It’s just an ordinary day for octogenarian sleuth Myrtle Clover - until her yardman discovers a dead body planted in her backyard. This death isn’t cut and dried - the victim was bashed in the head with one of Myrtle’s garden gnomes. Myrtle’s friend Miles recognizes the body and identifies him as Charles Clayborne... reluctantly admitting he’s a cousin. Charles wasn’t the sort of relative you bragged about - he was a garden variety sleaze, which is very likely why he ended up murdered. As Myrtle starts digging up dirt to nip the killings in the bud, someone’s focused on scaring her off the case. Myrtle vows to find the murderer... before she’s pushing up daisies, herself.

Clarence Collin is pushing up daisies—in Abe's bed of zinnias! When the caustic critic of a TV gardening show winds up murdered in Abe's well-groomed backyard, both Abe and his hunky-but-irritating neighbor Gregory might be on the suspect list. Abe starts amateur sleuthing in self-defense...and to spend time with Gregory. When the two green thumbs look into their neighborhood's dirty little secrets, who knows what they'll dig up? A cozy gay mystery 51,000 words

Describes a variety of animals and insects that can be found close to home and offers tips on how to observe them.

Rajiv Surendra was filming Mean Girls, playing the beloved rapping mathlete Kevin Gnapoor, when a cameraman insisted he read Yann Martel's Life of Pi. So begins his "lovely and human" (Jenny Lawson, author of Furiously Happy) tale of obsessively pursuing a dream, overcoming failure, and finding meaning in life. “This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. I found myself standing dangerously close to the edge of a cliff. Far below me was an incredible abyss with no end in sight. I could turn back and safely return to where I had come from, or I could throw caution to the wind, lift my arms up into the air . . . and jump.” —From The Elephants in My Backyard What happens when you spend ten years obsessively pursuing a dream, and then, in the blink of an eye, you learn that you have failed, that the dream will not come true? In 2003, Rajiv Surendra was filming Mean Girls, playing the beloved rapping mathlete Kevin Gnapoor, when a cameraman insisted he read Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. Mesmerized by all the similarities between Pi and himself—both are five-foot-five with coffee-colored complexions, both share a South Indian culture, both lived by a zoo—when Rajiv learns that Life of Pi will be made into a major motion picture he is convinced that playing the title role is his destiny. In a great leap of faith Rajiv embarks on a quest to embody the sixteen-year-old Tamil schoolboy. He quits university and buys a one-way ticket from Toronto to South India. He visits the sacred stone temples of Pondicherry, he travels to the frigid waters off the coast of rural Maine, and explores the cobbled streets of Munich. He befriends Yann Martel, a priest, a castaway, an eccentric old woman, and a pack of Tamil schoolboys. He learns how to swim, to spin wool, to keep bees, and to look a tiger in the eye. All the while he is really learning how to dream big, to fail, to survive, to love, and to become who he truly is. Rajiv Surendra captures the uncertainty, heartache, and joy of finding ones place in the world with sly humor and refreshing honesty. The Elephants in My Backyard is not a journey of goals and victories, but a story of process and determination. It is a spellbinding and profound book for anyone who has ever failed at something and had to find a new path through life.

Even though he knows his best friend Artie is a liar, when the coincidences start to add up, seventh-grader Joshua starts to believe that there might be merit to his friend's idea of a body buried in the neighbor's yard.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic of true crime, set in a most beguiling Southern city—now in a 30th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author “Elegant and wicked . . . might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.”—The New York Times Book Review Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. In this sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative, John Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproariously funny drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young people dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience.