Spying in High Heels


Gemma Halliday - 2006
    shoe designer, Maddie Springer, lives her life by three rules: Fashion. Fashion. Fashion. But when she stumbles upon the work of a brutal killer, her life takes an unexpected turn from Manolos to murder. And things only get worse when her boyfriend disappears - along with $20 million in embezzled funds - and her every move is suddenly under scrutiny by the LAPD's sexiest cop. With the help of her post-menopausal bridezilla of a mother, a 300 pound psychic and one seriously oversexed best friend, Maddie finds herself stepping out of her stilettos and onto the trail of a murderer. But can she catch a killer before the killer catches up to her...

Shaking the Tree (The Man with Three Names)


Michael Donohue - 2011
    Out of prison, but still on parole, the only thing he wants is to keep his head down, go to work and maybe grab a cold beer at the end of his shift. He doesn't even care that the program stuck him in Essex - a nice, but nowhere small town. With his head already full of bloody and painful memories, he'd like it just fine if his past and future stayed nice and quiet.Too bad the present just got really messy.A body in a tree. A missing briefcase. A Russian hit man. A DEA agent bent on revenge. A corrupt mayor. Not to mention a sheriff with dangerous ambition. A meth lab in the woods. And some pissed off bikers. Things are suddenly very interesting in sleepy Essex county. Bodies are turning up. Secrets are coming out. Questions are being asked. Fingers are being pointed. It's not good being the new guy in a small town.

The Crime Beat: Episodes 1-3: New York, Washington D.C., Miami


A.C. Fuller - 2019
     A disgraced cop, tangled in a web of lies... Two unlikely heroes, brought together by one unthinkable crime in... Read the first three episodes of this addictive series, brought together for the first time in one volume. The Crime Beat, Episode 1: New York City Perched on the soft tar of a New York City rooftop, a mysterious sniper fires a single round from a fifty caliber rifle. Five stories below, his target collapses on the marble steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dead. Crime reporter Jane Cole needs this story badly. Suspended NYPD cop Robert Warren is desperate to clear his name. They don't trust each other, but they make the perfect team. And as Cole and Warren track the killer, they uncover a plot so ruthless it shocks the conscience, a crime so expansive it will rock the world. The Crime Beat, Episode 2: Washington, D.C. At the rooftop bar of the famed Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., a former Vice President is assassinated. Across the Potomac River, a mysterious sniper leaves a fifty caliber rifle on the bed of his hotel room, then disappears. Crime reporter Jane Cole and NYPD cop Robert Warren have clues no one else has. But as they arrive in D.C. to investigate, they're hit with a series of coverups and misdirections. And as they close in on the killer, they realize that they, too, are being tracked. The Crime Beat, Episode 3: Miami Arriving in Little Havana in Miami, Cole creates a list of potential victims while Warren tracks down an old confidential informant. Desperate to reach a reclusive financier, Cole then makes an unusual friend, who leads her on a wild-goose chase through Miami. All the while, news is breaking around the world that implicates Cole and Warren in the killings, and a mysterious pair has followed them to Miami. Perfect for readers of Michael Connelly and fans of True Detective or Jack Ryan, The Crime Beat is your next bingeable series from bestselling author A.C. Fuller. Grab the set now. The Crime Beat is a 9-novella series—each book between 140 and 200 pages—and is designed to be read in order.

True-Life Adventure


J. Paul Drew - 1985
    It wasn’t much, but it would keep Spot the cat in Kitty Queen tidbits.But then somebody poisoned Jack in Paul’s own living room. A day that begins with a body in your house really ought to get better, but next comes burglary and after that, assault-by-cop. And Paul’s got a feeling that’s just the beginning. There must have been something someone didn't want him to know in one of those client reports. But what?The wise-cracking, funny, but slightly depressed ex-journalist better become an ace private investigator in about two seconds—or end up like his detective mentor.Birnbaum's last report concerned a kidnapped child, so Paul begins there. The trail leads him to the laboratory of a Nobel laureate geneticist, and then to San Francisco City Hall, where an extremely nasty surprise awaits. But there’s an upside—lovely witness Sardis Kincannon. Nothing like falling in love while you’re running for your life!

