Joan Hess Books In Order

Strangled Prose

She would have killed for a bestseller but someone beat her tow it…
Professor of Passion, the smutty new romance from Mildred Twiller a.k.a. Azalea Twilight isn’t the kind of book Claire Mallow likes to hock at her bookstore, but Claire agrees to host a book party for her friend’s trashy tale. As torrid as the novel is, it’s nothing compared to the evening. After the party, poor Mildred is found dead in her home stranged with a tightly knotted silk scarf. Now it’s up to Clair to find Mildred’s killer, and it won’t be easy the two bit author had offended nearly every faculty member she worked with at nearby Faber College. But who could have hated Mildred with such smoldering passion?

The Murder at the Murder at the Mimosa Inn

When you make a game of murder, be careful who the players are…

Who could resist the mock murder weekend at the charming Mimosa Inn certainly not bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy, who decides to bring her petulant daughter Caron along for some detecting. As the guests settle in for a weekend of sleuthing, dressed as their favorite literary detectives, many a Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot stand poised to solve a murder. But fiction becomes alarmingly real, as the mock murder victim isn’t just playing dead he’s really been bashed to death. More determined than even to find the killer, Claire combs the grounds of the lovely inn for this most uninvited guest.

Dear Miss Demeanor

Agatha Award winning author Joan Hess, the prolific creator of the Claire Malloy and Maggody mysteries, is beloved for her clever sleuths, quirky characters, and her ingenious plotting. We invite you to enjoy this delightful Claire Malloy mystery, and to discover why Sharyn McCrumb calls Joan Hess ‘the patron saint of comic mystery.’ At Farberville High, it’s reading, writing…
and murder. Who knows what evil lurks in the halls of Farbervilles’ high school or what blackmail is hidden in Miss Demeanor’s Falcon Crier advice column? Certainly not bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy until her daughter Caron persuades her to substitute for disgraced column editor and journalism teacher Emily Parchester. Surely Miss Parchester cannot be guilty of embezzlement. But the petty charges graduate to murder when Principal Weiss gets his last licks from Miss Parchester’s peach compote. Miss Parchester herself, last seen at a local sanitarium, is suddenly missing. And now it’s up to Claire to find someone who’s been schooled in the fine art of murder…

A Really Cute Corpse

When Claire Malloy’s best friend Luanne Bradshaw goes down with a badly sprained ankle, someone must fill in her shoes as Thurberfest Beauty Pageant coordinator and usher a bevy of aspiring beauty queens through the two day event. Enter Claire Malloy to the rescue. But this is one job Claire would gladly be fired from. Now, already fending off a hostile theatre owner, an overly aggressive personal trainer, an incontinent show dog, a fifteen year old daughter with more growing pains than she can count, and a talent contest in need of some talent, Claire must face one more problem someone is trying to kill the reigning Miss Thurberfest. When a ghastly murder scene signals the culprit’s success, Claire’s investigative instincts take over, but when she digs too close to the truth, the race is on to discover the killer’s identity before Claire herself is crowned the next victim…
AUTHORBIO: JOAN HESS is a winner of the American Mystery Award and the author of twelve previous Claire Malloy books, including A Diet to Die For, A Conventional Corpse, and Strangled Prose, as well as the Maggody mystery series. A member of Sisters in Crime and a former president of the American Crime Writers League, she lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

A Diet to Die For

Claire Malloy believes there is just one thing better than chocolate…
and it’s not jumping a round in an aerobics class. Nonetheless, she gets roped into accompanying a chubby heiress named Maribeth to Faberville, Arkansas’s hottest new fitness center. Personally, Claire thinks the best way for Maribeth to lose 160 unnecessary pounds would be to dump her abusive husband. But while Claire’s teenage daughter Caron unsuccessfully tries every fad diet she can find as long as it doesn’t mean cutting out pizza, Claire has to admit Maribeth’s commitment to diet, workouts, and supplements is working…
until things go horribly wrong. Besides becoming moonstruck over the big muscled fitness instructor, Maribeth is acting loony outside the gym as well. And when she ends up ‘accidentally’ dead, Claire starts to exercise her instincts for crime…
and hunt for a killer.

Roll Over and Play Dead

Murder is going to the dogs…

Bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy has donned another hat or is that a collar? as a petsitter extraordinaire. Her furry charges are Miss Emily Parchester’s beloved basset hounds, Nick and Nora, and two very good dogs they are. Everything is just ducky…
until they vanish. Other neighbors’ pets have also disappeared, and no doubt a dognapper is on the prowl…

Switching to her sleuthing chapeau, Claire quickly locates the shabby abode of Newton Churls, who runs a black market in stolen animals. But instead of a pen filled with purloined pooches, Claire finds one very dead Newton and it appears his own pit bull terriers did him in. Or did they? Claire smells a human rat behind the brutal murder. And mysteriously, Nick and Nora are still missing. Now Claire is doggedly determined to find them…
and run a killer to the ground.

Death by the Light of the Moon

Things that go bump in the Bayou…
For bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy getting a root canal beats going to a Malloy family reunion. But it is time her fifteen year old daughter Caron visits her deceased father’s relatives. Now Claire and Caron have arrived at Malloy Manor, a run down mansion in Louisiana’s bayou country…
where the mosquitoes are big enough to barbecue, the swamp is crawling with alligators, the butler looks like he stepped out of a teen slasher movie, and the wheelchair bound matriarch, Miss Justicia, races around the grounds cackling like a loon. It’s the perfect setting for a murder. Before a night has passed, Miss Justicia is sleeping with the fishes. The police call it a ‘tragic accident.’ Caron is all for calling a cab. But Claire wants to have a closer look at her ‘loving’ relatives since she has a hunch leaving Malloy Manor isn’t going to be all that easy…
and neither is staying alive.

Poisoned Pins

Claire Malloy loves her life. But how did it go by so fast? A bookstore owner, part time sleuth, and full time single mother, Claire is about to turn the big four oh! Good thing her teenage daughter, Caron, has just been recruited by the Kappa Theta Eta girls whose sorority house is next door to the Malloys to be a consultant for the cosmetics empire My Beautiful Self, Inc. At the very least, Claire can get a little help with those fine lines around her eyes but at what cost?

Turns out there’s a high price to pay to look one s best. After a series of dangerous and suspicious incidents, including a hit and run accident that kills a sorority sister, it becomes clear to Claire that the beauty business in Farberville, Arkansas, is getting pretty ugly and with every new makeover another dark circle rises from beneath the surface .

Tickled to Death

Murder is no laughing matter especially when it comes to marriage. So before Luanne gets in too deep with her new flame, a dentist named Dick, she d like her best friend to do a background check. Did Dick murder his two previous wives? That’s what Arkansas bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy intends to discover Everything Claire turns up on this would be blue beard keeps leading her down a slippery slope. The police are determined to prove Dick guilty of double homicide, but Claire s not so sure. Something about his story just doesn t add up. But if Dick didn t do the deed, who did? The only thing Claire knows for sure is that Luanne won t have a moment s rest until she finds out

Busy Bodies

Since his recent arrival, avant garde artist Zeno Gorgias has been turning heads and attracting gawkers in the otherwise tame college town of Farberville Arkansas. Zeno’s interactive art featuring an undressed woman lounging beside a coffin on his front yard is neither welcome by the community nor punishable by law. But as local bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy is about to find out, sometimes there s a dark side to one s freedom of artistic expression Strange things keep happening to Zeno and his oeuvre. First, his estranged wife comes to town, demanding he be committed to a mental institution. Then Zeno s house mysteriously goes up in flames. And if that s not enough, a dead body is found inside of the infamous coffin. Now that Zeno has been arrested for murder, it s up to Claire to figure out what on earth is going on in Farberville while the real killer remains on the loose.

Closely Akin to Murder

At first it seems like a prank. How could Veronica Landonwood be the voice on the other end of the phone when she died three decades ago? But as Arkansas bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy is about to find out, her cousin Ronnie is very much alive and in trouble. And could use Claire’s help Today, Ronnie is a renowned scientist living in Chicago. But when she was a teenager, she had a run in with a famous Hollywood producer in Acapulco, Mexico. He attempted to sexually assault her and she killed him. Having served time in prison, Ronnie finally put her this episode behind her until now. Just when she has a real shot at the Nobel Prize, a ruthless blackmailer is threatening to expose the secrets of her past. Can Claire help to preserve Ronnie s reputation and keep her out of harm s way? That will depend on Claire s investigation and what really happened on the night of the murder so many years ago

A Holly, Jolly Murder

THE GIFT THAT GIVES ON GIVING…
With Farberville’s college on holiday break, Claire Malloy’s bookstore is quiet…
deadly quiet. Breaking the silence is a little old lady looking for volumes on pagan rituals, applied magick, and Celtic mysticism. Claire is intrigued and miffed that her lover, Farberville police Lieutenant Peter Rosen, says she’s in a rut happily accepts an invitation to welcome the winter solstice at dawn. HOMICIDE FOR THE HOLIDAYSShowing up at the Sacred Grove, Claire expects wild chanting or even nude dancing. Instead she ends up sitting on a stump watching the Arch Druid clean her bifocals. Then winter arrives and so does a dead man. Someone has shot the wealthy benefactor of Farberville’s neo pagans. Now Claire is mixing some snooping with her Christmas shopping. But instead of wrapping up the case, she finds out ’tis the season for ho ho homicide…
and she may be the next victim.

A Conventional Corpse

Farberville, Arkansas, is playing host to its first ever mystery convention with five major mystery writers each representing a different subgenre of the mystery world making the trek to the local college for ‘Murder Comes to Campus.’ Bookseller Claire Malloy is looking forward to meeting some of her favorite writers and, of course, selling books to the attendees. But her plans for a calm, profitable weekend are soon laid to waste when the organizer is hospitalized and Claire is dragooned into running the show. Finding herself in the midst of barely controlled chaos, Claire has to deal with five writers, each with a distinct set of idiosyncrasies and difficulties including one who arrives with Wimple, her crime solving cat, in tow. With Claire’s own love life woes with local police detective Peter Rosen added in, things have never been worse…
until things get worse. One of the conference attendees dies in a car accident, Wimple the cat disappears from Claire’s home and cannot be located, and Roxanne Small is nowhere to be found making it evident that in Farberville the murder mystery is more than a literary genre. AUTHORBIO: JOAN HESS is a winner of the American Mystery Award and the author of twelve previous Claire Malloy books, including Dear Miss Demeanor and Strangled Prose, as well as the Maggody mystery series. A member of Sisters in Crime and a former president of the American Crime Writers League, she lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Out on a Limb

Faberville bookstore owner Claire Malloy is ruminating over the state of her love life when she gets disturbing news. Elderly Miss Emily Parchester is up a tree. Chained to an old oak, packing a thermos of tea and a gun, the retired schoolteacher is ready to go down with the ship, or rather the tree, before she’ll let another historic piece of Farberville be bulldozed in the name of ‘progress,’ i.e., developer Anthony Armstrong’s condominiums.

With Miss Parchester armed, and therefore dangerous, Claire fears this noble act will end tragically. Unfortunately, it does when someone murders Armstrong. And suddenly Claire herself is Out on a Limb: a baby has been left on her doorstep, the child’s teenage mom is suspect number one in Armstrong’s death, and Claire needs to find the real killer fast. Especially when she discovers Miss Parchester knows more than she’s willing to tell…
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The Goodbye Body

Claire Malloy runs a bookstore in the normally quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas an enterprise which provides the verging on meager living for her and her deeply sarcastic teenage daughter Caron. So when emergency work forces Claire and Caron to abandon their apartment for a few weeks, they are in no financial position to put themselves up in style and Claire is thrilled to accept a customer’s offer to let them stay at her well stocked, well equipped palatial home while she is traveling. Of course, nothing is ever that easy. No sooner do Claire and Caron ensconce themselves than disquieting events start to occur dubious people show up looking for the ‘traveling’ owner of the house; the owner herself turns out not to be who she claimed and is now seemingly on the run; and a dead body keeps turning up and subsequently disappearing around the grounds of the house. Determined, for once, to stay out of the mysterious doings, Claire’s hand is finally forced when the disappearing body turns out to be only the first corpse to turn up

Damsels in Distress

A Renaissance Fair is coming to the relatively quiet college town of Farberville Arkansas, which is not the sort of news that usually sets local bookseller Claire Malloy’s heart racing. But with Caron, Claire s perpetually petulant teenage daughter, being pulled into volunteering or face the horror of doing homework over the summer and her fianc , Police Lieutenant Peter Rosen, away, Claire finds herself drawn into the strange inner workings of the group putting on the fair. But just as Claire has decided that her time might be better spent fretting over the details of her upcoming nuptials, one of the volunteers helping with the Ren Fair falls victim to arson, her body found burned in the wreckage of her rented home. Even stranger, none of the members of the local chapter of The Association for Renaissance Scholarship and Enlightenment ARSE the group putting on Farberville s first RenFair had ever met the woman in the flesh and can t provide any information about who she is and where she came from. However, someone is definitely dead and the fire looks very suspicious but is it murder? When the fair opens, tensions expose the dark secrets and malevolent schemes that lurk beneath the superficial congeniality of the ARSE members. The lords are leaping, the ladies are lying, and the knights are fighting while someone is committing murder most heinous. And with Claire s dreams of a blissful wedding hanging in the balance, she has no choice left but to fling herself into the battle and match wits with the killer

Mummy Dearest

After a somewhat long and, at times, strange courtship, Claire Malloy a single, widowed mother of a teenage daughter and a bookseller in Farberville, Arkansas has finally said ‘I do’ to her swain, Lt. Peter Rosen of the Farberville Police Department. Now they are on their honeymoon in Luxor, Egypt. Well, Claire is on her honeymoon accompanied by Caron, her teenaged daughter, and Inez, Caron’s best friend and frequent partner in adventure. Peter is mostly away on various mysterious consultations with equally mysterious government agencies is his new, completely undiscussed, role in law enforcement.

