After a decade spent in the glare of the Hollywood spotlight as the star of kids' TV show Half Pint Detective, Sofia Salgado has had enough. Desperate to build a life outside showbiz, she quits acting to do something that everyone around her - including her family - thinks is plain nuts. Get a real job.

It was a hell of a long shot.... CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever - in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element.

Davis Way thinks she's hit the jackpot when she lands a job as the fifth wheel on an elite security team at the fabulous Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. But once there, she runs straight into her ex-ex-husband, a rigged slot machine, her evil twin, and a trail of dead bodies. Davis learns the truth, and it does not set her free - in fact, it lands her in the pokey. Buried under a mistaken identity, her hot streak runs cold until her landlord, Bradley Cole, steps in.

When Franki Amato leaves her cheating ex and erratic job as a rookie cop in Austin, Texas, she hopes for a quieter existence at her best friend Veronica’s New Orleans PI firm, Private Chicks. But life in The Big Easy is anything but quiet. Or easy. Her furnished apartment resembles an old French brothel, and her aging ex-stripper landlady has some rather odd policies.

Del Sol, New Mexico is known for three things: its fry-an-egg-on-the-cement summers, its strong cups of coffee - and, now, a nationwide manhunt? Del Sol native Sunshine Vicram has returned to town as the elected sheriff - thanks to her adorably meddlesome parents who nominated her - and she expects her biggest crime wave to involve an elderly flasher named Doug. But a teenage girl is missing, a kidnapper is on the loose, and all of this is reminding Sunshine why she left Del Sol in the first place.

Scientist Maryse Robicheaux thought that a lot of her problems had gone away with her mother-in-law's death. The woman was rude, pushy, manipulative and used her considerable wealth to run herd over the entire town of Mudbug, Louisiana. Unfortunately, death doesn't slow down Helena one bit. DEA Agent Luc LeJeune is wondering what his undercover assignment investigating the sexy scientist has gotten him into - especially as it seems someone wants her dead.

Charley sees dead people. That's right, she sees dead people. And it's her job to convince them to "go into the light." But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (i.e., murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she's been having about an Entity who has been following her all her life...and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely.

After being duped out of her life savings in Germany, Val Fremden retreats home to Florida with more than just her pride in tatters. Broke, jobless, divorced, and 45, she knows starting over won’t be easy. But when her only friend suddenly turns up dead, Val begins to wonder if the world is out to get her.

A small town with big secrets. A neighbor who bites. Plus a house with a mind of its own. Welcome to Wisteria.

Private Investigator Liz Talbot is a modern Southern belle. She blesses hearts and takes names. She carries her Sig 9 in her Kate Spade handbag, and her golden retriever, Rhett, rides shotgun in her hybrid Escape. When her grandmother is murdered, Liz hightails it back to her South Carolina island home to find the killer. She’s fit to be tied when her brother—the chief of police—shuts her out of the investigation, so she opens her own. Then her long-dead best friend pops in and things really get complicated.

Most people flee to Hawaii for gorgeous weather, white-sand beaches, and cocktails at sunset. Charlotte Gibson, however, is fleeing for her life after a vengeful mobster leaves a severed finger on her doorstep as a warning. Message very much received.

Danielle Garrett presents Book 1 in the Magic Inn Paranormal Mysteries.

Jolie Goodman never yearned for a life in Atlanta's fast lane. All she wants is a career in real estate, and she's willing to sell shoes at Neiman Marcus over the holidays to make ends meet. But recently, her boyfriend vanished - with her car - and her search for answers leads her to some very exclusive circles. Jolie hooks up with a pair of retail fashionistas who have made crashing society bashes an art form, and soon finds herself rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous...and rubbing other body parts with one of Atlanta's most eligible bachelors!

Kate McGuire’s life was sweet in Manhattan before she lost her restaurant job and fiancé both. But sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, and soon she finds herself starting from scratch in the island town of Coral Cay, Florida. It has everything she’s looking for: sunny beaches, friendly locals, and a Help Wanted sign in the bakery shop window. Once she convinces the shop’s crusty owner Sam Hepplewhite to hire her, Kate can’t tie on her apron fast enough. Little does she know that trouble, like warm dough, is on the rise.

Meg Langslow's summer is not going swimmingly. In her small Virginia hometown, she's the maid of honor at the nuptials of three loved ones - each of whom has dumped the planning in her hands. One bride is set on including a Native American herbal purification ceremony while another wants live peacocks on the lawn. But when an offensive newcomer, who hints at skeletons in the guests' closets, is found dead under suspicious circumstances, level-headed Meg's to-do list extends from flower arrangements and bridal registries to catching a killer - before the next event is her own funeral.

Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared 15 years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend, Brad Stockton - black and from the wrong side of the tracks - was convicted of the murders and is now on death row. Though he's maintained his innocence all along, the clock is running out. His execution is only weeks away when his devoted sister insists she spied Sarah at an area gas station.

It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. In the newest collection of stories by the Mystery Writers of America, each author weaves a fresh tale surrounding the eerie feeling that comes when a stranger enters our midst, featuring stories by prolific mystery writers.

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, Massachusetts, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number 17 in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived. When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday - the day she was kidnapped so long ago - Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous.

Starting your life over at age 38 isn't easy, but that's what Sarah Winston finds herself facing when her husband CJ runs off with a 19-year-old temptress named Tiffany. Sarah's self-prescribed therapy happily involves hitting all the garage and tag sales in and around her small town in Massachusetts. But after returning from a particularly successful day searching for yard-sale treasures, Sarah finds a grisly surprise in one of her bags: a freshly bloodied shirt...that undoubtedly belongs to her ex, CJ, who now happens to be Ellington's chief of police. And Tiffany has gone missing.

Sam Acquillo is at the end of the line: he's a middle-aged corporate dropout living in a ramshackle cottage in Southampton's North Sea. But then the old lady next door ends up floating dead in her bathtub, and it seems that Sam is the only one who wonders why.

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller's Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady"; she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown.

Maddie James has arrived in Daybreak Island, just off the coast of Massachusetts, eager to settle down and start her own business - and maybe even fall in love. When a stray orange tabby pounces into her life, she's inspired to open a cat cafe. But little does Maddie know that she's in for something a lot more catastrophic when her new furry companion finds the dead body of the town bully. Now all eyes are on Maddie: Who is this crazy cat-whisperer lady who's come to town?

Four years ago, 19-year-old Travis Brown made a choice: to raise his newborn daughter on his own. While most of his friends were out partying and meeting girls, Travis was at home, changing diapers and worrying about keeping food on the table. But he's never regretted his decision. Bella is the light of his life. The reason behind every move he makes. And so far, she is fed. Cared for. Safe. But when Travis loses his construction job and his home, the security he's worked so hard to create for Bella begins to crumble....

Persephone Wilder, a displaced genius posing as the wife of an American diplomat in Namibia, takes her job as a representative of her country seriously and comes up with an intricate set of rules to survive a range of problems: how to dress in hundred-degree weather without showing too much skin, how not to look drunk at embassy functions, and how to eat roasted oryx with grace. She also suspects her husband is not actually the ambassador’s general counsel but instead a secret agent in the CIA. She takes the new trailing spouse, Amanda Evans, under her wing....

Lindsey is getting into her groove as the director of the Briar Creek Public Library when a New York editor visits town, creating quite a buzz. Lindsey's friend Beth wants to sell the editor her children's book, but Beth's boyfriend, a famous author, gets in the way. When they go to confront him, he's found murdered - and Beth is the prime suspect. Lindsey has to act fast - before they throw the book at the wrong person.