Grace Street Mystery

What does a woman do when she discovers her husband is an incurable cheater? If she's Cat DeLuca, she launches the Pants On Fire Detective Agency to do what two years of unholy matrimony taught her: she catches cheaters. After client Cleo Jones shoots her cheating husband's bum full of buckshot, he disappears, taking her money, her dog, and her sister with him. Cat promises to return the dog and money if her client stops shooting at Walter. She finds the dog and a mysterious bag full of cash, and then she finds Walter, his very dead body still warm. The cops quickly arrest Cleo for the murder of her husband. Cat is determined to prove her client's innocence and it's not an easy sell. Cat's investigation leads to four players with secrets: a childhood friend, a gambler, a construction tycoon, and a legendary Chicago designer. But when forensic evidence suggests the detective knows more about the murder than she's telling, Cat faces the certain loss of her agency...and maybe much more.

"A terrific read. Buddy Steel is my kind of Sheriff."-Tom Selleck MISSING PERSONS is the first book in the new Buddy Steel mystery series by New York Times bestselling author, Michael Brandman. Even in a town called Freedom, justice has its price… LAPD homicide detective Buddy Steel finds himself detoured from his own life when his ailing father, Sheriff Burton Steel, calls him home to Freedom to take over as deputy. Though relations between father and son have always been strained, and Buddy reluctantly agrees to the arrangement. When he begins investigating the possible disappearance of a famous local televangelist's wife, he is met with outright antagonism. While the highly-secured husband insists that his wife is simply visiting a relative, the housekeeper who reported her missing fears she may have been murdered. And no one, from family members to ministry security and staff to the prosecutor's office seems inclined to help Buddy in his investigation. In fact, many go out of their way to stop him. But the more he pokes and prods, the more he realizes that the Bible-thumping family and their television empire may be an elaborate cover for a less-than-holy enterprise. This is far more than a typical missing person case. But how far up does the corruption reach-and will Buddy pay the ultimate price for refusing to look the other way? MISSING PERSONS is an emotionally propulsive thriller perfect for fans of Robert B. Parker, Sue Grafton, and Michael Connelly. Because there are dark secrets buried in this small town, and a missing person threatens to unearth them all-with deadly consequences.

"Masterfully crafted... stunningly beautiful descriptions..." -Anne Hillerman, New York Times bestselling author The first closing of the floodgates of the mammoth Dalles Dam on the Columbia River inundated the sacred falls and the Native American village at Celilo which depended on the river's magnificent fish. Nelson Queah, Wasco Indian, war hero, and passionate opponent of the dam, watched helplessly as 10,000 years of tribal history and fishing tradition disappeared. That 1957 night, Nelson Queah vanished without a trace. Fifty years later, attorney Cal Claxton, new to Portland after a career as a prosecutor in Los Angeles, attends a commemoration of the flooding of the falls at the behest of his friend, Philip Lone Deer, who introduces Cal to his cousin, Winona Cloud. Winona is Nelson Queah's granddaughter. Spurning the story of a witness at the time who claimed to have seen Queah drunk by the river, she reveals she's found a cache of letters at her grandmother's home, letters Queah wrote to his wife before he vanished. They suggest foul play, and not an accidental drowning. Cal, still grieving over his own wife's suicide, agrees to check out the cold case. He locates the man who put out the drunk story and sets up an interview. When he arrives, he finds the man shot by a sniper. Cal gets a glimpse of the shooter and becomes a target himself.

