Morgue Mama Mysteries

"A sprightly tale and a surprising ending, along with Clemens's trademark quirky characters."-Kirkus Reviews When dairy farmer Stella Crown's friend, veterinarian Carla Beaumont, is car-jacked it's just the first of a rash of vicious attacks on local business women. Then three more women-a truck driver, a minister, and a personal trainer-are targeted for vandalism and theft. But the community is shaken to the core when the kind-hearted Dr. Peterson is found murdered in her office. Worried that she and her farmhand Lucy might be next in line, Stella makes it her job to find the connection between the victims, get the good Detective Willard to stop the violence, and track down the killer. Meanwhile, Stella's boyfriend Nick insists on joining her on the farm. Will he, with his newly diagnosed MS, be able to protect her? Does she even want him to? As she investigates, Stella finds much that doesn't seem right in her usually quiet town. Between her suspicions of steroids at the local gym, irate patients at the doctor's office, and Carla's brand-new boyfriend, Stella's not sure where to focus her attentions. But focus she must-or more women will die.

She was 1932 Broadway's newest sensation. Then she was murdered. Three years after the Crash that ushered in the Great Depression, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright Edna Ferber finds herself a guest at Noël Coward's lavish birthday party. The British wit, enjoying the Christmas holiday season in New York and bracing for a trip to Cleveland in the new year, has filled his room with rich, famous folks whose lives continue in stark contrast to those being lived out in the city's streets and poorer neighborhoods. Edna is haunted by the dark landscape of Manhattan outside Coward's elegant rooms: the snake-like breadlines, the shanty village in Central Park, the gaunt apple sellers in threadbare suits on freezing sidewalks. She has yet to be introduced to the Automat where a few cents are the difference between nourishment and starvation. Among those who've kept fortune intact is Dougie Maddox, the financially astute but socially naïve only son of a Fifth Avenue dynasty. His widowed mother, known as Lady Maud, has kept the thirty-five-year-old on a short leash, but Dougie has crossed paths with Belinda Ross, the new Broadway songbird. He's mesmerized by her, a woman flagrantly courted by other men. But Belinda seems besotted by Dougie. Gossip flourishes-she has a shadowy past and a producer brother anxious to break onto the Great White Way. When Belinda is found strangled late one night in a Times Square Automat, jealous, hot-tempered Dougie is the prime suspect. But Noël, who had befriended him, and Edna, who likes him, team up to clear Dougie's name. Their investigation inevitably takes them deep into Belinda's circle and her past. As the crowds in Time Square ready for a half-hearted New Year's celebration, are Noël and Edna watching the last act of a New York Othello, or is there some other killer-maybe more than one-afoot on the icy pavements of New York City?

"Irascible, fearless and unapologetic, Maddy is a heroine cozy fans will embrace."-Publishers Weekly Newspaper librarian Maddy Sprowls never gives story ideas to the editors at The Hannawa Herald-Union. She prefers to stay in the newspaper "morgue" and do her job. Then one Saturday she sees four elderly women get out of a taxicab at a garage sale. She figures that those women must hire the cabby every week to drive them from garage sale to garage sale. And wouldn't that make a great feature story for the paper? Monday morning she runs straight to the newsroom with her idea. Shortly after the story runs, one of the four women is murdered: retired antique dealer Violeta Bell. Maddy wants no part of the investigation, but before she knows it, she's on another of her infamous snoopathons. And, good gravy, enjoying every minute. Violeta Bell is an enigma. She even claimed to be the Queen of Romania. Could it be true?