Recommendations based on "Mardi Gras Murder"

A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice • Rex Stout meets Agatha Christie with a fresh twist in the new Pentecost and Parker Mystery, a delightfully hardboiled high-wire act starring two daring women sleuths dead set on justice as they set out to solve a murder at a traveling circus“A delight.... It’s a pleasure to watch [Pentecost and Parker] sifting through red herrings and peeling secrets back like layers of an onion.” The New York Times Book ReviewSomeone’s put a blade in the back of the Amazing Tattooed Woman, and Willowjean “Will” Parker’s former knife-throwing mentor has been stitched up for the crime. To uncover the truth, Will and her boss, world-famous detective Lillian Pentecost, travel to the circus, where they find a snake pit of old grudges, small-town crime, and secrets worth killing for.Will called Hart & Halloway’s Traveling 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.

All Aboard the Murder Express Mira James's hot and heavy relationship with boyfriend Johnny Leeson is definitely warming up her winter. But when Johnny has to go to Portland, Oregon, for a month-longth internship, airplane-averse Mira lets her septuagenarian friend Mrs. Berns talk her into a visit. On the plus side, Mira can make the trip a tax write-off by attending the International Private Investigator Conference. On the down side, Mrs. Berns books them--much to Mira's dismay--on the Valentine Train, a place for singles to meet and mingle. After a few glasses of champagne and Mrs. Berns' encouragement, Mira begins to relax and enjoy herself . . . until a fellow passenger is murdered and a snowstorm traps the train in the Rockies. If Mira can't track down the killer, she may end up derailed--permanently. Praise: "Lourey skillfully mixes humor and suspense . . . the characters are wonderful and wacky, and the mile-a-minute pace never falters."--Booklist (starred review) "The best outing yet for Mira."--Kirkus Reviews "[An] incredible series . . . [February Fever] is a very charming story with great dialogue [and] there are more months coming, so readers definitely have something to look forward to."--Suspense Magazine "I can't wait to see what Mira does next."--Crimespree Magazine

Someone s getting crossed off the register. Nora Blackbird may have been to the manor borne, but these days money is so tight, she can t afford to lose her job as a society columnist. So when her new boss at the "Philadelphia Intelligencer" Australian tabloid editor Gus Hardwicke tells her to work the celebrity gossip beat or start checking the want ads, the choice is easy. Now Nora s writing a profile on billionaire fashion designer Swain Starr, who recently retired to build a high-tech organic farm with his new wife, Zephyr, a former supermodel. But before Nora can get the story, the mogul is murdered. And now Gus wants her to snap up an exclusive on who killed Starr before the cops do. But solving a celebrity murder isn t easy with a home life as colorful as Nora s. Her sort-of-husband, Mick, a former mobster, is associating once again with unsavory characters. Her sister Libby is on a mission to get her diabolical twins on stage or screen with the help ofan unscrupulous former child star. And the youngest Blackbird sister, Emma, just got kicked out of the house by Mick who refuses to explain why. If anything can bring the blue-blooded Blackbird sisters together, it s a murder investigation involving high-society events, glamorous people, and the disappearance of a genetically perfect pig that may or may not be basking in the sun at Blackbird Farm. They ll all have to pull together this time, because if Nora can t bring home the bacon, she might have to exchange her bucolic estate for a cramped walk-up."

A breezy, charming, and perfectly escapist mystery set in the heart of sun- and wine-soaked Aix-en-Provence--where murder investigations are always put on hold for lunch and the only thing more sweeping than the story is the Mediterranean coastline. Provençal Mystery Series #9Watch the series! Murder in Provence is now on Britbox.Something strange has happened at the unassuming Musée de Quentin-Savary in Aix-en-Provence. When the director, Monsieur Achille Formentin, walks in one beautiful April morning, he is shocked to find the whole museum emptied of its contents--only a bench, the reception desk, and a lowly fern remain. Distressed, he calls the local police, and Aix's examining magistrate Antoine Verlaque sets out to discover the thief's identity. But it's the most baffling case Verlaque has ever encountered. Why would someone want to steal porcelain dessert plates, some old documents, and a few small paintings? Could this have something to do with the mysterious robbery of Madame de Montbarbon's apartment a few weeks earlier? And how can Verlaque possibly concentrate on the theft when he and his wife, Marine Bonnet, are going to have a baby?

