A cross and a bouquet of blue and pink flowers lead eleven-year-old Tiffany Gardner to investigate a mysterious neighborhood death. Was it murder? And who is the Alcatraz occupation hero Tiffany's grandmother wants to meet? Will Tiffany's older brother Quincy and Grandma Warrior assist in time when Tiffany's investigations become perilous? The dusty streets of South Tucson hide dangerous secrets for this young detective.

Attention, suspense fans! In this collection of strange tales you will watch in horror as phosgene gas creeps toward the Arizona boosters who've done something truly shocking at their World War I training camp. You will shop, if you dare, at the weird store of an asthmatic witch who likes to summon dead relatives for her customers. You will commiserate with a hunter so distracted by learning about animal tracks that he loses track of his girlfriend. You will fend off a strange puppeteer, a...

Live life dangerously; delve into these quirky tales. Flee to a reservation with an emeritus professor of archaeology. Snuggle kittens at a consciousness-raising under the critical eye of a crabby host. Freeze in place as rattlesnakes slither across a field at a gathering of Girl Scouts. Evade a demented stalker on your first day of work. Get engrossed in this world of short fiction.

Enjoy a bevy of stories about human foibles. Meet an amiable young man's whose chance at romance is ruined when he repeats a story. Attend an uncomfortable interview with an aspiring arts critic who doesn't like art. Sit at the campfire and watch graduate students battle over their dissertation ideas. Witness a series of shady business transactions initiated by a young Indiana orphan. Hear the tales that destroy an old lady's relationship with her family. Get trapped at a cult ranch with a...

Looking more like a new species of wasp than any human, her large black eyes and skinny waist matching well with her grasping arms and her jaw which snapped like an insect's mandible when she spoke, Mrs. Warner descended upon the couple and the crew of workmen."Isn't that the creepy woman who lives in the dynamite factory above you?" The woman tilted her head in the direction of Mrs. Warner's hilltop home. Because Villa Escorpion had been constructed in a brutalist style from slabs...

Stacie, Tiffany and Yadira hope to shut down their rental house and get back their security deposit before leaving town, but first they have to fix the gaping hole in the adobe wall and rid themselves of unwanted graduation "presents," both the result of an uproarious final party. This comic co-ed romp will keep you chuckling.

Who hasn't dreamed of finding gold? After Juan and Willy are fired from their jobs as car detailers at a dealership, a desire for gold possesses them. Locating a lost mine, however, means they have to outsmart a kid, a huge challenge for this pair. With an idea of where some lost gold might be, they search for a truck with an intact transmission that isn't full of feral cats. Of course, abandoned mines aren't safe places either, a fact especially true for these sorry, but sweet, friends.

A herd of phantom cattle stampedes into the fertile imagination of a young writer. She corrals stray stories and stampeding images until she realizes a rustling folklorist has wrested control of the most important memory, the Phantom Herd. Join her for adventures in the desert Southwest, and witness the mysterious rustling of her fantastic livestock from Rancho Supremo. Mashers, and an attempt to give John Wayne LSD, are saved for the second part of her narrative, circa 1970.

Stephanie Falls, age eight, spends a weekend with her doting grandparents along with her Aunt Helen, who is recovering from a nervous breakdown after dropping out of economics graduate school. Trapped in a mansion full of creepy artifacts and unappreciated Native American art with a depressed aunt, Stephanie plays with everything she sees, breaking and mutilating quite a few objects. An excursion to march in a mountain man parade ends badly for Grandpa Drummond when Stephanie torments an i...

Who hasn't dreamed of finding a fortune in gold? After Juan Verdugo and Willy Jent are fired from their jobs as car detailers at a dealership, a desire for gold possesses them. Locating a lost mine, however, means they have to outsmart a kid, a huge challenge for this pair. With an idea of where some lost gold might be, they search for a truck with an intact transmission that isn't full of feral cats. Of course, abandoned mines aren't safe places either, a fact especially true for these bu...

Aunt Helen has had a nervous breakdown and irrepressible Stephanie Falls, age eight, is determined to cheer her up. During a weekend in her grandparents' home, Stephanie destroys artifacts and ruins a parade, but will Aunt Helen ever crack a smile?

Circuses and parades go wildly awry when James Sauerbaugh joins a band of Shriners as a substitute trombonist. The band members are ancient and bombed out of their minds, but James comes to relish the friendships and wild fun on the bus and on parade floats. When Moses Grand, a fellow trombonist, rescues him from death at the hands of a ruthless killer, the story takes an ironic twist. Nobody can have enough books with circuses and parades in them.