Showing results by publisher "Tantor Media" in Amateur Sleuths

When Julia Snowden spots police cars in front of Lupine Design, she races over. Her sister Livvie works there as a potter. Livvie is unharmed but surrounded by smashed up pottery. The police find the owner Zoey Butterfield digging clay by a nearby bay, but she has no idea who would target her store. Zoey is a vocal advocate for turning four blocks of Main Street into a pedestrian mall on summer weekends. Other shop owners, including her next-door neighbor, are vehemently opposed. Could a small-town fight provoke such destruction?

Daidoji Shin, former louche layabout turned amateur investigator, and his long-suffering bodyguard, Kasami, are called away from the comforts of the City of the Rich Frog and into Unicorn lands to investigate a seemingly open-and-shut case of murder. But it's never that straightforward....

The small town is buzzing as Normal, Kentucky, hosts the Southeast Olympic ski trials for the first time, drawing elite athletes and sponsors to the usually peaceful Happy Trails Campground. But whispers of sabotage and broken equipment soon cast a dark shadow over the competition—and all clues lead back to Mae's campground, where one of the skiers is found dead.

Spring is beginning to brighten Sorenson, Wisconsin, for Mattie and Steve Hurley and their family. While their son Matthew may be in his terrible twos and Steve's daughter Emily a moody teenager, the kids bring light to their lives when their work is dark by its nature - Steve is a homicide detective and Mattie is a medicolegal death investigator, a.k.a. medical examiner. They deal in corpses. The latest corpse, a Jane Doe, was clearly an addict, but drugs didn't kill her, at least not directly. She's been stabbed multiple times in a pattern that is disturbingly familiar to Mattie.

Summer is on its way, and so is Winifred Page's birthday. While her corgi, Watson, naps in the sunshine and dreams of delicious pastry crumbs at the Cozy Corgi Bookshop and Bakery, Leo—Fred's park ranger boyfriend—plans a surprise each night to extend the celebration. During an evening picnic in the mountains, Fred and Leo glance up at the soft pink glow of the sky . . . just in time to witness a murder. As Fred and Watson slip into sleuth mode, along with their personal park ranger guide, the spiraling trails and twists and turns of the case prove daunting.

The final hurrah of the summer tourist season coincides with Estes Park's commemoration of the Big Thompson Canyon flood and the results of the contentious town council election. As the warm evening gathering for somber remembrance wraps up with dramatic election announcements, the surprises involve shouts of anger . . . and murder. Following a trail of blackmail, Winifred Page discovers a crime with more twists and turns than the Cozy Corgi Bookshop's mystery room can handle.

Wild rumors are swirling in the Hamptons over Twelve Angry Men, a ruthlessly revealing one-woman show written and performed by Yelena Galanis. The well-known socialite dated her way through some of the East End's most eligible bachelors, and now she's sparing few details while spilling their humiliating secrets to scandalized crowds. It's a mean-spirited spectacle that urges Cat to make a beeline for the theater exit during the first act - only to later discover that Yelena was found stabbed to death during intermission that same evening.

When Ivy Clark moves to Muddy Creek to help her injured aunt with her diner, she expects a quiet life. The town is barely on the map, and excitement is rare. Everything is going smoothly until Ivy's uncle is murdered and evidence is found in Ivy's purse. With her aunt and cousin doubting her innocence, she knows it's up to her to find the killer.

Fiber artist Ingrid Barrick has just been found dead in her ransacked house, but the fact that she'd seemed a bit troubled lately—and had been obsessively doodling pictures of bees—has the Knit and Nibblers wondering if this was really a burglary gone bad like the police think. There had been tension with a neighbor who was fuming (and sneezing) over the ragweed in Ingrid's garden—but allergies don't seem like grounds for murder.

For Julia Snowden, the Founder's Day summer celebration in Busman's Harbor, Maine, means helping her family's clambake company to prepare an authentic taste of New England seafood. Any Mainer will tell you that a real clambake needs wood for the fire...so why is there a foot sticking out of the oven?

