When millionaire Arthur Arbuthnot mistakes gossip maven Annabel Hinchby-Smythe for a decorator—and hires her to redecorate his apartment—the fiscally challenged Annabel can't refuse. When she sees Arbuthnot's tatty London flat, she knows anything will be an improvement. And any gossip she can dig up will be pure gold for the tabloids. But when Arthur is found dead, his frisky relatives begin to lick their chops. Arbuthnot's beloved tabby, Sally, was the only witness to the homicide—and the sole...
When a top-ranked competitor keels over at a dog obedience trial, photographer Janet MacPhail is swept up in a maelstrom of suspicion, jealousy, cut-throat competition, death threats, pet-napping, and murder. She becomes a “person of interest” to the police, and apparently to major hunk Tom Saunders as well. As if murder and the threat of impending romance aren’t enough to drive her bonkers, Janet has to move her mother into a nursing home, and the old lady isn’t going quietly. Janet finds...
Carrie Singleton is just about done with Clover Ridge, Connecticut until she's offered a job as the head of programs and events at the spooky local library, complete with its own librarian ghost. Her first major event is a program presented by a retired homicide detective, Al Buckley, who claims he knows who murdered Laura Foster, a much-loved part-time library aide who was bludgeoned to death fifteen years earlier. As he invites members of the audience to share stories about Laura, he suddenly...
*Dessert chef Casey Feldstein doesn’t know a knitting needle from a crochet hook. But after her aunt dies unexpectedly, leaving Casey to run her yarn retreat business, the sweets baker finds herself rising to the occasion—and trying to unravel a murder mystery* When Casey finds out that her late aunt’s business, Yarn2Go, has one more yarn retreat scheduled, she decides to go ahead and host the event, despite her complete lack of experience as a knitter. At least the retreat is on the beautiful...
Someone is trying to kill leading British Shakespearean actor, husband, father, ladies man, and soon-to-be Knight of the Realm Winstanley Fortescue. The actor, rehearsing his starring role in the forthcoming play *Serpent in the Heather* , is conked on the head backstage. He falls off a ladder and lands on the resident Pest Control Officer, Montmorency D. Mousa (otherwise known as Monty), the company cat. When Fortescue comes to, he finds to his horror that he has been switched into Monty's...
Sydney McCall left behind an ex-fiance and a New York advertising job to return home to Deer Park, North Carolina and help her sister, Kat, run the local animal shelter, Friendly Paws. Determined to save the shelter from financial trouble, Sydney and Kat organize a cat cafe fundraising event at a local coffee shop. Things are looking up until their landlord, Trowbridge Littleton, threatens to shut down the event. When Sydney drops by his art gallery to make peace, she finds Kat--along with...
### From Publishers Weekly Animals play a passive role in Johnston's less than engaging first in a new series featuring Lauren Vancouver, who runs HotRescues, a private no-kill animal shelter in Granada Hills, Calif. After raiding a puppy mill, Lauren is certain that Efram Kiley, an animal care apprentice who'd abused his own dog and was working for her as part of a legal agreement, tossed beagle puppies down a drainpipe. When Efram is later found stabbed to death at Lauren's shelter, she...
With side-splitting humor, an irresistable cast of characters--both human and canine--and an intimate small town setting, *Yappy Hour* is sure to delight fans of Rita Mae Brown and Diane Kelly. Every Friday night in the idyllic seaside town of Pacific Cove, CA, the Roundup Crew, a group of dog-loving friends, meet at a neighborhood wine bar for Yappy Hour. When Rachel, the owner, mysteriously leaves town and asks her sister, Maggie (who is neither pet friendly nor business savvy), to run the bar...
After a few years as a police officer in Chicago, Michael Keane has no trouble relaxing into the far less stressful job of deputy sheriff in his small hometown. After all, nothing ever happens in Hidden Springs, Kentucky. Nothing, that is, until a dead body is discovered on the courthouse steps. Everyone in town is a little uneasy. Still, no one is terribly worried—after all the man was a stranger—until one of their own is murdered right on Main Street. As Michael works to solve the case it...
**Playing With Poison was a Quarter Finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award! Murder meets menopause. Take a guess which wins. ** **PRAISE for Playing With Poison** "I just love Jessie Hewitt. She is the bomb." Melina Mason, *Melina's Book Blog* "This was one of my favorite submissions so far. I loved the main character, Jessie Hewitt, a middle aged romance writer (ex-pool hustler) having the time of her life." *Amazon contest review* "These characters are a hoot!! A lighthearted cozy...
"San Francisco has always been a beacon for second, third, and fourth-chancers." That's what my Uncle Oscar used to say. "There's nothing here to hold you back. You can do - or become - whatever or whoever you want." Oscar owned a small antique shop called the Green Vase, here, in San Francisco. His specialty was Gold Rush history. He'd acquired an extensive collection of artifacts from that time period, mostly due to his network of contacts in the construction industry. You see, after the...
Death on the Range When opportunity nocks… When a competitive archer is murdered at the training facility where Di has just started working, she's thrust into the middle of an unofficial investigation before she can even settle into her new life. With her roommate Mary and a Great Dane named Moo, she begins to unravel the mystery around the death of the victim, but can they solve the case before they find themselves in the killer's sights? A wholesome cozy murder for every sleuth in the family...
The first in a gripping new series by Paula Munier, *A Borrowing of Bones* is full of complex twists, introducing a wonderful new voice for mystery readers and dog lovers. *Grief and guilt are the ghosts that haunt you when you survive what others do not....* After their last deployment, when she got shot, her fiancé Martinez got killed and his bomb-sniffing dog Elvis got depressed, soldier Mercy Carr and Elvis were both sent home, her late lover's last words ringing in her ears: "Take care of...
Ashbrook, New Hampshire. Beatrice Young and her two cats are hot on a local counterfeiting case. With the help of her ex-husband, Matthew, and the sheriff, Beatrice and her two crime-solving cats fight to solve the mystery of who's producing the bills.
When Caro Lamont, former psychologist turned pet therapist makes a house call to help Kevin Blackstone with his two misbehaving German Shepherd dogs, she expects frantic dogs, she expects a frantic dog owner, she even expects frantic neighbors. What she doesn't expect is that two hours later the police will find Kevin dead, his dogs impounded; and that as the last person to see Kevin alive (well, except for the killer) she is suddenly a person of interest, at least according to Homicide...
Would you recognize a serial killer if you met one? Talked to one every day? Artist Lia Anderson doesn't, and neither does anyone else at the Mount Airy Dog Park. But a violent death brings Detective Peter Dourson into the close-knit group, and he is convinced someone is not who they seem. As the investigation uncovers secrets, Lia struggles with warring emotions while a killer watches and plans.
$44 million. A Victorian mansion. And a young career woman with cats. The prospect sounded like a dream come true. What could possibly go wrong? How could a friendly town’s welcome turn into a case of poisoning, murder, and deceit? When Katherine “Katz” Kendall, a computer professional in New York City, discovers she’s the sole heir of a huge inheritance, she can’t believe her good fortune. She’s okay with the clauses of the will: Move to the small town of Erie, Indiana, check. Live in her...
Between shopping for Halloween costumes, volunteering for the annual pumpkin festival, and coaching her girls to the state soccer finals, high school teacher Tj Jensen finds her good friend Zachary Collins dead in his favorite chair. When the handsome new deputy closes the case without so much as a “why” or “how,” Tj turns her attention from chili cook-offs and pumpkin carving to complex puzzles, prophetic riddles, and a decades’ old secret she seemed destined to unravel.