Staying at the glamorous Winter Palace in Luxor, Claire is intent on a quiet, uneventful honeymoon involving shopping, tourist sites, and, when it can t avoided, drinks with the local British expatriate contingent. But despite her determined efforts to avoid any involvement in criminous events, the tenor of the trip quickly switches from bucolic to creepy. First, Caron and Inez are chased through darkened deserted alleys by persons unknown. Then a blond college student of their recent acquaintance is kidnapped by two young men on horseback in a scene reminiscent of a Rudolf Valentino film. Something is clearly afoot in this tourist paradise, and now Claire will stop at nothing to find out what.

Deader Homes and Gardens

Claire Malloy discovers that house hunting can be murder literally in the latest entry in Joan Hess’s ‘wildly entertaining series.’ Mystery Scene Back from her somewhat unusual honeymoon, Claire Malloy must face the harsh reality of life with her new husband, police chief Peter Rosen, and her teenage daughter Caron three people simply can t fit into her cosy two bedroom apartment. After a week of fruitless looking, she finally finds the perfectplace a well preserved large house on a large plot of land in an area called Hollow Valley. There are only a few problems. Such as the real estate agent disappeared mid showing and hasn t been seen since. And the last owner died in circumstances labeled accidental but were actually both mysterious and dubious . The family that owned the estate is now suing the lover of the dead owner over the rights to the property. Oh, and it isn t really for sale. When the previous owner’s lover dies practically at her feet, Claire decides to take matters into her own hands. After all, to get the house of her dreams, first she has to find a killer. And all s fair in love, war, and real estate.

Malice in Maggody

Author of The Claire Malloy Mystery Series and The Theo Bloomer Mystery Series writing as Joan Hadley, Joan Hess creates a new series starring Sheriff Arly Hanks, the spunkiest, most appealing, off beat sleuth around. When murders disrupt the peaceful town of Maggody, Sheriff Hanks and her slow deputy, Paulie, set out on a hilarious, hell raising chase through the backwoods in search of a murderer. HC: St. Martin’s.

Miracles in Maggody

The ninth hilarious mystery starring Chief of Police Arly Hanks pits her against an evangelist charlatan whose ambitions coincide with the mysterious deaths of several citizens of the small town of Maggody, Arkansas. K. PW. AB.

Mischief in Maggody

Police Chief Arly Hanks finds her small town, Maggody, has some new inhabitants when she returns from vacation. Soon, Robin Buchanon, local prostitute and moonshiner, disappears, and Arly finds her bloody body at the edge of a mari*juana field.

Much Ado in Maggody

When Johanna Mae Nookim is denied the request to file sex discrimination charges, soon half the women in Maggody band together. Brother Verber thinks they are practicing witchcraft, but everybody learns the truth when the women stage a demonstration. Next, the bank turns to flames, and the head teller is found dead.

Madness in Maggody

When someone poisons the tamale sauce intended for the grand opening of Jim Bob’s Super Saver store, everyone in Maggody, Arkansas, is certain there is a maniac on the loose, and Chief of Police Ariel ”Arly” Hanks must investigate.

Mortal Remains in Maggody

When a Hollywood production company comes to Maggody, Arkansas, to shoot a film, everyone is starstruck, even Chief of Police Arly Hanks who soon has her hands full investigating a series of arson fires.

Maggody in Manhattan

In Manhattan to investigate her friend Ruby Bee’s involvement in a murder, Chief of Police Arly Hanks goes behind the scenes at the KoKo Nut Cooking Contest in order to find a killer. NYT. AB.

O Little Town of Maggody

When country music superstar Matt Montana returns to his small, depressed Arkansas hometown for a holiday benefit concert, murder undermines the celebration, prompting Arly Hanks to investigate. K. NYT.

Martians in Maggody

Anticipating a normal, uneventful summer in the sleepy town of Maggody, police chief Arly Hanks is stunned when hysterical reports of strange lights, crop circles, and a hairy creature precede the arrival of tabloid reporters.

The Maggody Militia

Maggody, Arkansas, is a peaceful little Ozarks town snuggled in the heartland of America…
until a group of camouflage clad patriots march in with maneuvers and murder. Suddenly, Chief of Police Arly Hanks has her hands full: burglars are breaking into houses; the mayor is missing; and a survivalist has just been killed. Which leaves Arly hunting for a motive,a means, and a murderer. Wisely, she reckons there isn’t a secret government conspiracy behind this homicide just the usual human evils of blind ambition, big money, and deadly obsessions! Joan Hess has over 1 million copies of her Onyx books in print! Joan Hess is also the author of the popular Claire Malloy and Theo Bloomer mystery series Hess is an Agatha, McCavity, and American Mystery Award winner, and is also President of the American Crime Writers League

Misery Loves Maggody

Misery Loves Maggody And you will too. Murder and mayhem have never been so hilarious as in the sleepy little town of Maggody, Arkansas. Population 755. And in this newest entry to the Joan Hess series, there’s twice the fun when some of Maggody’s most beloved inhabitants venture out of state. Meanwhile, all manner of unrest also unfolds on the familiar Maggody home front. When beleaguered chief of police Arly Hanks hears that her mother, Ruby Bee, and best friend, Estelle Oppers, are headed for Memphis on a four day Elvis Pilgrimage, she thinks she may be getting a break that is long overdue. But before the ‘pilgrims’ are past the airport on the way out of Faberville, the fur starts flying, and soon the trip is completely stalled by a variety of deadly doings. Estelle calls home to report that Ruby Bee has collapsed and is in the local hospital, and even before Arly’s seen the delta dawn, one of the other clients on the tour is found dead beneath the eighth floor balcony of the hotel. Worse still, the balcony from which she plunged turns out to be none other than the room of a prominent Maggody citizen, who has been hauled off to the local jail. What’s more, Estelle’s pretty darn sure the tour van is being followed by thugs in an ominous black car and another body’s about to be laid to rest in Graceland. Back home things aren’t much better and certainly no quieter, so Arly Hanks will have to be at her most resourceful to restore the peace once again to the inhabitants of Maggody both those at home and those who have roamed beyond the town limits. Variously described by critics as a ‘rollicking tour de force’ Boston Magazine, ‘Bawdy entertainment’ Kirkus Reviews, ‘Hilarious’ St. Louis Post Dispatch, ‘delectable and continually surprising’ The New York Times Book Review, Joan Hess’s Maggody series is one of a kind and just keeps getting better.

murder@maggody.com / murda@maggody.com

To the quirky and colorful residents of Maggody, Arkansas, population 755, ‘going online’ is something one does at the DMV. So when the high school’s new computer lab gains access to the Internet, the town is plunged into virtual chaos. Students are caught sneaking peeks at po*rnographic Web sites, and compromising photos of prominent Maggody citizens are being flashed across the display monitors. But when the body of a promiscuous young woman is found in an abandoned shack, a web of suspicion ensnares the community. Now, as cyber crime strikes Maggody, police chief Arly Hanks has to use all her low-tech resourcefulness to pull the plug on a murderer.