The next mystery book-with a touch of paranormal women's fiction-in an amusing historical cozy series! With a string of suspicious deaths threatening her guests, a horribly depressing love life, and a handsome detective on her doorstep, the last thing Lady Adelaide needs to deal with is the ghost of her dead husband. Gloucestershire, 1925. A week-long house party in the country-why not? Lady Adelaide has nothing else to do, now that her year of mourning for her unfaithful husband is up and her plans to rekindle her romantic life have backfired. But when her hostess is found dead on the conservatory floor, Addie knows just who to call-Detective Inspector Devenand Hunter of Scotland Yard. Dev may not want to kiss Addie again, but he's anxious to solve the crime. Who would want to kill Pamela, the beautiful wife of one of Britain's greatest Great War heroes? Certainly not her devoted and wheelchair-bound husband, Sir Hugh Fernald. The other guests seem equally innocent and improbable. But despite all appearances, something is very wrong at Fernald Hall-there's a body buried in the garden, and the governess has fallen down the stairs to her death. Who's next? Addie and Dev find themselves surrounded by Scotland ghosts and must work together to stop another murder, with some help from Rupert, Addie's late and unlamented husband. Rupert needs to make amends for his louche life on earth, and what better way to earn his celestial wings than catch a killer? The Lady Adelaide Mysteries: Nobody's Sweetheart Now (Book 1) Who's Sorry Now? (Book 2) Just Make Believe (Book 3)

"…readers seeking a cozy, feel-good mystery will enjoy this outing to Grace Street. The delightful characters navigate their worldly and otherworldly challenges with affection and humor, and Tesh maintains a whimsical tone that doesn't detract from the serious subject matter." -Publishers Weekly Camden's friend Rufus Jackson receives a letter from his ex-wife, Bobbi, and he's surprised to learn he's the father of a baby. When Bobbi is found murdered in her home and her baby stolen, Rufus becomes suspect number one. PI David Randall immediately takes the case. But Randall is almost sidetracked from the case by a series of what appears to be never-ending favors. When he takes his friend Cam to the Carlyle House to sing for a concert, Cam encounters Delores Carlyle, a troubled spirit trapped inside a huge mirror, who wants to see her daughter, Beverly, one last time. Beverly Carlyle will come to the house on one condition: that Randall find a home for her surly teenage son, Kit, and a band for her obnoxious daughter, Frieda. Kit is welcome at 302 Grace, but to secure a spot for Frieda, Randall has to get a local girl group a gig at a local nightclub. The owner agrees, if Cam will pose as a teenager and spy on a rival club. Cam agrees if Randall will take him to Green Valley to answer some questions about his past. And another ghost is haunting the hot dog restaurant, refusing to talk to Cam. In addition to the tangle of deals, Randall has to contend with Rufus being hell-bent on revenge, the return of Cam's telekinesis, and growing concern that if the baby-a girl named Mary Rose, as it turns out-is found, Rufus, might not want to keep her. But where is Mary Rose?

"A fresh-voiced heroine, down-and-dirty legal detail, and more honest detection than you'd expect make this a winner." -Kirkus Reviews The smart and savvy Rachel Gold has established herself in Chicago legal circles as a tough litigator, when a case calls for moxie, and a discreet counselor, when a client faces what the chairman of her former firm, Abbott & Windsor, labels an "awkward situation." The odd disappearance and messy suicide of Stoddard Anderson, the managing partner of the St. Louis office of Abbott & Windsor, certainly qualifies as an "awkward situation," especially when the firm learns that the only way Anderson's widow can collect the full life insurance proceeds is to prove that his death was an accident, and the only way a suicide can be an "accident" is if the decedent was clinically insane at the time of his death. Abbott & Windsor is, to say the least, reluctant to argue in court that the managing partner of one of its offices was clinically insane. And thus Rachel Gold is retained to represent the widow in what all hope will be a quick resolution of a straightforward matter. But Rachel soon discovers that the supposedly stodgy Stoddard Anderson was into some decidedly unstodgy activities-sexual and otherwise. Incredibly, he may have actually located Montezuma's Executor, a legendary treasure linked to a series of grisly deaths dating back to the last Aztec emperor himself. Even more incredible, Anderson may have hidden the cursed relic in St. Louis. With her best buddy, Benny Greenberg, in tow, Rachel sets off in search of both the Aztec treasure and a trail of evidence suggesting Stoddard Anderson's demise was not a suicide but a homicide. Rachel soon learns that she is not the only one in pursuit of Montezuma's Executor-and that she could be the next one to die for it!