When her childhood friend Scooter Barnes, exotic pet store owner and former Dallas Cowboy, threatens suicide, she sneaks into the crime scene and manages to talk him out of it. But Scooter is later found dead and everyone -- a hot FBI agent, a menacing one-eared maniac, the Argentinean mafia, and a flirtatious customs agent -- wants the scoop on what he told Cauley in his last hours. Up to her eyelashes in dead bodies, Cauley gets mixed up in a Texas-sized hunt for Scooter's killer and also manages to fall for a couple of cuties involved in the murder case.

    The newbie hotel detective is quickly overwhelmed when a murder-mystery weekend descends on the hotel at the same time as a Bob Johnson convention (yes, the attendees are all named Bob Johnson)—and that’s before a bra thief strikes, a contractor leaps to his death, and two more dead bodies turn up. Mayhem has checked in to the Hotel California. So, as it turns out, has a murderer. Like the little Dutch boy, Am must try and plug one leak after another. Will he be able to get the job done before yet another hotel guest checks out forever? Revised and updated edition Also available in a new paperback edition upon release A Q&A with Author Alan Russell Q: It has been a long time since the Hotel Detective books were released. What prompted their rerelease? A: I wrote the books as a young man, and many readers fell in love with the series. For more than twenty years people have been asking me, “When is the next Hotel Detective book coming out?” Q: And when is the next Hotel Detective book coming out? A: If this rerelease of the first two books proves popular, my hope would be to release the third book in the series by 2020. Q: What about this series do readers like? A: I wrote these books while I was a general manager at a resort hotel in La Jolla. Not coincidentally, the mysteries take place at an oceanfront resort in La Jolla. I think readers love getting an “inn-side” look at the operations of a hotel. Q: Reviewers have said these are a “departure” from your usual novels. A: Although I often use humor in my novels, the hotel novels were written with the express purpose of making readers laugh. If you don’t have a sense of humor, you shouldn’t read these books. Q: Is it difficult writing comedic novels? A: I would like to think I have a natural bent for doing it. That said, humor is very subjective. Over the years there have been very few mysteries written for laughs. It is a tough nut to crack. Q: You apparently succeeded, though. These books received starred reviews, and you won the Lefty, a prestigious award given to the best comedic mystery. A: It’s nice having an outlet for my warped sense of humor. Q: You are best known for your Gideon and Sirius novels. Are these series in any way similar, and do you think your Gideon and Sirius readers would like these books? A: Readers who appreciate Gideon’s wisecracks would probably like Am Caulfield, the main character in the Hotel Detective novels. Am’s humor is more situational, but in both men gallows humor runs deep.

    Daring declarations of love. Writer-for-hire Jaine Austen has penned them all. But when one of the love connections she made is broken up by murder, Jaine finds herself freelancing free-of-charge--and uncovering more than she bargained for. . . No one seems to need her help more than geeky, gawky Howard Murdoch. His request is simple enough: a letter proclaiming his undying love for Stacy Lawrence, a gorgeous aerobics instructor. The fact that he's never actually met the woman gives Jaine pause--but she soon overcomes her misgivings, warms up her computer, and starts pitching woo on Howard's behalf. To Jaine's surprise, the letter is a success--the unlikely Romeo lands a date! But his triumph is, sadly, short-lived. On Valentine's Day, Howard finds Stacy bludgeoned to death with a Thigh Master--and is quickly named the prime suspect. Upon hearing the news, Jaine is shocked. Sure, Howard's awkward, eccentric, and a tiny bit odd. But a murderer? That's hard to believe. Especially after a little sleuthing turns up a whole bunch of people who harbored less-than-loving feelings towards the svelte Stacy. But Jaine had better wrangle her clues quickly, before a crafty killer catches on--and puts a whole new spin on her ghost writing career. . . "This book is laugh-out-loud funny. A real winner!" --Laurien Berenson

    While setting up an exhibit of handmade quilts, she stumbles upon the body of a brutally stabbed artist. Hoping to conduct an investigation on her own, she crosses paths with the local police chief, who thinks this short and sassy cowgirl should leave detecting to the cops and join him for dinner. But it's hard to keep a country girl down, and soon Benni uncovers an alarming pattern of family secrets, small-town lies--and the shocking truth about the night her husband died...

    Raina Sun is a typical graduate student trying to keep her head above water as the bills roll in from a lawsuit disputing an inheritance from her dysfunctional family. Then her dashing college adviser cons her out of several months of rent. Her quest to get her money back sets into motion a streak of bad luck. First, she finds the dead body of an ex-lover and becomes the prime suspect to his murder. The only man she ever loved reappears as the lead detective to the case and wants to reignite their passion (or at least he’s sending out smoke signals). Her life careens out of control as her best friend does whatever it takes to get the inside scoop for the town’s newspaper. And her grandma moves into Raina’s postage-stamp-sized apartment, dragging a red suitcase and trouble. The family secret Raina has been running away from is now staring at her across the dining room table every morning.Raina must figure out how to extract herself before things get dicey. There is no place for an amateur when it comes to murder. The eclectic cast of characters in this amateur sleuth mystery will have you scratching your head and laughing until the end.

    And the verdict in this case could put Bree's life on the line'as well as her client's afterlife.

