Shirley Y. Thomas

Racine Avenue is going upscale — bad news for hand-to-mouth residents like V. I. Warshawski. As tax bills skyrocket, newcomers pressure old inhabitants into fixing up their homes or moving out. To the yuppies on the block the worst eyesore belongs to old Hattie Frizell, whose yard is “returning to native prairie, complete with hubcaps.” Their block club wants her and her five dogs gone.V. I. and Hattie have a relationship of sorts: one of those five dogs gave V. I.’s dog Peppy an unwelcome litter.

Anticipating problems, a prestigious global restaurant convention hires Leo as a security liaison. His assignment: monitor the movements of two adversarial steak-house competitors whose "beef" has previously made for some nasty confrontations and landed a food critic in the crossfire of two warring factions. Leo sends "the Boys" off to shadow all three parties and report back to him. But even the simplest of plans can cascade into catastrophe. And Leo soon finds himself served up as the prime suspect in a murder...realizing that both his life and career are at stake.

In the past... On a blisteringly hot August afternoon in Crystal Palace, once home to the tragically destroyed Great Exhibition, a solitary 13-year-old boy meets his next-door neighbor, a recently widowed young teacher hoping to make a new start in the tight-knit South London community. Drawn together by loneliness, the unlikely pair forms a deep connection that ends in a shattering act of betrayal. In the present... On a cold January morning in London, Detective Inspector Gemma James is back on the job....

Ben Jones, protagonist of the glowingly reviewed Never-Open Desert Diner, returns in a devastatingly powerful literary crime novel about parenthood, loss, and the desert in winter. Winter has come to Highway 117, a remote road through the Utah desert trafficked only by oddballs, fugitives, and those looking to escape the world.

The last time anyone in Cottonwood County, Wyoming saw Sheriff's Deputy Foster Redus, he was bloody, cussing, and driving his pimped-out pickup into the November darkness. A week before Christmas, rancher Thomas David Burrell was arrested for the assault and charged with the deputy's murder, since neither Redus nor his truck had been seen since the Monday after Thanksgiving. The prosecutor later set Burrell free due to insufficient evidence, but with the whole county still suspecting him of the crime...

Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway is called in to investigate when builders, demolishing a large old house in Norwich to make way for a housing development, uncover the bones of a child beneath a doorway - minus the skull. Is it some ritual sacrifice or just plain straightforward murder? DCI Harry Nelson would like to find out - and fast.

Mrs. Pollifax has a new hat, and only she and Mr. Carstairs know it conceals eight false passports which she must smuggle into Bulgaria.

Profiler Sarah Armstrong knows what it's like to be in a sticky situation. As a single mother and one of the few female Rangers in Texas history, she has had to work twice as hard to rank among the best cops in the Lone Star State. But when mega-wealthy businessman Edward Lucas III is found murdered along with his mistress, their bodies posed in grotesque ways, Sara quickly senses that this will be the deadliest case of her career. While others focus the investigation on Lucas's estranged wife, Sarah disagrees.

Miss Ailsa Brimley is in a quandary. She's received a peculiar letter from Mrs. Stella Rode, saying that she fears her husband - an assistant master at Carne School - is trying to kill her. Reluctant to go to the police, Miss Brimley calls upon her old wartime colleague, George Smiley. Unfortunately, it's too late. Mrs. Rode has just been murdered. As Smiley takes up the investigation, he realizes that in life - as in espionage - nothing is quite what it appears.

Cherry Bomb, the sixth Jack Daniels mystery, opens at the funeral. While Jack stands graveside, tears in her eyes, her cell phone rings. It’s the killer, escaped maniac Alex Kork, taunting Jack, drawing her ever further into a twisted game of cat and mouse. Because while Alex is more than willing to kill random victims, Jack is her true prey. But which woman wants revenge more? Cherry Bomb is J. A. Konrath's most gripping novel of suspense yet—filled with twists and turns that will keep listeners on the edge of their seats.