Meet Helen Thorpe. She’s smart, preternaturally calm, deeply insightful and a freshly trained butler. On the day she is supposed to start her career as an unusually equanimous domestic professional serving one of the wealthiest families in the world, she is called back to a spiritual retreat where she used to work, the Yatra Institute, on one of British Columbia’s gulf islands. The owner of the lodge, Helen’s former employer Edna, has died while on a three-month silent self-retreat, leaving Helen instructions to settle her affairs. But Edna’s will is more detailed than most, and getting things in order means Helen must run the retreat for a select group to determine which of Edna’s relatives will inherit the institute. Helen’s classmates, newly minted butlers themselves, decide they can’t let her go it alone and arrive to help Helen pull things off. After all, is there anything three butlers can’t handle? As Helen carries out the will’s instructions, she begins to think that someone had reason to want Edna dead. A reluctantly suspicious investigator, Helen and her band of butlers find themselves caught up in the mystery.

When a homeless boy living at the youth shelter run by a Buddhist monastery turns up dead, the abbot recruits Father Ananda, a monk and former police officer, to find out why. He discovers that all is not well at this urban monastery in the heart of Bangkok. Together with his dogged assistant, an orphaned boy named Jak, Father Ananda uncovers a startling series of clues that eventually expose the motivation behind the crime and lead him to the murderers. "Mindfulness and Murder" is the first in the Father Ananda murder-mystery series. Praise for the Father Ananda series: "A gripping read peppered with fascinating insights into the day to day life of a Buddhist monk. Nick Wilgus's Mindfulness and Murder puts a new spin on an old genre." -- UNTAMED TRAVEL MAGAZINE "Wilgus ... has a good fix on temple boys, the precepts of Buddhism, the jaundiced eye with which the populace regards the constulabary, the vendors, the weather, the air pollution." -- BANGKOK POST

November in Battle Lake, Minnesota, is cold enough to freeze the balls off a pool table. lt's also deer hunting season. When Tom Kicker is killed in a hunting accident, Mira James is hired to investigate—a job that brings her closer to a P.I. license. Braving subzero temps and shrieking blizzards, Mira uncovers a decades-old scandal that has never quite died, unlike the cold stiffs who are piling up in the town morgue. As she pieces together the clues, Mira discovers that Battle Lake's good-old boys have been up to some bad business. But with threats and enemies around every icy corner, she may not live long enough to expose the truth. Praise: "It's not easy to make people laugh while they're on the edge of their seats, but Lourey pulls it off, while her vivid descriptions of a brutal Minnesota winter will make readers shiver in the seventh book in her very clever Murder-of-the-Month series."—Booklist, (starred review) "A good story told well, with solid writing."—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine "Lourey’s seventh cozy featuring PI wannabe Mira James successfully combines humor, an intriguing mystery, and quirky smalltown characters."—Publishers Weekly "Lourey has successfully created an independent, relatable heroine in Mira James. Mira’s wit and fearlessness enable her to overcome the many challenges she faces as she tries to unravel the murder."—Crimespree Magazine "Lourey has a knack for wholesome sexual innuendo, and she gets plenty of mileage out of Minnesota. This light novel keeps the reader engaged, like one of those sweet chewy Nut Goodies that Mira is addicted to."—Hallie Ephron, The Boston Globe "Clever, quirky and completely original! This taut and compelling mystery--with a twist on every page-is edgy, entertaining, and irresistible."—Hank Phillippi Ryan, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Award-winning author "In November Hunt Jess Lourey skillfully navigates her way along the razor's edge of the traditional mystery. With a masterful mix of mayhem and mirth, she shows us there's more to small town Minnesota than frozen lakes and fish fries. A fun read all the way through."—Reed Farrel Coleman, three-time Shamus Award-winning author of Hurt Machine

Every weekday morning, as the sun rose above Sixth Avenue, a peerless crop of women-frames poised, behavior polished, networks connected, and bodies generally buffed to a high sheen-were herded by the cattle prod of their own ambition to one particular building. They're smart, stylish, and sophisticated, even the one found dead in her office. When stylish Hillary Whitney dies alone in a locked, windowless conference room at the offices of RAGE Fashion Book, her death is initially ruled an unfortunate side effect of the unrelenting pressure to be thin. But Hillary's best friend and fellow RAGE editor Catherine Ono knows her friend's dieting wasn't a capital P problem. If beauty could kill, it'd take more than that. When two months later, a cryptic note in Hillary's handwriting ends up in the office of the NYPD and the case is reopened, Det. Mark Hutton is led straight into the glamorous world of RAGE and into the life of hot-headed and fiercely fabulous Cat, who insists on joining the investigation. Surrounded by a supporting cast of party girls, Type A narcissists and half- dead socialites, Cat and her colleague Bess Bonner are determined to solve the case and achieve sartorial perfection. But their amateur detective work has disastrous results, and the two ingenues are caught in a web of drugs, sex, lies and moisturizer that changes their lives forever. Viciously funny, this sharp and satirical take on the politics of women's bodies and women's work is an addictive debut novel that dazzles with style and savoire faire.

