She would have killed for a bestseller--but someone beat her to it...Professor of Passion, the smutty new romance from Mildred Twiller--a.k.a. Azalea Twilight--isn't the kind of book Claire Malloy likes to hock at her bookstore, but Claire agrees to host a book party for her friend's trashy tale. As torrid as the novel is, it's nothing compared to the evening. After the party, poor Mildred is found dead in her home--stranged with a tightly knotted silk scarf. Now it's up to Clair to...

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...

When you make a game of murder, be careful who the players are...Who could resist the mock-murder weekend at the charming Mimosa Inn-- certainly not bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy, who decides to bring her petulant daughter Caron along for some detecting. As the guests settle in for a weekend of sleuthing, dressed as their favorite literary detectives, many a Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot stand poised to solve a murder. But fiction becomes alarmingly real, as the ...

Police chief Arly Hanks investigates murder in her Ozark hometown in three books of a beloved series by an Agatha Award–winning author.Her marriage and career over, Arly Hanks heads home to Maggody, Arkansas, for a fresh start. Not much ever happens in a village this size, so Arly figures her new job as chief of police will be pretty quiet. But the seemingly peaceful Maggody residents have a few secrets of their own . . .Malice in Maggody: Something...

Egypt, 1912-Amelia Peabody and her dashing archeologist husband, Radcliffe Emerson, are once again in danger as they search for a priceless, stolen bust of legendary Queen Nefertiti and Amelia finds herself the target of assassins in this long-awaited, eagerly anticipated final installment of Elizabeth Peters bestselling, beloved mystery series.Arriving in Cairo for another thrilling excavation season, Amelia is relaxing in a well-earned bubble bath in her elegant hotel suite in C...

Retired florist Theo Bloomer goes to Israel to rescue his niece from terrorists in this engrossing mystery.On the shores of the Dead Sea, Dorrie Caldicott is coming into bloom. A spoiled graduate of the finest prep schools on the Atlantic Seaboard, she went AWOL during a tour of Israel and put down roots in a kibbutz. Her mother simply won't stand for this kind of behavior, and it falls to Dorrie's uncle Theo Bloomer, a retired florist who's as meek as a daffodil, t...

A part from small-town feuds and church scandal, things have been so quiet in the little Arkansas town of Maggody that even police chief Arly Hanks has found time for a vacation. But she returns to find trouble brewing and tongues wagging at fever pitch. The local old-folks' home has been sold to a mysterious outsider, and overnight the place has been transformed into the Stonebridge Foundation, an exclusive rehabilitation center complete with a stone-faced guard who doesn't speak a word o...

Claire Malloy runs a bookstore in the normally quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas - an enterprise which provides the verging-on-meager living for her and her deeply sarcastic teenage daughter Caron. So when emergency work forces Claire and Caron to abandon their apartment for a few weeks, they are in no financial position to put themselves up in style and Claire is thrilled to accept a customer's offer to let them stay at her well-stocked, well-equipped palatial home while she is ...

Things that go bump in the Bayou...For bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy getting a root canal beats going to a Malloy family reunion. But it is time her fifteen-year-old daughter Caron visits her deceased father's relatives. Now Claire and Caron have arrived at Malloy Manor, a run-down mansion in Louisiana's bayou country...where the mosquitoes are big enough to barbecue, the swamp is crawling with alligators, the butler looks like he stepped out of a teen slasher movie, a...

Agatha Award-winning author Joan Hess, the prolific creator of the Claire Malloy and Maggody mysteries, is beloved for her clever sleuths, quirky characters, and her ingenious plotting. We invite you to enjoy this delightful Claire Malloy mystery, and to discover why Sharyn McCrumb calls Joan Hess "the patron saint of comic mystery."At Farberville High, it's reading, writing...and murder.Who knows what evil lurks in the halls of Farbervilles' high school-or what blackmail is ...

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 ...

Claire Malloy loves her life. But how did it go by so fast? A bookstore owner, part-time sleuth, and full-time single mother, Claire is about to turn the big four-oh! Good thing her teenage daughter, Caron, has just been recruited by the Kappa Theta Eta girls—whose sorority house is next door to the Malloys'—to be a consultant for the cosmetics empire My Beautiful Self, Inc. At the very least, Claire can get a little help with those fine lines around her eyes…but at what cost?Turns ...