Showing results for "Women" in Amateur Sleuth

Alison Bergeron has her doubts about hosting a birthday party for her twin stepdaughters, seeing as it’ll include all of her new husband’s ex-in-laws. Still, she’s a good sport, and everyone has a great time, especially the girls, who receive $10,000 from their estranged uncle, Chick. The girls’ father, NYPD Detective Bobby Crawford, and Christine, his ex, think the gift is too much. When Crawford swings by Chick’s apartment to return it, he finds Chick dead, with roughly $250,000 stuffed in his mattress. The death is ruled a suicide, but Christine isn’t convinced, and even Alison can’t help but admit that there must be a lot more to Chick’s death than meets the eye.

Safely away from the chaos of Manhattan, St. Thomas, a small college on the banks of the Hudson River, is supposed to be tranquil, bucolic, and serene. Unfortunately, English professor Alison Bergeron has found it to be anything but. Recently divorced and even more recently without a car - it was stolen - she has been hoofing it to school. One Friday evening, two homicide detectives drop by her office. The good news is that they found her beat-up Volvo; the bad news is that the body of one of her students was in the trunk.

St. Thomas, the small college north of New York City where Professor Alison Bergeron teaches, has had its share of scandals - on and off campus; among both students and staff; and, lo and behold, with Alison herself. So when one of St. Thomas’ resident directors goes mysteriously, scandalously missing, the administration wants to keep a lid on it. With only five weeks left in the semester and no time to interview replacements, Alison is tapped for the job.

Forty-something Maggie Sharpe is returning to her quaint childhood town of Dogwood Mountain, Missouri, nestled in the beautiful Ozark Mountains, Maggie recently inherited Dogwood Bakery, along with a cute little cottage, from her aunt Marjorie. With a son in the Navy, deployed six months at a time, and an ex in Kansas, Maggie decided that it was time for a change, but she soon learns that life back home is not all sprinkles and jelly-filled donuts.

On her way to meet her boyfriend’s parents, college professor Alison Bergeron stops by a coffee shop to steel her resolve. It’s a big event. Not only is it the first time she’s met NYPD detective Bobby Crawford’s entire family, but it’s coming on the heels of a wedding proposal that she has left unanswered so far. Then, as she steps into the shop, a brawl breaks out that ends in the death of Carter Wilmott, a merciless and loathed local blogger. The case couldn’t be any simpler, and Alison witnessed the whole thing, but when Wilmott’s car explodes in the aftermath, what looked to be a crime of passion becomes something far more complicated....

College English professor Alison Bergeron thought that dating a cute NYPD detective like Bobby Crawford would be exciting and involve a lot of riding around in cruisers and putting away sleazy crooks, but he has yet to invite her on any stakeouts.... Then when a friend asks her to help him find his nephew, she goes to Bobby for advice only to find out that he already knows about the case. He pulled the boy out of the Hudson River a few days earlier. The boy’s employer calls it an accident, but Alison and Bobby aren’t convinced.

Melanie West is getting her life back on track after a messy divorce when her grandmother, Liza Harris, asks her to join her in opening a bed-and-breakfast inn. Together, Liza and Melanie purchase a purportedly haunted mansion on the Oregon coast and jump right into clearing out the cobwebs. But while attempting to remove wallpaper in an upstairs bedroom, the new B&B owners stumble upon a very real skeleton in their closet.

When Holly White's fiancé cancels their Christmas Eve wedding with less than two weeks to go, Holly heads home with a broken heart. Lucky for her, home in historic Mistletoe, Maine is magical during Christmastime - exactly what the doctor prescribed. Except her plan to drown her troubles in peppermints and snickerdoodles is upended when local grouch and president of the Mistletoe Historical Society, Margaret Fenwick, is bludgeoned and left in the sleigh display at Reindeer Games, Holly's family tree farm.

Septuagenarian librarian Cleo Watkins won’t be shushed when an upstart young mayor threatens to permanently shelve her tiny town’s storm-damaged library. She takes to her bookmobile, Words on Wheels, to collect allies and rally library support throughout Catalpa Springs, GA. However, Cleo soon rolls into trouble. A major benefactor known for his eccentric DIY projects requests all available books on getting away with murder. He’s no Georgia peach, and Cleo wonders if she should be worried. She knows she should when she finds him murdered - and evidence points to her best friend.

