Suspense Amateur Detective

Agaton Sax faces one of his most challenging cases yet, when a secretive criminal mastermind steals Scotland Yard's 'register of current criminals' from under the nose of Inspector Joshua Lispington. Agaton will have to employ all of his considerable skill and intellect to get it back, overcoming fake detectives, masked men, incompetent sailors and even dastardly pirates! It’s all just another day in the exciting life of Sweden's finest detective.

When Lily Mason and her human boyfriend, Parker Knowles, help a friend rescue two abused pitties, they're determined to find out who abandoned the dogs in a deserted house. But the decrepit home has other secrets, too, such as the dead body in the basement. For once, Lily hasn't stumbled upon a corpse, but Parker's buddy has - and he's arrested for murder. With the help of their friends, human and nonhuman alike, Lily and Parker are determined to find out what really happened. Even if it means putting their own lives in danger.

When elderly Opal Dixon breaks a hip and must recuperate in a nursing home, she spends all her time complaining about her annoying roommate, her idiot doctor, and the laundry service that keeps losing her clothes to anyone who will listen. So, Lily is less than convinced when Opal insists a nursing home suicide is really foul play. Still, to ease her friend's fears, Lily agrees to look into the situation. With her loyal dog Smooshie at her side while she delves into the case, Lily soon learns that it's not all bingo and low-sodium diets at Moonrise Manor.

"Only in Bologna" reads the headline in the Carlino after a professor of music is apparently murdered leaving the opera. But what looks like an open-and-shut case begins to fall apart when English detective Daniel Leicester is tasked with getting the accused man off, and a trail that begins among Bologna's close-knit classical music community leads him to suspect there may be a serial killer at large in the oldest university in the world. And as Bologna trembles with aftershocks following a recent earthquake, the city begins to give up her secrets.

Leilani Santiago is back in her birthplace, the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, to help keep afloat the family business, a shave ice shack. When she goes to work one morning, she stumbles across a dead body, a young pro surfer who was being coached by her estranged father. As her father soon becomes the no. 1 murder suspect, Leilani must find the real killer and somehow safeguard her ill mother, little sisters, and grandmother while also preserving a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend in Seattle.

Thanks to Aunt Peg and her enthusiastic dog show pals, Melanie's aptly named Bite Club reading group has book lovers all over town burying their noses in thrilling murder mysteries. But another pet project surfaces when Melanie reluctantly agrees to train a Bulldog puppy for elusive member Evan Major. Between the unusual bruise on his face and a bizarre run-in with an unknown dog show attendee, introverted Evan's penchant for trouble sends him to an early grave - while landing Melanie in the hot seat for homicide.

For my birthday, my best friends Gilly and Pippa signed us up for a weekend at the Central Midwest Spa Convention. Yay. Massages, fine dining, maid service, and best of all, as long as we attend a few workshops, the weekend is a tax write-off. It should be all sunshine and roses, right? Wrong. My former intern at Belliza Beauty aka the Job Stealer, Carmen Carraway, is a featured presenter. Yuck. Throw in an ex-boyfriend, a number one fan, a brewing scandal, and a dead body, and my relaxing birthday weekend is DOA.

As Greenwich, Connecticut, slows down during a bitterly cold February, Melanie and her spunky Aunt Peg head to the city that never sleeps for the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. Aunt Peg can't wait to demonstrate her judging chops on national TV, even after being hounded by frustrating mishaps - all seemingly orchestrated by Victor Durbin, an ousted Paugussett Poodle Club member with a bone to pick. But the bright lights of the show ring grow dim when Victor is found murdered, and she's the one topping the suspect list.

For ex-accountant Emma Reed and her beloved corgi, Oliver, opening Reed's Classic Tea & Cakes in the idyllic village of Trevena in Cornwall has been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. How about being asked to help cater the local Daphne DuMaurier literary festival? But when the festival organizer is found dead and foul play is suspected, Emma, Oliver, and their friends are plunged deep into a poisonous mix of village jealousy, family tension, money troubles, and secret love affairs.

All homicide detective Dylan Collins wants is a few hours of pleasure to take his mind off of the case haunting him. A serial killer is stalking the streets of Charleston, SC—a killer who calls himself The Grim Reaper. When the woman he'd just spent the night with turns up and offers her services as a psychic consultant on the case, his ardor quickly cools. Last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a con artist.

What looks more impressive on a resume? Nosy amateur sleuth or struggling no-name actress? Neither one pays the bills, and Becky Robinson has a lot of bills. So, when she's invited to the reading of her rich uncle Al's will, she daydreams about her inheritance. The problem, Becky doesn't have an uncle Al. And she never met the deceased. The mysterious stranger leaves her a ceramic flamingo with a hidden message. Turns out her fake uncle was murdered, and she was hired from the grave to find whodunit.

Jay and his friends are on the cusp of perpetrating the greatest heist in Leif Erickson High history when they unwittingly find themselves dangerously close to a murder scene. Consumed with an irrational obsession, he is determined to do anything to solve the crime, including hiring a private investigator, infiltrating a sex club, and indulging in a 90-day LSD binge. Forced to confront his demons, both real and imagined, he must unravel the conspiracy of an elusive octopus and his lascivious minions to find the killer.

Welcome to Willieville is a novelette set in 1998 about a high school graduate, Willie, whose friend is murdered while they party on a warm Friday night, out behind the 7-Eleven. He's in a suburb north of Detroit where the primary mission of the police is to keep things just the way they are. Willie, nearly killed in the attack that took his friend's life, didn't see who did it, so the police have little to go on, and assume that it was a drug deal gone bad. Forced to investigate on his own, Willie makes a terrible discovery about the murderer.