Funny Mystery

Sixteen delightful holiday short stories by some of your favorite Soho crime authors! This captivating collection of short mysteries and crime capers - which features New York Times best-selling authors, Crime Writers Association Gold and Diamond Dagger winners, and Edgar Award nominees - contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season.

Jim Wekle's first day as a trooper on an island in Alaska could have gone better. It was raining, the coffee was bad, and within hours of stepping off the seaplane, he found a bikini-clad girl floating in a kelp bed. As Jim investigates who might have put the bullet in her back, he stumbles across a uniquely diverse and extraordinarily hilarious batch of island inhabitants. Puffing on his imported cigars, Jim soon learns that no one on the island is more unique, diverse, or hilarious than his unlikely counterpart: a man simply known as Kram.

Fletch, as unbridled as ever and still living the good life in Italy on his ill-gotten fortune, gets a surprising visit from two surly FBI agents. The pair offers him a deal: either he attend the American Journalism Alliance convention and work as an undercover spy for them, or be shipped back to headquarters and face jail time for tax evasion. Reluctantly agreeing to the scheme, he catches a red-eye flight back to the States. But just as rubber hits tarmac in Virginia, news breaks on a murder at the convention.

The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine is another mystifying manor-house stumper for Wodehousian bon-vivant and problem-solver Anty Boisjoly, when his clubmate asks him to determine who died first after a duel is fought in a locked room. The untold riches of the Tenpenny Tontine are in the balance, but the stakes only get higher when Anty determines that, duel or not, this was a case of murder.

Lauren Crenshaw and her Norwegian Forest Cat Annie run their own certified cat cafe in the picturesque small town of Gold Leaf Valley, Northern California. Lauren's fun cousin Zoe helps out as well. Lauren, Annie, and Zoe are shocked when one of their favorite customers is poisoned. Steve came into the cafe nearly every day - but who wanted him dead? The trio find themselves suspecting their customers - even elderly Mrs. Finch, whom Lauren thinks of as a substitute grandmother, doesn't escape their scrutiny.

There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where the Crimean war still rages, dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is deeply disappointed by the ending of 'Jane Eyre'. In this world there are no jet-liners or computers, but there are policemen who can travel across time, a Welsh republic, a great interest in all things literary - and a woman called Thursday Next. In this utterly original and wonderfully funny first novel, Fforde has created a fiesty, loveable heroine and a plot of such richness and ingenuity that it will take your breath away.

In MI5 a scandal is brewing and there are bad actors everywhere. A key member of a Downing Street think-tank has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, one-time First Desk of MI5's Regent's Park, is tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads straight back to Regent's Park HQ itself, with its chief, Diana Taverner, as prime suspect. Meanwhile her Russian counterpart has unexpectedly shown up in London but has slipped under MI5's radar.

Grab a flashlight, crawl under the covers and dive into the twisted, unexpectedly hilarious world of Rowley Jefferson's imagination. You'll meet zombies, vampires, ghosts and much more in these comically terrifying tales. Rowley's spooky stories might leave you laughing, but beware - you could end up sleeping with the lights on!

Jim and Kram are back in their second hilarious romp around their secluded Southeast Alaskan island. With a serial killer at large (a cereal serial killer, to be more accurate), an unlucky entrepreneur with an out-of-control facial tic, and the nephew of a notorious crime boss setting up shop on the island, Lieutenant Jim Wekle will have his work cut out for him.

On a desperate journey to recover her sister's lost soul, Valkyrie Cain goes up against the High Sanctuary itself, and there's nothing Skulduggery Pleasant can do to stop her.

When a freak accident hospitalizes Marty Golden's sister and condemns him to babysitter duty, he thinks it's just another case of hardwired bad luck in Silicon Valley. Until a suspicious murder suggests the mishap was no mere coincidence. Something must be done. Too bad this quirky, fashion-backward uncle isn't exactly hero material. Convinced his sister is in mortal danger, he follows clues to an oddball array of suspects. Armed with nothing but an eye for detail and powers of self-delusion, Marty tangles with gangsters, a cantankerous school secretary, and a perplexing woman.

If life in the Intelligence Service has taught John Bachelor anything, it's to keep his head down. Especially now, when he's living rent-free in a dead spook's flat. So he's not delighted to be woken at dawn by a pair of Regent's Park's heavies, looking for a client he's not seen in years. John doesn't know what secrets Benny Manors has stolen, but they're attracting the wrong attention. And if he's to save his own skin, not to mention safeguard his living arrangements, John has to find Benny before those secrets see the light.

Sherman Holmes has officially settled into his new city, and the World's Greatest Detective Agency has opened its doors. While his put-upon partner, Watson, would be happy to keep the jobs as simple as missing pets, when a worried worker with an outlandish tale of ghosts walks in, there's no stopping Sherman from taking the case. Now, the new duo must investigate a local "haunted" tourist site where the scares are going off-script and otherworldly interference is suspected.

Meet Tommy Martini, the monk with an anger management problem. His meditations are interrupted by a legacy from his uncle, a crooked priest. Arriving in a New Age Arizona town to claim his inheritance, Brother Tommy meets a charismatic, smoking-hot cult leader who claims that women are being impregnated by alien beings while they sleep. Tommy’s own sleep is disturbed - by cartel hitmen, Mafia bill collectors, and women intrigued by his vow of chastity.

Twenty-nine-year-old Imogen Banks is hashtag struggling. After a disaster ends her career, destroys her home, and burns up all the money she’s saved to open her own bakery, she enters a baking contest for an all-or-nothing last-ditch chance at getting her life together. But when she arrives at the mysterious island off the coast of France, she discovers all the inhabitants of the quaint town are magical, and if she wins the contest, she’ll become the next royal baker at the castle on top of the hill. No worries that the last royal baker appears to have been murdered.

This is Book Five in the Scottsdale series....

All Sergeant Hamish Macbeth ever wants is a quiet life in the tranquil surroundings of Lochdubh, his home village in the Scottish Highlands. Although the area he polices is vast, he's happiest when he's working alone, yet the police authorities insist he has an assistant. In the past, they have supplied a variety of problematic misfits, but they surpass themselves with their latest effort - an American named James Bland.

When Grayson and Bobbie head to the Florida Panhandle to witness a spectacle of nature, they take a wrong turn and quickly find themselves up to their armpits in arthropods. And that’s the good part of their vacation. Campers are disappearing without a trace from nearby Torreya State Park. Whatever’s stalking them soon sets its eyes on Bobbie and Grayson, too.

When Bobbie and Grayson go on the hunt for the legendary Florida Skunk Ape, there’s more than one tangled mystery afoot. Grayson, the man Bobbie’s hung her life and career on, is every bit as evasive as the creature they’re tracking. At the start of their investigation, a colossally bad judgement call leaves Bobbie wondering just exactly who—or what—the elusive being is.

Southern matriarch Lillian Summer Fairview is settling right nice into prison, until Big Martha, the toughest broad on the cellblock, comes asking for a favor. Her niece has fallen for a guy she met online, and Martha’s convinced Mr. Too-Good-To-Be-True is up to no good. All Lil’s friends have to do is investigate the guy and report back. Will these amateur sleuths be able to track down the elusive Romeo in the scam-filled world of online dating without alerting the local police to their shenanigans, or will they find themselves in trouble right up to their granny panties?