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Cam Crawford, brother of Palm Beach homicide cop Charlie Crawford, just checked himself into a ritzy rehab facility in Connecticut. Admitted the same day were a drunk, an addict, and a psychopath.

With little in common except deep psychic scars are Avril, a drugged-out actress, Rachel, a 18-year old self-destructive wild child, and haunted, pretty boy, Cam, just trying to piece together their tormented lives.

All they want is to learn how to cope, find peace of mind, make a few friends…but better watch out, because there are a few twisted people inside the ivy covered walls of Clairmount. And not everyone’s going to make it home.

Bite Me is the THIRD masterfully bizarre mystery in the Dev Haskell Series.

"What an absolute delight. I enjoyed myself from hilarious the first chapter to the spine tingling ending ... Faricy is the next Carl Hiaasen." -Crime Scene

Wise-cracking, back-slapping, sideways-thinking Private Investigator Dev Haskell is in the middle of dissipating a lover's quarrel with his newest gorgeous knife-wielding female conquest when he gets a call. Members of KRAZ, a radio station that considers itself "the voice of America's future," need protection from an apparent death threat. A cursory investigation leads Dev to the conclusion he's just landed his dream job: providing security for people who don't actually need it. But alas, the dream ends the moment someone shoots at his clients in broad daylight.

Things quickly fly out of control when Dev suddenly finds himself under the police microscope, literally tied up in a relationship with an unpredictable woman, and dodging a growing pile of bodies that all seem to be linked to him.

"Faricy is America's hottest new mystery writer." -The Dirty Lowdown

"Even now I can't believe the way this guy can weave a tale. Just when things were about to get too grim there's a laugh out loud scene that kept me turning the pages. Run, don't walk, to pick up your copy of Bite Me." -The Irish Gazette

From New York Times bestselling author Angie Fox, the first book in the new Southern Ghost Hunter mysteries

One simple mistake…
For a girl who is about to lose her family home,
Releases the ghost of a long-dead gangster,
And opens Verity Long’s eyes to a whole new world.

When out of work graphic designer Verity Long accidentally traps a ghost on her property, she’s saddled with more than a supernatural sidekick—she gains the ability see spirits. It leads to an offer she can’t refuse from the town’s bad boy, the brother of her ex and the last man she should ever partner with.

Ellis Wydell is in possession of a stunning historic property haunted by some of Sugarland Tennessee’s finest former citizens. Only some of them are growing restless—and destructive. He hires Verity to put an end to the disturbances. But soon, Verity learns there’s more to the mysterious estate than floating specters, secret passageways, and hidden rooms.

There’s a modern day mystery afoot, one that hinges on a decades-old murder. Verity isn't above questioning the living, or the dead. But can she discover the truth before the killer finds her?

Murder, mayhem, and Mazzio continue at lightning speed in this second set of three Bone Series Medical Thrillers from the Lambs.
RN Gina Mazzio is sometimes battered, but never daunted in her life-threatening pursuit of individuals and groups who would do harm to her patients and co-workers.
This action-packed, shocking, and take-no-prisoners medical thriller series is definitely not for the faint of heart. Fans of the more hard-boiled medical thrillers (and also of Patricia Cornwell) will eat it up ... as will lovers of, strong women sleuths, hospital mysteries, and all medical fiction, especially fans of Tess Gerritsen, Carolyn McCray, Eileen Dreyer, Lisa Genova, and Robin Cook.

BONE of CONTENTION (#4)
Gina returns to Ridgewood Hospital after a near-death experience while working with fiancé Harry Lucke as travel nurses in Nevada’s barren gold country. Now, she’s assigned to the Ob/Gyn Women's Health Clinic.
An outbreak of mystifying post-abortion deaths among Clinic patients puts Gina on the trail of unknown perpetrators. Her relentless investigation soon makes her the target of a fanatical couple who kidnap and attempt to kill her to keep from being found out.

BONE DUST (#5)
An influenza epidemic slams San Francisco, pushing medical facilities to and beyond normal limits. The chaos masks deadly blood-letting by a sociopathic hospital phlebotomist.
Gina, distracted by a serious breakup with her longtime fiancé, Harry Lucke, and on the brink of a new romance, misreads the full danger of a stalking that leads to the murder of another Internal Medicine nurse.
Gina’s investigation into the killing of the nurse, along with trying to find out why flu patients are dying unexpectedly, makes her the new prime target of the phlebotomist stalker.

