A youth trip turns deadly, and Chief of Police Arly Hanks must catch the killer while serving as chaperone, in this hilarious small-town mystery. Arly Hanks has caught all sorts of killers since she returned home to Maggody, Arkansas, population 759, but she’s never tangled with anyone as devious as the local youth group. While chaperoning a trip to Camp Pearly Gates, Arly watches the kids as closely as she would any hardened criminal, but when teenagers have a mind to get into trouble, there’s nothing a police chief can do but limit the damage. She’s just about got the situation under control when one of the kids finds a body, and all hell breaks loose in classic Maggody manner. The murdered woman sports a shaved head and a white robe, marking her as a Moonbeam, a member of a particularly kooky local cult. And caught between the sect and the law, Arly may be forced to sacrifice what little sanity she has left. Nobody pokes fun at religion quite as effectively as Joan Hess. This is another laugh-out-loud entry in one of the funniest mystery series of all time. Maggody and the Moonbeams is the 13th book in the Arly Hanks Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

When a beautiful, beguiling newcomer to Maggody turns up murdered, police chief Arly Hanks traces her e-mails and begins to suspect that someone in town may have killed her--perhaps one of the many women she made jealous.

The receptionist for a new psychiatric facility is found murdered on its grounds.

Under the benign watch of Police Chief Arly Hanks, things are pretty quiet in the sleepy Arkansas town of Maggody these days. Not even the prospect of a historical society-funded Civil War documentary on the locally touted (albeit historically insignificant) Skirmish at Cotter's Ridge of 1863 does much to stir up the denizens of this sleepy backwoods town. What does finally get the rumor mill buzzing, however, is the revelation that two saddlebags of Confederate gold were hidden in a local cave to keep them from falling into Yankee hands. Once word gets out that the saddlebags were never recovered, almost everyone in town has a plan to get their hands on the lost gold. Meanwhile, a colorful cast of outlanders has taken over Maggody. They include a dewy Charleston belle, a famous writer of historical romances, her ne'er-do-well son, and three dozen obsessive reenactors who have not yet acknowledged that the Civil War ended over a hundred years ago, as well as a documentary film crew and a handsome, if enigmatic, filmmaker with ties to Arly's past. Arly has more than enough on her hands trying to locate missing senior citizens and keeping the visitors from each other's throats, but when the genealogist of the Stump County Historical Society dies under questionable circumstances, and a member of the Buchanon clan is the victim of a vicious and fatal attack, Arly finds herself faced with the most baffling whodunit of her career, with a disgruntled ghost a possible prime suspect.

Maggody, Arkansas (pop. 755) is perceived of as a two-bit hick town, filled with one-bit hicks. But Mrs. Jim Bob Buchanan seeks to change that perception with her latest scheme—a charity golf tournament. This presents a bit of a challenge, since no one in Maggody plays golf and there is no course. But when the prize for the first hole-in-one is announced—a top of the line bass boat—nearly everyone in town develops a new-found interest in the sport. The town goes golf crazy, trying to learn the sport in time to win the bass boat, with limited success and maximum domestic disorder. Sheriff Arly Hanks, who has better things to worry about, just wishes it would all go away. When a small-town golf instructor wins the bass boat on the first day of the tournament, it looks like all the excitement is over. But the next morning, when he's found dead, sitting in the parking lot in the front seat of the bass boat, the prize is once again up for grabs and nearly everyone in town is a murder suspect.

The enormous explosion of crime fiction over the last decade means that more people are looking for a good mystery than ever before. This dictionary of fictional detectives helps readers learn about the series in which their favorite detectives are featured. Included are alphabetically arranged entries on roughly 150 fictional detectives, which provide information about the works in which the detective appears, the locales in which the detective operates, the detective's investigative methods, and other important information. Helpful bibliographical citations direct the reader to other interesting works. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography; various appendices; and an extensive index. The enormous explosion of crime fiction over the last decade means that more people are looking for a good mystery than ever before. Many of the most popular mystery books appear in series, and these series feature carefully developed detectives.

When the uproarious town of Maggody, Arkansas, plugs into the Internet, the digital age turns deadly. Aside from the odd stolen dog or vandalized lawn ornament, there’s been no recent crime in Maggody, Arkansas, population 755, and that’s how Chief of Police Arly Hanks likes it. Things have been so quiet she’s taken to sitting in on school-board meetings, and she’s doing just this when the high school announces the new computer lab, which will be open to everybody in town. To Arly—who doesn’t trust her neighbors to handle a toaster, much less a computer—it seems like an invitation to disaster. Little does she know that when Maggody logs on, the results will be murderous. As soon as the first modem is plugged in, Maggody’s computers are flooded with hackers, pornography, libel, and worse. And when a newcomer is brutally murdered, Arly must use low-tech resourcefulness to catch a digital killer—and save Maggody from the information age. Fans of Ellen Byron’s Cajun Country mysteries will find themselves right at home in Maggody, where everyone knows everyone—and everyone is related. This is unquestionably one of the funniest mystery series of all time. [email protected] is the 12th book in the Arly Hanks Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.