Humor Detective

Armed with snacks and voted 'Most Likely to Succeed' by his fly-by-night private investigator school, Reverend Richard Burgess has left the pulpit behind to try his hand at helping people in a different way. After shedding his pastor duds for a newly acquired closetful of somewhat questionable disguises, Detective Burgess sets out to leverage his considerable people smarts to solve crimes and bring closure to his clients. In this hilarious novel of linked short stories, the former minister busts a smuggling ring, solves a murder, launches a viral video on YouTube, tracks down a ghost, and ...

A Rural Mafia. Dognappers. Romance. Bel Anderson and the Anderson Services detectives are busy. A gang, run by a clever kingpin, has taken over a third of a rural Texas county. Bel and Martin Labe, the Flashman, unite to take down a corrupt politician and mobster. Someone is stealing young show dogs, an obsessive stalker is after a defenseless woman, industrial thieves abound, and there is a contested will. Can the Anderson Services detectives handle the workload? Will Bel find yet another preternatural ability from his strange DNA? Follow along as Bel takes one more step into becoming ...

A ghostly place with a tragic history: the isolated Chalet Hermitage in the deep shadow of the Matterhorn. A snowstorm hits. A clock strikes. A man dies. An opera diva disappears. A cat yawns . . . Wait, what? The cat, Honorio, and his companions Emma, Hilde, and Vivien—tired of the summer heat on their tour of Europe—have taken Emma’s cousin Cedric’s advice and made their way to the cooler climes of Italy’s Aosta Valley. Here they’ve found exceptional vistas and amazing accommodations, but not everything is as it seems. Shadows play. People lie. And strange sounds and visions ...

The exciting conclusion of the Philosophical Detective Trilogy: The Philosophical Detective’s Last Case The fabulist and detective who calls himself Jorge Luis Borges returns to New England for three final adventures, as recollected by his assistant Nick Martin almost fifty years later. Struggling with cognitive issues of his own, Nick recounts Borges’s encounter with the conundrums of memory and identity in the amnesia ward of a Boston hospital, the perplexities of modern science at a conference of physicists in New Hampshire, and the ironies of fate at a media mogul’s suburban ...

Radio star Nelle Brown is known coast-to-coast for her sweet and sultry voice. But her press agent and manager, Jake Justus, is familiar with another side of the darling of the airwaves: her crackpot marriage to a penniless tycoon, disastrous string of lovers, and propensity for flying into spectacular fits of rage. Now, it appears she’s being burned by an ex-flame who’s holding her scandalous love letters for ransom. The missives could ruin Nelle’s career, but so could the scoundrel’s murder.

With her books sporting other people’s names, ghostwriter Jake O’Hara works behind the scenes. But she never expected a séance at a New York apartment to be part of her job. Jake had signed on as a ghostwriter, secretly writing for a grande dame of mystery fiction whose talent died before she did. The author’s East Side residence was impressive. But her entourage—from a Mrs. Danvers-like housekeeper to a lurking hypnotherapist—was creepy. Still, it was all in a day’s work, until a killer started going after ghostwriters, and Jake suspected she was chillingly close to the ...

In 1880s Vigàta, a stranger comes to town to open a pharmacy. Fofò turns out to be the son of a man made legendary for having a magic garden stocked with plants, fruits, and vegetables that could cure any ailment - a man who was found murdered years ago. Fofò escaped but has now reappeared looking to make his fortune and soon finds himself mixed up in the dealings of a philandering local marchese set on producing an heir.

Thus begins Mycroft Holmes’s valiant, if irregular, attempt to chronicle his doings. Rediscovered in 1976 and now fully translated from an obscure code, Mycroft’s diaries reveal that a brother’s lot is not always a happy one, especially when that brother happens to be London’s only consulting detective. In this humorous look at the world of Sherlock Holmes through Mycroft’s eyes, one question always remains: will Sherlock ever get a proper job?

After Tatiana and baby Abram are kidnapped, the werewolf pack is thrown into disarray. With the others clueless, Karina and Jack, with help from Babushka, are determined to find the two missing pack members. However, Karina and Jack also have paying investigations coming out of their ears, including some dangerous ones that involve the pursuit of serial killers. Additionally, a ghost from Babushka’s past is haunting the art studio in the packhouse. Is he trying to tell them something? If so, what? As the hunt for the two pack members continues, Karina uncovers evidence of venomous ...

Si llamas a la puerta del infierno... es una novela diferente, con la que vas a pasar un buen rato. ¿Quien mató a Nacho Vergara?Pues como pasó con el famoso Comendador de Lope de Vega, parece ser que fueron todos a una, pero en este caso sólo parece. Una novela muy entretenida en la que hasta la última parte no sabrás quien es el asesino. Misterio, humor, familia, amistad, una detective de Homicidios un tanto peculiar y borde y algo del mundillo de los escritores se entremezclan de forma muy bien ligada, formando una trama que te atrapará desde las primeras líneas. Adscribirla a un ...

