Dead End Detective

Starred Review on Library Journal! USA Today bestselling author and Agatha Award winner Amanda Flower brings charm and intrigue to her first cozy mystery for Hallmark. Darby Piper is in shock. A seasoned female detective, she worked with Samantha Porter at the Two Girls Detective Agency. Now, Samantha is dead, and it doesn’t look like an accident. In fact, evidence is pointing toward Darby. Darby had expected to inherit Samantha’s half of the agency, but Samantha had recently changed the will to leave it to Tate Porter, her nephew, who returns to town. Tate is no private eye. He’s a world traveler and a veteran whose military past is also something of a mystery. But as he helps Darby delve into secret histories and real estate development plans, he proves to be a talented amateur sleuth. Will the agency have a future…even if Darby can solve this murder mystery in time? This first in series cozy mystery includes a free Hallmark original recipe for Berry Trifle.

'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW A Bill Slider Mystery A call-out to a murder saves Detective Inspector Bill Slider from having to finish his canteen lunch, but it presents him with the problem of a dead conductor. In life Sir Stefan Radek was seriously famous and terminally unpleasant, but neither of these facts seems reason enough to gun him down. But as Slider delves into the megastar's private life he finds there's no shortage of suspects, as everyone seems tastelessly glad that Radek is dead. Lies, lovers past and present, and a hotbed of squabbles and financial shenanigans complicate the already tangled case. And with Slider's lost love, Joanna, a witness to the crime, his own life's jigsaw puzzle seems suddenly as complex as tracking down a most unlikely murderer... Praise for the Bill Slider series: 'Slider and his creator are real discoveries' Daily Mail 'Sharp, witty and well-plotted' Times 'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious' Irish Times

The third in the detective series featuring DI Geraldine Steel Headmistress Abigail Kirby is dead. A potential witness has been murdered. And for DI Geraldine Steel, the stakes have been raised yet higher. Abigail's teenage daughter, Lucy, is missing, believed to have run away with a girl she met online. Time is quickly running out for Geraldine before her naivety costs Lucy her life. But with a serial killer on the loose, Geraldine's own life is in danger, and though her Sergeant Ian Peterson makes a shocking discovery, could it be too late to save her from a dreadful fate?

Helen Hawthorne has no choice but to take on a series of dead-end jobs to make ends meet. Unfortunately, they're exposing her to a lot of people who end up dead. Her latest gig at the Pampered Pet Boutique isn't proving to be a warm and furry exception-and now she's got a murder to solve and a kidnapped pup to find, all before a Category 3 hurricane hits.

The Rick Bishop private investigator series continues when a local attorney hires Bishop to find her missing friend and then insists on tagging along to help with his investigation. The missing friend has a sordid past. Her mob-connected ex-father-in-law wants to find her just as badly for about two million good reasons. When Honolulu attorney Nicole Hersey hires Bishop to help her find her best friend Diane Clark, she insists on accompanying him in the search. In a financial bind, he agrees. Rick and Nicole follow her friend’s trail to a small town on the North Shore, only to learn from the locals that Diane died there of heart failure. That literal dead end should have closed the investigation, but Bishop notices someone is tailing them. And, later, when the pair interviews the doctor who pronounced Diane dead, Rick’s suspicions Diane isn’t dead at all grow. After confronting the man following them, Clifford Shepard, he informs Bishop he is an IRS special agent, also looking for Diane Clark because she had come into two million dollars recently but hasn’t paid the taxes owed. Once Rick uncovers more evidence that Diane Clark may have faked her death, he ends up in a cemetery in the middle of the night with his two closest friends Joe Rose and Koko Mahelona, intent on digging up Clark’s casket. But just as they unearth the casket, three east coast mobsters from the mainland, also searching for Diane Clark, ambush them. When Bishop’s case takes a deadly turn, will the penurious PI find Diane Clark and her money before hitting his own dead end? Dead End is the second book in the Rick Bishop series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

"Helen Hawthorne quietly goes undercover at a local library to search for a missing masterpiece. When a dead body turns up in the parking lot, she's determined to find the killer as well"--

"Fans of Janet Evanovich and Parnell Hall will appreciate Viets's humor."—South Florida Sun-Sentinel Working at Sybil's Full Moon Hotel in Fort Lauderdale keeps Helen both financially and physically fit. But cleaning up after hotel guests is not like cleaning a house—it's like cleaning 15 houses. When fellow maid Rhonda goes missing, the rest of the cleaning staff chalk it up to job burnout and imagine that she finally ditched the housekeeping gig to run off with the rich boyfriend she's always talking about. But then Rhonda turns up dead in a dumpster, and no one feels safe—especially not Helen. To make matters worse, her ex-husband is hot on her trail, checking in to the very hotel where she works. The cops don't seem to care much about a murdered maid, but they have noticed there's something shady about Helen. If she doesn't manage to dodge their questions and shake off her ex, it could be checkout time for her.

Acclaimed for his authentic Precinct novels, author Christopher Newman presents another thriller starring Detective Lieutenant Joe Dante and his partner, Jumbo Richardson, of the NYPD. As powerful as a nine-millimeter and as dramatic as the New York skyline, Dead End Game is a hard-hitting tale of life on the force-and death on the streets... When a major-league pitcher is found dead of an overdose just before the last game of the league playoffs, the first assumption is suicide. Joe Dante and Jumbo Richardson think otherwise. And their investigation reveals that behind the all-American game lies a world of dirty money and deceit-and a cast of suspects who don't hesitate to play hardball.