A hilarious police procedural set in the strangest town in the Ozarks, where whip-smart sheriff Arly Hanks does everything she can to keep the peace. Nothing ever happens in Maggody, Arkansas, population 755. Aside from handling the occasional barroom brawl or exploding still, Chief of Police Arly Hanks spends her days sipping coffee and squashing flies. She returned to Maggody two years ago, licking her wounds after a bad Manhattan divorce, and she fell backward into the role of sheriff. From Hizzoner the Moron—also know as Jim Bob Buchanon, the pettily corrupt mayor—to Ruby Bee Hanks—Arly’s mother and the town’s foremost gossip—the people of Maggody are all crazy in their own ways, and that craziness is about to turn deadly. When Joanna Mae Nookim returns to work after giving birth, the bank manager bumps her down to minimum wage as punishment for taking time off. It’s outrageous, but there’s nothing Arly can do. But when the bank burns to the ground and the head teller is found dead, Maggody threatens to burst into an all-out revolution for the sake of women’s rights. Fans of comic mysteries have known for years that no small town is quite like Maggody. With its wild cast of characters and its no-nonsense female detective, Much Ado in Maggody is evidence of master of cozy mysteries Joan Hess at her best. Much Ado in Maggody is the 3rd book in the Arly Hanks Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

After a crossbow killing at a cheap roadside motel, Ozarks police chief Arly Hanks finds herself investigating her first murder case. Her marriage over and career gone bust, Arly Hanks flees Manhattan for her hometown: Maggody, Arkansas. In a town this size, nothing much ever happens, so Arly figures she’s safe as the town’s first female chief of police—until the husband of one of the local barmaids escapes from state prison and heads for town. And that’s not all. An EPA official with ties to polluting the local fishing hole has suddenly vanished off the face of the earth. As if two manhunts aren’t enough to contend with, a body has been discovered at the pay-by-the-hour Flamingo Motel, shot clean through the neck with an arrow. For some reason, Maggody’s residents—all 755 of them—have gone tight-lipped, stonewalling Arly’s investigations, and Arly hasn’t a soul to trust but her half-wit deputy. Now, as Maggody’s finest, she’ll have to show a little muscle and a lot of cunning to curtail the inhospitable mountain malice that’s overtaken her town. And she’ll have to watch her own back every step of the way. From Agatha Award–winning author Joan Hess, Malice in Maggody is the novel that introduced police chief Arly Hanks—the indomitable sleuth of the popular and long-running Maggody series. Malice in Maggody is the 1st book in the Arly Hanks Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A youth trip turns deadly, and Chief of Police Arly Hanks must catch the killer while serving as chaperone, in this hilarious small-town mystery. Arly Hanks has caught all sorts of killers since she returned home to Maggody, Arkansas, population 759, but she’s never tangled with anyone as devious as the local youth group. While chaperoning a trip to Camp Pearly Gates, Arly watches the kids as closely as she would any hardened criminal, but when teenagers have a mind to get into trouble, there’s nothing a police chief can do but limit the damage. She’s just about got the situation under control when one of the kids finds a body, and all hell breaks loose in classic Maggody manner. The murdered woman sports a shaved head and a white robe, marking her as a Moonbeam, a member of a particularly kooky local cult. And caught between the sect and the law, Arly may be forced to sacrifice what little sanity she has left. Nobody pokes fun at religion quite as effectively as Joan Hess. This is another laugh-out-loud entry in one of the funniest mystery series of all time. Maggody and the Moonbeams is the 13th book in the Arly Hanks Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Santa Claus’s daughter sets out to break a curse and free a magical kingdom—in this beloved New York Times bestseller. Though few mortals know his secret, Nicholas is more than a jolly red-suited man who visits children all over the world on Christmas Eve—he is also the king of Forever, Land of the Immortals. Each year he gets letters from millions of boys and girls, and helps make their Christmas wishes come true. But one year, a special little boy from New York City asks something Nicholas has never been asked before: “What do you wish for Christmas, Santa?” With that simple question, a magical story unfolds. Nicholas answers that his only wish is for a child. And soon the immortal people of the kingdom celebrate the arrival of Holly Claus, the princess of Forever and the first child to grace its ground. But their happiness is dashed when an evil sorcerer places a spell on the infant, turning her heart to ice and freezing her kingdom in time. Many years later, just in time for Christmas Eve, Holly travels to New York, intent upon saving Christmas and freeing the land of Forever. Holly will make this the most magical—and memorable—Christmas the world has ever seen. This ebook features a note from Brittney Ryan including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