Maggody and the Moonbeams

Arly Hanks the wiliest chief of police in the Ozarks is back on the case in Joan Hess’s latest comedy filled whodunit. And this time around, our intrepid sleuth may have met her match: she’s just been pressed into service as chaperone for the church youth group. Ten hormonally challenged teenage boys and girls are spending a week at Camp Pearly Gates, accompanied by the formidable wife of the mayor, the high school shop teacher, and preacher Brother Verber. It’s bad enough that Arly has to bunk with this crew, but when, on a dark and stormy night, one of the girls stumbles over the body of a white robed woman with a shaved head, Arly knows things can only go downhill. Investigating the murder, Chief of Police Hanks finds herself hindered by an eccentric cast of characters, from the bumbling local police and a band of spacey cultists to her own menopausal mother and an oddly intriguing and attractive fisherman called Jacko. Meanwhile, back in Maggody, Arkansas population 755, Mayor Jim Bob Buchanon is up to his usual philandering antics, Raz Buchanon is looking for an animal companion to keep his pig Marjorie company, and Duluth Buchanon’s wife has gone missing with their two sons. With her trademark wit, ‘the patron saint of comic mystery’ as Sharyn McCrumb calls her combines humor and mayhem in her best and bawdiest episode yet in the annals of Maggody.

Muletrain to Maggody

Under the benign watch of Police Chief Arly Hanks, things are pretty quiet in the sleepy Arkansas town of Maggody these days. Not even the prospect of a historical society funded Civil War documentary on the locally touted albeit historically insignificant Skirmish at Cotter’s Ridge of 1863 does much to stir up the denizens of this sleepy backwoods town. What does finally get the rumor mill buzzing, however, is the revelation that two saddlebags of Confederate gold were hidden in a local cave to keep them from falling into Yankee hands. Once word gets out that the saddlebags were never recovered, almost everyone in town has a plan to get their hands on the lost gold. Meanwhile, a colorful cast of outlanders has taken over Maggody. They include a dewy Charleston belle, a famous writer of historical romances, her ne’er do well son, and three dozen obsessive reenactors who have not yet acknowledged that the Civil War ended over a hundred years ago, as well as a documentary film crew and a handsome, if enigmatic, filmmaker with ties to Arly’s past. Arly has more than enough on her hands trying to locate missing senior citizens and keeping the visitors from each other’s throats, but when the genealogist of the Stump County Historical Society dies under questionable circumstances, and a member of the Buchanon clan is the victim of a vicious and fatal attack, Arly finds herself faced with the most baffling whodunit of her career, with a disgruntled ghost a possible prime suspect.

Malpractice in Maggody

A part from small town feuds and church scandal, things have been so quiet in the little Arkansas town of Maggody that even police chief Arly Hanks has found time for a vacation. But she returns to find trouble brewing and tongues wagging at fever pitch. The local old folks’ home has been sold to a mysterious outsider, and overnight the place has been transformed into the Stonebridge Foundation, an exclusive rehabilitation center complete with a stone faced guard who doesn’t speak a word of English and an even nastier dog. Soon there are rumors flying of mental patients roaming the countryside at night, and every character in town is keeping a gun close at hand, just in case. Everyone is dying to know what goes on behind those inhospitable gates, with the exception of Arly, who has enough rural business to keep her satisfied. When the beautiful young receptionist found drowned in the garden pool is identified as a local girl from nearby Farberville, it’s clear the case may not only involve the suspicious characters who’ve recently moved to town, but also some of the citizens of Maggody, who may have a secret or two to hide themselves. There’s the doctor who can’t resist a dose of his own medicine and a roster of patients that reads like a who’s who of tabloid headlines, as well as the local pastor who gets his spiritual inspiration with a little help from the sacramental wine, and the mayor’s wife who makes it her business to know everything about everyone. Soon Arly finds herself on the trail of a killer and discovers she may be the only innocent person left in town.

The Merry Wives of Maggody

Maggody, Arkansas pop. 755 is perceived as a two bit hick town, filled with one bit hicks. But the mayor’s wife, Mrs. Jim Bob Buchanon, seeks to change that perception with her latest scheme: a charity golf tournament! Which presents a bit of a challenge, since no one in Maggody plays golf and there is no course. But when the prize for the first hole in one is announced a top of the line bass boat suddenly Maggody goes golf crazy with limited success and maximum domestic disorder. Besides the townspeople, there are several outside figures who actually know how to play the game. Among them: The low level PGA player Bonaparte Buchanon and Tommy Ridner, an instructor from a nearby country club. As for Sheriff Arly Hanks? She has more important things to worry about on, and off, the job and just wishes all this golf business would go away. When Tommy Ridner beats the odds and sinks the first hole in one, it looks like what s done is done…
until he s found in his bass boat dead. Now Arly Hanks is facing a complicated murder investigation for which darned near everyone in town is a suspect.

Crocodile on the Sandbank (By:Elizabeth Peters)

Amelia Peabody, that indomitable product of the Victorian age, embarks on her first Egyptian adventure armed with unshakable self confidence, a journal to record her thoughts, and, of course, a sturdy umbrella. On her way, Amelia rescues young Evelyn Barton Forbes, who has been ruined and abandoned on the streets of Rome by her rascally lover. With a typical disregard for convention, Amelia promptly hires her fellow countrywoman as a companion and takes her to Cairo. Eluding Alberto, Evelyn’s former lover, who wants her back, and Evelyn s cousin Lord Ellesmere, who wishes to marry her, the two women sail up the Nile. They disembark at an archaeological site run by the Emerson brothers the irascible, but dashing, Radcliffe and the amiable Walter. Soon their little party is increased by one one mummy, that is, and a singularly lively example of the species. Strange visitations, suspicious accidents, and a botched kidnapping convince Amelia that there is a plot afoot to harm Evelyn. But no villain, or mummy, is a match for the doughty Amelia. How she arranges all to her satisfaction is just one of the pleasures of this delightfully witty mystery.

The Curse of the Pharaohs (By:Elizabeth Peters)

Victorian gentlewoman Amelia Peabody Emerson and her archaeologist husband are busy raising their young son; yet Amelia dreams only of the dust and detritus of ancient civilizations. Happily, circumstances are about to demand their immediate presence in Egypt. Sir Henry Baskerville had just discovered a tomb in Luxor when he promptly died under bizarre circumstances. The tabloids scream of The Curse of the Pharaohs! Amelia and her husband arrive to find the camp in disarray and the workers terrified. A ghost even appears. It is not at all what Amelia considers an atmosphere conducive to scientific discovery. Thus the indomitable Victorian sets about bringing order to chaos and herself close to danger. How Amelia triumphs over evil and those who would stand between her and her beloved antiquities makes for a delightfully spirited adventure.

The Mummy Case (By:Elizabeth Peters)

Radcliffe Emerson, the irascible husband of fellow archaeologist Amelia Peabody, has earned the nickname ‘Father of Curses’ and in Mazghunah he demonstrates why. Denied permission to dig at the pyramids of Dahshoor, he and Amelia are resigned to excavating mounds of rubble in the middle of nowhere. But before long Amelia, Emerson, and their precocious son, Ramses, find themselves entangled in The Mummy Case In Cairo, before setting out to the site, Amelia visits an antiquities dealer to inquire about some papyri for her brother in law, Walter. At the dealer’s shop she interrupts a mysterious sounding conversation. And then, even more alarmingly, the dealer attempts to refuse to sell her a scrap of papyrus Ramses discovers in the back room. When the dealer is found dead in his shop just a day later, Amelia becomes convinced that foul play is at hand, a suspicion that is further confirmed when she catches sight of the sinister stranger from the crime scene at her own excavation site. But it takes more than Amelia’s keen instincts to convince Emerson of dastardly deeds. When Ramses’s scrap of papyrus is stolen from their camp, and a neighboring tourist is relieved of an entire mummy, Emerson concedes that they may be facing something more ominous than a simple grave robber. Aided to their dismay by Ramses and his preternaturally intelligent cat, Bastet, Amelia and Emerson turn their detective skills to investigating the neighboring suspects, including a trio of missionaries, a widowed German baroness, and even the head of the Department of Antiquities. But when the Emersons start digging for answers in an ancient tomb, events take a darker and deadlier turn and there may be no surviving the very modern terrors their efforts reveal. Filled with spine tingling suspense, precise archaeological and historical detail, and Amelia Peabody’s trademark witty, wry voice, Elizabeth Peters’s The Mummy Case is a classic installment in the beloved Amelia Peabody series.

