Showing results for "To Die For" in Amateur Sleuth

The Cypress Arete Society is one of the town's oldest and most exclusive clubs. When assistant librarian Trudell Becket is invited to speak to the group about the library, its modernization, and her efforts to bring printed books to the reading public, her friend Flossie invites herself along. Flossie has been on the book club's waiting list for five years, and she's determined to find out why she's never received an invitation to join. But not long after Tru and Flossie arrive for the meeting, they're shocked to find the club's president, Rebecca White, dead in the kitchen.

Burned-out software engineer Jake Martin and his golden retriever, Fred, live in a mountain cabin far enough from Denver to escape the rat race but not far enough to escape its crime. While remodeling an old house, he uncovers a stack of love letters that will turn his world inside out. When word of the letters gets out, people start dying, including the owner of the house Jake was remodeling. With his main source of income gone, he lets his friend and neighbor, Bonnie Jones, talk him into searching for the killer after they are offered a large retainer.

Translator Rick Montoya is looking forward to a quiet weekend away with his girlfriend, Betta, an art fraud investigator for the Italian Culture Ministry. Their destination: the beautiful village of Urbino, home to Renaissance masters Rafael and the lesser-known Piero della Francesca. While Betta does have official business to attend to—namely, collecting a priceless Piero drawing from a wealthy Spanish collector on the ministry's behalf—she asks Rick to join her "in case she needs an interpreter," but with other, less-official intentions in mind.

Capri Sanzio knows that when you give serial killer walking tours for a living, unexpected situations are more common than San Francisco's famous fog. So, when one of her guests claims to see a woman being attacked during a tour, Capri remains unphased. The police search the apartment in question and find no evidence of anything amiss, so they chalk it up to a false report from a true crime fanatic looking to be a part of a case. And Capri thinks they might be right, since lately her tours have been attracting even more obsessives than usual.

Mandy Dyer is feeling the heat—and not just because she’s the owner of Dyer’s Dry Cleaners. When she discovers that her dear friend Kate Bosworth has been strangled by a vintage scarf, Mandy has a real mess on her hands. Days earlier, Kate had brought an antique gown into Dyer’s for a cleaning. The dress was a 1920s Fortuny that Kate claimed was worth thousands, but she’d gotten for a steal—and it may have cost Kate her life.

Dry cleaning entrepreneur Mandy Dyer has a spotless reputation as a business owner—and as a part-time amateur sleuth. Yet when the body of her sleazy business rival is discovered hanging from a conveyor belt in her cleaning plant, Mandy is the lead suspect. So much for making a good impression on sexy homicide detective Stan Foster. But Mandy isn’t the kind to turn away from a tough spot. Instead, she begins searching for the real culprit, starting with the colorful cast of characters she calls her employees.

Jing-nan has known Peggy Lee, a bullying frenemy who runs her family's huge corporation, since high school. Peggy's father has been kidnapped, and the ransom the kidnappers are demanding is not money but IP: a high-tech memory chip that they want to sell in China. Jing-nan feels sorry for Peggy until she starts blackmailing him into helping out. Peggy is worried the kidnappers' deadline will pass before the police are able to track down the chip. But when the reluctant Jing-nan tries to help, he finds himself deeper and deeper in trouble with some very unsavory characters.

A fledgling business takes a shocking turn when James and Skip unload the contents of their first moving-van job and find some unexpected cargo: a bloody human finger. James and Skip must scramble to stay ahead of the perpetrators of the gruesome crime in this witty, gritty mystery about big dreams, big ideas, and big trouble.

Voluptuous P.I. Savannah Reid isn't a huge fan of diets and she'd rather walk through fire then go to the gym. But when the nation's hottest weight loss guru becomes a suspect in a big, fat murder case, even Savannah can't resist the chance to find out once and for all if the beloved queen of fitness took the -die- in diet a little too far....

It's autumn down south, and An'gel and Dickce Ducote are in Natchez, Mississippi, at the request of Mary Turner Catlin, the granddaughter of an old friend. Mary and her husband, Henry Howard, live in Cliffwood, one of the beautiful antebellum homes for which Natchez is famous. Odd things have been happening in the house for years, and the French Room in particular has become the focal point for spooky sensations.

