Crime & Mystery Books

In this fresh take for grown-ups on the classic Nancy Drew series, crime-solving duo Taylor and Marilee investigate suspicious activity at a small East Texas nursing home.

Taylor, a semi-retired lawyer, and Marilee, whom she met in college, reunite in their eighties with a bang. They bond over the return of their college friend Edith, a doctor working in Africa who returns to the US for medical treatment and ends up in rehab at a local nursing home not far from Taylor and Marilee.

But when Taylor and Marilee visit, all is not as it seems. Several long-term patients have been victimized by a cybercriminal, and local law enforcement seem as uninterested as they are inept.

With the help of two high school seniors, amateur sleuths Taylor and Marilee must solve the mystery of who is taking advantage of wealthy residents so they can spend more time dealing with their romantic feelings, which have evolved during their sixty years apart.

Library director Jasmine Harald has no desire to attract police attention, not since a murder made her temporarily shut down her precious library. But now Jazz needs the cops. One of her favorite students is dead, and everyone believes he died by suicide. She’s certain the police can help her prove them wrong.

University police officer Cappy Flannery understands too well the pain suicide can bring to family and friends. She doesn’t believe this death suspicious—simply a young man who couldn’t cope with the loss of his promising future as a star football player. She agrees to investigate more thoroughly because her sergeant ordered her to even though she thinks it’s a waste of time.

As secrets are uncovered, Cappy and Jazz realize that the case—and their growing feelings for each other—are more complex than either of them expected.

Detective Inspector Jo Shaw is bored, desk-bound, and absolutely not supposed to answer the phone call that sends her to a body in an empty house. Thrown in at the deep end after an injury that almost killed her, she’s determined to prove she’s fit to work. And while a case full of unclear motives and multiple suspects isn’t quite what the doctor ordered, being back in a relationship with her favorite doctor certainly won’t hurt.

When the investigation takes a chilling turn and the Serious Crime Team struggles to connect the dots, Jo asks Isla Munro to help her follow the slenderest of leads. It’s a lead that will take her away from Moorside’s deprived streets and into the lives of the rich and privileged. But these people will do anything to preserve their own interests, and Jo is putting herself—and those closest to her—directly in their line of fire.

One person dead, another the target.

Micky Knight is tasked with protecting Rabbi Sarah Jacobson, from New York, who is hiding in the city she hates, New Orleans. Unsure if Sarah was targeted by one lone killer or a sophisticated hate group, Micky is on edge and uncertain of how to guard her. Or if she can. Sarah is on the verge of a breakdown, from witnessing someone she loved being murdered, to being a stranger in a place she never wanted to see again.

Micky reluctantly takes another case from an old high school acquaintance to find her young boytoy who stole important business secrets. The case is messy, likely illegal, and throws Micky into a past she thought she had left behind.

 Both cases lead her to unexpected—and dangerous—places.

No one would ever accuse Special Agent Ryan O’Connor of taking the easy way out of anything. At least not successfully. Her attempts to distract herself from her crushing feelings of failing, fear, and fury have inadvertently landed her in hot water that is way over her head. And she forgot to pack her arm floaties.

As much as Ryan hates to admit it, her girlfriend, Allison, is right. She isn’t trained to bring down a domestic terrorist group. None of them are. But the clock is ticking, and lives are on the line. And if she doesn’t figure out a way to remain focused and keep her head in the game, hers will undoubtedly be one of them.

Kirsten Lindquist has enough on her hands juggling the demands of her work as an orchestral music librarian. Substitute horn player Shay Bradley has been hitting on her for years, but Shay is known for being an operator, so Kirsten avoids her advances, until she can’t resist. She is just beginning to get to know the new personnel manager, Stephanie Wellford, when the orchestra is shocked by the sudden deaths of three musicians and a string of suspicious accidents.

Kirsten, Shay, and Stephanie believe that the events are related, but they aren’t certain how to prove it. Things get more complicated when Shay backs off to hide her depression and Stephanie admits her crush on Kirsten, but they need to stick together to figure out who is responsible for murder—before they become the next victims.

After nineteen years as a conservation warden on some of the busiest lakes in Southern Wisconsin, Jordan Pearce is ready for a change of pace in the quiet of the Northwoods on the same lake she used to vacation on with her family. Her wish is granted when a colleague quits without notice. Everything seems to be falling into place.

Hanna Quinn returns to the Northwoods to help care for her aunt Dottie after a cancer diagnosis. Both her aunts have been her saving grace and now it’s her turn to be their strength. There’s plenty to keep her busy, and the new conservation warden is a welcome distraction from her overflowing plate.

Odd occurrences put the community on edge, and the serenity of the Northwoods is rocked when a body is discovered floating in the flowage. Jordan pushes the limits of her authority to keep Hanna and her new town safe, but the truth isn’t always as it seems.

Imma Bruno, a spunky retired librarian in the Pocono vacation town of Garden and founding member of the Tuesday Night Book Club, gets far more than she anticipated when she begins to investigate the curious question of why her reclusive neighbor was spotted at a Fabergé egg exhibit in New York City, and seems to be avoiding the town ladies.

Avery Hutchins was just a little girl when her father died on 9/11. She loved spending time in the Pocono mountain town with her grandparents and their friends growing up. When she travels to her grandparents’ home, she makes a discovery about her father’s death that will force her to face an impossible choice between doing what is right and finally finding a way to regain a part of herself she had lost.

Seventeen-year-old Ella Gatz is alone when the thief enters her father’s mansion on Halloween night. Ella fights the intruder but fails to stop the theft of Her Heart, her mother’s favorite painting. Ella mourns the loss of the only remaining piece of the mother she lost, and when her father, CEO of a security firm, refuses to report the crime for fear of the humiliation he will face at having his security system fail in his own home, Ella determines to hunt down the culprit and reclaim Her Heart.

The only hint to who the thief may be is a long, pink-and-blond hair. Finding her thief will become Ella’s first move in a dangerous game of wits that exposes family secrets and could lead to her family’s financial ruin.

Cain Casey has much to be thankful for—a loving wife in Emma, three beautiful children, and an ever-expanding family. Her business continues to grow, giving her the power to keep it all safe, but is it? Unknown federal agents are not playing by the government’s rules, and the Russian mob comes seeking revenge for the losses Cain’s inflicted. Cain and Emma have agreed to partner with the local feds to root out their rogue agents, but their goals for the endgame are completely different. Cain wants to remove the threat the way she knows is best—permanently. There is also Nicola Antakov, who she plans to handle the same way. 

Cain Casey is the devil you know. She loves her family and will do anything to keep them safe and whole.

When bodies start washing up on the shore in Salem Harbor, Massachusetts, an elite task force of FBI agents, profilers, and detectives join forces in a remote log cabin to decode the clues and stop the killer from targeting another victim.

Agent Tala Marshall overcame a childhood of deep generational wounds to become the country’s best criminal profiler. Now she faces her most challenging case yet, racing against the clock to profile the elusive killer before they strike again. She must partner with Wilder Mason, a local detective convinced that the murders are connected to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, and Tala builds a connection to the task force that helps her come to terms with her tumultuous past. But Wilder wants more and is determined to find the key to both the case and Tala’s guarded heart.

Can they find the undercurrent that connects Salem’s past and present before another victim washes to shore?

Special Liaison to the FBI Louisa Linebach may have defied all odds by identifying the bodies of three missing men in the Kenai Peninsula, but she won’t be satisfied until the man she’s sure is responsible for their murders is behind bars.

Mr. Drew is secretive, smart, rich, and well-connected, and it’s going to take more than regular police procedure to catch him. Louisa has a plan—a stakeout with Kenai Fjords National Park as home base. As Louisa watches Mr. Drew’s crew coming and going, she begins to put together how the operation works with the help of Seward Police Chief Mikey Harper; Louisa’s love-interest, medical examiner Anna Fenway; and National Parks Service ranger Dolly Agapov, who has a very personal reason for wanting the mysteries surrounding Mr. Drew solved.

The case is turned upside down when Dolly’s grandchild, Ryne, goes missing—and it’s not clear whether Ryne’s been ensnared by the crime ring, or if they’re risking their life to help Louisa. Only one thing is for sure. If Louisa doesn’t catch Mr. Drew soon, the body count will rise.

Nicky Sullivan is the resident manager of a sober living home in Chicago. There she rides herd on ten newly sober addicts and alcoholics, trying to point them in the right direction while keeping their chaos to a minimum. But when one of her residents is murdered, Nicky turns to the investigative skills honed during her past career as a homicide detective. She calls on her old police partner who has been assigned the murder investigation along with his new partner, a woman beautiful enough to give Nicky pause. The body count starts to mount as it becomes clear a serial killer is at work, targeting newly relapsed women, all of whom have some connection to Nicky. Each death makes her feel she’s wielded the knife herself. In the midst of the tragedy, she finds herself falling in love.

With the lives of fragile women in the balance, Nicky finds her own sobriety threatened. Can Nicky save her lover and find the killer? How many others must die before she does?

Working with SPEAR is never easy, but it also isn’t boring. Until now.

Evicted from her team, chained to her desk, Danika Karson must instead endure dozens of tedious experiments to diagnose the marks on her back. And no, she may not be part of the ongoing efforts to restore human-edane relations after last month’s Werewolf Riots.

So, when Rayne invites Danika to a wedding in her humdrum hometown, Danika seizes the opportunity to be useful. Not only can she support her vampire girlfriend in coming out to her estranged family, but she can also fulfill one of many debts owed to the nasty little goblin, Shakka.

One mundane favor, a nervous vampire, and an expensive, high-profile wedding. Stressful, perhaps, but given the choice between that and one more biopsy, Danika hurls herself in, feet first.

If only the unnamed creature made of smoke and bad memories would wait one more weekend…

Some choices break hearts. Others leave a body count.

Police detective Cami Lyons is finally doing okay following the devastating breakup of her relationship with crime reporter Alicia Flynn. Her work is mainly petty theft investigations and chasing down vandals, until a body is found in a nearby forest and everything changes. She has no choice but to pivot to homicide detective, and she’s in way over her head.

Alicia made a terrible mistake. When her existential crisis spiraled out of control, she left everything behind—her home, her family, her job, her longtime girlfriend—and ended up on the other side of the world. Time hasn’t healed her wounds and now she’s back. But the truth of all she’s lost may be too much to face.

With the captain, the mayor, the public, and the media breathing down Cami’s neck, her priority is figuring out who’s terrorizing their town, and fast. Sorting out her lingering feelings for Alicia? Definitely not a priority.

Zeddi's cursed with bad luck. A housing shortage in the Bay Area’s Tres Ojos has left Zeddi and her nine-year-old daughter, Olive, living in a van. Working as a housekeeper, trying to save money, Zeddi worries about Olive’s welfare. When she finds her friend and housekeeping client Mags dead—and something about her death doesn’t sit right—she faces her biggest worry of all.

Mags’s longtime lover, Ida, confirms her suspicions of foul play, revealing that Mags served as high priestess to a dwindling coven of old witches—who are positive that Mags was murdered. Zeddi owes it to Mags and Ida to uncover the truth, but the more she digs, the more she fears that Mags’s love for Olive may have unintentionally made Olive the killer’s next target.

It’s just another day on the job for state trooper Louisa Linebach. Hundreds of young men go missing from Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula every year, so when Lee Stanton and Branden Halifax both disappear within days of each other, Louisa doesn’t think much of it. One appears to be a simple suicide, but the other defies all explanation, with the victim’s footprints literally vanishing along an abandoned mountain runway.

As Louisa and her partner investigate, they encounter alien conspiracy theories, a town where all the inhabitants live in one building, and signs of a drug trade that’s inextricably mingled with the tourist industry around Seward. Their investigation is further complicated by a police chief who’s unwilling to let his friend be investigated and Louisa’s feelings for Anna Fenway, the local medical examiner.

When a body is identified and buried, Louisa thinks the case is coming to a close. She’s wrong.

A body count is never a good vacation selling point.

In a world of luxury and relaxation, the Ocean Summit stands out during its inaugural cruise, but not for reasons the cruise director would like. 

Forced by her agent and publisher to take a much-needed cruise vacation, investigative journalist Claire Mills finds work harder to forget than she anticipated when the cleaning staff discover her neighbor dead on the first day of sailing. The ship’s authorities have ruled it a suicide, but Claire suspects murder. With the help of the delightful assistant cruise director Moira, Claire conducts her own investigation. 

But the deeper they get, the more clues they collect, and the danger escalates. With the killer on their trail, Claire and Moira must decide what’s more important, finding the killer or surviving eight days together at sea.