BONE CRACK (#6)
RN Gina Mazzio and her long-time love, Harry Lucke, are deep into marriage plans when a particularly nasty murder intervenes—the bookkeeper in their friend Lolly’s office has been raped and carved up. The worst part? The carving occurred before the murder.
Lolly suspects her cardiologist boss, Dr. Mort Tallent, is involved. And since Gina helped her friend get “the job of a lifetime,” she jumps right into the fire. What she uncovers? Mort is one unsavory cardiologist. His ex-wife was murdered when she dumped him a year ago, and there's some shady shenanigans of a business nature—the kind you might kill to keep secret.
Worst of all, there’s that pal of his, the kind of person you never want to meet in a dark alley, or anywhere else. 


Orcs, vampires, rogue mages, and strange familiars... The night's filled with beasts looking for kicks, who trod the urban landscape with cloven hoof or sharpened claw, keeping a yellow eye out for easy prey. But what's a citizen to do when dark shadows lie heavy, spells become useless, and wands lose their charm?

They call on the heroes of Eight in the Chamber.

These hardboiled cops and investigators specialize in a preternatural kind of justice. They aren't afraid to delve into dark magic or wield a cursed instrument to save the pure and innocent. They won't quit until every dark deed is punished, and the scales of justice are balanced.

In Eight in the Chamber, a cadre of your favorite authors have banded together to bring you all the thrills of the urban supernatural, with a twist of sci-fi noir, in a collection of full length novels, spellbinding novellas, and enough short stories to choke a bag of holding. Buy your copy today, and let them take you on a thrill ride through the dark that you won't forget!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dagger to the Heart
Novella
By Alex P. Berg
Detective Jake Daggers prefers his barbecue blackened, but with a serial arsonist on the loose, it's the city's murder victims coming in crispy. With the body count rising and fires burning across town, will the case get too hot to handle? Find out in this heart-wrenching prequel to the Daggers & Steele series.

Blood Money
Short Story
By Chris Underwood
Folk wizard Ozzy Turner can track down anyone, but when he's hired to return a missing bloodslave to her vampire mistress, the question is not whether he can, but whether he should.

Croft & Wesson

NOTHING GOES BETTER WITH A NICE CUP OF TEA THAN A DEADLY TOXIN...

In a cozy mystery, that is. As always, author Brianna Bates delivers a yummy read that’s lighter than lemon cake, and goes down just as easy.

There’s nothing like a breezy, easy-reading Missy Demeanor mystery for a quick, relaxing break in your favorite tea room; or to make those minutes fly by in the dentist’s waiting room. They're fast, fun reads—maybe two or three hours—and just as luxuriously light as the froth on your latte (if you’re not a tea-drinker). In fact, they’re kind of like a short vacation from real life. (And so much cheaper!)

In TEA ROOM TOXIN, the FIFTH series entry, Missy’s best friend Noreen realizes her dream of opening a tea room, only not with Missy (as Missy’d kind of hoped), but with her other friend, Tonya, with whom Missy has never…quite….clicked. And then someone slips a deadly toxin into the very cup of tea Missy herself handed Tonya.

“Never quite clicked” is how Missy sees it, but the cops have other ideas—they think she had a perfect opportunity and at least two motives to murder Tonya--all except for Missy’s true love, Tyler, who knows she couldn’t be a murderer. He should—he investigated her once before (in Flea Market Fatal) and got his fingers burned. Although she’s sworn off sleuthing, there’s really no other way out, especially when she finds herself in handcuffs. So once again, Missy Demeanor, amateur detective, dons her deerstalker—and the game is on!

Since Missy works in a bookstore, devotees of Carolyn Hart’s Death on Demand series will think they've come home again. Animal lovers will fall for her dog Cody, and fans of women sleuths, especially light, delicious cozies you can read fast, with no cliffhangers, on-the-page violence or graphic scenes will eat this series up. If you like Gina LaManna, Jana DeLeon, Mary Daheim, and Leighann Dobbs, give Missy a try!

With a myriad of motives, the question is who?

Detective Sergeant Michael Brennan of the Wigan Borough Police has no time for tales of ghosts and the afterlife, or of the dead contacting the living.

So, when he finds himself investigating the case of a recently widowed young woman, Alice Goodway, who has suddenly developed ‘the Gift’ of mediumship and has received a threatening letter, he embarks on the inquiry with no small degree of scepticism.

But just as Brennan and his burly colleague, Constable Jaggery, consider how to proceed with the case, something much more sinister takes place… a murder, in Alice’s own home.

