Showing titles in Amateur Sleuths

One Deadly Needle: A Mystery Waiting to Unravel Agatha Royale's Aunt Edna moves into the Green Acres Assisted Living Facility, expecting peace and comfort. Instead, she steps into a whirlwind of intrigue and danger. Agatha visits Aunt Edna, only to be met with shocking news: a resident has been found dead, murdered with a pair of knitting needles. Amidst whispers of secrets and betrayal, everyone becomes a suspect. Determined to clear her aunt’s name, Agatha, with her trusty miniature schnauzer Mike and her friend Emma, dives into the investigation. The deeper they dig, the more tangled ...

Manhattan fashionista Kelly Quinn thought she'd left her upstate New York town far behind...until the Seventh Avenue expat returns home to revamp her grandmother's consignment shop into an upscale boutique - and unwittingly sets a trend for murder....After her rising career as a Manhattan buyer is derailed, Kelly has mixed feelings about relocating back to Lucky Cove, in spite of her big plans for the soon-to-be-renamed Curated by Kelly Resale Boutique. What's left of her luck starts running out when a customer puts on a black lace dress that triggers visions of someone being murdered.

Hammocks, Handguns, & Hearsay: When famous bounty hunter Colt Lincoln is found dead in the Smelly Dog Groomer, Mae West and the Laundry Club Ladies know they've got a real doozy of a case on their hands. Questions, Quarrels, & Quandary: The Cowgirl Campers, an all-women's vintage camping club, roll into the Happy Trails Campground, but a chilling event soon shatters the tranquility. Witness, Woods, & Wedding: Mae has awaited her wedding day to Hank. As friends and family gather, everything is set for a celebration of love. But just as Mae is about to say her vows, a bolt of lightning struck.

Farlingaye Hall is a beautiful hotel in Suffolk on the east coast of England. Unfortunately, it is also the site of the brutal murder of Frank Parris, a retired advertising executive. Stefan Codrescu, a Romanian maintenance man, is arrested after police discover blood spatter on his clothes and bed linen. He is found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. It appears to be an open-and-shut case, but there is more to it than meets the eye.

After her husband’s unexpected death eighteen months ago, Kausar Khan never thought she’d receive another phone call as heartbreaking—until her thirty-something daughter, Sana, phones to say that she's been arrested for killing the unpopular landlord of her clothing boutique. Determined to help her child, Kausar heads to Toronto for the first time in nearly twenty years. Returning to the Golden Crescent suburb where she raised her children and where her daughter still lives, Kausar finds that the thriving neighborhood she remembered has changed.

A rude tourist dies after eating his way up and down the boardwalk, and all eyes fall on Allison, as the police blame her new macarons. The macarons have a secret ingredient that is so delicious it has customers lining up and down the boardwalk - but they are not, she knows, the cause of death. Allison, forced to clear her name and salvage her customers, has no choice but to retrace the victim’s foodie trek up and down the boardwalk, and to figure out what he ate - or who he insulted - that could have gotten him killed.

During a weekly Paducah Quilters Quorum session, Hadley worries about her looming deadline for the cookbook she's writing, the pain her best friend is in, her depressed young housemate, and the Paducah mayoral race she's favored to win against her nemesis—corrupt businessman Nick Stoddard. Then she learns that fellow quilter Donna considers the death of a coworker to be suspicious. Adding to her concerns, Hadley will meet the family of her beau, Detective Brandon Green, that night, and her younger sister, Jenny, will arrive for a visit, bringing three kinds of trouble with her.

The next book in the perennially adored No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series sees Precious Ramotswe calling upon all her maternal instincts when she's faced with a two-ton case. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but can Mma. Ramotswe and the rest of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency come together to raise a pipsqueak pachyderm? We may find out in this novel. We may not. Who can say?

It feels like kismet when Sarah Jones, newly relocated to Minneapolis after abruptly calling off her engagement, gets invited to join a group of women who share her same (very common) name. For years Sarah has received all types of correspondence intended for different Sarah Joneses, but now it seems that this mistake has given her the opportunity for an instant community. What starts as a low-stakes meet-up called “The Sarah Jones Project” soon turns sinister when another local Sarah Jones is found dead, under suspicious circumstances, at the base of the downtown Minneapolis bridge.

