Humor Detective

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.

If there was one piece of advice Olive Crisp always followed, it was that "one should never attempt to solve a crime on an empty stomach..." 1970s. Cambridge, England. A POISONED SCONE: When a customer drops dead in the cafe during the lunch rush Olive is horrified. What's worse, the cause of death was one of her delicious scones. Now solving the case has become personal; not only does Olive want to solve the murder in order to explain the mystery she also needs to clear her name. A COSY COMMUNITY: Despite protesting her innocence, only her two best friends, Millie and Blythe, and the ...

Thrift shop til someone drops... The Braun family is coming home for the holidays, and Jessica couldn’t be happier for the reunion. She’s making her shopping list, checking it twice, and hosting an old-fashioned Christmas to remember. But Uncle Rick won’t be there, after he’s arrested for an old friend’s murder. And when the new sheriff in town decides Jess’s sleuthing skills are unwanted, it will be hard to prove her uncle’s innocence. How will Jess find the true culprit—and get her family back together—before one Braun celebrates the new year behind bars?

Monty and Ellen head to Medellin, Columbia, to investigate a haunted castle. They’re hired to protect its priceless museum exhibits from the annual rampage of the ghost of El Castillo. However, when Ellen is attacked by the spirit, things take a scary turn. While Monty uses his hi-tech instruments to track the entity, Ellen, a psychic, communicates with the dangerous spirit via a translator. When they begin to make a connection between the angry spirit and his shady history, they must trust a notorious man in order to identify the ghost... But the past hides a grim secret—a secret that ...

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 ...

‘Imelda Sheridan was dead, which was tough cookies on Imelda, but then every silver lining has its cloud. My job was to find out who and why, at 12 cent per word for the right facts in the right order … which is how it all started out, anyway.’ Freelance hack Harry Rigby likes a smoke, the easy life and Robert Ryan playing the bad buy in late night black-and-whites. Sweet. But when the wife of a prominent politician is murdered in her best nightdress, Rigby finds himself caught in a crossfire between rogue paramilitaries, an internal Garda inquiry and the heaviest blizzard of coke ...

Gus somehow won the church raffle. It was a miraculous feat given that he’d never entered it-the church or the raffle. He suddenly finds himself with two tickets to paradise and one of them premade out for Father Xavier. Paradise in this case being the Caribbean Island of Saint Hubbins. They’re joined at the hotel by two couples that appear to be engaged in a tangled web of extra-marital affairs with each other. Gus isn’t too interested in the affairs of others until one of them ends up dead. Another person is arrested by the local police for the crime. It’s not that Gus feels he ...

Thatch has a terrible thirst, an ever expanding waistline, a dog and an estranged wife. A heart condition too. That'll be the complete set then. And now he's got an unsolved crime on his doorstep so, with little else for the retired detective to do other than wait for opening time or potter about in the garden, this is a good thing. Probably. Yes, granted, there's a dodgy millionaire and a Ukrainian drug lord in the mix, but likely nothing that a bit of old fashioned police work can't sort. What could possibly go wrong?

Book 2 of the series They thought they’d saved the library but they were wrong. With their monster problem out of the way, a terrible new problem has boiled to the surface and now Pallas O’Fiddian, Athena’s Detective in training, must stop the most powerful man in the city from stealing Peplos Public Library out from under eleven-year-old head librarian Libby Biblos. Can she do it? Find out!

An ancient ring stolen from a Holocaust victim. A stuffed raven that once belonged to Charles Dickens. An extra body in the New York City Morgue. Only one man could follow these clues to a solution: the legendary Jorge Luis Borges. "... highly recommended for classic detective story enthusiasts who look for complexity and intellectual challenges in their characters and stories." - Midwest Book Review Two years after their collaboration chronicled in The Philosophical Detective, Nick Martin again falls under the spell of the blind poet and fabulist who calls himself Jorge Luis Borges. ...

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 ...

Welcome to the Palace movie theater! Now Showing: Philandering husbands, ghostly sidekicks, and a murder or two. When Nora Paige’s movie-star husband leaves her for his latest co-star, she flees Hollywood to take refuge in San Francisco at the Palace, a historic movie theater that shows the classic films she loves. There she finds a band of misfit film buffs who care about movies (almost) as much as she does. She also finds some shady financial dealings and the body of a murdered stranger. Oh, and then there’s Trixie, the lively ghost of a 1930’s usherette who appears only to Nora and...

In the latest book in the widely beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Precious Ramotswe takes on a case for a childhood acquaintance, but her inquiries will require an even more delicate touch than usual. Mma Ramotswe reconnects with an old friend who has been having problems with her daughter. Though Precious feels compelled to lend a hand, she discovers that getting involved in family affairs is always a delicate proposition.

Alone in the midnight hours with nothing but dead leaves, stray cats, and legends of ghosts and ghoulies to accompany him. A sleeping village doesn’t mean a simple shift, though. Between the early risers of the farming community, a badger with a sweet tooth, and getting to know his new workmates, there’s no time for Nick to kick his feet up in the station. And of course there’s Claude Jeremiah Greengrass! Why did he have to retreat hastily down a ladder from a lady’s bedroom and what happened to his trousers and shirt?

Joe Sherlock, the world's most unlikely kid detective, stumbles back into action to solve Baskerville's biggest, most epic crime spree ever. With his brainy kid sister Hailey at his side, Sherlock encounters a mystery so massive, it's left his city in a panic and Baskerville's police department once again knocking on his door at 221 Baker Street. As the town's giant statues disappear mysteriously one by one, Sherlock needs to act fast before there are no statues left to swipe. But who's taking them? And why? Is this case too big for one fourth grader to wrap his arms around?

Gus’s wakes up to discover that he’s been kidnapped by a Mexican mobster. He’s not the only one who has been kidnapped, however. Apparently, someone’s pinched the crime lord’s kid and the head thug of the gang wants Gus to find the missing kid before the crime lord finds out about it. By kid, it turns out that they meant young goat. If the goat doesn’t turn up in time then the ire of the crime lord will surely fall on one of them. Gus needs to figure out which suspect is the correct one. Luckily, Gus has Father Xavier around to help him sort out this tricky situation. Can Gus ...

Tom Rittenhouse is in over his head. After only one season, his best friend Lord Justyn is leaving him to run their dinner theater alone. With seven days to perfect their production of Franken-freak, Tom braves a Nor’easter on his birthday to lead their first dress rehearsal. To add to his stress, the set is plagued by strange accidents and mysterious messages. When an employee vanishes, Tom fears one of his feuding castmates may be out for blood. With danger, ghosts, and nylon stockings around every corner, this is certain to be a birthday Tom will never forget.

An angel just carjacked someone? For Boston Cop, Chloe Mayfield, it's her first day in the city's Blue Moon Division and things are about to get weird. The poor schmuck with the missing car is convinced the glowing being who assaulted him and took his wheels was straight from heaven – he even heard a chorus of angelic music during the crime. Raised catholic, Chloe not about to suggest angels don’t exist, but her gut wants to find a more rational explanation behind this crime. Time to find out.

Laurel Benson is a loyal and dedicated nurse. She may be petite, but she’ll take on anyone who threatens her patients’ safety and well-being. That feisty protectiveness creates problems when a hit and run victim lands in the ER and Police Detective Cade Resnick arrives to investigate. There’s no denying the sparks between these two, but their professions put them at odds. As Cade zeroes in on his suspect, Laurel won’t make it easy for him, not while the suspect is under her care. More than once, these two clash when Cade’s quest for justice collides with Laurel’s concern for her...