Curiosity just might be the death of Mrs. Murphy - and her human companion, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen. Small towns are like families: Everyone lives very close together. . .and everyone keeps secrets. Crozet, Virginia, is a typical small town - until its secrets explode into murder. Crozet's thirty-something post-mistress, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, has a tiger cat (Mrs. Murphy) and a Welsh Corgi (Tucker), a pending divorce, and a bad habit of reading postcards not addressed to her.

Co-author of the best-selling Mrs. Murphy novels, Rita Mae Brown launches a new series with this first mystery featuring Baxter the wirehaired dachshund. When Baxter and his owner, Mags, leave New York for Nevada, they find themselves embroiled in a real head scratcher. First, the local water-pumping station is sabotaged. Then, a murdered man’s bones - dating back to the 1800s - are unearthed in a barn owned by Mags’ great-aunt.

In the pristine world of Virginia foxhunting, hunters, horses, hounds, and foxes form a lively community of conflicting loyalties, where the thrill of the chase and the intricacies of human-animal relationships are experienced firsthand - and murder exposes a proud Southern community's unsavory secrets....

Eve Dallas is a New York police lieutenant hunting for a ruthless killer. In over ten years on the force, she’s seen it all - and knows her survival depends on her instincts. And she’s going against every warning telling her not to get involved with Roarke, an Irish billionaire - and a suspect in Eve’s murder investigation.

With the help of her rescue cat, Eddie, librarian Minnie Hamilton is driving a bookmobile based in the resort town of Chilson, Michigan. But she'd better keep both hands on the wheel, because it's going to be a bumpy ride.... Eddie followed Minnie home one day, and now she can't seem to shake the furry little shadow. But in spite of her efforts to contain her new pal, the tabby sneaks out and trails her all the way to the bookmobile on its maiden voyage. Before she knows it, her slinky stowaway becomes her cat co-pilot!

It was a hell of a long shot.... CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever - in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element.

Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high, lonely place: a corpse with a mouth full of sand, abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo tribal police lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer.

When librarian Kathleen Paulson moved to Mayville Heights, Minnesota, she had no idea that two strays would nuzzle their way into her life. Owen is a tabby with a catnip addiction and Hercules is a stocky tuxedo cat who shares Kathleen's fondness for Barry Manilow. But beyond all the fur and purrs, there's something more to these felines. When murder interrupts Mayville's Music Festival, Kathleen finds herself the prime suspect.

Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan’s friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts. The outbreak of war changed everything. Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive.

Meet Sarah Booth Delaney...an unconventional Southern belle whose knack for uncovering the truth is about to make her the hottest detective in Zinnia, Mississippi...if it doesn't make her the deadest. No self-respecting lady would allow herself to end up in Sarah Booth's situation. Unwed, unemployed, and over 30, she's flat broke and about to lose the family plantation. Not to mention being haunted by the ghost of her great-great-grandmother's nanny, who never misses an opportunity to remind her of her sorry state.

Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice's old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries will provide a clue to her mother’s whereabouts. Desperate to find the truth, Jenna enlists two unlikely allies in her quest.

Back in Pickax, Jim Qwilleran expects to resume a quiet life, but the people and animals of Pickax have other ideas. A noisy cardinal wakes him every morning. Nosy neighbors drop by uninvited, and the Siamese misbehave, even sneezing on guests. As if they weren't bad enough, Qwill's long-time companion acts as though she is in love, with another man. But worst of all, Qwill finds a body in his apple orchard.

Meg Langslow's summer is not going swimmingly. In her small Virginia hometown, she's the maid of honor at the nuptials of three loved ones - each of whom has dumped the planning in her hands. One bride is set on including a Native American herbal purification ceremony while another wants live peacocks on the lawn. But when an offensive newcomer, who hints at skeletons in the guests' closets, is found dead under suspicious circumstances, level-headed Meg's to-do list extends from flower arrangements and bridal registries to catching a killer - before the next event is her own funeral.

For 10 years Lucy has enjoyed her job poring over rare tomes of literature for the Harvard Library, but she has not enjoyed the demands of her family's social whorl or her sort-of engagement to the staid son of her father's law partner. But when her 10-year relationship implodes, Lucy realizes that the plot of her life is in need of a serious rewrite.

Lady Emily Hardcastle is an eccentric widow with a secret past. 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...