It isn’t the first time real estate agent Helen Morrisey has found someone naked in bed while showing a house. But this one is different. One glance at the bluish cast around his lips and the vacant, staring eyes, and Helen knows developer Al Capelli is never going to sign another sales agreement. His death is big news for a small Chesapeake water town where a family empire is built around secrets and their brash money style is resented by locals. Within days, his lover, her old friend, begs Helen to find the killer before she’s arrested for murder.

Recently engaged and deeply ensconced in her third year of surgical residency in Chicago, Emily Hartford gets a shock when she is called home to Freeport, Michigan, the small town she fled a decade ago after the death of her mother. Her estranged father, the local medical examiner, has had a massive heart attack. At the hospital, she finds her father in near total denial of the seriousness of his condition. He insists that the best thing Emily can do to help him is to take on the autopsy of a senator's teen daughter whose sudden, unexplained death has just rocked the sleepy town.

'Tis the season for mince pies, mulled wine... and murder! A dead body. A locked Christmas stall with no way in or out. A cunning killer who's gone before the tea's gone cold. Christmas in Southbourne should be all twinkly lights and festive cheer, but Fiona, Daisy, and Partial Sue—the retired trio who run Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop— have little to celebrate. What with the elusive "Southbourne Stalker" prowling the streets of their sleepy seaside town, they're in need of a little seasonal magic.

Erin Coleridge's used bookstore in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England, is a meeting place for the villagers and, in particular, for the local Jane Austen Society. At the Society's monthly meeting, matters come to a head between the old guard and its young turks. After the meeting breaks for tea, persuasion gives way to murder with extreme prejudice when president Sylvia Pemberthy falls dead to the floor. Poisoned? Presumably, but by whom? And was Sylvia the only target?

A twister, a kidnapping, and a murder - oh my! Scumble River may never be the same. For school psychologist Skye Denison, there's certainly no place like home. When a violent tornado devastates her small hometown of Scumble River, she can't see how the community will ever recover - especially since town councilman Zeke Lyons appears to have perished in the twister. But things get even worse for Skye when her police chief husband, Wally, disappears in the midst of investigating Zeke's death, and evidence arises pointing to foul play.

The sisters of Gwenafwy Abbey have cherished their contemplative life - days spent in prayer, reflection, tending the convent's vegetable gardens and making their award-winning organic cheese, Heavenly Gouda. Life seems perfect, except for Sister Agatha, a die-hard mystery fan who despairs of ever finding any real life inspiration for her own novel. That is, until the abbey's sexton is found dead under an avalanche of gouda. Despite the reservations of the local constable, Sister Agatha is convinced it's murder and the game is afoot.

Sarah Brandt is surprised when the son of her superstitious next-door neighbor asks for her professional advice. She is even more surprised to learn that mild-mannered Nelson Ellsworth has a mistress and has gotten her with child. When the young woman later turns up dead under the infamous hanging tree in Washington Square, Nelson is the prime suspect. Sarah knows that he must be innocent, and she enlists the help of detective Frank Malloy to help her find the real killer.

Madeline Vaughn-Alwin's picture-perfect life fades to gray when her childhood sweetheart perishes in the Great War. The aspiring painter leaves her wealthy New York family behind for Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she's certain she's found her new home amid the striking scenery and inspiring artistic community. To help out around her new adobe cottage, Maddie hires the Anayas, a local Native American family. But when the father is found murdered outside a speakeasy, the police brush off the death as just another inebriated man finding trouble.

When the last fare of the night turns up dead in her backseat, a Sri Lankan American taxi driver works off the clock to clear her name in this mystery novel by debut author Yosha Gunasekera. Siriwathi Perera doesn’t quite know where she’s going in life. She never expected to be a taxicab...

Grandeur and opulence are everything in the famed New Orleans Garden District where pets are family and no bling is too big. Opening Furry Godmother, pet boutique and organic treat bakery, is Lacy Marie Crocker's dream come true - until the glitter gun used to make her Shih Tzu tutus becomes a murder weapon - and Lacy becomes public enemy number one. Now detective Jack Oliver is hounding Lacy, and her Furry Godmother investor wants out before his name is tarnished by association.

Katie LeClair has finally settled down as the new doctor in Baxter, Michigan. After years of moving, schooling, and training, she wants nothing more than to find a place she can call home, and a small town outside of Ann Arbor seems perfect. Katie quickly gets to work in building a life for herself in Baxter, and beyond reviving her love life, she also finds a pair of business partners in a team of father and son family practitioners. But that idyllic dream is immediately shattered when one of her patients is found dead.