Recommendations based on "Primer and Punishment A House-Flipper Mystery"

Sarah Booth always has had a lot on her plate-working as a private investigator and actress, keeping her ancestral home together, searching for the perfect man. If those "real" concerns weren't enough, there's Jitty, a ghost, who's on her case to have a child to continue the family line. Sarah Booth's just about had it...until her friend, Tinkie, convinces her to leave her worldly concerns behind and join her for a vacation. Is there anything a posh spa and cooking school can't cure?The pampering and exquisite meals go a long way toward healing Sarah Booth's soul. But it's a corporate beauty pageant/cook-off that really takes her mind off of her woes. All these women, with their posturing and backbiting-they amuse Sarah Booth to no end. But soon the heated competition boils over and the top contender is poisoned. And, lo and behold, Sarah Booth finds herself hired to work on the case. So much for that much-needed R&R...

Agatha Christie's ingenious murder mystery, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. Nick Buckley was an unusual name for a pretty young woman. But then she had led an unusual life. First, on a treacherous Cornish hillside, the brakes on her car failed. Then, on a coastal path, a falling boulder missed her by inches. Later, an oil painting fell and almost crushed her in bed. Upon discovering a bullet-hole in Nick's sun hat, Hercule Poirot decides the girl needs his protection. At the same time, he begins to unravel the mystery of a murder that hasn't been committed. Yet.

A killer is preying on sacred ground....In the sleepy rural town of Painters Mill, Ohio, the Amish and “English” residents have lived side by side for two centuries. But sixteen years ago, a series of brutal murders shattered the peaceful farming community. In the aftermath of the violence, the town was left with a sense of fragility, a loss of innocence. Kate Burkholder, a young Amish girl, survived the terror of the Slaughterhouse Killer but came away from its brutality with the realization that she no longer belonged with the Amish.Now, a wealth of experience later, Kate has been asked to return to Painters Mill as Chief of Police. Her Amish roots and big city law enforcement background make her the perfect candidate. She’s certain she’s come to terms with her past—until the first body is discovered in a snowy field. Kate vows to stop the killer before he strikes again. But to do so, she must betray both her family and her Amish past—and expose a dark secret that could destroy her.

In this absorbing new entry in the acclaimed New York Times bestselling series, Scotland Yard’s Ian Rutledge is caught up in a twisted web of vengeance and murder. On the north coast of Cornwall, an apparent act of mercy is repaid by an arrest for murder. Four young women have been accused of the crime. A shocked father calls in a favor at the Home Office. Scotland Yard is asked to review the case. However, Inspector Ian Rutledge is not the first Inspector to reach the village. Following in the shoes of a dead man, he is told the case is all but closed. Even as it takes an unexpected personal turn, Rutledge will require all his skill to deal with the incensed families of the accused, the grieving parents of the victim, and local police eager to see these four women sent to the infamous Bodmin Gaol. Then why hasn’t the killing stopped? With no shred of evidence to clear the accused, Rutledge must plunge deep into the darkest secrets of a wild, beautiful and dangerous place if he is to find a killer who may—or may not—hold the key to their fate.

"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 new Blackbird Sisters mystery from the bestselling author of A Crazy Little Thing Called Death. Down-to-earth debutante Nora Blackbird is having a meltdown-and it isn't because of Philadelphia's heat wave, or an overdose at the city's Chocolate Festival. A noted Philly philanthropist has taken a swan dive from an office balcony-and Nora's friend Lexie stands accused of the murder. Then Nora's scheming parents reappear, sending all three Blackbird sisters into a panic. Now Nora must uncover the scandalous hijinks her parents are plotting-before she winds up taking all the heat and strangling her father with his own ascot.

The most dramatic installment yet in the Nero Award-winning Pentecost and Parker series, as Will scrambles to solve a shocking murder before Lillian takes the fall for the crime. NEW YORK CITY, 1947: Wealthy financier and ghoulish connoisseur of crime, Jessup Quincannon, is dead, and famed detective Lillian Pentecost is under arrest for his murder. Means, motive, and a mountain of evidence leave everyone believing she's guilty. Everyone, that is, except Willowjean "Will" Parker, who knows for a fact her boss is innocent. She just doesn't know if she can prove it. With Lillian locked away in the House of D--New York City's infamous women's prison--Will is left to root out the real killer. Was it a member of Quincannon's murder-obsessed Black Museum Club? Maybe it was his jilted lover? Or his beautiful, certainly-sociopathic bodyguard? And what about the mob hit-man who just happened to disappear after the shots were fired? With the city barreling toward the trial of the century, each day brings fresh headlines and hints of long-buried scandals from Lillian's past. Will is desperate to get her boss out from behind bars before her reputation is destroyed. Because the House of D is no kind place, especially for a woman with multiple sclerosis. Or one with so many enemies. Her health failing and being targeted by someone who wants her dead, Lillian needs to survive long enough to take the stand. With time running out on both sides of the prison walls, Will and Lillian must wager everything to uncover who put their thumb on the scales and a bullet in Quincannon's head. Before Lady Justice brings her sword down, ending Pentecost and Parker's adventures once and for all.

Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime's first book, the tenth volume in a set of omnibus editions presenting the complete run of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries. BLACK AS HE'S PAINTED Called in to help with security arrangements for a presidential reception at a London embassy, Chief Superintendent Alleyn ensures the house and grounds are stiff with police. Nevertheless, an assassin strikes, and Alleyn finds no shortage of help, from Special Branch to a tribal court - and a small black cat named Lucy Lockett... LAST DITCH Young Rickie Alleyn has come to the Channel Islands to write, but village life seems tedious - until he finds the stablehand in a ditch, dead from an unlucky jump. But Rickie notices something strange and his father, Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, is discreetly summoned to the scene, when Rickie disappears... GRAVE MISTAKE With two husbands dead, a daughter marrying the wrong man and a debilitating disease, it is no wonder that Sybil Foster took her own life. But Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn doesn't believe she was the type to kill herself - and he thinks someone else has made a very grave mistake...

In the charming town of Mayville Heights, librarian Kathleen Paulson and her two cats pounce on clues to catch a killer, in the eleventh installment of this New York Times bestselling series. Spring is coming to Mayville Heights, and Kathleen's brother, Ethan, has arrived in town with his band, The Flaming Gerbils. But not everything goes as scheduled when one of Ethan's bandmates gets into a fight with a man interested in investing in the town. When the businessman's body is later found, Ethan's friend is implicated in the crime. Kathleen wants to help her brother by solving the case, but she has no shortage of suspects from which to choose. Prior to his death, the investor was fighting like cats and dogs with lots of people. If this librarian wants more than a whisker's chance of solving the case, she will need to rely on her trusty feline sidekicks, Owen and Hercules.

"Diane Fallon has been working hard to put the past behind her, and she has established herself as the head of the River Trail Museum of Natural History. Late one night at the museum, Diane is shocked when terrified cries lead her to an injured man--a former coworker Diane recognizes from her time as a human rights activist in South America. Clutching a child's femur in his hands, he whispers to her, 'It was one of us--' and dies. Left with a body, a bone, and a cryptic message, Diane has to dig into her past with World Accord International--before the next human rights abused are hers."--P. [4] of cover.