For all the Kellings' quirks, no other family in Boston is more adept at throwing a wedding. So when Max Bittersohn's wife, Sarah Kelling, offers to organize his nephew's nuptials, Max is smart enough to stay out of her way. But when the art-fraud investigator stumbles onto a family mystery, he is drawn into something far more serious than the question of who will catch the bouquet. Stolen years earlier, the priceless Kelling jewels were last seen in Amsterdam, so how did they end up among the wedding gifts?

Welcome to Anderson Springs, where nothing is quite as it seems, and danger lurks just below the surface. With their wedding day just around the corner, Lyndy and Cody are swept up in a whirlwind of planning and anticipation. But when a long upstanding citizen turns up dead under suspicious circumstances, their joy is tainted by tragedy. Drawn into the investigation, Lyndy and Cody quickly find themselves entangled in a world they never expected: the shadowy underbelly of the illegal sap trade, where betrayals run deep and trust is in short supply. As they dig deeper, Lyndy and Cody begin ...

Tensions are running high as the White House staff adjusts to a new chief usher and prepares for a high-stakes state dinner, where everything must be perfect. But as the date for the event approaches, things go disastrously wrong when the secretary of defense is found dead in his home, seemingly killed during a break-in. At the same time Olivia’s fiancé Gav is looking into the mysterious murder of an old friend.

Clare Cosi used to manage the historic Village Blend coffeehouse…until she opted for quieter pastures and a more suburban life. But after ten years and a little friendly cajoling from the owner (a fresh pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain was all it took), she's back to the grind. With a sprawling rent-free apartment directly above the Village Blend, her cat Java by her side, and plenty of coffeehouse redecorating ideas, Clare is thrilled to return to work. Until she discovers the assistant manager unconscious in the back of the store, coffee grounds strewn everywhere.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me—well, actually, my true love, Darcy O’Mara, is spending a feliz navidad tramping around South America. Meanwhile, Mummy is holed up in a tiny village called Tiddleton-under-Lovey with that droll Noel Coward! And I’m snowed in at Castle Rannoch with my bumbling brother, Binky, and sourpuss sister-in-law, Fig.

Life is looking rosy for Florrie Fox, manager of the Color Me Read bookstore in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. The bookstore's weekly coloring club is a source of friendship and entertainment, and no member is more vibrant than Dolly Cavanaugh. When Dolly's love of garage sales results in her showing up at Color Me Read with a rare book in hand, Florrie is astounded. The Florist was first published in 1760, and an original copy would be worth a fortune. That same evening, Florrie finds Dolly dead on the floor of her apartment, a corner of a coloring book page clutched in her hand.

There's trouble brewing at the Village Blend. Business is booming--but Clare's customers are starting to die. Soon after stopping at the coffeehouse, a regular jumps to her death in the subway. Or was she pushed? Detective Quinn is convinced that someone has an axe to grind, especially after the "suicide" of another female customer. Unfortunately, his prime suspect is Bruce Bowman--the new man in Clare's life. Bruce is the perfect blend of rugged good looks and potent personality.

With the arrival of six senior reading group members at the Merry Ghost Inn, the long-awaited grand opening week has finally begun for Melanie West and her grandmother Liza. All is well with the Oregon coast-side B&B until Melanie's dog, Max, finds the dead body of one of their guests.

Single mom Hayley Powell is barely keeping her leaking roof over her head in Bar Harbor, Maine, when her boss at the Island Times gives her a new assignment - taking over the paper's food column. Hayley's not sure she has the chops - she's an office manager, not a writer, even if her friends clamor for her mouth-watering potluck dishes. But the extra income is tempting, and Hayley's chatty first column is suddenly on everyone's menu - with one exception.

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched.

Thanksgiving night in Kansas City means the Plaza Lighting Ceremony. When Ellison Jones and her family go to her great-aunt's apartment to see the lights come on, she doesn't anticipate a murder (she never does). But when a shirt-tail relative falls from a seventeenth-floor balcony, she and Anarchy are drawn into the investigation. Can they catch a killer before anyone else dies?