Lion in the Valley (By:Elizabeth Peters)

The 1895 96 season promises to be an exceptional one for Amelia Peabody, her dashing Egyptologist husband, Radcliffe Emerson, and their precocious some might say rambunctious eight year old son, Ramses. The long denied permission to dig at the pyramids of Dahshoor has finally been granted, and the much coveted burial chamber of the Black Pyramid is now theirs for the exploring.

Before the young family exchanges the relative comfort of Cairo for the more rudimentary quarters near the excavation site, they engage a young Englishman, Donald Fraser, as a tutor and companion for Ramses, and Amelia takes a wayward young woman, Enid Debenham, under her protective wing.

But there is danger and deception in the wind that blows across the hot Egyptian sands. A brazen kidnapping attempt, a gruesome murder, and an expedition subsequently cursed by misfortune and death all serve to alert Amelia to the likely presence of her arch nemesis, the ‘Master Criminal,’ notorious looter of the living and the dead. But it is far more than ill gotten riches that motivate the man known as Sethos. The evil genius has a score to settle with the meddling lady archaeologist who has sworn to deliver him to justice…
and he’s got her dead on in his sights.

Replete with edge of the seat suspense and scrupulous archaeological and historical detail, all delivered in Amelia Peabody’s unique, wry voice, Lion in the Valley is a classic installment in Elizabeth Peters’s beloved mystery adventure series.

The Deeds of the Disturber (By:Elizabeth Peters)

Can fear kill? There are those who believe so but Amelia Peabody is skeptical. A respected Egyptologist and amateur sleuth, Amelia has foiled felonious schemes from Victoria’s England to the Middle East. And she doubts that it was a Nineteenth Dynasty mummy’s curse that caused the death of a night watchman in the British Museum. The corpse was found sprawled in the mummy’s shadow, a look of terror frozen on the guard’s face. What or who killed the unfortunate man is a mystery that seems too intriguingly delicious for Amelia to pass up, especially now that she, her dashing archaeologist husband, Emerson, and their precocious son, Ramses, are back on Britain’s shores. But a contemporary curse can be as lethal as one centuries old and the foggy London thoroughfares can be as treacherous as the narrow, twisting alleyways of Cairo after dark when a perpetrator of evil deeds sets his murderous sights on his relentless pursuer…
Amelia Peabody! Can fear kill? There are those who believe so but Amelia Peabody is skeptical. A respected Egyptologist and amateur sleuth, Amelia has foiled felonious schemes from Victoria’s England to the Middle East. And she doubts that it was a Nineteenth Dynasty mummy’s curse that caused the death of a night watchman in the British Museum. The corpse was found sprawled in the mummy’s shadow, a look of terror frozen on the guard’s face. What or who killed the unfortunate man is a mystery that seems too intriguingly delicious for Amelia to pass up, especially now that she, her dashing archaeologist husband, Emerson, and their precocious son, Ramses, are back on Britain’s shores. But a contemporary curse can be as lethal as one centuries old and the foggy London thoroughfares can be as treacherous as the narrow, twisting alleyways of Cairo after dark when a perpetrator of evil deeds sets his murderous sights on his relentless pursuer…
Amelia Peabody!

The Last Camel Died at Noon (By:Elizabeth Peters)

The undauntable Amelia Peabody, her irrepressible husband Emerson, and their forbiddingly precocious son Ramses, were pleasantly discussing their next Eqyptian expedition when a rather bulky, white faced young man burst into the drawing room and promptly collapsed at Amelia’s feet. The gentleman who later would prove rather prone to collapsing was one Reginald Forthright, and he came bearing a particularly chilling story. It seems that 14 years before. Forthright’s uncle the famous explorer Willoughby Forth had disappeared into the Nubian desert along with his beautiful child bride, never to return. Now a mysterious letter from an unknown source has convinced Forthright’s disconsolate grandfather that his son and daughter in law are still alive. In spite of Forthright’s protests to the contrary, the senior Willoughby is intent upon persuading the two archaeologists to find them. How Amelia’s eccentric little family are transported from the relative calm of Victorian England to a lost kingdom burled deep in the heart of the Sudan, is a sometimes perilous, sometimes hilarious, always entertaining adventure. ‘If Indiana Jones were female, a wife and mother sho lived in Victorian times, he would be Amelia Peabody Emerson, an archaeologist whose extraordinary adventures are guaranteed entertainment.’ Publishers Weekly

The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog (By:Elizabeth Peters)

A brand new Elizabeth Peters novel is one of the uncompromising pleasures in life. As Peter Theroux in the New York Times Book Review points out, ‘Her wonderfully witty voice and her penchant for history lessons of the Nile both ancient and modern keep her high adventure moving for even the highest brows’. In her previous outing, The Last Camel Died at Noon, Amelia Peabody and her dashing husband, Emerson, discovered a fabulous lost oasis in the Nubian desert. Now, in the seventh mystery in the series, the Emerson Peabodys are traveling up the Nile once again to encounter their most deadly adversary, the Master Criminal, who is back at his sinister best. Amelia Peabody was unabashedly proud of her newest translation, a fragment of the ancient fairytale ‘The Doomed Prince’. Later, she would wonder why no sense of foreboding struck her as she retold the story of the king’s favorite son who had been warned that he would die from the snake, the crocodile, or the dog. Little did she realize, as she and her beloved husband sailed blissfully toward the pyramids of ancient Egypt, that those very beasts and a cat as well would be part of a deadly plot. The expedition began so happily…
. Leaving their delightful, but catastrophically precocious, son, Ramses, back in England, Amelia hoped this romantic trip might rejuvenate her thirteen year old marriage and bring back the thrills that she feared were fading. She and her dear Emerson were returning to the remote desert site where they had first fallen in love, Amarna, the holy city of Akhenaton and his beautiful queen, Nefertiti. But their return would threaten not only their marriage, but their very lives with perils as chilling as a mummy’scurse. An old enemy was determined to learn Amelia and Emerson’s most closely guarded secret: the location of a legendary long lost oasis and a race of people bedecked in gold. So cunning was his scheme that Amelia might overlook until it was too late the truth about

The Hippopotamus Pool (By:Elizabeth Peters)

A masked stranger offers to reveal an Egyptian queen’s lost tomb…
and Amelia Peabody and her irascible archeologist husband, Radcliffe Emerson, are intrigued, to say the least. When the guide mysteriously disappears before he tells his secret, the husband and wife team sail to Thebes to follow his trail, helped and hampered by their teenage son, Ramses, and beautiful ward, Nefret. But before the sands of time shift very far, all will be risking their lives foiling murderers, kidnappers, grave robbers, and ancient curses. And the Hippopotamus Pool? It’s a legend of war and wits that Amelia is translating, one that alerts her to a hippo of a different type a nefarious, overweight art dealer who may become her next archenemy!