Newlyweds Josie and veterinarian Ted Scottsmeyer are happily married, and they buy their first house, a fixer-upper, from Ted’s partner, Christine. When they tear down the rickety gazebo in the backyard, they find the body of Christine’s sister, a free spirit who supposedly took off six months ago. The police arrest Christine for murder, and Ted has to work long hours at his practice to cover for his now jailed partner. Josie has to find the real killer to save her marriage and Christine.

The Bon-Appetempting Pizza Bake-Off has the small town of Branson, Georgia, buzzing—not least its organizer, Southern Style's food critic and blogger Tiffany Austin. But right before the finals one of the celebrity judges falls ill, and to Tiffany's horror, the magazine replaces him with none other than handsome TV star and restaurateur Bartholomew Driscoll. She's convinced he's only accepted the job to get revenge. She fully expects Driscoll will find a way to ruin the contest—but she definitely doesn't expect to trip over his dead body backstage!

Hustling her fiance off to a neighboring tourist town might be the only way Jill Gardner can plan her nuptials to South Cove's in-demand police detective. But when a mystery man turns up dead at South Cove's PD, Greg is hightailing it back home to investigate, leaving Jill to finish the vacation solo. Jill can barely get in a spa day before her own respite is spoiled by a greedy hotel guest and unexpected revelations about Max Winter, the developer conniving to buy her home out from under her.

Montauk's first annual Designer Showhouse was meant to be a collaborative event, so decorator Meg Barrett can only despair at the group of cutthroat designers scheming to sabotage each other on the project, not to mention the oddball collection of ghost hunters slinking around to investigate a supposedly haunted cottage. But when one of the owners of the showhouse is found murdered on the rocky beach below, Meg suddenly finds herself clashing with local police because of evidence that points to her as a prime suspect.

Peace and quiet are hard to find in bustling Key West, so Hayley Snow, a food critic for Key Zest magazine, is taking the afternoon off for a tranquil lunch with a friend outside of town. As they are enjoying the wild beach and the lunch, she realizes that her husband Nathan’s dog, Ziggy, has disappeared. She follows his barking and finds him furiously digging at a shallow grave with a man’s body in it. Davis Jager, a local birdwatcher, identifies him as GG Garcia, a rabble-rousing Key West local and developer.

Letting no good deal go undone, the Good Buy Girls are ready to pounce on the St. Stanley flea market, where wealthy Vera Madison is selling off her vintage clothing. The widow’s wardrobe is just what Maggie Gerber needs to give her second-hand shop, My Sister’s Closet, the edge over vindictive rival Summer Phillips, who’s opened her own second-hand shop across the street. But when Vera is found dead, it turns out that she collected enemies like Dior gowns - and had more than a few skeletons in her walk-in closet. Now it’s up to Maggie and the Good Buy Girls to find the killer.

It seems Carole Morganwick, the town vet, is from the old school of pet care. But when Stan swallows her pride and brings a very unwilling Nutty in for a checkup, she not only finds Carole dead under a pile of kibble...but also learns that she's in the dog house as the prime suspect! Finding the real killer and clearing her name will require some seriously surreptitious sniffing around...and hopefully, curiosity won't kill this innocent cat.

December 1940. With the Blitz devastating Britain’s cities, Lizzie Hayes and the women pilots of the Air Transport Authority are more crucial to the war effort than ever before. But when the relative peace of the village of Scotney is shattered by the disappearance of the Chief Inspector’s niece, it’s Lizzie’s training as a psychologist that draws her into another disturbing police case alongside DI Jonathan Kember.

If clothes make the man, then what do Jaine Austen's elastic-waist pants and T-shirts make her? A fashion nightmare, according to her neighbor, Lance. She doesn't expect Lance - who works in the designer shoe department at Nieman Marcus - to understand...which is how she ends up visiting his favorite boutique, Passions. While the couture is definitely not for Jaine, the staff's gossip is. Tiny orange-haired clerk Becky starts complaining about her coworker Giselle - a.k.a. "Frenchie".

School psychologist Skye Denison-Boyd had hoped that her maternity leave would be at least a little relaxing, but when she and her husband, Wally, meet with the priest to discuss their newborn twins' christening, an explosion at the nearby bowling alley rocks the rectory. And although the business was closed at the time of the blast, there's a body inside. As police chief, Wally is inevitably drawn into the investigation, which seems to indicate that foul play is afoot again in Scumble River, and Skye can't help but do a bit of her own sleuthing.