In the mood for a handful of deliciously amusing cozy mysteries? It’s as if Stephanie Plum meets Jackie Brown and spars with Amelia Peabody in these five humorous puzzlers, featuring five unique leading ladies: a New Orleans poet-turned-private-eye, a witty Hollywood vampire, an American academic in Provence, a sassy San Francisco lawyer, and a sly divorcee starting anew in the 70s.
Prepare yourself for plenty of laughs, curl up, and devour all 5 cozies for a bargain!
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LOUISIANA BIGSHOT
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IT’S QUEEN LATIFAH PLUS DANNY DEVITO IN THIS MULTILAYERED MURDER MYSTERY BY EDGAR-WINNER JULIE SMITH
…Or it would be if this were a movie—in print, they’re Talba Wallis and Eddie Valentino. Talba’s got the beauty, the brains, the computer savvy, the poetic soul, the youth, the right demographic, and the sass. Eddie’s got the detective agency. Also a short fuse and yes, wisdom. Not only do they make it work, they’ve got chemistry.
And they need every skill and ounce of courage they can summon in this intricate tale of a decades-old conspiracy only now coming home to roost, with the murder of Talba’s friend Babalu Maya. Babalu is actually Clayton Robineau, daughter of the local banker in a small Louisiana town that bears her name. And that town has plenty of skeletons in its closet.
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LOVE BITES
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NOT YOUR MAMA’S POLICE PROCEDURAL—A COP STORY WITH BITE…AND ROMANCE
IN Adrienne Barbeau's second Vampyres of Hollywood mystery, Ovsanna’s the successful owner of her own Hollywood film studio and the star of 17 blockbuster horror films, plus three, sadly, that went straight to video. (But even vampyres have bad days.) Peter, on the other hand, is a Beverly Hills cop firmly rooted in human affairs, from the domestic issues of his lively Italian family to the romantic ones of his neighbor, snake dancer Suzie Q.
Though Ovsanna’s had flings with everyone from Genghis Khan to Errol Flynn, Peter’s got what it takes to catch her eye and hold her interest. And he’s one hell of a detective. Together, the duo takes on Hollywood in an action-packed mystery with sly satire, spiced and seasoned with paranormal characters that the author manages to turn into metaphors for the monsters we all encounter on a daily basis.
THE 13TH FELLOW
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POETRY, MURDER, BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE...AND PROVENCE!
American Professor Havilah Gaie has always seen herself as “an academic version of Pam Grier’s characters in Tracy Whiting;s first mystery: smart, quick on their feet, loyal with a keen sense of purpose.†Now she’s got a chance to suit up for action because suddenly she’s a witness in a murder, having spoken with the victim on her phone moments before he was attacked.
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SOURDOUGH WARS by Julie Smith
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TO YOU, ITS JUST A FROZEN LUMP OF DOUGH; TO SOME, IT'S LIFE AND DEATH...
Especially to handsome Peter Martinelli, who wants to auction off the fabled sourdough starter from his family’s famous bakery. But who’d buy a frozen hunk of flour and water? Only, it turns out, every bakery in San Francisco, a national food conglomerate, and an upstart ringer with a mysterious backer. Someone would even kill for it. And does.
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PAPER PHOENIX by Michaela Thompson
FIRST COMES DIVORCE, THEN COMES MURDER…
…or at least sweet thoughts of murder. Maggie Longstreet has plenty of them after slimy, ambitious Richard trades her in for a more recent model. She’s so depressed she can barely get out of bed when Larry Hawkins, a seemingly not-at-all depressed acquaintance, commits suicide out of the blue. Suddenly Maggie goes on high alert, remembering something her evil ex said about Larry—something highly suspicious...