Seeing a Large Cat (By:Elizabeth Peters)

Best selling mystery author Elizabeth Peters has captured the hearts of thousands of readers with her spunky Victorian Egyptologist, Amelia Peabody Emerson. In Seeing a Large Cat, Amelia must ensnare a modern day killer, a bogus spiritualist, and a predatory debutante in the awesome Valley of the Kings. Someone is sending ominous messages: Stay away from tomb Twenty A! Intrigued, parasol wielding Amelia wont rest until she finds the forbidden burial site. But when the excavation yields an unusual mummy, she suddenly must protect both her family and the macabre discovery. Her Ph.D. in Egyptology enables Elizabeth Peters to portray a lavishly detailed turn of the century Egypt in her lively tale of crisp wit and shivery suspense. The spirited cast including Amelia, her eccentric family, and an array of international characters bursts into life with Barbara Rosenblats brilliant narration

The Ape Who Guards the Balance (By:Elizabeth Peters)

All hail the jubilant return of the redoubtable Amelia Peabody! Together with her sexy yet irascible archaeologist husband, Radcliffe Emerson; their handsome but wily heir, Ramses; Ramses’ inscrutably elegant friend David; and the elder Emerson’s ward: beautiful, trouble seeking Nefret Forth Edwardian Egypt may never be the same. The tenth in an award winning series, here is splendid entertainment as dazzling as it is daring from the hand of a respected Egyptologist. In the words of The Philadelphia Inquirer, ‘Amelia has really pitched her tent in our hearts.’ The prospects for the 1907 archaeological season in Egypt seem fairly dull to Amelia Peabody. Despite her adored husband’s brilliant reputation in his field, his dashing yet less than diplomatic behavior has Professor Radcliffe Emerson ignominiously demoted to examining only the most boring tombs in the Valley of the Kings mere leftovers, really. All the Peabody Emersons profess stiff upper lips and intend to make the best of a bad situation, but this year the legendary land of the pharaohs will yield more than priceless artifacts for the Emerson expedition. For the desert guards even deeper mysteries that are wrapped in greed and sealed by murder. In a seedy section of Cairo, the youngest members of the expedition purchase a mint condition papyrus of the famed Book of the Dead, the collection of magical spells and prayers designed to ward off the perils of the underworld and lead the deceased into everlasting life. But for as long as there have been graves, there have also been grave robbers as well as those who believe tomb violators risk the wrath of gods like Thoth, the little baboon who protects the scales used to weigh such precious commodities as hearts and souls. Besides facing the ire of ancient deities, their adventure into antiquity also puts Amelia and company in the sights of Sethos, the charismatically compelling but elusive Master Criminal whose bold villainies have def

The Falcon at the Portal (By:Elizabeth Peters)

As the 1911 archaeological season begins, Amelia and famille have arrived in Egypt for their annual excavation. While the reappearance of Ramses’ dreadful cousin Percy is to be lamented, the marriage of his best friend David to Amelia’s niece Lia is a source of joy for everyone. But the bride has barely walked down the aisle before trouble begins stalking the family. First, David is accused of selling ancient Egyptian artifacts that are actually hight priced, almost undetectable fakes. Then, though this year’s site appears ordinary ebough dull, really some deadly surprises await the professional touch of Professor Radcliffe Emerson, the Father of Curses, holder of innumberable honorary degrees, scourge of the underworld, and the greatest Egyptologist of this or any other age. But even as Amelia and company endeavor to clear David’s name and expose the real culprit, worse crimes and surfacing. the first is the body of an American at the bottom of the Emersons’ excavation shaft. Then, as accusations of drug dealing and moral misconduct start flying, the appearance of a small child of mysterious antecendents sparks a crisis that threatens to tear the Emerson family apart. Meanwhile, as Amelia brings her brilliant powers of deduction to bear on all of this, someone is shooting bullets at her and coming awfully close. As the tension mounts and accidents increase at the site, it becomes clear that the Land of the Pharoahs harbors more secrets than any tomb can hide. If Amelia doesn’t expose a dangerous gallery of killers quickly, she may find herself the next candidate for burial. Guaranteed to win new fans and thrill existing ones, this latest tale in th brilliant and award winning Amelia Peabody series is ample demonstration of the style, wit and ingenuity that have made Elizabeth Peters one of the best loved mystery authors of our time. As the 1911 archaeological season begins, Amelia and famille have arrived in Egypt for their annual excavation. While the reappearance of Ramses’ dreadful cousin Percy is to be lamented, the marriage of his best friend David to Amelia’s niece Lia is a source of joy for everyone. But the bride has barely walked down the aisle before trouble begins stalking the family. First, David is accused of selling ancient Egyptian artifacts that are actually hight priced, almost undetectable fakes. Then, though this year’s site appears ordinary ebough dull, really some deadly surprises await the professional touch of Professor Radcliffe Emerson, the Father of Curses, holder of innumberable honorary degrees, scourge of the underworld, and the greatest Egyptologist of this or any other age. But even as Amelia and company endeavor to clear David’s name and expose the real culprit, worse crimes and surfacing. the first is the body of an American at the bottom of the Emersons’ excavation shaft. Then, as accusations of drug dealing and moral misconduct start flying, the appearance of a small child of mysterious antecendents sparks a crisis that threatens to tear the Emerson family apart. Meanwhile, as Amelia brings her brilliant powers of deduction to bear on all of this, someone is shooting bullets at her and coming awfully close. As the tension mounts and accidents increase at the site, it becomes clear that the Land of the Pharoahs harbors more secrets than any tomb can hide. If Amelia doesn’t expose a dangerous gallery of killers quickly, she may find herself the next candidate for burial. Guaranteed to win new fans and thrill existing ones, this latest tale in th brilliant and award winning Amelia Peabody series is ample demonstration of the style, wit and ingenuity that have made Elizabeth Peters one of the best loved mystery authors of our time.

He Shall Thunder in the Sky (By:Elizabeth Peters)

Trouble is brewing in Egypt at the close of 1914 and no one will escape the fury of the tempest to come. With the world around them at war, Amelia Peabody and her husband Radcliffe Emerson have returned to Cairo for another season of archaeological excavation despite the increasing danger of an attack on the Suez Canal and on Egypt itself.

A terrible conflict looms. A long simmering love affair is resolved. A dastardly plot twists like a serpent writhing in the desert sun. There is no escaping the onrushing hurricane that now threatens the Emersons and their world so Amelia plunges right into it.