An American woman inherits a Cornish coastal mansion shrouded in mystery in this suspenseful gothic romance classic by a New York Times bestseller. The last of an ancient Cornish clan, Carla Tregellas has inherited her historic ancestral home: a massive mansion looming high up on the jagged cliffs of Cornwall. From the moment Carla takes possession of the grand manor she feels right at home, warmly welcomed by everyone—except the strange and secretive housekeeper, Mrs. Pendennis, who warns the new owner of the tragic, inevitable fate that will surely befall her if she does not depart at once. But Carla cannot leave, for the unseen bonds of a dark family curse are beginning to tighten . . . and a demon lover waits. Praise for Wait for What Will Come “This enjoyable story is an interesting commingling of modern romance and Gothic mystery. . . . The surprise ending is satisfying and intelligent. Recommended for all fiction collections.” —Library Journal

The receptionist for a new psychiatric facility is found murdered on its grounds.

Under the benign watch of Police Chief Arly Hanks, things are pretty quiet in the sleepy Arkansas town of Maggody these days. Not even the prospect of a historical society-funded Civil War documentary on the locally touted (albeit historically insignificant) Skirmish at Cotter's Ridge of 1863 does much to stir up the denizens of this sleepy backwoods town. What does finally get the rumor mill buzzing, however, is the revelation that two saddlebags of Confederate gold were hidden in a local cave to keep them from falling into Yankee hands. Once word gets out that the saddlebags were never recovered, almost everyone in town has a plan to get their hands on the lost gold. Meanwhile, a colorful cast of outlanders has taken over Maggody. They include a dewy Charleston belle, a famous writer of historical romances, her ne'er-do-well son, and three dozen obsessive reenactors who have not yet acknowledged that the Civil War ended over a hundred years ago, as well as a documentary film crew and a handsome, if enigmatic, filmmaker with ties to Arly's past. Arly has more than enough on her hands trying to locate missing senior citizens and keeping the visitors from each other's throats, but when the genealogist of the Stump County Historical Society dies under questionable circumstances, and a member of the Buchanon clan is the victim of a vicious and fatal attack, Arly finds herself faced with the most baffling whodunit of her career, with a disgruntled ghost a possible prime suspect.

When a beautiful, beguiling newcomer to Maggody turns up murdered, police chief Arly Hanks traces her e-mails and begins to suspect that someone in town may have killed her--perhaps one of the many women she made jealous.

Maggody, Arkansas (pop. 755) is perceived of as a two-bit hick town, filled with one-bit hicks. But Mrs. Jim Bob Buchanan seeks to change that perception with her latest scheme—a charity golf tournament. This presents a bit of a challenge, since no one in Maggody plays golf and there is no course. But when the prize for the first hole-in-one is announced—a top of the line bass boat—nearly everyone in town develops a new-found interest in the sport. The town goes golf crazy, trying to learn the sport in time to win the bass boat, with limited success and maximum domestic disorder. Sheriff Arly Hanks, who has better things to worry about, just wishes it would all go away. When a small-town golf instructor wins the bass boat on the first day of the tournament, it looks like all the excitement is over. But the next morning, when he's found dead, sitting in the parking lot in the front seat of the bass boat, the prize is once again up for grabs and nearly everyone in town is a murder suspect.