Botched 4 Murder

An Arizona retirement community is a pastime paradise—until someone gets sent to the great beyond—in this mystery by the author of Booked 4 Murder. As if bookkeeping for a private detective agency didn’t give her enough to do, Sophie “Phee” Kimball is once again getting dragged into the drama at her mom’s retirement community. A new board member wants to get rid of two golf courses and replace them with eco-friendly parks, and some of the residents are pretty teed off about it. On top of that, her mother’s friend Myrna is being pushed out of the bocce league. Myrna is so bad at bocce that when a community member’s dead body is discovered on the grounds, she assumes it was one of her own errant balls that killed the woman. But before she can be taken away in cuffs for being a killer klutz, the police find an arrow in the victim’s neck. It looks like this was no accident. Now Phee and her investigator boyfriend Marshall will have to crack the case before the killer takes another swing.

A P.I.’s bookkeeper takes a side gig in sleuthing when an amateur production of The Mousetrap features a real-life murder in this cozy mystery novel. Sophie “Phee” Kimball is trying to get work done at her private investigation company, but it’s hard to focus when her old crush just moved to Arizona to join the staff. The last thing she needs is more distraction—like constant updates from her mom on the local production of Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap.” Practically everyone from Mom’s book club and retirement community, with the possible exception of her chiweenie dog, wants to join the cast and crew. But someone’s playing the role of a killer for real. After a much-despised cast member is found dead in the theater, Phee has no choice but to immerse herself in all the backstabbing, backstage gossip. Especially if her drama-queen mother is right about the threatening note left on her windshield—which could spell curtains for another victim

A Mystery Tribune’s Best Books of the Month Last one standing is the winner . . . The holiday season has arrived and bookkeeper/amateur sleuth, Sophie “Phee” Kimball, would love nothing more than to enjoy the comforts of her new home with her detective boyfriend near Arizona’s Sun City West. Instead, her mother Harriet wants to showcase her chiweenie-chihuahua-dachshund Streetman in the Precious Pooches Holiday Extravaganza costume events. The festivities begin in October and end on St. Patrick’s Day—with the winner starring in the St. Pat’s Day parade. But things quickly turn an awful shade of green when Streetman uncovers a dead body under a tarp-covered grill in the neighbor’s yard. The victim is Cameron Tully, a seafood distributor working out of Phoenix, who died from ingesting a toxic sago palm leaf. Before the police can even find a motive and suspect, another Precious Pooch owner nearly dies from the same poison. With Harriet believing someone’s targeting her and Streetman because of the costume contests, Phee will need a potful of Irish luck to sniff out a killer . . . Praise for the Sophie Kimball Mysteries “An eclectic cast of entertaining characters that will keep you wondering whodunit!” —USA Today Bestselling Author Nicole Leiren, on Staged 4 Murder “A thoroughly entertaining series debut, with enjoyable, yet realistic characters and enough plot twists—and dead ends—to appeal from beginning to end.” —Booklist STARRED REVIEW on Booked 4 Murder

A single mom from Minnesota discovers a nasty plot when her mother’s book club gets cancelled by murder in this cozy mystery series debut. Sophie “Phee” Kimball is no detective. She’s a middle-aged single mom who works as an account clerk for the Mankato, Minnesota, police department. But her mother, Harriet Plunkett, is convinced she’s the only one who can solve a deadly mystery. Four members of Harriet’s book club have died under mysterious circumstances, and Harriet believes their latest book selection is cursed. Whether she’s crazy or just lonely, Phee decides it’s time to pay her mother a visit. She may not believe in curses, but when Phee arrives at Harriet’s retirement community in Sun City West, Arizona, she can’t help wondering if foul play is afoot. It isn’t long before she starts uncovering dark secrets hiding in plain sight under the blazing Arizona sun. And now she’ll need to read between the lines before it’s someone else’s final chapter... “You’ll chuckle all the way through this delightful romp…It’s so cleverly written, you won’t guess the perpetrators until the very end.” —Mary Marks, award-winning author of the Quilting Mystery series

When her radio host mother finds the dead body of the station's programming director, it is up to Sophie Kimball to solve this crime that is linked to the past when fingerprints are found on the murder weapon belonging to a woman who passed away years ago.

In 1953 Manhattan, the Broadway musical version of Hal Rapp's Tall Paul, one of America's most popular comic strips, is threatened by the animosity of Rapp's long-time rival, cartoonist Sam Fizer, and the casting of Fizer's wife, Misty Winters, in the play, a situation that is worsened when Fizer turns up murdered, with all of the evidence making Rapp the prime suspect. Original.

From her first assignment in 1998 to explore an increase in the number of missing women to the harrowing 2002 interrogation of convicted serial killer Robert Pickton, Lori Shenher tells a story of massive police failure—failure of the police to use the information about Pickton available to them, failure to understand the dark world of drug addiction and sex work, and failure to save more women from their killer. Shenher explains how police unwillingness to believe the women were missing or murdered, jurisdictional squabbles, and a fear of tunnel vision conspired to leave women unprotected and vulnerable to a serial killer nearly three years after she first received a tip that Pickton could be responsible. She unflinchingly reveals her own pain and psychological distress as a result of these events, which left her unable to work with or trust the police and the criminal justice system. That Lonely Section of Hell reveals the deeper truths behind the causes of this tragedy and the myriad ways the system—and society—failed to protect vulnerable people.

Clare Cosi’s new friend, millionaire David Mintzer, has an offer no New York barista could turn down: an all-expenses-paid summer away from the sticky city. At his Hamptons mansion, she’ll relax, soak up the sun, and, oh yes, train the staff of his new restaurant. So Clare packs up her daughter, her former mother-in-law, and her special recipe for iced coffee—for what she hopes will be one de-latte-ful summer… Soon, Clare tends the coffee bar at her first Hamptons gala. But the festivities come to a bitter end when an employee turns up dead in David’s bathroom—a botched attempt on the millionaire’s life. Thanks to the Fourth of July fireworks no one heard any gunshots, and the police are stuck in holiday traffic. Concerned for everyone’s safety, Clare begins to investigate. What she finds will keep her up at night—and it’s not the java jitters....