"First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Quercus"--Copyright page.

Murder Most Puzzling is a gorgeous and witty book that invites readers to play detective and solve a series of absorbing, murder-mystery-themed puzzles. Readers are cast as the faithful sidekick to amateur sleuth Medea Thorne in order to solve 20 puzzling cases. Meet a cast of colorful characters—from ghost hunter extraordinaire Augustin Artaud, to Leonard Fanshawe, a competitor in the Annual Perfect Pickled Foods Festival. • A witty riff on the classic whodunit that brings out everyone's inner detective • Each mystery is sumptuously illustrated. • The mysteries require different deductive tactics, making them a good brain exercise A body in the topiary garden, a death at a clairvoyants' convention, and the mysterious accident of the boating lake—prepare for a whirlwind adventure, laced with humor and a dash of the macabre. This book will delight fans of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edward Gorey. • This is a collection of darkly humorous puzzles. • Features illustrations in a gorgeous gothic style by Stephanie von Reiswitz • Perfect for Edward Gorey fans, mystery buffs, puzzle addicts, and fans of true crime podcasts and TV shows • You'll love this book if you love books like The Gashlycrumb by Edward Gorey, File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents by Lemony Snicket, and The Composer Is Dead by Lemony Snicket.

When a neighbor murders her sister-in-law and two nephews, the author's life changes forever. Seeking a way of dealing with the sudden loss, full of grief, the author turns to Zen. After many years, she's ready to forgive the killer, but it is too late. He's dead at his own hand. So she calls his mother and they cry together. This true account of how that one night changed her life is the focus of this work.--Source other than Library of Congress.

A witty philosophical murder mystery with a charming twist: the crack detectives are sheep determined to discover who killed their beloved shepherd. On a hillside near the cozy Irish village of Glennkill, a flock of sheep gathers around their shepherd, George, whose body lies pinned to the ground with a spade. George has cared devotedly for the flock, even reading them books every night. Led by Miss Maple, the smartest sheep in Glennkill (and possibly the world), they set out to find George’s killer. The A-team of investigators includes Othello, the “bad-boy” black ram; Mopple the Whale, a Merino who eats a lot and remembers everything; and Zora, a pensive black-faced ewe with a weakness for abysses. Joined by other members of the richly talented flock, they engage in nightlong discussions about the crime, wild metaphysical speculations, and embark on reconnaissance missions into the village, where they encounter some likely suspects. Along the way, the sheep confront their own all-too-human struggles with guilt, misdeeds, and unrequited love. Funny, fresh, and endearing, it introduces a wonderful new breed of detectives to Canadian readers.

“Honest and moving . . . Her painful tale is engrossing.”—Washington Post Book World For most of us, it was just another horrible headline. But for Deborah Spungen, the mother of Nancy, who was stabbed to death at the Chelsea Hotel, it was both a relief and a tragedy. Here is the incredible story of an infant who never stopped screaming, a toddler who attacked people, a teenager addicted to drugs, violence, and easy sex, a daughter completely out of control—who almost destroyed her parents’ marriage and the happiness of the rest of her family.

Buddhism, love, art and murder - welcome to the world of the Mindful Detective When a famously narcissistic performance artist is found floating in a tank of formaldehyde at her own private view, suspicion falls on those closest to her . . . Leading the murder investigation is DI Shanti Joyce, recently transferred from London to Yeovil following the collapse of her marriage and a case that went wrong. She soon concludes that the mystery requires left-field thinking, and when a colleague at the station suggests Vince Caine, aka the Mindful Detective, Shanti tracks him down to his remote cabin on the Undercliff at Lyme Regis. The pair delve into the artist's Bohemian circle and discover a hotbed of resentment and jealousy stretching all the way back to her scandalous art school days in Falmouth. But as they soon realise, the murderer is both canny and elusive - someone with a complex, warped motive who will do anything to point them elsewhere. Has Shanti made the wrong decision enlisting the unconventional and enigmatic Caine? Can the unlikely mix of her down-to-earth pragmatism and his otherworldly intuition really prove a winning combination? Or will a killer escape justice and leave Shanti's reputation in tatters?