Humorous Detective

If there was one piece of advice Olive Crisp always followed, it was that "one should never attempt to solve a crime on an empty stomach..." 1970s. Cambridge, England. A POISONED SCONE: When a customer drops dead in the cafe during the lunch rush Olive is horrified. What's worse, the cause of death was one of her delicious scones. Now solving the case has become personal; not only does Olive want to solve the murder in order to explain the mystery she also needs to clear her name. A COSY COMMUNITY: Despite protesting her innocence, only her two best friends, Millie and Blythe, and the ...

Some people say that it’s a demon-haunted world. That certainly is true in Gus’s county around Halloween, mostly due to the digital demons plaguing Gus this year that live inside the new Pakiman game. There’s also a fancy Halloween party to deal with, to which everyone who is someone is invited—and that includes Gus. If getting a costume for a party he doesn’t want to go to was his worst problem, it would be a fun holiday season. Unfortunately, someone keels over dead in the free-cheese section of Fit Foods, and that opens the door to murder. That open door leads Gus right into ...

Champion Cyclist Falls to Death It's spring in Dolphin Bay and a big cycle race is passing through town. Anna's Cafe sets up a stall with snacks and drinks for the participants. When a well known cyclist crashes to his death in the woods, the police blame the lemonade. Suddenly, Anna's granddaughter is the top suspect because she was seen handing out drinks to the dead guy. Anna and company are stumped because the victim was a total stranger who didn't know any of them. The new detective in town wants to close the case soon and time is running out. Meanwhile, the mayor and her minions ...

Thrift shop til someone drops... The Braun family is coming home for the holidays, and Jessica couldn’t be happier for the reunion. She’s making her shopping list, checking it twice, and hosting an old-fashioned Christmas to remember. But Uncle Rick won’t be there, after he’s arrested for an old friend’s murder. And when the new sheriff in town decides Jess’s sleuthing skills are unwanted, it will be hard to prove her uncle’s innocence. How will Jess find the true culprit—and get her family back together—before one Braun celebrates the new year behind bars?

Armed with snacks and voted 'Most Likely to Succeed' by his fly-by-night private investigator school, Reverend Richard Burgess has left the pulpit behind to try his hand at helping people in a different way. After shedding his pastor duds for a newly acquired closetful of somewhat questionable disguises, Detective Burgess sets out to leverage his considerable people smarts to solve crimes and bring closure to his clients. In this hilarious novel of linked short stories, the former minister busts a smuggling ring, solves a murder, launches a viral video on YouTube, tracks down a ghost, and ...

A Rural Mafia. Dognappers. Romance. Bel Anderson and the Anderson Services detectives are busy. A gang, run by a clever kingpin, has taken over a third of a rural Texas county. Bel and Martin Labe, the Flashman, unite to take down a corrupt politician and mobster. Someone is stealing young show dogs, an obsessive stalker is after a defenseless woman, industrial thieves abound, and there is a contested will. Can the Anderson Services detectives handle the workload? Will Bel find yet another preternatural ability from his strange DNA? Follow along as Bel takes one more step into becoming ...

‘Imelda Sheridan was dead, which was tough cookies on Imelda, but then every silver lining has its cloud. My job was to find out who and why, at 12 cent per word for the right facts in the right order … which is how it all started out, anyway.’ Freelance hack Harry Rigby likes a smoke, the easy life and Robert Ryan playing the bad buy in late night black-and-whites. Sweet. But when the wife of a prominent politician is murdered in her best nightdress, Rigby finds himself caught in a crossfire between rogue paramilitaries, an internal Garda inquiry and the heaviest blizzard of coke ...

Gus somehow won the church raffle. It was a miraculous feat given that he’d never entered it-the church or the raffle. He suddenly finds himself with two tickets to paradise and one of them premade out for Father Xavier. Paradise in this case being the Caribbean Island of Saint Hubbins. They’re joined at the hotel by two couples that appear to be engaged in a tangled web of extra-marital affairs with each other. Gus isn’t too interested in the affairs of others until one of them ends up dead. Another person is arrested by the local police for the crime. It’s not that Gus feels he ...

Monty and Ellen Drew’s vacation in the South Seas takes a spooky turn when their cruise ship loses all power. And the temperature drops...unnaturally. Ellen believes an evil presence has taken over the ship...except Captain Norris doesn’t believe her. But with the ship dead in the water—and no rescue happening—the captain asks Ellen and Monty for assistance in overcoming possible supernatural forces. When the crew and passengers begin to mysteriously fall asleep and don’t awaken, Ellen and Monty must discover how the entity is holding the ship hostage... And why no rescuers can ...

Thatch has a terrible thirst, an ever expanding waistline, a dog and an estranged wife. A heart condition too. That'll be the complete set then. And now he's got an unsolved crime on his doorstep so, with little else for the retired detective to do other than wait for opening time or potter about in the garden, this is a good thing. Probably. Yes, granted, there's a dodgy millionaire and a Ukrainian drug lord in the mix, but likely nothing that a bit of old fashioned police work can't sort. What could possibly go wrong?

