation of Amphibious Devious Scoundrels (TOADS) from controlling the global supply of ice-cream?

Edgar Allan Poe proposed that “the boundary line between instinct and reason is of a very shadowy nature” (1840). With its 21 stories of serial killers and sociopaths, fixations and fetishes, breakdowns and bad decisions crafted by authors as diverse as their writing styles, Shadowy Natures leads fans of psychological horror down dark and treacherous roads to destinations they will be too unsettled to leave.