Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Amateur Sleuths

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.

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?

Outside the pale of the Abbey of Saint Peters and Saint Paul, in September of the year of our Lord 1140, a priestly emissary for King Stephen has been reported missing. But inside the pale, what troubles Brother Cadfael is a proud, secretive 19-year-old novice. Brother Cadfael has never seen two men more estranged than the Lord of Aspley and Meriet, the son he coldly delivers to the abbey to begin a religious vocation. Meriet, meek by day, is so racked by dreams at night that his howls earn him the nickname the Devil's Novice. Shunned and feared, Meriet is soon linked to the missing priest's dreadful fate. Only Brother Cadfael believes in Meriet's innocence, and only the good sleuth can uncover the truth before a boy's pure passion, not evil intent, leads a novice to the noose.

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.

Colorado's Redstone Ridge is a place of extraordinary beauty, but this rugged mountain wilderness harbors a horrifying secret. When a charred body is discovered in a shallow grave on the ridge, officer Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner, Robo, are called in to spearhead the investigation. But this is no ordinary crime - and it soon becomes clear Mattie has a close personal connection to the dead man.

The Queens are intrigued when a grisly murder mars a small town's Christmas. It's Christmas in Chicago, and Detective Richard Queen is enjoying a busman's holiday at a conference on gangland violence - but his son, amateur sleuth Ellery, is bored silly. Until, that is, Ellery reads of an unusual killing in rural Arroyo, West Virginia. A schoolmaster has been found beheaded and crucified. Ellery hustles his father into his roadster and heads east, since there is nothing he'd like better for Christmas than a juicy, gruesome puzzle.

With the arrival of six senior reading group members at the Merry Ghost Inn, the long-awaited grand opening week has finally begun for Melanie West and her grandmother Liza. All is well with the Oregon coast-side B&B until Melanie's dog, Max, finds the dead body of one of their guests.

Despite the dismal Broadway season, Gunplay continues to draw crowds. A gangland spectacle, it's packed to the gills with action, explosions, and gunfire. In fact, Gunplay is so loud that no one notices the killing of Monte Field. In a sold-out theater, Field is found dead partway through the second act, surrounded by empty seats. The police hold the crowd and call for the one man who can untangle this daring murder: Inspector Richard Queen.

Fletch, now newly engaged and happily living out his days in Italy, finds himself embroiled in yet another scandal. His soon-to-be father-in-law has been kidnapped and is now presumed dead, and the priceless collection of rare art that belongs to his fiancée’s family has been stolen. Ever the investigative reporter, he receives a tip about the missing art that lands him in Boston, where he walks right into a murder scene in his apartment. What clearly looks like a setup to the unfazed Fletch looks quite different to the detective assigned to the case, Mr. Francis Xavier Flynn.

The acidly funny first book starring the subversive sleuth in one of the most successful mystery series of all time. Fletch is an investigative reporter whose methods are a little unorthodox. Currently he's living on the beach. He's taking more than a little flak from his editor. She doesn't appreciate his style. Or the expense account items he's racking up. Or his definition of the word "deadline". Or the divorce lawyers who keep showing up at the office. So when multimillionaire Alan Stanwyk offers Fletch the job of a lifetime, which could be worth a fortune, he's intrigued.

An explosion outside a community dance sends Mattie Cobb and Cole Walker reeling into the night, where they discover a burning van and beside it the body of outfitter Nate Fletcher. But the explosion didn’t kill Nate - it was two gunshots to the heart.

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.

Rick Montoya has just moved from Santa Fe to Rome, embracing the life of a translator. He's beginning to settle in to la dolce vita when school friend Beppo, now senior in the Italian Art Squad, recruits Rick for an unofficial undercover role. Armed with a list of galleries, suspects, and an expense account, Rick arrives in Tuscany posing as a buyer for a Santa Fe gallery to flush out traffickers in priceless burial urns. However, before sunset on his first day in Volterra, the challenge intensifies. Rick has one quick conversation with a gallery employee who dies minutes later in a brutal fall from a high cliff.

On a seaside vacation, Ellery Queen is ensnared in a trio of strange crimes. Spanish Cape is a dramatic promontory, its rocky cliff stopped with a picturesque hacienda. This isolated spot belongs to millionaire Walter Godfrey and it should be a peaceful family getaway - but one summer evening, Rosa Godfrey argues with her uncle David as he tries to convince her not to run away with one of their guests, the roguish John Marco. Suddenly, a one-eyed gunman appears out of the twilight.

In one of his earliest cases, Ellery Queen confronts a murder in blue blood. From the very beginning, the Khalkis case struck a somber note. It began, as was peculiarly harmonious in the light of what was to come, with the death of an old man. Georg Khalkis, internationally famous art dealer and collector, died of heart failure. After his funeral, his attorney found that the will was missing and immediately called in the district attorney. When Inspector Queen and his son, Ellery, are brought in to solve the mystery, Ellery mentions the one place they have not searched for the will: the coffin.

When a body turns up in the dumpster behind Caroline's Cupcakes, Holly White is horrified to learn her best friend, Caroline, is the main suspect. Everyone in town, including Mistletoe, Maine's sheriff, saw Caroline fighting with the victim on the night of his death. Worse, Caroline's fingerprints are all over the murder weapon, a custom-designed marble rolling pin. Now, just 10 days before Christmas, Holly's up to her jingle bells in holiday shenanigans and in desperate need of a miracle.

Lacy Marie Crocker's whimsical pet couture has gained a following in New Orleans' cozy Garden District, and word of mouth has traveled all the way to her favorite fashion designer, Annie Lane. Lacy is thrilled when Annie schedules a private session at her home to discuss a companion line for her evening wear, but when Lacy arrives for the appointment, she enters the kitchen to two mewling Siamese cats - and one very dead Annie.

It looks like Fletch is finally getting hitched. It's a small affair - just a few friends, the bride's parents, the groom's mother, and, just maybe, his father. Except Fletch's father is supposed to be dead. But somebody delivered the letter, signed "Fletch Senior" and containing an invitation (and a pair of plane tickets) to visit the old man in Nairobi for the honeymoon. No sooner does the couple land in Africa then the search for Fletch's father begins. There's a murder at the airport and reports of the old man's incarceration.

When a Western star is gunned down at a rodeo, Ellery Queen saddles up to solve the mystery.

Buck Horne has roped thousands of cattle, slugged his way out of dozens of saloons, and shot plenty of men dead in the street - but always on the back lot. He's a celluloid cowboy, and his career is nearly kaput. The real box-office draw is his daughter, Kit, a brawling beauty who can out shoot any rascal the studio has to offer. Desperate for a comeback, Buck joins Wild Bill Grant's traveling rodeo for a show in New York, hoping to land one last movie contract.

Carrie Singleton is just about done with Clover Ridge, Connecticut until she is offered a job as the head of programs and events at the spooky local library, complete with its own librarian ghost. Her first major event is a program presented by a retired homicide detective, Al Buckley, who claims he knows who murdered Laura Foster, a much-loved part-time library aide who was bludgeoned to death 15 years earlier. As he invites members of the audience to share stories about Laura, he suddenly keels over and dies.