    ("My sister's married to a Polynesian! I just love your culture!") So Sophie knows it's not paranoia, or post-divorce, living-alone-again jitters, when she becomes convinced that a crazed reader is sneaking into her apartment to reenact scenes from her books. The police, however, can't tell a good plot from an unmarked grave.When a filmmaker friend is brutally murdered in the manner of a death scene in one of his movies, Sophie becomes convinced that a copycat killer is on the loose...and that she's the next target. If she doesn't solve the mystery, her own best seller will spell out her doom. Cursing her grisly ending (why, oh, why did she have to pick the axe?), Sophie engages in some real-life gumshoe tactics.The man who swoops in to save her in dark alleys at night is mysterious new love interest Anatoly Darinsky. Of course, if this were fiction, Anatoly would be her prime suspect.

    But when she's told she's too fat to stay on the force, Savannah opens up her own detective agency and soon finds herself investigating a murder. With suspects abounding, Savannah finds herslf sifting through the nasty mess of sex, adultery and down-and-dirty politics.

    Impressed by her knowledge of wines - and embarrassed by his date - he offers her a job as a winery manager at his vineyard and she accepts because - well, a girl's gotta eat. Where else would her wine expertise come in handy anyway? The eye candy was a nice bonus too.On her first night at Malveaux Estate, Nikki finds something wrong with the fertilizer around the bushes by her cottage: there's a dead body in it.Smack in the middle of the investigation, new girl Nikki is questioned as the prime suspect and told to stay put in Napa Valley. Nikki puts her sleuthing skills to work as she navigates the dramatic dynamic of Malveaux Estate's residents. As she gets closer to the truth, Nikki realizes she will have more than just a new job to worry about.Nikki has just set foot on Napa Valley’s rich soil when she realizes her new job may not be as safe as she thought. First off, Derek Malveaux is disconcertingly sexy. Second, his top winemaker is dead in the bushes outside Nikki’s cottage. It doesn’t take a connoisseur of foul play to know something’s taken a terrible turn…

    Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante, is an expert in martial arts. The year is 1908 and they’ve just moved from London to the country, hoping for a quiet life.But it is not long before Lady Hardcastle is forced out of her self-imposed retirement. There’s a dead body in the woods, and the police are on the wrong scent. Lady Hardcastle makes some enquiries of her own, and it seems she knows a surprising amount about crime investigation…As Lady Hardcastle and Flo delve deeper into rural rivalries and resentment, they uncover a web of intrigue that extends far beyond the village. With almost no one free from suspicion, they can be certain of only one fact: there is no such thing as a quiet life in the country.

    She gets roped into following a friend’s cheating husband. But tailing a middle-aged lawyer through the streets of San Francisco is more challenging than it sounds.Sam’s “easy gig” drags her into one perilous predicament after another, where she encounters a wide array of the citizens San Francisco has on offer, including: a hot cop, an out-of-control frat boy, a feisty grandmother who plays loose with the law, friendly leather daddies, an aging biker, a shady dude she used to know in high school, and worst of all, Slain. He’s a professional PI., who is so hardboiled he needs a Google Translate button. And he doesn’t appreciate some dame filching a gig from a hard-working shamus. Slain goes out of his way to make Sam understand that being a private detective is a dangerous business. And ends up making her life miserable in the process.If you love a good laugh, and can’t quite figure out how anyone could leave their heart in San Francisco, then grab a copy of The Trouble with San Francisco and fall in love with its madcap cast of characters. What else would you expect from the City by the Bay?

    Especially when dead bodies keep ruining your romantic dinner plans. But fashion designer turned amateur sleuth Maddie Springer is determined that her husband's latest case, dubbed the "Sex Shop Murder", will not keep him from celebrating their first anniversary together, which just happens to fall on the most romantic of all holidays, Valentine's Day. She's ready to do whatever it takes to make this night special and distraction-free - even if it means solving his case herself!

    She’s got the lease, the start-up funds, and the recipes. But Abigail's out of a tearoom and into hot water when the realtor turns out to be a conman… and then turns up dead.But not even death puts an end to the conman’s mischief. He rented the same space to a tarot reader, Hyperion Night. Convinced his tarot room is in the cards, Night’s not letting go of the building without a fight. Steamed, Abigail realizes the only way to salvage her tea room is to join forces with the tarot reader, even if he isn’t her cup of tea.But they must work together, steeping themselves in the murky waters of the sham realtor's double dealings, in order to unearth the truth – before murder boils over again.Steeped in Murder is the first book in the Tea and Tarot cozy mystery series. Buy the book to start this hilarious caper today.

    But when Felicity becomes the suspect in a local murder, Maggie must enlist Felicity's wiccan friends for help--and discover her own spellbinding talent.

    Or that she’s a gum-snapping hairdresser with Barbie-doll curves pinched into hot pants and a tube top. Or that she’s saddled with a sleazy ex-hubby, a precocious daughter and a shoplifting mother. What can a beautician do to add new highlights to her image? For starters, trip over a corpse, and implicate a wealthy town socialite in the crime. Now, with a well-muscled photographer by her side, Bubbles is playing star sleuth. But as the investigation unravels, her shining moment grows as dark as a shopgirl’s roots. However dangerous her new career, at least the hottest graduate of Two Guys Community College is finally busting loose—and this time she’s really giving Lehigh, Pennsylvania something to talk about. Sarah Strohmeyer won the 2002 Agatha Award for best first mystery for Bubbles Unbound.