Who would commit such a crime?

Could it be one of the seven ‘visitors’ who had been to sittings with Alice and not liked what they had heard?

Or the interfering and sanctimonious Inspector of Nuisances who strongly disapproved of the séances?

There are a lot of old wounds opened and painful memories shared with Brennan and Jaggery as they meticulously gather the information they need to solve the case. The challenge will be narrowing down the suspects, using clues from both the living and the dead…

This devilishly plotted Victorian whodunnit keeps the reader guessing right to the end, with red herrings aplenty scattered along the way.
 

Praise for A.J. Wright

‘This is an absolute gem of a historical crime novel – cleverly and intricately plotted, very well-written and convincingly evoking all the social problems of a late-Victorian industrial town’ – Crime Review

'Excellently plotted, with some breathtaking moments, as pieces of the dark past come into the light' - Chris Nickson, best-selling author of the Richard Nottingham Mysteries

'A.J. Wright has composed a clever tale indeed in his novel, "Sitting Murder". The grey and gloomy place that was Victorian Britain is wonderfully rendered by the author in this fast-moving mystery novel' - L.J. Shea, bestselling author of The Raven's Augury

'A network of loves, hates, intrigue and suspense' - Roger Silverwood (best-selling author of DI Angel Mystery Series)

‘…the book vividly depicts the tensions and ramifications of the miners’ strike. The mystery is equally strong: the plot is fast-paced and cleverly strewn with red herrings and subtle clues. Highly recommended’ – Historical Novel Society

In 2009 A. J. Wright won the 2010 Dundee International Fiction Prize for his Victorian murder mystery Act of Murder. His writing is inspired by his two major interests: all things Victorian and classic works from the Golden Age of crime fiction. He lives near Wigan.

The guy pulled the pin on the hand grenade and rolled it to me.

I dove through the trap door in the floor and clamped my hands over my ears. As the floorboards exploded above me, and pieces of wood shot like missiles into my arm, I knew this case had gotten serious.

What made me take a case that would send me racing through the streets of LA in an old muscle car, smashing into cars and getting shot at, windows bursting in my face?

Well, long red hair and legs to die for, might have had something to do with it.

I’d been working out of an office in one of those old buildings downtown. You know the type, built in the twenties with a marble staircase, a broken elevator and huge windows. Me and young Nick, my assistant, were working nickel and dime stuff: missing persons, insurance fraud, and rounding up a fugitive here and there.

And then she happened. This Sophie Devonshire case happened. I heard heels clicking on the tile landing, and looked up from my desk. Into my office walked a redhead with an envelope full of cash. As she crossed the room in that tight skirt, my mouth dropped open.

I recovered after the introductions, and allowed her to tell her story.

Mrs. Sophie Devonshire had been attacked. Her home had been broken into. I saw fear in those soft green eyes. That’s why I took the case. I mean, yeah, of course those legs were going through my head. But beyond that, I wanted to help. I knew her fear was real. I’m Private Detective Jason Dalton.

It all started, she said, when she found a metal disc covered with strange writing, among her late husband’s things.

So I began there, with her late husband. I had no idea that he had lived a deadly, double life.

THE EXCITEMENT OF AN ACTION THRILLER AND THE SWIRLING EMOTIONS OF A MAINSTREAM PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL...

VOLUMES 2 and 3 of Kimberly Amato’s heart-stopping Jasmine Steele series are collected in this nicely priced bundle, and if we do say so, this series has it all—a tough-as-hell yet complex female cop and the kind of pulse-pounding plots you might find in a psychological thriller. Jazz is very much a family kind of woman—and her family’s a bit unconventional; that is, what's left of it. She’s had a lot of heartbreak; by now, she can pretty well stand up to anything. Readers will love her as much for her compassion and loyalty to friends and family as for her bravery. Still, we feel we should mention:
Jasmine’s not for the faint-hearted. But hard-boiled police procedural fans will rejoice.

MELTING STEELE, BOOK TWO
Still recovering from a murder attempt, tough New York homicide detective Jasmine Steele is slowly coming to grips with a world that's seemingly gone mad. But her short-lived peace of mind is once again shattered by a case…an entire family's been viciously murdered. Hard-boiled alert: author Kimberly Amato pulls no punches. The mother's throat was slit while trying to call for help and the father was shot in the chest, then gruesomely sliced up while still alive, like a scene from a horror film. Also found, the body of their young son, about Jazz’s son’s age, left in the closet with a snapped neck.

