Recommendations based on "A Novel Murder"

In the latest in this New York Times bestselling series, matrimony and murder collide as San Francisco book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright walks down the aisle... Brooklyn has it all covered. She's triple-checked her wedding to-do list, and everything is on track for the upcoming ceremony with the love of her life, security expert Derek Stone. Not everyone has been as lucky in love as Brooklyn. Her old library college roommates Heather and Sara lost touch twelve years ago when Sara stole Heather's boyfriend. Brooklyn was caught in the middle and hasn't seen her former besties since their falling-out. When they both arrive in town for the annual librarians' convention and then show up at her surprise bridal shower, Brooklyn is sure drama will ensue. But she's touched when the women seem willing to sort out their differences and gift her rare copies of The Three Musketeers and The Blue Fairy Book. Brooklyn's prewedding calm is shattered when one of her formerly feuding friends is found murdered and Brooklyn determines that one of the rare books is a forgery. She can't help but wonder if the victim played a part in this fraud, or if she was targeted because she discovered the scam. With a killer and con artist on the loose, Brooklyn and Derek—with the unsolicited help of their meddling mothers—must catch the culprit before their big day turns into a big mess.

People are dying to get their hands on a rare, valuable book in the newest Library Lover’s Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Plot and the Pendulum. Briar Creek Library director Lindsey Norris and her husband, Sully, are at a popular library conference in Chicago to hear book restoration specialist Brooklyn Wainwright give a keynote address. After the lecture, Lindsey looks under her seat and finds a tote bag containing a first edition of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, inscribed to Alfred Hitchcock. Brooklyn determines the novel is one of a kind and quite valuable, so Lindsey and Sully return the book to the conference director, not wanting to stir up any trouble. But just hours after the pair boards the train back to Connecticut, rumors that the Highsmith novel has gone missing buzz amongst the passengers, and they soon find the conference director murdered in his private compartment. And worse—the murderer planted the book in Lindsey and Sully’s room next door, making them prime suspects. Now, they must uncover the murderer and bring them to the end of their line, before they find themselves booked for a crime they didn’t commit. Featuring a cameo by a beloved character from the New York Times bestselling author Kate Carlisle's Bibliophile series!

"New York, 1946: The last time Will Parker let a case get personal, she walked away with a broken face, a bruised ego, and the solemn promise never again to let her heart get in the way of her job. But she called Hart and Halloway's Travelling Circus and Sideshow home for five years, and Ruby Donner, the circus's tattooed ingenue, was her friend. To make matters worse the prime suspect is Valentin Kalishenko, the man who taught Will everything she knows about putting a knife where it needs to go. To uncover the real killer and keep Kalishenko from a date with the electric chair, Will and Ms. Pentecost join the circus in sleepy Stoppard, Virginia, where the locals like their cocktails mild, the past buried, and big-city detectives not at all. The two swiftly find themselves lost in a funhouse of lies as Will begins to realize that her former circus compatriots aren't playing it straight, and that her murdered friend might have been hiding a lot of secrets beneath all that ink. Dodging fistfights, firebombs, and flying lead, Will puts a lot more than her heart on the line in the search of the truth. Can she find it before someone stops her ticker for good?"--

 The Blackbird sisters are back--and as witty and wonderful as ever! For richer, for poorer...                                                               Nora Blackbird, the Bucks County ex-debutante with a haute couture wardrobe, a hot job as a glamorous society columnist and a stone cold bank account, might finally have her own life just right, but everyone around her is going down in flames. Her sister Libby seems destined to be the lead character in a tabloid sex scandal.  Her sister Emma is expecting a mysterious love child.  Her best friend, Lexie Paine, is serving time in the slammer.  And now her mobbed-up boyfriend, Mick Abruzzo--who might actually be her husband--is conducting clandestine capers from Blackbird Farm while under house arrest. What's a good girl to do?  Find a killer, that's what!  Word arrives that the sisters' great aunt, Madeleine Blackbird, has died in a volcanic eruption on an Indonesian island and left her fabulous country estate, worth millions, to the three of them.  But when the Blackbird sisters show up to claim their windfall, they find the house in a state of disheartening decay and all of Madeleine's to-die-for treasures gone. Worse, the mansion has been hiding a grisly secret: the body of a woman who died there many years ago.  All the evidence points to a high society murder... Nora's special bond with flamboyant Aunt Madeleine compels her to seek out the truth.  With her aunt's amorous stepson dogging her footsteps, her unscrupulous lawyer acting like a skunk, and her devoted housekeeper not to be found, Nora's investigation is going nowhere.  Good thing Mick's close by to offer Nora distractions both dark and delightful.  And, as ever, her irrepressible sisters provide some unexpected... and highly unorthodox... assistance when she most needs it.