Lord of the Silent (By:Elizabeth Peters)

Undeterred by world war and enemy submarines, Amelia Peabody Grandmaster Elizabeth Peters’s indomitable archaeologist sleuth once again sets sail for Egypt, where ghosts of an ancient past and specters of a present day evil hover silently over an inscrutable land. With son Ramses, his wife, Nefret, and a few unwelcome additions in tow, the elder Peabody Emersons embark on a dangerous sea voyage to Alexandria, ultimately ending up in Cairo for their annual excavations. But in this autumn of 1915 the exotic, alluring city is not what it used to be. Cairo has been transformed into an armed camp teeming with enemy agents, and shockingly bold tomb robbers are brazenly desecrating the ancient sites. Amelia’s foremost priority is to prevent the War Office from pressing Ramses into service again, on the same sort of job that almost cost him his life the previous year. But in these terrible days of global conflict and relentless skullduggery, no place in Egypt is safe. Even remote Luxor provides no guarantee of safety, especially after Amelia discovers a fresh corpse resting in an ancient tomb. The grim discovery presages further trouble for the Emersons, as the sinister conundrum pulls them all into a bubbling morass of corruption, intrigue, and international espionage deeper and more fiendish than any they have hitherto encountered. Death follows death, with abduction and an assault on Amelia herself intensifying the chaos of a world at war. Yet there is an even darker danger in store for the Emersons. Can it be that one of Amelia’s oldest and most dangerous adversaries will intervene to alter the family’s destiny? Tantalizing clues suggest that this may be so and point toward an archaeological discovery of unparalleled importance and the resurrection of a voice that has been silent for millennia. Read by Barbara Rosenblat

The Golden One (By:Elizabeth Peters)

A new year, 1917, is dawning, and the Great War that ravages the world shows no sign of abating. Answering the siren call of Egypt once more, Amelia Peabody and her family arrive at their home in Luxor to learn of a new royal tomb ransacked by thieves. Soon an even more disturbing outrage concerns the intrepid clan of archaeologists: the freshly and savagely slain corpse of a thief defiling the ancient burial site. Yet this is nothing compared with the lethal fate that threatens Ramses. Besieged by the British and defended by formidable Turkish and German forces, the fortified seaport of Gaza guards the gateway to the Holy Land. Answering a call he cannot refuse from British military intelligence, Ramses must journey to this ancient, fabled city to undertake a mission as personal as it is perilous. Death will surely be his lot if he is caught or exposed. Meanwhile, Ramses’s wife, Nefret, guards a secret of her own…
. Once again the incomparable and bestselling carries us to a breathtaking realm of ancient wonders and crumbling splendor from the hectic bustle of the Cairo markets to remote, sand swept corners of the Egyptian desert where the gods of antiquity sleep. Returning visitors to the world of Amelia Peabody will be enthralled by the latest mesmerizing adventure from the award winning grandmaster, and newcomers will succumb to her wiles as they are caught up in the tantalizing spell of the remarkable Elizabeth Peters and The Golden One.

Children of the Storm (By:Elizabeth Peters)

Return once again with New York Times bestselling Grand Master Elizabeth Peters to a remarkable land of mystery, deception, and danger, where murderous intrigues swirl in the desert wind…
. The Great War has ended at last. No longer must archaeologist Amelia Peabody and her husband, Emerson, the distinguished Egyptologist, fear for the life of their daring son, Ramses, now free from his dangerous wartime obligations to British Intelligence. The advent of a season of joy and peace marks a time of new beginnings in Luxor, with delightful additions to the growing Emerson family and fascinating wonders waiting to be discovered beneath the shifting Egyptian sands. But in the aftermath of conflict, evil still casts a cold shadow over this violence scarred land. The theft of valuable antiquities from the home of a friend causes great concern in the Emerson household. Ramses’s strange encounter with a woman costumed in the veil and gold crown of a goddess only deepens the mystery. And the brutal death of the suspected thief washes the unsettling affair in blood. Amelia’s investigation sets her on a terrifying collision course with an adversary more fiendish and formidable than any she has ever encountered. And in her zeal to make things right, the indomitable Amelia may be feeding the flames of a devastating firestorm that threatens the fragile lives of the tender and the innocent.

Guardian of the Horizon (By:Elizabeth Peters)

A lost journal of Amelia Peabody has been miraculously recovered: a chronicle from one of the ‘missing years’ 1907 1908 shedding light on an already exceptional career…
and an unexpected terror. Ousted from their most recent archaeological dig and banned forever from the Valley of the Kings, the Emersons are spending a quiet summer at home in Kent, England, when a mysterious messenger arrives. Claiming to be the teenage brother of their dear friend Tarek, he brings troubling news of a strange malady that has struck down Tarek’s heir and conveys his brother’s urgent need for help only the Emersons can provide. The family sets off in secret for the mountain fortress from which they narrowly escaped ten years before. The Emersons are unaware that deception and treachery are leading them onward into a nest of vipers where a dreadful fate may await. For young Ramses, forced to keep his growing love for the beautiful Nefret secret, temptation along the way may prove his ultimate undoing. And a dark past and grim obligation has ensnared Nefret once again, as she is helpless to save those she loves most from the prison of the Lost Oasis. Rich with suspense, surprises, unforgettable characters, and the intoxicating atmosphere that has earned her the coveted title of Grand Master two times over, the remarkable Elizabeth Peters proves once again that, in the world of historical adventure fiction, she is truly without peer.

The Serpent on the Crown (By:Elizabeth Peters)

New York Times bestselling master of suspense, Elizabeth Peters, brings an exotic world of adventure, intrigue, and danger to vivid life, in a tale as powerful as ancient Egypt.

The Emersons have returned to the Valley of the Kings in 1922 and Amelia Peabody and her family look forward to delving once more into the age-old mysteries buried in Egypt’s ever-shifting sands. But a widow’s strange story — and even stranger request — is about to plunge them into a storm of secrets, treachery, and murder.

The woman, a well-known author, has come bearing an ill-gotten treasure — a golden likeness of a forgotten king — which she claims is cursed. She insists it has taken the life of her husband and unless it is returned to the tomb from which it was stolen, more people will die.

Amelia and her clan resolve to uncover the secrets of the statue’s origins, setting off on a trail that twists and turns in directions they never anticipated — and, perhaps, toward an old nemesis with unscrupulous new designs. But each step toward the truth seems to reveal another peril, suggesting to the intrepid Amelia that the curse is more than mere superstition. And its next victim might well be a beloved family member…
or Amelia Peabody herself.

A novel filled with riveting suspense, pulse-pounding action, and the vibrant life of a fascinating place and time, The Serpent on the Crown is the jewel in the crown of a grand master, the remarkable Elizabeth Peters.

Performed by Barbara Rosenblat

Tomb of the Golden Bird (By:Elizabeth Peters)

In New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Peters’s eagerly anticipated Amelia Peabody adventure, the Emerson clan is a hairsbreadth away from unearthing the legendary site they’ve been searching for. But a sinister plot and a dark family secret stand in the way of their ultimate ambition and threaten to change things forever…
. Convinced that the tomb of the little known king Tutankhamon lies somewhere in the Valley of the Kings, Egyptologist Radcliffe Emerson and his wife, Amelia Peabody, seem to have hit a wall. Emerson has tried desperately to persuade Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter to relinquish their digging rights. But Emerson’s trickery has backfired, and his insistent interest in the site has made his rivals all the more determined to keep the Emerson clan away. The family returns to Luxor and watches from the sidelines as Carter and Carnarvon ‘discover’ King Tut’s tomb. But before their own excavation can get underway, Emerson and his son, Ramses, find themselves lured into a trap by a strange group of villains demanding ‘Where is he?’ The Emersons embark on a quest to uncover who ‘he’ is and why ‘he’ must be found, only to discover the answer is uncomfortably close to home. Now Amelia must find a way to protect her family and perhaps even her would be nemesis from the forces that will stop at nothing to succeed in the nefarious plot that threatens the peace of the entire region. Filled with heart stopping suspense, and Amelia Peabody’s trademark wit and wisdom, Tomb of the Golden Bird is the latest thrilling installment from the beloved ‘Grand Dame of historical mystery’ Washington Post.

