Showing results by author "Joanna Campbell Slan" in All Categories

This Christmas, shop owner Kiki Lowenstein has more than holiday crafts on her mind. As she juggles family responsibilities, her thriving business, and preparations for her famous Holiday Crafting Extravaganza, a series of mysterious burglaries plagues their quiet town of Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis. Kiki soon finds herself drawn into a sinister plot that goes far beyond stolen jewelry. With the help of her loyal Great Dane Gracie, her intuitive employee Nona, and a cast of colorful local characters, Kiki must unravel a web of deceit.

Cragan calls an emergency meeting of the Friday Night Mystery Club. Can their combined talents prove that Pru is innocent? And will they find an answer in time to save Cragan from the wrath of a vengeful shooter?

Being a divorced career woman in the late 80s isn't easy. Cragan Collins finds the friendship of other working singles invaluable, especially as she learns the ropes of selling. When Cragan finds a saleswoman unconscious in the mall parking lot, she runs for help. But being a good samaritan means taking the blame when the other woman dies. Later Cragan learns the woman lied to her . . . repeatedly. Cragan is left wondering if she really knew her friend at all!

The Confidential Files of John H. Watson collection contains the following titles: Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Sumatran Rat, Sherlock Holmes and the Father of Lies, Sherlock Holmes and the Nefarious Seafarers, Sherlock Holmes and the Time Machine.

Two FBI agents come looking for Kiki's nanny, and suddenly the household is turned upside down. Kiki and her husband must ask themselves the toughest question they'll ever have to face: Can we trust this person with our kids? The answer might say more about them than it does about their nanny, Brawny.

A nasty divorce leaves Cragan Collins with a mountain of bills and her grandmother to support. She takes a job as an ad salesperson for the Gazette. The market is tough, but Cragan finds a mentor in business reporter, Robert Smithson. One icy January day, Robert is found dead in a city park. His murder is dismissed as gay-on-gay crime. Cragan asks The Friday Night Mystery Club to find justice for Robert. Will Cragan's quest for the truth land her on the obituary page?

Just because her husband's naked, dead, and in a hotel bed . . . it might not be what it seems. But there's that scarf in his mouth.... Given the situation, Kiki Lowenstein can't help remembering that her (late) husband got her pregnant while cheating on his girlfriend. True, he did the right thing at the time, and their much-loved daughter Anya is now eleven years old. But suddenly he's dead, and Kiki's financially embarrassed—that jerk disinherited his own family!

In front of a meeting room full of customers and merchants, Kiki watches helplessly as a rival crafter takes one bite of a scone and goes into anaphylactic shock. Suddenly all eyes turn to Kiki Lowenstein, who was Dead Woman's archenemy. Just that fast, Kiki's moment of triumph turns into a disaster. Just when Kiki was settling into her new job, her first real career, she's become the poster child for dead customers. But Kiki's life isn't all doom and gloom. On the bright side, her mother-in-law has invited her to a gala event. A spa day is in order . . . and that doesn't go as planned either.

Sherlock Holmes and his friend, Dr. John Watson, are no strangers to danger—but a visitor’s claim that they are to be the targets of an assassin is unsettling. Moreover, the man says he has created a time machine that has whisked him away to the future. Astonishing! The idea is so outlandish that the great detective considers tossing the man out on the street. But there’s more.

As the mother of an active toddler and the wife of an often absent husband, Kiki Lowenstein already has both hands full. But when the Lowensteins move into their new house on the same day the construction crew leaves, Kiki must learn to juggle boxes, baby, and big expectations. Her determination to be a good neighbor hits a roadblock when she angers the Nordstroms, the couple who live next door. Then things come to an ugly climax when Sven Nordstrom dies under mysterious circumstances. Sadly, Kiki becomes a suspect.

The world was not prepared for this story, a conspiracy hatched in the highest levels of the British government. A rogue Minister of Defense plans to turn soldiers into blood-thirsty animals—and Holmes and Watson may be among their first victims. The adventure starts when Holmes is warned away from investigating Jack the Ripper’s heinous crimes. Despite Holmes’ well-known skills, he is sidelined. He must content himself with a straightforward case, finding a bolting beau, the result of a simple lovers’ quarrel. But that “romance gone wrong” is really the key to a nasty secret.

