Starlight Detective Agency

In this unusual spin on the classic spy novel, murder strikes from our wartime pasts… Iraq War veteran Sam Blackman with his prosthetic leg and his no-nonsense private eye partner Nakayla Robertson love their investigations which always carry a thread from the past-and they love each other. An interracial couple in the new South, the Asheville, NC, pair has surrounded themselves with a terrific support team including an unorthodox lawyer and a veteran cop. They deploy humor both to bind them together and to deflect insults. Plus, it helps deal with the tragedies their work uncovers. Such a tragedy interrupts a meeting between the PIs and the neighboring law office when a body is unearthed from the grounds of the nearby Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute. During the Cold War it monitored developing space programs. Today it plays a vital role gathering weather and climate data. The body has been in the ground a long time. Why would its discovery spark off a new murder in Asheville's mountain music scene, the victim found amid the garbage of dark, dank Rat Alley? She was the fiancée of the man murdered long ago. But surely this case is more than a domestic drama playing out over time…. The Blackman Agency Investigations excel at merging past and present, bringing little-known history to light, and are perfect for fans of James Lee Burke, Stephen Mack Jones, Margaret Maron, and Robert B. Parker.

The 7 year wait is over-Miss Fisher is back in a new adventure! "The real star is Phryne with her Jazz Age fashions, devil-may-care attitude, and dry narrative wit."-Booklist Taking the waters has never been more delicious-or dangerous… When a mysterious invitation for a spa vacation arrives for Miss Phryne Fisher from an unknown retired Captain Herbert Spencer, Phryne's curiosity is piqued. Spencer runs a retreat in Victoria's rural spa country for shell-shocked veterans of World War I. It's a cause after Phryne's own heart, but what can Spencer want from her? Phryne and her faithful servant Dot set out for Daylesford, viewing their rural sojourn as a short holiday. While Dot gets to know the remarkable women who run the hotel where they are lodging, Phryne enjoys an enticing meal-and dessert-with the attractive Captain Spencer. But their relaxation is short-lived as they are thrown into treacherous Highland gatherings, a mysterious case of disappearing women, and a string of murders committed under their very noses. Meanwhile, back at home, Phryne's three wards are busy solving a mystery of their own when a schoolmate is found floating facedown near the docks-and pregnant at the time of her death. Read the novels that inspired both the Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries and the Ms. Fisher's Modern Mysteries streaming series on AcornTV. Phryne Fisher Mysteries by Kerry Greenwood Cocaine Blues Flying Too High Murder on the Ballarat Train Praise for the Phryne Fisher Mysteries "Anyone who hasn't discovered Phryne Fisher by now should start making up for lost time."-Booklist "Phryne handsomely demonstrates once more that even a compulsion to explore every mystery that comes her way needn't interfere with her appetite for life."-Kirkus Reviews

"Who would have thought that, of all the real-life characters to have a second life as detectives, Edna Ferber, now largely forgotten as a writer, would emerge as one of the best?" -Booklist STARRED review In 1904, Edna Ferber is a 19-year-old girl reporter for the Appleton, Wisconsin, Crescent, an occupation her family considers scandalous for a proper young girl. By chance, she interviews Harry Houdini, in town visiting old friends. When beautiful young Frana Lempke disappears and is soon discovered murdered, the crime baffles the local police; Frana disappeared from a locked room at the high school. Edna asks Houdini for help in solving the murder. But as Edna pursues the story, she senses that she is being followed. Though she is dedicated to her blind father, Edna's homelife is in disorder. And now the newsroom has become a hostile environment, with a new city editor determined to undermine her....