She’s found peace living alongside the Amish… But she can’t escape her past. Artist Liana Mann is stunned to learn her husband, missing for ten years, has been found murdered. Now Officer Kent Olson seeks to solve the cold case—with Liana’s help. The faster he unravels the mystery, the sooner he can return to regular duties. Liana wants nothing to do with the police, yet Kent intrigues her. But will digging into the past create new problems? New York Times Bestselling Author

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • London provides fabulously deadly opportunities for a fledgling inspector in the twisty follow-up to Julia Seales’s bestselling debut, A Most Agreeable Murder, hailed by People as a “delightful cocktail . . . of wit, hilarity, and suspense!”After achieving her lifelong dream of solving a murder, bringing a killer to justice, and proving she is not, in fact, a morbid creep, Beatrice Steele feels like everything is finally falling into place. She’s traded her etiquette-obsessed community of Swampshire for the big city of London, accompanied by her ever-trusty chaperone, Miss Bolton. They’ve settled in a lovely neighborhood, Sweetbriar, known for its proximity to the Sweet Majestic theater, picturesque pleasure gardens, and an unfortunate infestation of flying squirrels. But Beatrice’s favorite part is that Sweetbriar is also home to DS Investigations, the new office she opened with the prickly, annoyingly logical Inspector Drake to solve the city’s brutally thrilling crimes.However, nothing is turning out how Beatrice imagined it would. Sir Huxley, famed gentleman inspector and Beatrice’s former crush, is still considered the real investigator in London, so the only cases left for Beatrice and Drake are lost pets and spectacles. Not that Beatrice has much time for crime-solving anyway, as her mother still expects her to find an eligible (rich) husband to protect their family from destitution. Beatrice is struggling to balance all the demands on her and begins to wonder if she can become a true detective in a city that feels full of false promises.That is until a string of murders thrusts Beatrice and Drake into the center of a scandal that pits the neighborhood’s wealthiest against the arts community, spreading fear and chaos throughout the city. As they follow the trail through bewildering ballrooms, secretive shops, and odd operas, Beatrice must survive threats to her partnership, her business, and her place in society to break the case—before it’s too late.

Plus-sized P.I. Savannah Reid and her pals at the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency know a thing or two about fine dining. But when murder shows up on the menu, it's time to go back to the kitchen. . . When the Moonlight Magnolia gang learns their friends Ryan Stone and John Gibson are planning to open a chic new restaurant, they eagerly offer their input on everything from what dishes to serve to how many calories they should contain. But all Ryan and John can think about is how excited they are to have hired the temperamental but talented chef Baldwin Norwood. Too bad the only thing being sliced and diced in the kitchen is the chef himself. . . As Savannah turns her attention from munchies to murder, she quickly realizes the cantankerous chef left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, and any number of people could have whipped up a recipe for revenge. Could the jilted sous chef he stabbed in the back have done the same to him? Perhaps the loyal girlfriend he took for granted was finally fed up. Or maybe the business partner whose career he ruined had an appetite for blood. Savannah has her work cut out for her, and just when she thinks there couldn't be any more suspects, she uncovers a plot more precarious than a perfect souffl�. . .

When young Carl Palister unearths a skeleton on a Devon smallholding, DS Wesley Peterson and his boss Gerry Heffernan are called in to investigate. Heffernan is convinced that the remains are those of Carl's father, a local villain who vanished from the Tradmouth area three years before. Wesley isn't so sure - he discovers evidence that suggests the skeleton is a good thousand years older than they first thought. A keen amateur archaeologist, Wesley is intrigued by the possibility that this is a Viking corpse, buried in keeping with ancient traditions. But he has a rather more urgent crime to solve-the disappearance of a Danish tourist. At first it appears that Ingeborg Larsen may just have gone away for a few days without telling her landlady, but Wesley finds disturbing evidence that the attractive Dane has been abducted. Gerry Heffernan believes that Ms. Larsen's disappearance is linked to a spate of brutal local robberies and that Ingeborg witnessed something she shouldn't have. But is her disappearance linked to far older events? For it seems that this may not have been Ingeborg's first visit to this far from quiet West Country backwater. . .

"Even though Maddie is swamped running Vintage Magic and dealing with the consequences of the visions she gets from certain of her fashion treasures, she's agreed to plan her sister Sherri's baby shower and mentor a design intern. But when Maddie goes to the Mystic train station to pick up her new student, she finds a murder scene instead. The victim: intern Isobel York. Cause of death: suspicious circumstances. Later that evening, a woman claiming to be Isobel appears on her doorstep, and Maddie knows it's not just a case of 'whodunit' but 'who-is-it.' Luckily a gift of lusciously luxe vintage clothes offers clues, and though the '50s wardrobe and accessories are to die for, Maddie is determined to iron out the wrinkles before the murderer can return to put an end to a promising fashion career. . ."--P. [4] of cover.

For young detective Aggie Morton and her friend Hector, a spa stay becomes a lot more thrilling when TWO dead bodies are found in this third book in the Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen series, inspired by the life of Agatha Christie as a child and her most popular creation, Hercule Poirot. For fans of Enola Holmes.Aspiring writer Aggie Morton is ready to enjoy an invigorating trip to a Yorkshire spa, where her widowed mother can take the waters and recover from a long mourning period. Having solved yet another murder and faced extreme peril with her best friend Hector over Christmas, Aggie’s Morbid Preoccupation is on alert when rumors abound about the spa's recently deceased former patient . . . and then another body appears under mysterious circumstances. Together with Grannie Jane, and often in the company of George, a young patient at the spa, Aggie and Hector take a closer look at the guests and staff of the Wellspring Hotel, and venture into the intriguing world of the local undertaker. Has there been a murder—or even two? As Aggie and Hector ignite their deductive skills, their restful trip takes a sudden, dangerous turn.