Dumpster diving for her lost paycheck is definitely the low point of Kiki Lowenstein's day—that is, until she finds a severed leg in the trash. Who'd toss a body part in the garbage outside of Time in a Bottle, the crafts store where Kiki works? Accompanying the grisly "gift" is a creepy computerized voice message, a warning to the store's "rich and snotty" female shoppers. Kiki soon discovers that the amputated leg belonged to a customer with a tyrannical and violent husband, a powerful man in the community. And that jerk is now harassing Kiki.

Cara Mia Delgatto is doing historical research when she visits the House of Refuge, a way station for shipwrecked sailors, on Hutchinson's Island, Florida. But Cara gets a dose of historical reality when another visitor is stabbed—and she's called upon to administer first aid. The subsequent death of the victim weighs heavily on Cara. The police are stymied, but Cara is spunky and determined. Until she finds out whodunnit—and why—she's haunted by the senseless murder.

Stuart, Florida. With her parents deceased and her son away at college, Cara Mia Delgatto longs to reinvent herself. And a sentimental purchase of a fixer-upper in a small, coastal town seems ideal for a new business selling repurposed relics. But when she trips over a corpse at her rundown building, she flips from renovator to prime suspect. Desperate to clear her name, it shocks Cara to discover that her property once housed a multi-million dollar art collection—stolen after the original owner's death. And when her first love shows up, her whirlwind life upgrades to a hurricane.

When his brother Mycroft disappears, Sherlock Holmes is drawn into the most thrilling case of his career, one that puts his powers to the test as he goes up against the Father of Lies, the Lord of Evil himself. The stakes couldn't be higher as Holmes and Watson are sent by leaders all over the globe to battle for the very survival of mankind. An international chase will lead them from the serene rooms of London's Diogenes Club to a scenic, frozen wasteland in upper New York.

When Time in a Bottle, St. Louis's premiere craft store, is slated for demolition, Kiki is forced to confront her deep-rooted aversion to change. But before she can move, the new building must be made ADA compliant. When a long-sealed wall is breached during renovations, a grim secret is revealed. Determined to uncover the truth and provide closure for the innocent life lost, Kiki becomes entangled in a whirlwind investigation that spans decades. With her unyielding spirit and tenacious curiosity, she unravels a web of secrets, deceit, and heartbreak that has haunted this house for years.

The school nurse calls to say that Kiki's daughter has stumbled over the corpse of a dead teacher. But don't worry. Everything's all right. (Ha!). And Kiki might just believe that a badly shaken daughter is the worst of her worries . . . EXCEPT that pre-teen Anya might have actually seen the killer fleeing the scene of the crime. Now Kiki must track down a murderer before the creep "guarantees" Anya's silence forever. After taking a vow to have nothing to do with her crush, the hunky police detective, Kiki is all on her own.

"Till death do us part" comes way too soon for newlywed Kiki Lowenstein. A very pregnant Kiki Lowenstein and her fiance Detective Chad Detweiler are trying to race the stork to the altar, when their vows are interrupted by a shoot-out. Kiki and the children hide in the shed with their local neighborhood donkey! When the all-clear sounds, everyone's worried about the expectant mother. But the problem isn't hers. It's Detweiler's, and he's been seriously hurt.

An epidemic of teenage suicides leaves a rural community grieving—and the death toll keeps rising. Can Kiki go undercover as an art teacher at a local high school to help? To clear her calendar, Kiki must juggle multiple obligations and make a tough decision: Can she trust her in-laws (including her alcoholic mother-in-law) to take an out-of-state vacation with her kids? To make everything work, Kiki must move in with her OTHER mother-in-law and that's enough to make Kiki want to commit suicide. Once in place, Kiki suspects these are not just copycat deaths. There's another dynamic at work.

The wedding should have been perfect. Kiki Lowenstein certainly did her part to make everything just right for her mother-in-law Sheila's special day. But the discovery of a corpse can put a damper on any festivity. Why did somebody want to cut a retired plastic surgeon out of the big picture?