Showing results by publisher "Dreamscape Media, LLC" in Amateur Sleuths

Snowcapped pines and glittery dusted sidewalks adorn tranquil Heartsford, Wisconsin, while residents cuddle beneath heirloom quilts in front of cozy wood fires. But come the next day, the below-zero temperatures won't keep the locals away from Heartsford's annual Fire & Ice event. To boost customer traffic at Community Craft's one-night-only sale, Samantha Sammy Kane persuades a few of the craftspeople who sell their wares at the store to participate in a live mannequin window display contest.

Four years have sped swiftly by, and Kelly Flynn and her friends are all happily busy with children and careers. Baby Jack is now a rambunctious four-year-old preschooler who keeps Kelly on her toes. She needs all of the coffee she can drink at Pete's Porch Cafe. Her friends at Lambspun knitting shop are all immersed in the wonderful world of fiber, until they are shocked by the murder of one of the cafe's lovable staff.

In the third installment of the Arsène Lupin series, we find our gentleman burglar up against Isidore Beautrelet, a young but gifted amateur detective who is determined to foil Lupin once and for all. As he hunts down the Hollow Needle, a needle that contains secrets that have been passed down from French kinds since Julius Caesar, Beautrelet is never too far behind.

Photographer Ivy Culpepper is soon to make a home with her husband-to-be in the California beach town of Santa Sofia—but the Yeast of Eden bakery remains her second home. A regular who used Yeast of Eden as a workspace, Josh Prentiss always turned heads with his startlingly good looks and thousand-watt smile. But Ivy can’t help noticing one morning that he seems off his game. Later, during a visit to the park where she and Miguel plan to hold their engagement party—with plenty of baked goods on the menu—her pug Agatha sniffs out Josh lying in a bed of poppies…scone cold dead.

Greg Abimbola is a language teacher at the prestigious Calderhill Academy in Pittsburgh. Only that's not his real name or the only secret he's hiding. Greg has a closetful. When the murder of a wealthy parent on school premises shines an unwanted spotlight on Calderhill Academy, Greg is determined to avoid attention—that is until the closest person to a true friend he has is arrested for the murder. To prove her innocence, Greg will reluctantly emerge from the shadows. But doing so will put him in danger. His past is determined to find him, and his past is full of bad things.

Liz McLuckie has retired to Whitby—a picturesque fishing town on the North Yorkshire coast—to recover after the death of her husband. But Whitby isn’t the peaceful retreat she imagined. When one of her friends is accused of poisoning the town mayor, Liz is determined to clear her name. She suspects someone has deliberately triggered the mayor’s fatal allergy, but who? The mystery deepens further when the mayor’s body is stolen the night before his funeral. Who would do such a thing? And why? Liz is determined to get to the bottom of it all.

Amid a mountain of rain-soaked donations to the Ohnita Harbor Public Library rummage sale, Gabriela Domenici finds a small box that contains an odd-looking cross. The carved center turns out to be ivory, and a clue links the cross to Catherine of Siena, a medieval saint. Gabriela turns to her expertise as an authenticator of historic documents to lead the quest to discover the truth about this mysterious object. But the cross isn’t the only secret in town: first, a beloved Ohnita Harbor resident is found floating in the harbor; then, someone else is murdered on the library lawn.

The birds are singing, books are selling, and the Hokes Bluff Inn has begun to host weddings on its property. Antiquarian bookseller Jenna Quinn loves the romance in the air—until her ex-fiancé, Blake Emerson, walks in with his bride-to-be, Missy Plott. Blake continues to profess his love for Jenna if she’ll have him back, no matter the consequences. And the consequences are grave, indeed, when Missy turns up dead.

Laid-off journalist Lana Lewis is thriving as the proprietor of Perkatory, a coffee shop on quirky Devil’s Beach Island, Florida. She’s juggling a relationship with police chief Noah Garcia, enjoying the company of her best friend, Erica, and relishing the companionship of her golden Shih Tzu, Stanley. The only problem is her neighbor, Gus, who incessantly uses his leaf blower, disturbing everyone in the neighborhood. Lana has learned to tune it out, but Erica’s rage boils over, and she confronts Gus. Then Gus is found dead, and Erica immediately becomes suspect number one.