Death & Decluttering


Nancy McGovern - 2020
    From her life as a busy reporter to her brawling, coffee-obsessed Italian family, there’s nothing she loves more than her messy, little life. Then the weird, slightly out-of-this-world Aurora Sparks arrives, whose life seems to revolve around creating order out of chaos. The two of them have somehow ended up as roommates in the small Upstate New York town of Bent River, and the old adage that says “opposite attract” couldn’t be further from the truth! Sparks fly & tempers flare as each young lady tries to deal with the other’s eccentricities while not compromising their own values. Much easier said than done. But when a man is found dead and Joy’s father is the prime suspect, the two must put aside their differences if they want to help him. They soon find that Joy’s tough, no-nonsense demeanor and Aurora’s ordered, structured nature perfectly complement each other when it comes to ferreting out clues. And thankfully so, as the danger threatens to escalate unless they can sort through the facts and solve this mystery in a hurry! Death & Decluttering is the first cozy mystery adventure in Nancy McGovern’s new series, Sparks & Joy!

Witch Unleashed


Kate Allenton - 2018
    I smile at the complaining guests and accommodate their weird and unusual needs. It's my job. I'm the glue that keeps my brother and dad from feuding and scaring the others away.I've ignored my curiosity and the pull to explore the rest of the world for far too long. Twenty-four more hours and I'll wipe the fake smile off my face and set sail for my first off-island vacation.But my plans change when the unimaginable happens...A notoriously wicked witch dies and someone starts pointing fingers at my father. Walking away is no longer an option with the suspects and motives multiplying.All that matters is proving Dad's innocence and I'll use every trick in my super sleuthing book to help.Witch Unleashed is an emotional mystery with twists and turns that leave readers guessing until the very last page.The rest of the books in this series build on each other, but can be read as stand alone.

Who Hates Marigold Flowers? (A Cornwall & Company Mystery Book 1)


Sara M. Barton - 2016
    Her specialty is parties, not crime. But there's no denying that someone with a lot of money and significant resources is out to silence her. What secrets does she hold about international money laundering and a criminal syndicate? How can she save herself when she's accused of trying to murder the U. S. marshal in charge of her safety? Enter the Cornwall brothers. Jackson, Lincoln, and Jefferson all have some special skills that can help untangle Marigold's complicated life. But they're going to have to work fast if they hope to prevent another murder...or before Marigold Flowers permanently disappears!

The Advocate


Lori Lacefield - 2018
    A young recruit who will have to expose the truth of just how far one of them will go to get revenge.\Former victim Palmer Reed is facing the 20th anniversary of her kidnapping when she is recruited to the board of a prestigious foundation dedicated to helping the victims of crime. Run by Marjoram Swall, a woman known as The Vindicator, who helped rescue Palmer twenty years ago from the hands of their mutual enemy, the foundation gives Palmer something to believe in, hoping that by helping other victims, she will resolve her own painful past.But something dark lies beneath the foundation’s surface, and after Palmer learns of the foundation's use of blackmail to raise money for their cause, she discovers that several individuals who escaped their blackmail attempts all later died in mysterious accidents. She investigates, and soon believes their deaths are anything but accidental.Faced with the dilemma of staying loyal to her mentor and the foundation that's provided her with a purpose, or exposing the truth and tearing her life apart, she's forced to question her own ethical boundaries, whether the pursuit of justice and the equalization of a faulty legal system is worth murder.But her mentor won't risk giving her that choice, and soon Palmer finds herself the target of an unknown killer, her former kidnappers, and even Marjoram herself. For Palmer has opened a deadly link to their past, and she's on a mission to uncover the truth.

Risky Bisqueness


Elizabeth Rain - 2020
    It should be the other half~The Best Half...That's what Julienne Mason told herself as she stared at herself in the mirror the morning after her 40th birthday...Husbandless...Jobless...Childless...Julienne Mason's Ego has taken a Beating. In the space of a day, she nearly burnt down the pizza parlor, lost her job, and walked in on her cheating rat of a husband.To top it all off? She's 40 and no one has noticed.With nothing to show for a lifetime of chasing the Joneses and trying to conform to everyone else's expectations but her own...Juli is more than ready for a change of lifestyle. But nobody ever told her that answering the summons to a strange letter would turn her entire life on a dime, and challenge every notion she's ever had on what normal is...Add in a Strange Inheritence, an Overbearing Ghost, A Snobbish Talking Cat, and a Sentient Recipe Grimoire; Sprinkle Liberally with Magic...And Maybe even Misfits like her deserve a second chance to get things right...But first she'll need to solve her Uncle's Murder and learn to Embrace her inner Witchiness...before she runs out of time and the killer Strikes Again...

