Recommendations based on "The Dangers of Candy Canes"

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...

Everyone knows Dr. Watson is Sherlock Holmes? right-hand man?so when he goes missing, it?s a shock. Even Sherlock hasn?t, well, the slightest clue as to where he could be. Enola is intrigued, but weary; she?s still hiding from her older brothers?and getting involved could be disastrous.But when a bizarre bouquet shows up at the Watson residence, full of convolvulus, hawthorn, and white poppies, Enola must act. She dons her most discerning disguise yet to find the sender?and quickly, for Enola knows the blossoms symbolize death!Hold your breath because Enola?s about to take it away. The stakes are higher and the mystery deeper than ever before in the third installment of this Edgar-award nominated, critically acclaimed series.

In this paperback reprint, a brutal murder draws nobleman Sebastian St. Cyr into the tangled web of the British royal court in this gripping historical mystery from the national bestselling author of Where the Dead Lie.London, 1814. As a cruel winter holds the city in its icy grip, the bloody body of a beautiful young musician is found half-buried in a snowdrift. Jane Ambrose's ties to Princess Charlotte, the only child of the Prince Regent and heir presumptive to the throne, panic the palace, which moves quickly to shut down any investigation into the death of the talented pianist. But Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, and his wife, Hero, refuse to allow Jane's murderer to escape justice.Untangling the secrets of Jane's world leads Sebastian into a maze of dangerous treachery where each player has his or her own unsavory agenda and no one can be trusted. As the Thames freezes over and the people of London pour onto the ice for a Frost Fair, Sebastian and Hero find their investigation circling back to the palace and building to a chilling crescendo of deceit and death . . .

"A refreshing and offbeat take on the female detective."--San Francisco ChronicleSPECIAL DELIVERYFor the first time in years, struggling freelance writer Liz Sullivan is headed home to Denver to visit her estranged family. No sooner does she arrive than her former husband's dead body is delivered to her father's front porch with a bullet between the eyes.Since Liz once tried to kill her violently abusive husband, the police assume she has finally succeeded. Her relatives are furious at this new disgrace, and only Liz's new, hard-won self-respect keeps her going, as she desperately tries to discover what vicious new shenanigans might have caused her ex's death--without causing her own. . . .

Hercule Poirot is vacationing on the Cornish coast when he meets Nick Buckly. Nick is the young and reckless mistress of End House, an imposing structure perched on the rocky cliffs of St. Loo.Poirot has taken a particular interest in the young woman who has recently narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just mere coincidences or a spate of bad luck. It seems all too clear to him that someone is trying to do away with poor Nick, but who? And, what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And, this time, Nick may not escape with her life.

Ellie Simons, an obese decorator, and her pornographer suitor, Bentley T. Haskell, will inherit her eccentric Uncle Merlin's estate if she can lose sixty-three pounds, he can write a book without smut, and they can find a hidden treasure

"Every Flavia de Luce novel is a reason to celebrate."--USA Today   ALAN BRADLEY, AUTHOR OF THE MOST AWARD-WINNING SERIES DEBUT OF ANY YEAR, RETURNS WITH ANOTHER IRRESISTIBLE FLAVIA DE LUCE NOVEL.   "[Alan] Bradley has created one of the most original, charming, devilishly creative and hilarious detectives of any age or any time."--Bookreporter   It's Christmastime, and Flavia de Luce--an eleven-year-old sleuth with a passion for chemistry--is tucked away in her laboratory, whipping up a concoction to ensnare Saint Nick. But she is soon distracted when a film crew arrives at Buckshaw, the de Luces' decaying English estate, to shoot a movie starring the famed Phyllis Wyvern. Amid a raging blizzard, the entire village of Bishop's Lacey gathers at Buckshaw to watch Wyvern perform, yet nobody is prepared for the evening's shocking conclusion: a body found strangled to death with a length of film. But who among the assembled guests would stage such a chilling scene? As the storm worsens and the list of suspects grows, Flavia must ferret out a killer hidden in plain sight. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Alan Bradley's Speaking from Among the Bones.   "[Flavia is] the most intrepid and charming adolescent chemist/detective/busybody in all of rural, post-World War II England."--The Seattle Times   "Quirky and delightful . . . Flavia is a classic literary character who manages to appeal to both young and old readers equally."--Wichita Falls Times Record News   "Bradley's plot twists and turns delightfully."--Fort Worth Star-Telegram   NAMED ONE OF THE BEST MYSTERIES OF THE YEAR BY THE SEATTLE TIMES

"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?"--

'Animal lovers will delight' Ann Granger on The Cat and the Corpse in the Old Barn 'A real treat . . . I loved it. Cats, dogs, murder and a credible and relatable heroine' Barbara Nadel on The Cat and the Corpse in the Old Barn Driving home from a ceramics evening class, Clarice Beech reflects on the absence of one of her students, Colin Compton-Smythe. Later, Emily, Colin's daughter, telephones to say her father has died during routine surgery. Distraught, Emily opens up to Clarice about his wretched childhood and the day five-year-old Colin returned home to discover Avril, his mother, gone. Colin never believed she would have left without him and had been trying to find out more about Avril's disappearance all those years ago. Clarice readily agrees to accompany Emily to Colin's funeral. On arriving at the stunning Victorian Gothic manor house, with Bellatrix, the majestic stone Siamese cat reposing at its entrance, Clarice soon becomes drawn into the fractious world of the Compton-Smythe family: Colin's argumentative father Ralph and his equally combative partner Tessa, their daughter, Dawn, being stalked by an ex-lover and, most unsettling of all, Ernestine, Ralph's emotionally unpredictable sister. And then there's Johnson, Ralph's menacing manservant. Clarice discovers the nearer she gets to the truth, the greater she is in danger as somebody is intent that the mystery of the missing wife should never be resolved.

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.