What could go wrong when baker Rosie Hart heads to a snowy Colorado mountain lodge for a week of elaborate pre-wedding festivities at her friend’s wedding? The better question would be...what could go right? Rosie’s fears for the nervous bride are confirmed when one of the wedding guests turns up dead. All evidence points to the groom being the intended victim, but with the guests dressed in Christmas-themed attire and a dead Santa on their hands, Rosie’s not so sure. What if the killer did hit the right target all along?

Chloe Abbington and her sister, Izzie, are enjoying huge success running Paint with a View, their paint party business in the tranquil western New York lakeside town of Whisper Cove. Now, their aunt Constance—president of the local chapter of the Chautauqua Sisterhood—has hooked them up with a gig hosting a Halloween painting party. The guests will be painting a local ghost legend, the Lady of Chautauqua Lake, who died a hundred years earlier and rises from the lake every October to haunt anyone who dares venture out on All Hallows’ Eve.

With spring’s arrival in Goosebush, Lilly and the Beautification Committee turn their eyes to new projects. A cleanup of the historic Goosebush Cemetery may be in order after Lilly and Delia find the plots there sorely neglected and inexplicably rearranged. Lilly soon discovers that Whitney Dunne-Bradford snapped up custodianship of the graveyard once she inherited Bradford Funeral Homes. But before Lilly can get to the bottom of the tombstone tampering, she stumbles upon Whitney’s body at the Jayne family mausoleum.

For decades, the unsolved murder of Father Michael Leary has haunted Billings, Montana, the community he served. And it’s haunted no one more than Lindsay Keller, who admired and confided in him as a teenager. Compelled by his example to work for justice, she became a prosecutor. But after a devastating case left her shattered, she fled the rough-and-tumble for the safety of a desk, handling real-estate deals and historic preservation projects. Now Lindsay finds herself in possession of the priest’s wallet, the photo of a young girl tucked inside.

Lyla Moody and her book club, the Jane Does, are hosting a Halloween party at Magnolia Manor, tailored after Agatha Christie’s A Murder Is Announced, but when the lights come on after the staged murder, a real victim lies dead from a gunshot wound in her chest. The victim was an estranged relative of Elaine Morgan, operator of the B&B, who’d earlier been seen arguing with her about the fate of the property. Suspicion immediately falls on Elaine, and she’s arrested.

Acclaimed author Randall Silvis is looking for a story—any story to follow up the series of gripping mystery novels that catapulted him to success. And then, out of nowhere, a story appears. A mysterious stranger named Thomas Kennaday tips Silvis off about a series of murders in a small Pennsylvania town, sending Silvis off on a tentative investigation in hopes of finding material for his next novel. What Silvis discovers is much more than a typical small-town murder case, and it soon becomes clear that Kennaday, who seems to have disappeared into thin air, is pulling the strings.

Mallory Martin left her marriage and her unfulfilling job to move back to her hometown of Hillspring, Arkansas, and start a horse rescue. It’s everything she’s been missing, with paddocks of happy horses and one very quirky donkey. But when her cantankerous neighbor and longtime critic, Albert Cunningham, is found murdered in his fancy show barn, Mallory becomes suspect number one. Since Sheriff Grady Sullivan is ignoring all good sense and focusing only on Mallory, she decides to take matters into her own hands.

With a new grandbaby to care for at home, Stella “Granny” Reid has little time to spare. Her hands are especially full since Savannah, her teenage granddaughter, developed a crush on a boy guaranteed to break her heart. Gallivanting around with her best pal Sheriff Manny Goldford simply isn’t an option—until a freshly murdered body is discovered. Holding a criminal record unlike anyone’s in McGill, Dexter Corbin was a man who wouldn’t be missed at Sunday school or the darkest local tavern. But he never deserved to meet his end so soon—so violently.

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.

After ninety-three well-lived years, Violet MacAskill is ready to simplify her life. Her eccentric solution? She’ll throw a decanting and decluttering party at her family home—a Scottish Baronial manor near the seaside town of Inversgail. She sets aside everything she wants or needs, then she invites her many friends in to sip sherry and help themselves to whatever they want from all that’s left. Janet Marsh and Christine Robertson, two of the women who own Yon Bonnie Books in Inversgail, enjoy themselves at the party. Not everyone who attends has a good time, though.

Hollis Morgan married young to flee an unloving family and ended up in prison, paying the price for her charming husband’s embezzlement. After finally obtaining a California judicial pardon, Hollis has climbed the ladder from paralegal to probate attorney at a respected law firm in the Bay Area.