But it's the remaining clues to a missing fourth victim--a teenage daughter named Kaley--that leave her reeling. Kaley's seemingly disappeared without a trace. Soon Jazz discovers that the family had plenty of disturbing skeletons in its closet. Skeletons possibly warranting hiring a hit man on the Internet…

Ever-fearless Jazz jumps head-first into the opaque abyss of corrupt New York finance and down the dangerous and secretive rabbit hole of the Deep Web. Can she manage to trace a cold-blooded killer, using only the most untraceable technology known to man?

BREAKING STEELE, BOOK THREE
Gory video game violence comes home to roost when two store managers are brutally murdered in the back room of their gaming shop just before peek holiday season. The corporation that owns the store is doing everything it can to keep the matter quiet—but they won’t succeed if detective Jasmine Steele cracks the case. Because said corporation has plenty of skeletons in its closet; and one of them is far too familiar to our heroine…Kimberly Amato serves up a heart-pounding, chilling addition to the Jasmine Steele hard-boiled mystery series—a fast-paced police procedural that’s as gripping as it is eerily personal. And it comes with a captivating (although, as Jazz might say, a slightly “nerdy”) bonus: a heaping dose of the fascinating ins and outs of video game subculture. Which is far more murderous than the average reader would suspect.

Those who can't get enough of the exciting new wave of hard-boiled women sleuths, fueled by writers like Megan Abbott, Laura Lippmann, Lisa Lutz, and Vicki Hendricks will love Amato’s take-no-prisoners style, her unflinching attention to harrowing detail, and, not least, her most memorable creation—Jasmine Steele herself.

Lovers of traditional mysteries won't be left out either. They’ll appreciate the web of fierce loyalty tempered with fearful caution that links Jazz’s tiny but hardy support system—both at work and at home. Somehow or other, in each book, Amato manages to mix all the excitement of an action thriller with the swirling emotions of a mainstream psychological novel.

When family secrets are unearthed, a woman’s past can become a dangerous place to hide…

After the death of her adoptive mother, Ava Saunders comes upon a peculiar photograph, sealed and hidden away in a crawl space. The photo shows a shuttered, ramshackle house on top of a steep hill. On the back, a puzzling inscription: Destiny calls us.

Ava is certain that it’s a clue to her elusive past. Twenty-three years ago, she’d been found wrapped in a yellow blanket in the narthex of the Holy Saviour Catholic Church—and rescued—or so she’d been told. Her mother claimed there was no more to the story, so the questions of her abandonment were left unanswered. For Ava, now is the time to find the roots of her mother’s lies. It begins with the house itself—once the scene of a brutal double murder.

When Ava enlists the help of the two people closest to her, a police detective and her best friend, she fears that investigating her past could be a fatal mistake. Someone is following them there. And what’s been buried in Ava’s nightmares isn’t just a crime. It’s a holy conspiracy.

On the day Nora discovered that her husband, Hugh, had gotten another woman pregnant, she made a vow: I will come back to life no matter how long it takes…

It’s taken Nora three years. With the help of her best friend, she fled New York City for a small resort town, snagged a job as the advice columnist for the local paper, and is cautiously letting a new man into her life. But when Hugh and his perfect new family move into a house nearby, Nora backslides. Coping with jealousy, humiliation, and resentment again is as hard as she feared. It’s harder still when Hugh and his wife are shot to death in their home.

If only Nora could account for the night of the murders. Unfortunately, her memories have gone as dark as her fantasies of revenge. But Nora’s not the only one with a reason to kill—and as prime suspect in the crime, she’d better be able to prove it.

HE DID ALL THE RIGHT THINGS--AND THEN THE BODIES STARTED PILING UP... The Dirty Lowdown wrote: "Nick James has nailed it. The all too dark side of our legal industry, and the type of character we're all too afraid to admit exists!" It looks like disbarred attorney Bobby Custer has won the lottery. After serving four years of a seven-year sentence, he gets an offer he can’t refuse – from the feds. They just want him to keep an eye out for shady goings-on at one of the most prestigious law firms in the city. And suddenly he’s out – out of jail, but also totally cast out of his old life: shunned by family and friends.

Bobby Custer is psychotic, narcissistic, psychopathic, greedy, unprincipled...and always charming.

He did all the right things -- went to law school, got a job in a good law firm -- right up until the conviction for “a minor dalliance with a trust fund”. You could almost feel for the guy – a young man tempted by the high life could make a mistake he regrets and end up losing everything. And a guy who’ll help you hide a body could just be a good friend. But as the bodies start piling up, you have to wonder if there’s something about Bobby that’s just not … right.

