Atherton, Nancy

Aunt Dimity’s Death

Lori thought Aunt Dimity was just a character in a family bedtime story until a law firm summoned her to a reading of her relative's last will and testament. Lori will inherit a sizeable estate--if she can discover the secret hidden in a treasure trove of letters tucked away at Dimity's English country cottage.

Beaton, M.C.

Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

After her first husband, Jimmy Raisin, stops her wedding and she is left jilted at the altar, he is found strangled to death, and Agatha Raisin must prove her innocence along with that of her intended in this mystery filled with murder and mayhem.

Benison, C.C.C.

Death at Buckingham Palace

When a young footman dies in unusual circumstances, Jane Bee is skeptical of rumors the death was a suicide. She probes the darkest corners of the royal mansion for clues that will reveal the surprising identity of a murderer stalking the halls of the world's most famous palace.

Braun, Lilian Jackson

The Cat Who Sang for the Birds

The opening of the County Art Center heralds a new crime wave: missing artwork, breaking and entering, and the increasingly foul language of a green parrot named Jasper suggest that something is wrong in this quiet corner of Maine. Qwilleran himself cries foul when a neighbor, Maude Coggin, dies in an unstoppable fire in her home immediately after selling off the bulk of her valuable farm. Who bought the farm out from under the old woman? Qwilleran and his usual cast of characters, including longtime girlfriend Polly Duncan and his newspaper buddy Arch Riker, determine to find out.

Cannell, Dorothy

The Thin Woman: an epicurean mystery

Overweight and unmarried, Ellie Simons balks at the prospect of attending her family reunion. But with a hired escort in tow--posing as husband--she summons the courage to go, little realizing that the weekend will lead to unexpected romance, a treasure hunt--and murder.

Davidson, Diane Mott

Catering to Nobody

A well-received, bestselling mystery featuring Goldy Bear, a divorcee caterer with a taste for crime. Catering a wake for her son's favorite teacher was unpleasant enough for Goldy, without some rat putting poison in the coffee. And the ensuing investigation causes Goldy's kitchen to be shut down.

Dobson, Joanne

Quieter Than Sleep: a modern mystery of Emily Dickinson

After a semester spent avoiding the advances of a colleague, Karen Pelletier, Emily Dickinson scholar and a new professor at an elite New England college, has the bad luck of finding his body in a closet at the annual Christmas party. Retracing his steps to Harvard's Houghton Library, she finds out that a letter written long ago by the Belle of Amherst is at the root of recent crimes, a realization that puts her life and others' in mortal danger.

Gilman, Dorothy

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax

Mrs. Virgil (Emily) Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was a widow with grown children. She was tired of attending her Garden Club meetings. She wanted to do something good for her country. So, naturally, she became a CIA agent. Soon our dear Mrs. Pollifax finds herself embroilied in quite a hot Cold War—and her country's enemies find themsleves entangled with one unbelievably feisty lady.

Haines, Carolyn

Them Bones

Meet Sarah Booth Delaney...an unconventional Southern belle whose knack for uncovering the truth is about to make her the hottest detective in Zinnia, Mississippi...if it doesn't make her the deadest. When she asks one too many questions and a new corpse turns up, she is suddenly a suspect herself...and Sarah Booth finds that digging up the bones of the past could leave her rolling over in her grave.

Hess, Joan

A Conventional Corpse: a Claire Malloy mystery

Farberville, Arkansas is playing host to its first ever mystery convention. Sponsored by the Thurber Farber Foundation and held at Farber College, Murder Comes to Campus is playing host to five major mystery writers representing all areas of the field as well as the much disliked mystery editor Roxanne Small. When one of the attendees dies in a suspicious car accident, Wimple the cat disappears from Claire's home, and Roxanne Small is nowhere to be found, it becomes evident that the murder mystery is more than a literary genre.

McCall Smith, Alexander

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

When Isabel's niece, Cat, asks Isabel to run her delicatessen while she attends a wedding in Italy, Isabel meets a man who recently had a heart transplant and is suddenly plagued with memories of events that never happened to him. When Ian tells Isabel about strange sensations he has been having since the operation -- particularly nightmarish images of a stranger's face -- Isabel vows to figure out if the visions are in fact murderous memories somehow connected to the donor's heart.

McCrumb, Sharyn

Bimbos of the Death Sun

The guest of honor at the annual Rubicon science fiction and fantasy convention is bestselling author Appin Dungannon--a tiny man with a towering ego, who reviles his fans as much as they revere him. But finally rubbing the wrong person the wrong way gets Dungannon done in. Is the mystery whodunit--or who wouldn't?

Saulnier, Beth

Reliable Sources

Alex Bernier, a 25-year-old Vasser graduate, is a reporter in an upstate New York town dominated by an Ivy League school. When her lover, Adam Ellroy, the paper's police reporter, is found dead at the bottom of one of the town's infamous gorges, Alex refuses to accept his death as a suicide. Determined to prove he was murdered, Alex takes matters into her own hands. Through her investigation, Alex uncovers national security secrets that date back to the Manhattan Project, a slew of unsavory characters from Adam's past, and a brilliant medical researcher with whom Alex may take another chance on romance.