Running from a rocky romance and in desperate need of a getaway, Audrey talks her good friend Gary into joining her on a Las Vegas vacation. Frantic to cram as much fun as possible into that first night in Sin City, the friends buy cut-rate tickets for an off-Strip magic show and end up getting more than they bargained for.

Paraffin, Vermont, is home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory. There, 17-year-old Poppy finds something dark and unsettling: a room filled with dozens of startlingly lifelike wax sculptures. Later, she's shocked when one of the figures - a teenage boy who doesn't seem to know what he is - jumps naked and screaming out of the trunk of her car. Poppy wants to return him to the factory, but before she can, a fire destroys the mysterious workshop.

Champagne corks only hint at the pressure that builds as this New Year’s witching hour approaches. Maggie Bixler, a saucy ghost who runs a spectral speakeasy in the gloomy basement of the old family home, was brutally betrayed and is ready to POP! She’s hired me, Seymour—part-time detective, full-time parakeet—to find who double-crossed her a hundred years ago. I’m game! (Get it?) Meanwhile, my former wife (and now owner) Sharon throws a wing-ding on New Year’s Eve and the whole town crashes the private party. Seymour Triplett’s the name. Once human and a full-time gumshoe, I ...

Charles Bentley receives two surprises. First of all his wife, Joanna, who is also chief of police in Opalsville where they live, wants to have a large Thanksgiving celebration in their new home. She asks Charles to do the inviting. Under some pressure he agrees, wondering all the while where he will round up enough people for such a gathering. The second surprise comes when his old friend Sidney Collins comes to see him. Charles and Sidney were undergraduates together at Yale and went on together for graduate school in English literature at Harvard. Sidney is a well known public ...

Hanover Elementary is not your average school. The milk cartons whisper advice. The pencil sharpener leaks secrets. And the cafeteria meatballs occasionally move on their own. Tommy Tiddleton was just trying to survive another weird Wednesday when he stumbled upon the first clue: a glowing sandwich bag marked “DO NOT OPEN.” Naturally, he opened it. Now, with the help of his best friends—Dev the skeptic, Blister the chaos enthusiast, and Miss Sheila the world’s most suspicious lunch lady—Tommy must navigate a bizarre underground archive, a sentient gravy spill, memory-erasing tacos...

Spring is in the air. Gus is feeling pretty good about the change in seasons until an unknown man decides he would rather change from being alive to being dead. He clearly drank something toxic, and it didn’t agree with him. The question is, did he really decide to do that, or did someone make that decision for him. Only that question is buried under a lot of other layers of questions. Why did the man visit Gus a few days before his death proclaiming the end times were near? Why didn’t he take enough poison to kill him near instantly instead of lingering around for days slowly dying? ...

SWITCH BACK is a novella (about 1/3 of a full-length novel, about 4-5 times longer than a short story) and takes place prior to BOARD STIFF (Elliott Lisbon Mystery #1). After inheriting an entire town, Ballantyne Foundation Director, Elliott Lisbon, travels to Texas to thank them. She quickly learns they don’t want her gratitude, they want their town back. And they’re willing to kill for it. Trapped in a small town full of big suspects, Elliott must unlock their secrets, or she’ll never get out alive. Now doesn’t that sound like fun? Read the whole series and gets even better. - - -...

Classic Movies, Ghostly Mischief, and Murder! Nora Paige is settling into her new life as manager of the Palace movie theater. She only has a few things to worry about. Like keeping the theater safely out of the clutches of an evil real estate developer, dealing with her staff of movie-obsessed misfits and their daily meltdowns, and hiding the fact that her new best friend Trixie is the ghost of an usherette who died in 1937. It would also be helpful if she could figure out whether she wants to take her charming-but-cheating husband back. But when someone close to the Palace is murdered, ...

The rolling pin points to murder, and Olivia Marx is the only one who sees it. In the quaint town of Whispering Falls, it's a fine line between cookie dough and crime scenes. Olivia Marx, puzzle enthusiast and reluctant detective, finds her cozy life flipped upside down. When the town's beloved baker, Ben, is found dead, Olivia dives into a web of confectionery conspiracies. Too bad Detective Ethan Blackwell insists she leave it to the pros. Crumbs of evidence present more questions than answers. Every resident seems suspicious, including Olivia herself, and secrets are as common as ...

This delightful story involves the reader in the comfortable suburban life of the protagonists before blowing their preconceptions away when an intriguing mystery unfolds. Was there a murder? What is the significance of the 17:21 out of Waterloo and who really knows all there is to know about a person? Written in Bob Able's trademark lighthearted style (with no graphic sex scenes or violence), Bob writes lighthearted fiction, best-selling travel memoirs, and romantic thrillers. Double Life Insurance is a mystery wrapped in a cozy suburban cocoon.