Chilling and action-packed, Corridor Man exposes a dark, violent undercurrent just beneath the surface of “perfectly legal and above-board”.

A combination of Breaking Bad and House of Cards, Corridor Man is a sinister, disturbing legal thriller series that's bound to keep you awake at night.

Books one, two and three in the Corridor Man series.

Whether they admit it or not, or even realize it, their whole lives have been altered by the events of September 11th, 2001, when they were just kids.

They came to this paradise of a college campus to find freedom, themselves, their future, sex, love, fun, God, intellectual discovery, their creative core … but instead find their world being torn apart again by political divisiveness, extremism, rage.

And now one of them will turn back to the terror of their youth in the hope of finding answers.

The rest will be victims.

A sudden-savant, his days numbered, tries to rescue a woman and autistic child, unwittingly becoming the only hope against a global terrorist--or the fanatic's ultimate weapon.

Publishers Weekly heralded the first book in Richard Bard's Brainrush thriller series as "terrifically entertaining" and "inventive and compelling." It went on to earn The Wall Street Journal's #1 Action/Adventure slot in the Guide to Self-Published Big Sellers list.

Before he slid into the MRI machine, Jake Bronson was just an ordinary guy with terminal cancer. But when an earthquake hits during the procedure, Jake staggers from the wreckage a profoundly changed man, now endowed with uncanny mental abilities.

An ocean away, Luciano Battista wants a piece of Jake's talent. Posing as a pioneering scientist, the terrorist leader has been conducting cerebral-implant experiments in a sinister quest to create a breed of super jihadist agents...and Jake's altered brain may be the key to his success. But Jake refuses to play the pawn in an unholy war--and when an innocent woman and autistic child are taken hostage to force his cooperation, he embarks on a jihad of his own. Jake and his band of loyal friends are thrust into a deadly chase that leads from the canals of Venice through Monte Carlo and finally to an ancient cavern in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan--where Jake discovers that his newfound talents carry a hidden price that threatens the entire human race.

An "international thriller with soul." Ideal reading for fans of Michael Crichton, Clive Cussler, James Rollins, Marcus Sakey, Michael Grumley, Brad Thor, Dan Brown, Matthew Reilly, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, and Vince Flynn.

Award-winning author Lucy Carol delivers a sparkling fun page-turner, launching the madcap series, Madison Cruz Mysteries. Secrets, spies, and sexy guys complicate things for Madison Cruz as she tries to connect with her FBI mother, yet hide evidence for her grandfather. Out of her league, and out of control, she won’t stop trying to unmask the treacherous villain who endangers her family. As the mystery heats up, so does her attraction to a couple of sexy guys who vie for her affections. With two to choose from you’d think Madison could have double the fun. But she can’t think about that right now, because the enemy is right behind her. First-place winner of Chanticleer’s Mystery & Mayhem Best Novel Award, Humor Category.

Dear Reader:

This is not your mother's madcap mystery. It's mine. I wrote it. She didn't. Don't believe her if she says she did. You might have a problem on your hands and may need to call someone. My editor tells me that it's not very professional for me to say things like that. But hey, she's not the one about to have a throw-down with your crazy mother. Oh great, now my editor is leaving. I have to go stop her. I really, really need her. She knows how to make a good martini.
Stay classy,
Lucy Carol

"Magpie Murders is a double puzzle for puzzle fans, who don’t often get the classicism they want from contemporary thrillers." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times

From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty and Trigger Mortis, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller weaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie into a chilling, ingeniously original modern-day mystery.

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.

Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder.

Masterful, clever, and relentlessly suspenseful, Magpie Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction in which the reader becomes the detective.

Tarot cards, a trapeze artist who doesn’t age, and a magician who really can disappear…

In the fifth Promise McNeal mystery, set in the Western North Carolina Mountains, Promise’s psychic abilities prickle when Little People of America’s past president, Dick Jest, stocks up on Cuban cigars and drives his Winnebago from Florida to build an academy for circus performers on the site of an abandoned amusement park. When the magician’s assistant is murdered in a dilapidated tram car, the dramatic, Czech trapeze artist, Ruta, draws Promise into the mystery with a strange Tarot Card deck---which she insists she’s held for Promise since 1939---and a bizarre story of the magician Reznik and the Old Towne Clock in Prague. Promise’s husband, Perry County Sheriff Daniel Allen, is determined to go with the facts of the case, but when they meet the other members of Jest’s circus family, Daniel realizes no one is who they seem, and the facts are masked in past violence and lies. Though, as the murder goes unsolved, Promise is haunted by nightmares and struggles with an elusive illness, she and Daniel are determined to bring the murderer to justice. Fact by fact, they narrow the field of suspects until another death at the academy forces them to reconsider Ruta’s wild stories and think like the killer, if they are to catch him before he disappears for good.