Sarah Booth Delaney, a Southern belle known for abiding by tradition only when it suits her, is no stranger to drama. A talented actress and a P.I., she’s chosen to pursue a career in Hollywood when she hears that her best friend’s husband is suddenly on his deathbed back home in Mississippi---and he's not the only one. The vicious illness begins with burning fevers and delirium, quickly plunging its victims into a coma. The Centers for Disease Control is on the scene, but they can’t find a cure for it or the boll weevils that are decimating Sunflower County’s cotton crop. With patients in quarantine and the whole town in crisis, Sarah drops everything to stop the outbreak and save the only place she’s ever been able to call home.From feuding scientists to ailing locals, there is no shortage of bad blood coursing through the little town of Zinnia, Mississippi, as Carolyn Haines’s often steamy and always charming series turns equally intense in Greedy Bones.

Wickedly witty and full of more dirt than a debutante's diary, the mysteries of Carolyn Haines bring the southern Delta to roaring, rollicking life. . . Intrepid P.I. Sarah Booth Delaney has been known to single-handedly save her family's Mississippi plantation, converse with Dahlia House's ghost, and capture a killer or two. But when a local girl is found dead in a cotton field, it's enough to make a lady toss back a Bloody Mary before noon on Sunday. Someone held twenty-three-year-old Quentin McGee's face down in the rich Southern soil until she suffocated. The lawmen think Quentin's lover killed her. When the suspect's brother hires Sarah to prove his sibling innocent, Sarah quickly learns that the victim had plenty of wealthy, powerful enemies. Each had a bone to pick with Quentin for writing a scandalous exposé on her hometown. Adding spice to the gumbo is the news that Quentin was due to inherit the family fortune the day after she was killed. . .and that a second book was in the works. From illicit lovers and outraged families to slandered aristocrats, everyone is a suspect--and no one is safe. . . "Carolyn Haines has done for the Delta what Janet Evanovich has done for New Jersey."--The State "Wickedly funny. Devilishly clever. Scintillatingly Southern. Carolyn Haines is an author to die for."--Carolyn Hart

Cookery expert Darina Lisle is in the South of France with her new husband Detective Inspector William Pilgrim when one of their friends dies in horrific circumstances. Even on her honeymoon, Darina cannot escape practising her detecting skills - this time in a team with William.

When a celebrity chef is found dead, Samantha Barnes, the "Cape Cod Foodie", finds her search for the world's best blueberry buckle turning into a search for a killerThe Fourth of July is coming, and for professional food lover Samantha Barnes, it’s all about the picnic. Okay, and the fireworks. And the parade. But mostly the picnic. What could be better than a DIY clambake followed by the best blueberry buckle in the world? Sam has finally found the perfect recipe in the kitchen of Clara Foster, famed cookbook author and retired restaurateur, and she’s thrilled when Clara agrees to a buckle baking lesson.  But when Clara dies in a house fire blamed on carelessness in the kitchen, Sam doesn’t believe it. Unfortunately, her doubts set in motion an investigation pointing to the new owner of Clara’s legendary restaurant—and a cousin of Sam’s harbormaster boyfriend.  So, in between researching the Cape’s best lobster rolls and planning her clambake, Sam needs to find Clara's killer before the fireworks really start....

Never in my lifetime did I think I'd spend New Year's Eve knee-deep in mischief, magic, and murder! When my high-school nemesis, Prudence McAvoy, chooses The Melting Pot Café to host her New Year's party, I know I'm courting trouble by accepting her booking. The trouble begins with Prudence turning up dead, face down in a pond, and the finger for her murder is pointed directly at my shape-shifting best friend, Jordi. Determined to clear Jordi's name and bring the real killer to justice, I pool resources with Harriet, Tyler, and my cheeky familiar, Miss Saffron, to find out what happened to Prudence. As the clock counts down to midnight, time is running out in more ways than one. Can we find the killer before another body drops? Or will Jordi's new year begin in the pokey? If you like witty witches, talking cats, and magical murder mysteries, then you'll love Polly Holmes' light-hearted Melting Pot Café series.

Killers just want to have fun.Madison tries a new job running a dinner theater, but her mom needs her to moonlight as a PI for Fedora Cruz Investigations. What's a girl to do? Work both, of course! It's all fun, business and bodies, until the murder mystery clues are leading right back to the dinner theater. Someone is having too much fun with murder!A humorous mystery, laced with romantic comedy.