Short Cozy Mysteries

Inspired by vintage Film Noir and Alfred Hitchcock, enjoy this eclectic collection of short stories regarding clumsy attempts at retribution or retaliation, also known as a bit of comeuppance. Come on, everybody has that urge now and then. BTW: resemblance of these characters to ANY colleagues of friends (past or present) is PURELY coincidental! (No, really!). Stories include: OFF THE BEATEN PATH: A bickering couple and a robbery that goes from bad to worse . . . to unexpected. LIVING DOLL(Badgers and Colors): A little girl, a doll who looks like her and people who don’t seem to notice ...

Last Meal includes a half dozen flash fiction stories in which things sometimes go horribly wrong and at other times go wonderfully right, or at least they seem to. These six quick reads appeared originally in Gilbert Magazine, the journal of the American Chesterton Society.

When Santa’s visit to the Gulch is called off due to a bad storm Butterscotch Jones has to step in and save Ricky’s Christmas. While Butterscotch is busy in Manitoba, Miss Henry is in Quebec. She is trying to drum up some Christmas spirit while hunting for a missing lawyer. Nicodemus Smith has her hands full tracking down a lost philanthropist who fancies himself to be Santa Claus, and Jane Blackthorn is going her best to cope with a plum pudding thief who is vexing her first Christmas in merry olde England. While Kenneth Mayhew tries to restore order at the Mayhem Mansion revels, Chloe...

Five thrilling tales of mystery, mayhem, and murder from an exceptional quintet of Edgar, CWA Dagger, and National Book Award winners.

Halloween Celebrations End With a Washed Up Corpse Pelican Cove is celebrating Halloween in style. The annual Halloween party at the Boardwalk Cafe brings out the witches and superheroes in full strength. Old timers share Pelican Cove's legends of haunted houses and ghost ships. The unidentified body washed up on the beach, however, dampens the mood the very next morning. The town hires Jenny to solve the murder. With a town full of people dressed in costumes, Jenny finds it hard to narrow down a suspect. If you like clean cozy mysteries and books in the Pelican Cove Cozy Mystery Series, ...

All Mel and Dana wanted was a weekend break... Mel and Dana take a long weekend break with the family on a Lake Erie island, or so they planned. Things just never seem to work out as they plan because crime follows them everywhere. Will they ever get a break? Probably not, but maybe Mel will find the career spark that's been missing for a while. This is a short story featuring Mel and Dana that takes place sometime after Book 12 of the Morelville Mysteries series. You don't need to have read the series to enjoy this story, but it will certainly help you understand Mel and her motivations. ...

A rare orchid is flowering on the magical Garden Isles but when Fran arrives to see it on her latest travel writing adventure she’s horrified to find the plant has been attacked and the exotic bloom is lying chopped on the floor of the glasshouse. Soon Fran is teaming up with tour guide Harry again for a spot of sleuthing and they’re hot on the trail. Who destroyed the special bloom and why? One thing is for sure, there’s a long list of suspects and they need to work fast to catch the vandal before they catch the next ferry off the island and escape to freedom…

Christmas in Paris… What could possibly go wrong? Ava Sext, an amateur sleuth and transplanted Londoner who sells books from an outdoor stand that overlooks the Seine, has vowed that this Christmas will be the best Christmas ever. It has to be! It's her first Christmas in Paris as a Parisian. But when someone pushes a book dealer in the Seine at a Christmas Fair leaving him between life and death, Ava, with the help of her fellow bookseller, Henri DeAth, a former notary in a country where notaries are a powerful caste, sets out to solve the crime before someone else dies. A little Paris ...

When a local group home for orphaned children goes up in smoke right before the holidays, Tillie Winchester volunteers her family to take in some kids - even though her arch nemesis Margaret Little is dead-set against it. Three boys - all of them with a little attitude - have no idea what to expect from the Winchester household. Tillie is determined to prove the boys are innocent while also finding them a forever home...even if she has to take on a local judge and declare all-out war.

Hawaiian holiday turns mysterious when long-time friend leads narrator on a downhill slide into Rainbow Valley. The secret hidden there is revealed in this mini twisty-turner set in modern day Hawaii on the sleepy isle of Kauai. With a derelict parrot named Barfly on his shoulder, Sky says it’s never too late to fly. Note: In response to reader comments that the timeline was confusing, I re-wrote and re-published the story in April of 2017. I hope I have corrected that problem for my readers.