He stalks you when you’re sleeping. He kills when you’re awake…

Reporter Rebekka Franck is ready to escape the headlines for a relaxing holiday with her family. Small town Cocoa Beach, Florida seems like the perfect getaway for sunny days and silent nights. At least, until a boy’s dead body is found stuffed in the chimney…

Rebekka learns that the boy is the latest in a long line of victims preyed upon by a local legend. But a demon cloaked in red with sharp fingernails who comes down the chimney can’t be real. Can it?

With the help of a local teen whose dad fell victim to the creature, Rebekka investigates the growing body count. But as Christmas creeps closer, the reporter must catch the demon before it checks her and her family’s names off the naughty list…

Better Not Cry is a spine-tingling Christmastime horror story featuring Willow Rose’s iconic characters Rebekka Franck and Jack Ryder. If you like pulse-pounding scares, imaginative plots, and hellish new takes on Santa, then you’ll love Willow Rose’s holiday horror.

Buy Better Not Cry now to see Santa slay!

Eric Beckman, a mind-reading private investigator, is spending Christmas in snowy Vermont with his wife and daughter. He needs a break from solving cases, but the townspeople convince him to look into the village mystery: Every holiday season, someone switches the baby Jesus with one of the other figures in the town’s nativity scene.

With the help of his ten-year-old daughter, also a mind reader, he soon learns that some of the residents of the small town are not who—or even what—they seem to be. There’s something supernatural going on in Newburn, Vermont.

His investigation causes an escalation of strange happenings, and soon, swapped manger figures are the least of the town’s worries. If Beckman can’t adjust his view of the world—force himself to believe in things he never thought possible—the Christmas vacation could turn out to be his family’s last.

A Mind Reader’s Christmas may be read as a standalone book or as Book Four in the Eric Beckman series.

WHEN YOUR EX ARRESTS YOUR MOM FOR MURDER, YOU…
(A) SET UP A GoFundMe FOR BAIL
(B) BUST HER OUT
(C) INVEST IN A MAGNIFYING GLASS… (ANSWER BELOW)
Missy DeMeanor, voluptuous craft queen extraordinaire, is big and beautiful, disciplined, ambitious, hard-working, resourceful, creative, and – yes, suspected of murder.

Not even a sighting of Missy’s hot ex-boyfriend at the bookstore where she works can deter her from her flea market quest. It’s a perfect September Saturday for garage sale shopping in tiny Grove City, Pennsylvania -- blue skies, seventy-five degrees – and Missy DeMeanor is set on scoring that cabinet she’s had her eye on. Driving a hard bargain is one thing, but now the seller is dead – and the so-handsome investigating office says it’s murder!

Who should the investigating officer turn out to be but Tyler Brock, the boy Missy dated in high school, recently returned to Grove City after a decade in Philadelphia, with an undetermined marital status. And he’s acting like he still has feelings for her – when he’s not asking pointed questions and scribbling in his notebook. Surely Tyler doesn’t think she’s a killer!

But the whole town seems in on family secrets Missy’s just learning that could be a strong motive – secrets about a business deal gone bad between the murdered man and Missy’s own father, and about a violent incident involving her mother, whom even Tyler acknowledges to be “the sweetest woman on earth.” Even worse than being suspected of murder? Missy’s mother being suspected of murder. Things have gotten so out of hand that Missy deduces her friend Noreen, the avid mystery reader, is right: it’s up to Missy to find the killer! And like that: a talented amateur sleuth is born.

Since Missy works in a bookstore, devotees of Carolyn Hart’s Death on Demand series will think they've come home again. Animal lovers will fall for her dog Cody, and fans of women sleuths, especially light, delicious cozies you can read fast, with no cliffhangers, on-the-page violence or graphic scenes will eat this series up. If you like Gina LaManna, Jana DeLeon, Mary Daheim, and Leighann Dobbs, give Missy a try!

EDITOR'S NOTE: In an earlier version of this book, Missy's distress came out in a couple of unseemly expletives. She has since gotten hold of herself; this one is squeaky clean!