A River in the Sky (By:Elizabeth Peters)

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Peters brings back beloved Egyptologist and amateur sleuth Amelia Peabody in an exciting tale set amid the ancient temples and simmering religious tensions of Palestine on the eve of World War I…
. August 1910. Banned from the Valley of the Kings by the Antiquities Service, Amelia Peabody and her husband, Emerson, are relaxing at home in Kent, enjoying the tranquil beauty of summer. But adventure soon beckons when they are persuaded to follow would be archaeologist Major George Morley on an expedition to Palestine, a province of the crumbling, corrupt Ottoman Empire and the Holy Land of three religions. Searching for the vanished treasures of the Temple in Jerusalem, Morley is determined to unearth the legendary Ark of the Covenant. The skeptical Emerson wants no part of the scheme until a request from the War Office and Buckingham Palace persuades him to reconsider. The Germans are increasing their influence in Palestine and British intelligence insists that Morley is an agent of the Kaiser, sent to stir up trouble in this politically volatile land. Emerson can’t believe that the seemingly inept Morley is a German spy, but could he be mistaken? Determined to prevent a catastrophically unprofessional excavation that could destroy priceless historical finds as well as cause an armed protest by infuriated Christians, Jews, and Muslims who view the Temple Mount, also known as the Dome of the Rock, as sacred, Amelia, Emerson, and company head to Palestine. Though it is not to her beloved Egypt, the trip to Jerusalem will also reunite her with her handsome and headstrong son, Ramses, working on a dig at Samaria, north of the holy city. Before Ramses can meet his parents, however, he is distracted by an unusual party of travelers who have arrived in Samaria, including a German woman archaeologist and a mysterious man of unknown nationality and past. Unfortunately, Ramses’s insatiable curiosity and his knack for trouble lead him to a startling discovery: information he must pass on to his parents in Jerusalem if he can get there alive. Once again the Peabody Emerson clan must use all their skills and wiles to find the truth, prevent a bloody holy war, and save their son from the clutches of a nefarious enemy in this wonderfully engaging tale chock full of thrills, mystery, and daring from the inimitable Elizabeth Peters.

Women of Mystery

A diverse collection of stories of drama and suspense from writers such as Ruth Rendell, Sara Paretsky and Mary Higgins Clark. From cops to private eyes to ordinary people caught up in extraordinary situations, these stories feature hero*ines who face danger and solve crimes with panache.

The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories

The stories by the mystery genre’s best writers, such as Tony Hillerman, Lawrence Block, P. D James, Ruth Rendell and Ray Bradbury, are compiled into an anthology of twenty five of the year’s most suspenseful stories.

Tales of Obsession

Fourteen spine tingling stories of suspense include P. D. James’s ”The Victim,” in which a gorgeous celebrity uses her infatuated ex husband as a murder weapon, and tales by Ruth Rendell, Patricia Highsmith, and other authors.

Malice Domestic 3

The third in a series of collections of original mystery stories in the style of Agatha Christie features the work of Dorothy Cannell, Wendy Hornsby, Joan Hess, and other contemporary authors.

Murder for Revenge

A high school wallflower cooks up justice la carte at her 20th reunion…
A submissive wife sails her domineering husband straight to hell…
A man disposes of his enemy in a murder only a writer could commit. This irresistible collection of original stories was born of a deliciously wicked idea: ask twelve of America’s best writers to explore a single subject people willing, often gleefully so, to kill for revenge. The result is a star studded gathering of fiction’s finest, and an infinitely satisfying banquet of…
Murder for Revenge. In Lawrence Block’s chilling contribution, a serial killer transforms one victim’s brother into his greatest defender to his eternal regret! Revenge more immediate sizzles in Mary Higgins Clark’s ‘Power Play,’ as a dashing ex president and his congresswoman wife outwit terrorists hunting bigger game. Phillip Margolin’s career criminal has an alibi to die for which becomes a nail in the coffin of self defense. Joyce Carol Oates administers revenge most satisfying in ‘Murder Two’ as a brilliant lawyer defends her first criminal client her worst enemy’s son. And in Peter Straub’s ‘Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff,’ a betrayed husband discovers that if you have to ask the price of revenge, you can’t afford to pay for it. Here is delicious retribution in these and seven more superb, all new stories by Thomas H. Cook, Vicki Hendricks, Joan Hess, Judith Kelman, Eric Lustbader, David Morrell, and Shel Silverstein: America’s favorite writers gathered together in one unforgettable volume a wickedly entertaining exploration of sweet, cold blooded revenge. Otto Penzler is the owner of The Mysterious Bookshops in New York City, Los Angeles, and London. The founder of The Mysterious Press and Otto Penzler Books, he is also the editor of the acclaimed collection Murder for Love. He received an Edgar Award for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, and was honored by the Mystery Writers of America in 1994 with the Ellery Queen Award for his contributions in the publishing field. He lives in New York City.

Malice Domestic 9

An anthology of orginial traditional mystery storiesIncluding Agatha Christie’s classic mystery The Case of the Discontented SoldierWith fourteen Christie inspired tales from today’s most talented mystery writersDig into a toxic treat of murder most foul from the devious minds of the finest writers Robert Bernard Jan Burke Kate Charles Marjorie Eccles Teri Holbrook Gwen Moffat Marcia Talley Dorothy Cannell Charles Todd Ann Granger Walter Satterthwait Carolyn Wheat Susan Moody Sample some delectable bits of malicious motives…
and most intriguing murders Residents of an old age home have a killer of a plan for dealing with chronic complainers. The ladies of the parish just love Father Luke…
they love him to death. Someone just can’t wait for old Aunt Marigold’s heart to give out. Joan Hess presents Malice Domestic 9AN ANTHOLOGY OF ORIGINAL TRADITIONAL MYSTERY STORIES Including Agatha Christie’s classic mystery The Case of the Discontented SoldierWith fourteen Christie inspired tales from today’s most talented mystery writersDig into a toxic treat of murder most foul from the devious minds of the finest writersRobert Bernard Jan Burke Kate Charles Marjorie Eccles Teri Holbrook Gwen Moffat Marcia Talley Dorothy Cannell Charles Todd Ann Granger Walter Satterthwait Carolyn Wheat Susan MoodySample some delectable bits of malicious motives?and most intriguing murdersResidents of an old age home have a killer of a plan for dealing with chronic complainers. The ladies of the parish just love Father Luke…
they love him to death. Someone just can’t wait for old Aunt Marigold’s heart to give out.