Follow the aroma of shamrock sugar cookies to the Beacon Bakeshop, a lighthouse on the shores of Lake Michigan where amateur sleuth Lindsey Bakewell is busy preparing for Beacon Harbor's St. Patrick's Day festivities—with a little help from her adorable Newfoundland, Wellington, of course!

In her previous career as a nurse, Mattie Winston's job was to keep death at bay. Now, as a medicolegal investigator, she's required to study death intimately - to figure out causes and timing, and help deduce whether it was natural or suspicious. In the case of Montgomery "Monty" Dixon, a well-to-do Realtor, there can be little doubt: Broken pool cues do not embed themselves. Monty's body is found in the game room of his lavish house, the walls adorned with photos of Monty and various celebrities.

Kate Hamilton is feeling good about her plans to recreate Asheboro, Maryland, as the Victorian town it once was. Even two recent murders aren't enough to discourage her: After she helped to solve them, she put them behind her. Now comes the time to make real plans, and her first goal is to renovate the Barton Mansion on the outskirts of town. But when the contractor gets started, he discovers a staircase that had been walled in years earlier. And of course, given the way Kate's luck has been going, there's a body on the stairs.

Professional organizer Crystal Ward's latest client, her neighbor Roscoe Tremaine, is changing his will, an announcement that sets off an explosive reaction within his family. That same night, a gas leak ignites, destroying his house, killing him, and rocking the Ward family at its foundation. Her husband, Rick, is injured in the blast, so Crys hires Roscoe's former caregiver, Wink Keller, to help him recover after surgery. But trouble is just beginning. Both Crys and Wink are beneficiaries in Roscoe's will, and their alliance sends accusations flying from the Tremaines' side of the fence.

During National Wildflower Week, Normal is abuzz with nature enthusiasts and botanists. But the festivities take a dark turn when a renowned botanist known for her groundbreaking research is found dead under the moonlit sky. The tranquil celebration is shattered, and the town is gripped with shock and disbelief. The trails may have gone cold, but Mae and her friends are hot on the case. From a land developer with a not-so-clear conservation plan to an assistant whose obsession takes a dangerous turn, the list of suspects is as diverse as the town's flora.

During the Midsummer Night's Festival, Allie decides to take her bichonpoo, Mal, home to spare her furry little ears from the sounds of fireworks. But on her way back, Allie spots a body in the lake. Just minutes ago, Winona Higer was crowning the event's Queen—could the competition have really been that deadly? While she ponders the mystery the next morning, Allie prepares her favorite dark chocolate cherry fudge recipe. But she's soon recruited to sub for the late Winona and serve as parade float judge, among other duties.

Carpenter Whitney Whitaker, her cousin Buck, and guard-cat Sawdust just scored a hot property near downtown Nashville in a tax sale. While the Music City Motor Court might not be much to look at now, the two plan to transform the motel's 12 units into six one-bedroom condominiums with popular mid-century styling. But surprises await when Whitney discovers a squatter living in Room Nine and Sawdust uncovers a body in the bed next door.

Charlie has always believed that his grandfather had sold his house to his longtime tenant, Martin Hale. So when Martin dies, Charlie is surprised to discover the house was not left to Martin, but instead belongs to Charlie. As he and Diesel check out the house he remembers fondly from his childhood, he is pleasantly surprised that it is in better condition than expected. That is, until they find a literal skeleton in a closet.

When cougar-shifter Lily Mason moves to Moonrise, Missouri, she wishes for only three things . . . to find a job, to find a place to live, and to live as a human. Lily gets more than she bargains for when a rescue pit bull named Smooshie rescues her from an oncoming car. Lily's new life as an integrator is threatened when Smooshie finds Katherine Kapersky, the local church choir leader and head of the town council, dead in the field behind the rescue center.

Mae West, owner of Happy Trails Campground located in the Daniel Boone National Forest, is no stranger to the twists and turns of life in Normal, but she never expected her community's knitting circle to unravel into chaos. When local knitting enthusiast is found murdered with her own knitting needles during the town's lively Fourth of July celebration, the community is spun into a whirlwind of suspicion and secrets.