Death Turns a Trick


Julie Smith - 1982
    That dirty job done, a lovely evening turns even more delightful when she’s picked up by the cops and spends the next two hours at the Hall of Justice. Could this day get any worse? Of Course! Guess who arrives home to find a dead hooker on her living room floor?Handsome Parker Phillips, Rebecca’s new beau and the most attractive man she’s met in ages, is arrested for the murder. (Worse, she suspects he might actually have done it.)On the plus side, another very attractive man is following the case--reporter Rob Burns of the San Francisco Chronicle, a possible ally. And there are other possibilities.Fans of Janet Evanovich, Joan Hess, and Elizabeth Peters will get a kick out of this one.

The Someday File


Jean Heller - 2014
    In Jean Heller’s first mystery featuring the scrappy newspaper columnist, Deuce finds out in short order that if you mess with organized crime, you have to be tough—and you’d better be as much detective as reporter. When she walks into a seedy neighborhood bar in a suburb of Chicago–-all six feet of her, topped with auburn curls—she’s searching for a human-interest story. What she finds is Vinnie Colangelo, an aging mobster living on bad beer, cheap bourbon and regret for the life he wasted.Vinnie hints at secrets much bigger than his rap sheet should entitle him to, and Deuce immediately discovers that somebody’s willing to kill to keep those secrets buried. She uncovers a series of crimes committed over nearly six decades, and, as her human interest story morphs into a hard-boiled, action-packed mystery, she finds herself dead center in a storm of threats and reprisals from the mob.It’s not enough that the mob’s after her, and corrupt government is concealing the evidence that would explain why; even her own editors, frightened of lawsuits and losing subscribers, want her off the story.Fortunately, she has many allies: a network of loyal co-workers and contacts, even an ardent new admirer. But which ones can she trust? At least one of them, she suspects, is hiding a secret–- corruption? Murder? The veteran reporter knows: if you’re talking Chicago crime scene—it’s probably both.Though attacked in her home, stalked, and shot at, Deuce doggedly batters the well-oiled machinery of terror that has kept the secret buried so long. Heller meticulously builds her heroine’s investigation, as the evidence--and the danger--converge in a white-knuckling confrontation.

You Can't Make Old Friends


Tom Trott - 2016
    Being sued by a client. And broke. Things can’t get any worse for Brighton’s No.1 Private Detective, Joe Grabarz, in this blistering debut novel from award-winning writer Tom Trott. That’s when his best friend’s body washes up on the beach. Could it really have been ten years? What happened? How could his life have ended like this? He needs answers. But with the city in the grips of organised crime, and struggling to deal with an influx of legal highs, who cares about just another dead drug dealer? Joe, that’s who. After all, you can’t make old friends.

Murder She Typed


Sylvia Selfman - 2014
    She gets more than she bargained for, however, when her nemesis, sexy blonde bombshell, Sondra Sockerman disappears under suspicious circumstances. Izzy soon realizes she has a natural detecting ability when she and her friend, Flo, try to find the killer...who is now after them.

Twins of Prey


W.C. Hoffman - 2014
    Trained in the arts of the woodsman, they became the ultimate hunting, fishing, surviving and killing forces that Uncle had designed them to be.However, Uncle knew he was leaving this world and that the twins would be okay with the world. What Uncle could have never known was if the world would be okay with the twins.When changing lives is not an option, the twins must begin to take lives. Enjoy this fast paced, thrilling outdoors adventure novel as the Twins battle against the society that wants to end their woodland way of life.Twins of Prey is W.C. Hoffman's first novel in the Twins of Prey series.

Murder So Wrong (Muckraker Mysteries #1)


Ted Clifton - 2017
    It is a very disturbing beginning for Tommy Jacks on his first day as a 1960s newspaper reporter, hired to cover politics. He soon encounters an eclectic group of characters who bring to life a different world at a different time: Taylor Albright, legendary gossip-monger and discredited columnist; Ray Jacks, Tommy’s father, an infamous political leader now in state prison; Joe Louongo, slimy lawyer of questionable ethics; Steve Marsh, sportswriter and former famous football star; J.H. Gilmore and his son, Robbie, wealthy and conniving owners of a competing newspaper; Tracy Clark, beautiful TV reporter; and Judy Jackson, gorgeous past playmate of Tommy’s. A story of the ’60s, full of intrigue, love, and tragedy—Tommy Jacks: Muckraker.