Family meant everything to Ayden Stratton. It always had even when he didn’t always allow it to show. Because of that, he understood the fury in Tobias Blaise’s eyes when they learned that his sister had been dragged out the backdoor of her restaurant despite every effort to stop her from being kidnapped. Fury didn’t begin to describe what he saw in his brother’s face. Cassidy Blaise might be Tobias’s sister, but she was Benjamin’s entire world. Tobias Blaise never expected to find any woman he wanted to spend his life with, let alone one who looked at him the way Ellis did, ...

It’s just another morning on the fifth of July. The country is another year older; Gus is a touch hungover, the coffee in his office is stale, and all Gus wants to do is go home and start over again on July sixth. Unfortunately Father Xavier visits the sheriff’s office and he’s brought along a gift. He has a green jacket that should have been put in the church’s lost and found. The father suspects it belongs to a missing girl named Erica Torres which is odd given the jacket is marked as belonging to E. Rossi. Erica went to school one day and never came home. She was picked up by a ...

The second of the Leger Hotel Mysteries Series sees an unexpected visitor with a massive grudge against Leger arrive - his son, August. Confused when August first arrives at the hotel, Leger asks how the young tomcat made the journey from Glasgow. He learns that August travelled with Verity, the sister of the man who attacked Hugh almost two years ago. Unaware who Verity is, Annabella and Hugh give her a job at the hotel but alarm bells ring when the young girl falls victim to one crime after another. Leger suspects she is conning her trusting employers and friends out of money. August is ...

Unleash your inner detective in this paw-sitively gripping collection! Step into a world where furry friends and foul play collide. "Fur-ensic Files: The Complete Collection" brings you three tail-wagging tales of mystery, mayhem, and mischief. From the canine capers of "Fetch Me A Felon" to the show-stopping suspense of "Best In Show, Worst In Murder," and the long-bodied intrigue of "Dachshund Dynasty," this bundle is packed with paws-itively perfect puzzles and barking mad adventures. Are you ready to sniff out the clues and catch the culprits? Curl up with these cozy mysteries - your ...

A betrayal...a secret baby….an unknown imposter…will Tess survive the wagon train journey to Sunset Hills, Oregon after her life is threatened? And if so, what will she do once she gets there? 1855. Tess Findlay can’t wait to be reunited with her beau who went out west three months ago to mine for gold, saying he’d send for her soon. Even though she hasn’t heard from him, she’s discovered she’s with child and decides to join a wagon train to travel to Oregon to surprise him with the news. When a band of robbers holds up the caravan, Tess is shocked to recognize her beau as one...

Dark and hazy nights were both their sword and shield... Liz Danger surrounded her. Escape seemed impossible. Hope came from the last place she expected. She knew his name...everyone did. But she knew nothing about the man he really was. Or if he had any chance at saving her. Sam The plan was a good one. If it worked. He had the perfect cover story. He’d be the one asking all the questions. Looking for answers was the story of his life and everyone knew it...expected it. This time though...the stories could turn out differently than expected. Sam and Liz knew the trip wouldn’t be easy ...

Mr. Giles never needs convincing to hunt down a criminal who piques his feline curiosity and threatens the peace of their sleepy town. But if he is on the right track, will the humans in his life be able to follow the trail he leaves for them?

USA Today best-selling author Kathi Daley brings you a heartwarming mystery series about finding answers and fostering hope while building friendships and embracing the magic of life by the sea and small-town holidays. This audiobook includes books four to six in the series.

Escape from isolation and broaden your horizons with this audio collection of murder mysteries by Agatha Christie, read by David Suchet, television’s iconic Poirot for more than two decades. Train journeys through rolling countryside and cruises across the open ocean might sound exotic, but when murder strikes mid-journey, they’re anything but. Even on holiday, tensions can bubble beneath the surface, and when the end of the line leads to murder, everyone’s a suspect.

Since moving to Aspen Falls, Pennsylvania, to be closer to her college-age daughter, Linda Habernackle has had little time to focus on her love life. Both Detective Mark Whitman and Sorcerer Merrick Stone have expressed their desire to woo her, but she’s had to put them both on the back burner while she and her son, Reign, have gotten their new B&B up and running. But things have settled down at Habernackle’s, and now it’s time for Linda to make a decision! Which man has her heart?