Hairstylist Marla Vail flushes out a killer when murder disrupts her mother’s home renovation plans in this stylish cozy mystery. When hairstylist and savvy sleuth, Marla Vail, gets a frantic call from her mother that there’s a dead body in her shower, Marla realizes this wasn’t part of the home renovation plans. The victim turns out to be the project manager, who had an untrustworthy reputation in town. Disgruntled customers, unpaid suppliers, and the design company’s staff are among the suspects. Which one of them wanted the foreman to pipe down about their shady dealings? Meanwhile, the lead investigator sets his sights on Marla’s stepfather, Reed, who’s keeping secrets from his family. Reed has a past connection to the victim and won’t come clean about what he knows. As Marla drills deeper, she’s showered with suspicions, but nobody’s willing to leak any information. She needs to hammer down the prospects, or time will drain away and the murderer will strike again. To flush out the culprit, Marla taps into her pipeline of resources. Can she assemble the clues and demolish the alibis to nail a killer? Or has someone designed the perfect murder? Recipes Included! “Best of 2021” Cozy Mystery by Suspense Magazine Bronze Award Winner in the 2022 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards Finalist in the 2022 American Fiction Awards Finalist in the Royal Palm Literary Awards “A charmingly funny whodunit!” Woman’s World

Henry Reid Farley is just twenty-eight years old on November 8, 1898, when he is elected Sheriff of Monterey County. Less than a year later, Sheriff Farley lay in his grave. Now the citizens of Salinas are out for revenge. Immediately after the sheriff's murder, local gun stores open their doors in the dark of the night to hand out weapons to several people intending to hunt down George Suesser, the man responsible for the death of the youngest sheriff ever in the history of the State of California. As cries for his lynching echo throughout the streets of Salinas, Suesser is discovered in a crawl space only eighteen inches wide deep in his cellar. The angry citizens of Salinas demand swift justice. The case against the accused is about to begin. Murder, Salinas Style: Book Three shares a unique glimpse into the lives of both a murderer and his victim while revealing the compelling history of a California town, its citizens, and the violence that would become its legacy.

What is the essence of the New York experience? A stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge? A concert at Carnegie Hall/?Crossing the finish line at the New York Marathon? A trip to the Bronx Zoo? Or any one of these--plus murder? These seventeen stories by members of the New York/Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime, with a foreword by Margaret Maron, explore the mystery and mayhem that lurk in every corner of the most unpredictable, irrepressible, inimitable city on the planet.

Why do people kill those they love? David J. Krajicek, one of America's most renowned true crime storytellers, explores that question is these 50 unforgettable examples of relationship murders, including spouses, intimate partners and other blood relatives. The killers often are motivated by lust and greed, which Krajicek calls the terrible twins of the Seven Deadly Sins. More than 2 million marriages are celebrated each year in America. Some last forever. About half don't. A simple divorce is the solution for most couples when marriage loses its fragrance. But legal niceties like divorce do not seem viable for certain types of people, those who cannot fathom a life of romantic freedom fettered with debt. In these cases, Krajicek writes, "First comes love, then comes marriage. This is followed by sobering reality, quarrels, regrets, resentment, hostility, frigidity, animosity. Soon, one partner is sitting at the computer googling phrases like 'How to commit murder.'"

“It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore.”—The New York Times Book Review Introduction by David Handler It wasn’t Leonard Dykes’s writing style that offended. But something in his unpublished tome seemed to lead everyone who read it to a very unhappy ending. Now four people are dead, including the unfortunate author himself, and the police think Nero Wolfe is the only man who can close the book on this novel killer. So the genius sleuth directs his sidekick to set a trap . . . and discovers that the truth is far stranger—and far bloodier—than fiction. A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America’s greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained—and puzzled—millions of mystery fans around the world. Now, with his perambulatory man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable master himself, Rex Stout.

The Blue Ridge Mountains, fun historical tidbits, a hint of the supernatural, and a taste of romance—this bookish cozy mystery series debut about a crime-solving librarian is “one of the best” (New York Journal of Books). Librarian Amy Webber must archive overdue crimes and deadly rumors before a killer strikes again in small-town Virginia . . . Fleeing a disastrous love affair, university librarian Amy Webber moves in with her aunt in a quiet, historic mountain town in Virginia. She quickly busies herself with managing a charming public library that requires all her attention with its severe lack of funds and overabundance of eccentric patrons. The last thing she needs is a new, available neighbor whose charm lures her into trouble. Dancer-turned-teacher and choreographer Richard Muir inherited the farmhouse next door from his great-uncle, Paul Dassin. But town folklore claims the house’s original owner was poisoned by his wife, who was an outsider. It quickly became water under the bridge, until she vanished after her sensational 1925 murder trial. Determined to clear the name of the woman his great-uncle loved, Richard implores Amy to help him investigate the case. Amy is skeptical until their research raises questions about the culpability of the town’s leading families . . . including her own. When inexplicable murders plunge the quiet town into chaos, Amy and Richard must crack open the books to reveal a cruel conspiracy and lay a turbulent past to rest in A Murder for the Books, the first installment of Victoria Gilbert’s Blue Ridge Library mysteries.

"From the prize-winning biographer--the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: can a novel kill? In May 1840, Lord William Russell, well known in London's highest social circles, was found with his throat cut. The brutal murder had the whole city talking. The police suspected Russell's valet, Courvoisier, but the evidence was weak. And the missing clue lay in the unlikeliest place: what Courvoisier had been reading. In the years just before the murder, new printing methods had made books cheap and abundant, the novel form was on the rise, and suddenly everyone was reading. The best-selling titles were the most sensational true-crime stories. Even Dickens and Thackeray, both at the beginning of their careers, fell under the spell of these tales--Dickens publicly admiring them, Thackeray rejecting them. One such phenomenon was William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard, the story of an unrepentant criminal who escaped the gallows time and again. When Courvoisier finally confessed his guilt, he would cite this novel in his defense. Murder By the Book combines the thrilling true-crime story with a illuminating account of the rise of the novel form and the battle for its early soul between the most famous writers of the time. It is a superbly researched, vividly written, fascinating read from first to last"--