Stuff

Best friends James Lessor and Skip Moore are hardly on the fast track. While James works as a line cook at Cap'n Crab, Skip spends his days selling - or rather, attempting to sell - security systems to people who (a) have no money, and (b) have nothing they care to protect. James and Skip aren't upwardly mobile, but they're about to get literally mobile when James spends a surprise inheritance on a white box truck. An investment in the future, he surmises, as these two are starting a business - solely devoted to hauling other people's stuff. But the fledgling business takes a shocking turn when James and Skip unload the contents of their first moving job and find some unexpected cargo - a bloody human finger. James and Skip must scramble to stay one step ahead of the perpetrators of the gruesome crime in this witty, gritty mystery about big dreams, big ideas - and big trouble. Instead of chasing the American dream, James and Skip will be running for their lives.

While their last venture was hardly crowned with success, James Lessor and Skip Moore, (and their white box truck) are back. When Reverend Preston Cashdollar and his traveling tent revival come to town, James and Skip reinvent themselves--as holy rollers. But these two aren't seeking salvation; they're seeking the Almighty dollar. After all, Cashdollar's prosperity gospel draws thousands of people with open minds-and open wallets. With a few modifications to the truck, Less or Moore Catering is ready to roll, and the entrepreneurs are born again, intent on making a mint by selling meager meals to the hungry masses. Cashdollar may preach about seeing the light, but his organization has a dark side of greed, corruption, and murder. What in the name of all that is holy have James and Skip gotten themselves into? This meals-on-wheels venture is more like hell on wheels. As James and Skip seek the truth, they'll learn that the stuff dreams are made of may be their worst nightmare. They'll either need to keep the faith, or run like the devil.

Best friends James Lessor and Skip Moore are still stuck in dead-end jobs, still living in their ratty apartment in Carol City, Florida, and still dreaming of hitting the big time. It seems those dreams are finally within reach when James lands a job to install a state-of-the-art security system for Synco Systems. There's a huge commission-and plenty of strings-attached. To collect on the cash, James will have to provide additional services by assuming the role of pretend boyfriend of Sarah Crumbly, an employee who's having an affair with Sandler Conroy, Synco's married president. When Sandler's wife offers James a tidy sum for the dirty details about what's going on at Synco, James and Skip resurrect their entrepreneurial dreams and go into the business of being spies. The spymobile-their beloved, rattletrap of a boxtruck-is on its last legs, and they'll have to spend a small fortune on spy equipment, but there's no business like spy business. In this spy game, James and Skip may be the ones who get played-or worse.

It's official: stumbling, bumbling James Lessor and Skip Moore are licensed private investigators. Now, that's some scary stuff. It could take time to get Moore or Less investigations off the ground, so James takes a job with a traveling carnival show. But this show has a dubious reputation, having had a string of accidents and at least one death in the past year. When they're hired to investigate what's caused the carnival chaos, James and Skip set into motion a dizzying, roller coaster chain of events. After a terrifying trip on the Dragon Tail ride, a not-so-fun dust-up in Freddy's Fun House, and a host of threats, James and Skip realize they'll get anything but cooperation from this cantankerous cast of carnies. But when a carnival worker is murdered, James and Skip will have to act fast-because they might be next in line. For James and Skip, the only thing sweeter than the smell of corndogs and fried dough will be the sweet smell of success-but in this case, success means getting out alive. This investigation is going completely off the rails.

A 1935 hurricane in the Florida Keys destroyed the East Coast Railway, killed five-hundred people and blew away the town of Islamorada. Lost in that storm was Mathew Kriegel, a finance director for the railroad, and one and a quarter million dollars in gold. Now newly minted private investigators Skip More and James Lessor, of More Or Less Investigations have been hired to find that lost treasure. Fighting off competitors, scuba diving, digging in a spooky cemetery and almost getting killed is only part of their job. Skip and James have stumbled onto the biggest most dangerous adventure of their lives.

An attractive sous chef at the famous restaurant L'Elfe Is murdered and half of the employees are suspect. The lack of police progress toward solving the murder leads Chef Jean Bouvier to seek a quicker solution. He hires private eyes James Lessor and Skip Moore to go undercover and discreetly investigate his restaurant staff. But their Investigation turns up far more than they bargained for. Skip's charming girlfriend, Emily, confesses that the murder victim and she had been close friends at one point in their lives and had shared a very dark secret. But Emily refuses to elaborate, building a wall of defense between herself and the two young detectives. The more James and Skip investigate the background of the victim and the people she knew, the more they are convinced that this shared secret has far-reaching implications that may lead to the motive for the murder. The closer they get to the answer, the more desperate someone is to stop them.

For those who love humor as well as fast-paced mysteries, the "Stuff" series seven book collection has it all. Combining the stumbling shenanigans of James Lessor and Skip More, two twenty-something ne'er-do-wells trying to succeed as crime solvers produces laugh-out-loud moments while delivering a great mystery. For any fans of "the Hardy Boys" these books are a must read to witness them "all grown up".