Showing results by narrator "Kaplan" in All Categories

What was supposed to be a leisurely stroll through a peaceful cemetery after a recent funeral turns into the start of a new case. Someone clobbers Doreen over the head and leaves her facedown among the funeral flowers. Is it random violence? Revenge? A warning of worse to come?

Once again I bang on the connecting door to my dorm room, trying to be heard over the blaring music coming from the other side. My bestie should be living in that room, but no, she transferred to be with her boyfriend and now I'm stuck sharing a wall with stupidly hot track star, Cal Chase. My friends say I'm lucky, but his mere presence annoys me, along with his late-night music and the constant gaggle of giggly girls who visit. I'm the only one who can see right through that patented Cal Charm. He's just another player and I'm not game.

Needing a break from all the murder and mayhem, Doreen and Mack plan an outing to see the local orchid show. Some of the displays are in the community center, but the more prized specimens of this genus require a visit to some of the gardeners’ homes, a rare opportunity not afforded to everyone. This trip, not quite a date, affords Doreen a chance not only to enjoy the company of Mack, but to get to know a few more of the colorful locals. But when one of these locals ends up dead just after their visit, the dark underbelly of orchid growing is exposed, and with it, an old murder…

Doreen is slowly recovering from the mad yet joyous ending to last year, as she faces the new year and what it might bring. Since she’s now engaged to Mack—and everyone around her is pressuring her to pick a wedding date and hopefully soon—she yearns for another case to keep her busy. So, when an older gentleman calls and needs help fulfilling his wife’s last wish, Doreen is right there to help.

Riches to rags...Chaos might be slowing...Only a new murder occurs...Sending her off the trail again... It’s been a tough few weeks since Robin and Mathew, Doreen’s ex-lawyer and her ex-husband, slid back into her life. Okay, so maybe Robin isn’t here any longer to cause torment, but Mathew is. And he’s not planning to leave Doreen alone anytime soon, although thankfully he’s gone back home for a while. Trying to recuperate looks doubtful for Doreen, when a local gardener is kidnapped, while picking nasturtiums for dinner.

It covers their years of fostering, all the ups and downs, and how fostering affected their daily lives and the amount of enjoyment and happy memories they have. It is also written to acknowledge the amount of support they received from their family, friends, and neighbors.

Doreen knows her relationship with the police captain has always been on thin ground. She has helped them solve a lot of cases, but she’s quadrupled their work and constantly gets in their way. So no one is more surprised than Doreen when the captain stops by and asks for a personal favor, concerning a cold case from his own childhood.

When the journey to Rosemoor for a celebratory evening turns deadly, Doreen’s life is flipped on her head. She can only watch in horror as Mack is shot right in front of her. Horrified, she vows to solve this case and fast, before the shooter realizes he failed and comes back for a second attempt. Corporal Mack Moreau has been shot before, but this time it’s way worse because Doreen watched it all happen. Now she’s planning to catch the shooter before Mack even starts to heal. She’s yet to consider that maybe the shooter wasn’t after Mack but really wanted to shoot her.

Can Christmas get any crazier? A new case for Mack and, lucky for Doreen, she finds a cold case connected to it, making her year end on a high note. All the while she struggles to navigate gift giving and a special party that Nan wants to put on for her at Rosemoor—except Doreen has to solve all kinds of issues, including the missing mistletoe, which Nan insists on having for the party.

Who knew a simple trip to the consignment store would find Wendy being strong-armed by two strangers? So not allowed—especially as it could affect Doreen getting her month-end check! Trying to get to the bottom of this is one convoluted story to sort out. Corporal Mack Moreau is not at all happy with Doreen’s new male friend, Bernard, who has the money to keep her in the style she was accustomed to. However, Mack is happy Doreen is staying out of his cases. If only she could stay out of trouble! Then again, Doreen can find trouble like this without any effort on her part.

June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic - and each other - and now their country is on the brink of a new peaceful existence. June is back in the good graces of the Republic, working within the government's elite circles while Day has been assigned a high level military position. But when a plague outbreak, deadlier than any other, causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic's border cities, the two are thrown back together. June is the only one who knows the key to her country's defence.

After helping the captain solve his long overdue case, Doreen’s reputation is well and truly cemented in Kelowna. That’s proven out when a young woman is murdered in her own apartment, and the police start looking at the boyfriend. With the town on edge, this young man seeks out Doreen’s help to prove his innocence.

Riches to rags...Chaos has calmed...At least while out on the lake...Until poison is found, blowing up the peace again...Enjoying a beautiful day on the lake, while Doreen tries her hand at paddleboarding, ends up on an odd note after finding poison in a bed of pansies. She garners a tidbit of information out of her BFF, Corporal Mack Moreau, about a man who’d recently walked into the emergency room, complaining he’d been poisoned.

Sweet little Emma and Nealie, both just four years old, live on the same block in the exclusive, gated Blackwood neighborhood—miles from my cramped studio apartment. I go between each family’s home to care for the girls. And I know all their secrets… Their mothers were best friends until three months ago, when everything fell apart. There’s a door that’s always locked at Nealie’s house. And Emma’s house is filled with whispered arguments. I’m sure her father is having an affair.

My daughter is dead. My husband and I cling to what’s left of our family, desperate to make sense of the tragedy. But when the sheriff knocks, he delivers news no mother should ever have to hear. Our daughter was murdered. And my son is the prime suspect. When we adopted 11-year-old Holden, we weren’t wearing rose-colored glasses. But we never could have imagined this. They say you can’t pick your family. But I picked mine. Did I choose my daughter’s murderer?

Spending time with Mack is always fun, but, when Doreen overhears a conversation that sounds like a murder confession, he disagrees, … until a body shows up. Then he’s suddenly a whole lot more interested. The deceased young man had planned to attend the local college and had hoped to rekindle a relationship with an ex-girlfriend.

Being a suspect in the murder of her ex-lawyer is not the fun Doreen thought it would be. And, of course, she’s been ordered to stay away from the case, but she can’t help being interested. So, she enlists Mack’s brother, Nick - her new lawyer - to help. Mack’s first priority is to clear Doreen as a suspect. No one in their right mind would seriously believe she’d done the deed, of course.

With Mathew’s murder done and dusted, and her future now wide open, Doreen turns to sorting out her financial world, particularly as her antiques are sold. And helping others is moving up her list of things she wants to do. Especially after finding a young woman who wants to get out of the streetwalker world and to move back home.

While other books give you tips on how to “write funny,” this book offers a paradigm shift in understanding the mechanics and art of comedy and the proven, practical tools that help writers translate that understanding into successful commercial scripts. The Hidden Tools of Comedy unlocks the unique secrets and techniques of writing comedy. Kaplan deconstructs sequences in popular films and TV that work and don’t work and explains what tools were used (or should have been used).

Kody Rawlee Green is stuck in juvie. Tella “Teal Cartwheels” Carticelli is packing her bags for Rome—on the orders of her parents, who want her as far from Kody as possible. But teenage love is too strong a force for the obstacles of reality. And the highway beckons.