The pot thief discovers that archaeology is not nearly as cutthroat as the restaurant business A treasure hunter, pottery dealer, and occasional manufacturer of imitation American Indian artifacts, Albuquerque’s Hubie Schuze knows quite a bit about throwing clay. But ancient Native American pottery is not really intended for dining, so he is puzzled when a restaurateur comes to him asking for dinner plates. The job sounds boring, but the fee does not: $25,000 for one hundred plates for a new Austrian restaurant in Santa Fe. The owner insists Hubie relocate to the area for the duration of the job in order to soak in the restaurant atmosphere as he works. Hubie has dealt with his fair share of grave robbers, museum burglars, and cold-blooded killers, but nothing could prepare him for the infighting that goes on behind a kitchen’s doors. When the cooks start croaking, the pot thief will have to move quickly to collect his fee, save the restaurant, and escape Santa Fe alive. The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier is the 4th book in the Pot Thief Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

First in the lively, laugh-filled series featuring a New Mexico pottery dealer with a side job as an amateur sleuth. A dealer of ancient Native American pottery, Hubert Schuze has spent years combing the public lands of New Mexico, digging for artwork that would otherwise remain buried. According to the US government, Hubie is a thief—but no act of Congress could stop him from doing what he loves. For decades, Hubie has worn the title of pot thief proudly. Outright burglary, though, is another story. But an offer of $25,000 to lift a rare pot from a local museum proves too tempting for Hubie to refuse. When he sees how tightly the relic is guarded, he changes his mind, but the pot goes missing anyway. Soon a federal agent suspects that Hubie is the culprit. After things take a turn for the serious, Hubie knows he must find the real thief quickly, or risk cracking something more fragile than any pot—his skull. The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras is the 1st book in the Pot Thief Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A shady pottery collector is murdered in sunny New Mexico in this mystery in a “winning series” (Susan Wittig Albert). Maybe it was the chance to make an easy $2,500. Or maybe it was the opportunity to examine a treasure trove of Anasazi pots—or maybe it was just a slow day at the antiques shop that convinced Hubie Schuze to agree to a strange proposition. A reclusive collector wants a confidential appraisal, with one catch: Hubie must be blindfolded and driven to an unknown location by a chauffeur. Sure, it’s an odd setup, but what could possibly go wrong? Hubie’s nonchalance fades fast when he finds three replicas among the genuine antiquities. Worse, after returning home, he can’t seem to find the $2,500 cash that the collector gave him. Incensed at the rip-off, Hubie is determined to recoup the money, but Detective Whit Fletcher interrupts his scheme, dragging him instead to the morgue to identify a John Doe. When the sheet is pulled back, Hubie is shocked to see the body of the unknown art collector. Hubie is not a suspect—yet. But the longer he pursues this mystery, the more tangled he will become in the dead man’s shadowy life. The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein is the 3th book in the Pot Thief Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A New Mexico pottery dealer cracks a perplexing mystery in this “winning blend of humor and character development” (Publishers Weekly). Hubert Schuze is an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and he has a fairly lucrative side gig digging up ancient relics and selling them. He also seems to have a talent for finding killers. When Hubie discovers a body outside his pottery shop, it appears the victim was stabbed in the back with something resembling a screwdriver. But the story gets a lot more mysterious when a video turns up showing the man collapsing with no one else nearby. Furthermore, a slip of paper is found in his pocket, with Hubie’s name and address on it, suggesting there may be a connection between the two men—though Hubie has no idea what it could be. Now, the professor and pottery expert must put his sleuthing skills to work—while simultaneously managing his new role running the university’s art department—to piece together the shards of a baffling crime in this “breezy” novel from a winner of the Left Award for Best Humorous Mystery starring a “witty” amateur detective (Albuquerque Journal). “[A] winning series.” —Susan Wittig Albert, New York Times–bestselling author of the China Bayles Herbal Mysteries

"Chris Grabenstein just might be the smartest writer for kids in the universe." --James Patterson What if you could learn everything just by eating jellybeans?! Meet the Smartest Kid in the Universe and find out in this fun-packed new series from the Bestselling Author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and coauthor of Max Einstein! 12 year old Jake's middle school is about to be shut down--unless Jake and his friends can figure out how to save it. When Jake spies a bowl of jellybeans at the hotel where his mom works, he eats them. But those weren't just jellybeans, one of the scientists at his mom's conference is developing the world's first ingestible information pills. And THAT'S what Jake ate. Before long, Jake is the smartest kid in the universe. But the pills haven't been tested yet. And when word gets out about this new genius, people want him. The government. The mega corporations. Not all of them are good people! Can Jake navigate the ins and outs of his newfound geniusdom (not to mention the ins and outs of middle school) and use his smarts to save his school? BONUS! Includes extra brainteasers to test your smarts! Don't miss the next Smartest Kid in the Universe—Genius Camp!

Carl Linnaeus - Joseph Banks - Francis Masson - Carl Peter Thunberg - David Douglas - William Lobb - Thomas Lobb - Robert Fortune - Marianne North - Richard Spruce - Joseph Dalton Hooker.

The pot thief is going back to school, but someone on campus is trying for a different kind of degree—murder in the first—in this “smartly funny series” (Anne Hillerman). Before making a somewhat notorious name for himself as a salvager of antiquated pottery and other desert artifacts, Hubie Schuze was an eager student at the University of New Mexico—right up until they booted him out. Now, he’s back at UNM as a pottery teacher. It should be a breeze, but campus life has changed dramatically in the past twenty-five years. From cell phones to trigger warnings to sensitivity workshops, Hubie has to get up to speed fast or risk losing control of his class. But his dismay at the state of modern academia takes a back seat when a young beauty working as a life model is murdered—and Hubie becomes a suspect. Taking the investigation into his own hands, he soon uncovers a wide palette of sketchy suspects that includes both the self-involved student body and the quarrelsome art school faculty. But what he doesn’t know is that the murderer has a new artistic project in the works: a headstone for the grave of Hubie Schuze . . . The Pot Thief Who Studied Edward Abbey is the 8th book in the Pot Thief Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.