Mail Order Mysteries

Rediscover your sense of wonder! Generations of comic book readers remember the tantalizing promises of vintage novelty advertisements that offered authentic laser-gun plans, x-ray specs, and even 7-foot-tall monsters (with glow-in-the-dark eyes!). But what would you really get if you entrusted your hard-earned $1.69 to the post office? Mail-Order Mysteries answers this question, revealing the amazing truths (and agonizing exaggerations) about the actual products marketed to kids in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Pop-culture historian Kirk Demarais shares his astonishing collection, including: 100 Toy Soldiers in a Footlocker Count Dante’s World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets GRIT Hercules Wrist Band Hypno-Coin Life-Size Monsters Mystic Smoke Sea Monkeys Soil From Dracula’s Castle U-Control Ghost Ventrilo Voice Thrower ...and many, many more! With more than 150 extraordinary, peculiar, and downright fraudulent collectibles, Mail-Order Mysteries is a must-have book comic book fans everywhere. Trust us.

When real life starts mimicking the plot of one of the romance books that line the shelves in her bookstore, it's up to Lizzie Hale to catch the killer, in this riveting new Love is Murder mystery. Lizzie Hale thought mail-order brides existed only between the pages of the historical romances she stocks in her bookstore, Love Under the Covers. But when not one, but two local men introduce her to their respective new wives, she's forced to reevaluate that notion. Lizzie is surprised when Al Little, the owner of the local hardware store, asks Lizzie and her aunt Charmaine to help Svetlana, his new bride straight from Russia, to settle into Tinker's Creek, but they agree. Everything is going swimmingly—until a wrench gets thrown into their plans when Svetlana is found drowned in the creek. With Al's suspicious best friend—who has his own mysterious mail-order bride—and the secretive matchmaker who put them together, Lizzie's got more suspects than she knows what to do with. But she'll have to nail down who the killer is fast, before someone else winds up dead.

Introducing a sleuth that“mothers everywhere will identify with”—first in the long-running series from the New York Times bestselling author(Publishers Weekly). As if baking holiday cookies, knitting a sweater for her husband’s gift, and making her daughter’s angel costume for the church pageant weren’t enough things for Lucy Stone’s busy Christmas schedule, she’s also working nights at the famous mail-order company Country Cousins. But when she discovers Sam Miller, its very wealthy founder, dead in his car from an apparent suicide, the sleuth in her knows something just doesn’t smell right. Taking time out from her hectic holiday life to find out what really happened, Lucy’s investigation leads to a backlog of secrets as long as Santa’s Christmas Eve route. She is convinced that someone murdered Sam Miller. But who and why? With each harrowing twist she uncovers in this bizarre case, another shocking revelation is exposed. Now, as Christmas draws near and Lucy gets dangerously closer to the truth, she’s about to receive a present from Santa she didn’t ask for—a killer who won’t be satisfied until everyone on his shopping list is dead, including Lucy herself . . . Praise for the Lucy Stone Mystery series “A solid mystery.”—San Francisco Chronicle “A surprising and intelligently constructed plot.”—Cape Cod Times “Lucy Stone is an endearing sleuth.”—Dorothy Cannell “Leslie Meier has created a town I’d like to live in and a sleuth I’d love to meet.”—Jill Churchill

"Nancy uncovers intrigue on the internet and the password is danger"--Cover.

November, 1940. Tom Tyler, Detective Inspector of the small Shropshire town of Whitchurch, is a troubled man. The preceding summer had been a dark one for Britain, and even darker for Tom's own family and personal life. So he jumps at the opportunity to help out in the nearby city of Birmingham, where an explosion in a munitions factory has killed or badly injured several of the young women who have taken on dangerous work in support of the war effort. At first, it seems more than likely the explosion was an accident, and Tom has only been called in because the forces are stretched thin. But as he talks to the employees of the factory, inner divisions -- between the owner and his employees, between unionists and workers who fear communist infiltration -- begin to appear. Put that together with an AWOL young soldier who unwittingly puts all those he loves at risk and a charming American documentary filmmaker who may be much more than he seems, and you have a page-turning novel that bears all the hallmarks of Maureen Jennings' extraordinary talent: a multi-faceted mystery, vivid characters, snappy dialogue, and a pitch-perfect sense of the era of the Blitz, when the English were pushed to their limits and responded with a courage and resilience that still inspires.

While learning detective skills at a sleep-away camp, Dink and his friends undercover a real mystery involving stolen paintings

A New York Times Notable Crime Book and Favorite Cozy for 2011 A Publishers Weekly Best Mystery/Thriller books for 2011 With A Trick of the Light, Louise Penny takes us back to the deceptively peaceful village of Three Pines in this brilliant novel in her award-winning, New York Times bestselling series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. "Hearts are broken," Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. "Sweet relationships are dead." But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montreal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Quebec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems. Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart. And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light. "Penny has been compared to Agatha Christie [but] it sells her short. Her characters are too rich, her grasp of nuance and human psychology too firm...." --Booklist (starred review)