An ancient ring stolen from a Holocaust victim. A stuffed raven that once belonged to Charles Dickens. An extra body in the New York City Morgue. Only one man could follow these clues to a solution: the legendary Jorge Luis Borges. "... highly recommended for classic detective story enthusiasts who look for complexity and intellectual challenges in their characters and stories." - Midwest Book Review Two years after their collaboration chronicled in The Philosophical Detective, Nick Martin again falls under the spell of the blind poet and fabulist who calls himself Jorge Luis Borges. ...

The exciting conclusion of the Philosophical Detective Trilogy: The Philosophical Detective’s Last Case The fabulist and detective who calls himself Jorge Luis Borges returns to New England for three final adventures, as recollected by his assistant Nick Martin almost fifty years later. Struggling with cognitive issues of his own, Nick recounts Borges’s encounter with the conundrums of memory and identity in the amnesia ward of a Boston hospital, the perplexities of modern science at a conference of physicists in New Hampshire, and the ironies of fate at a media mogul’s suburban ...

In the latest book in the widely beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Precious Ramotswe takes on a case for a childhood acquaintance, but her inquiries will require an even more delicate touch than usual. Mma Ramotswe reconnects with an old friend who has been having problems with her daughter. Though Precious feels compelled to lend a hand, she discovers that getting involved in family affairs is always a delicate proposition.

Welcome to the Palace movie theater! Now Showing: Philandering husbands, ghostly sidekicks, and a murder or two. When Nora Paige’s movie-star husband leaves her for his latest co-star, she flees Hollywood to take refuge in San Francisco at the Palace, a historic movie theater that shows the classic films she loves. There she finds a band of misfit film buffs who care about movies (almost) as much as she does. She also finds some shady financial dealings and the body of a murdered stranger. Oh, and then there’s Trixie, the lively ghost of a 1930’s usherette who appears only to Nora and...

Book 2 of the series They thought they’d saved the library but they were wrong. With their monster problem out of the way, a terrible new problem has boiled to the surface and now Pallas O’Fiddian, Athena’s Detective in training, must stop the most powerful man in the city from stealing Peplos Public Library out from under eleven-year-old head librarian Libby Biblos. Can she do it? Find out!

Oh Christmas tree, how lovely are thy branches, and…a dead body? Chloe was basking in the glow of the Christmas tree lighting ceremony, and the satisfaction of solving the murder of Santa. Her thoughts turned to the arrival of her sisters the following day and getting on with the purpose of this family trip. However, the gift someone left under the tree was worse than a bag of coal. Another murder mystery in the midst of this Bavarian-style village threatened to throw the entire small-town into mayhem. No sooner had her sisters arrived, than one of them threatened to leave, blowing up the...

Gus’s wakes up to discover that he’s been kidnapped by a Mexican mobster. He’s not the only one who has been kidnapped, however. Apparently, someone’s pinched the crime lord’s kid and the head thug of the gang wants Gus to find the missing kid before the crime lord finds out about it. By kid, it turns out that they meant young goat. If the goat doesn’t turn up in time then the ire of the crime lord will surely fall on one of them. Gus needs to figure out which suspect is the correct one. Luckily, Gus has Father Xavier around to help him sort out this tricky situation. Can Gus ...

Tom Rittenhouse is in over his head. After only one season, his best friend Lord Justyn is leaving him to run their dinner theater alone. With seven days to perfect their production of Franken-freak, Tom braves a Nor’easter on his birthday to lead their first dress rehearsal. To add to his stress, the set is plagued by strange accidents and mysterious messages. When an employee vanishes, Tom fears one of his feuding castmates may be out for blood. With danger, ghosts, and nylon stockings around every corner, this is certain to be a birthday Tom will never forget.

An angel just carjacked someone? For Boston Cop, Chloe Mayfield, it's her first day in the city's Blue Moon Division and things are about to get weird. The poor schmuck with the missing car is convinced the glowing being who assaulted him and took his wheels was straight from heaven – he even heard a chorus of angelic music during the crime. Raised catholic, Chloe not about to suggest angels don’t exist, but her gut wants to find a more rational explanation behind this crime. Time to find out.

A deeply buried and deadly secret resurface with a drowned Cadillac When Lalla Bains’ trophy red Caddy is discovered tail-fins up in a local lake, police ask why a widowed piano teacher, who couldn’t possibly see beyond the hood ornament, is found strapped in the driver’s seat. As Lalla will soon discover, there’s a shocking link between the drowned woman, her beloved father and an escaped felon--all of which will tear apart her comfortable life and bring her family into the cross-hairs of a killer.“Fresh and fun!" "With its engaging, down-on-her-luck sleuth, homicidal Caddy and a...