Funny Suspense

Resourceful Bingo Riggs and his partner, Handsome Kusak, are in the sucker-bait business, snapping candid pics of tourists off Central Park. Their fly-by-night enterprise can be irresistible to souvenir lovers, but with one camera in a pawnshop and their developing room in the bathtub of a two-room dump near Hell’s Kitchen, their venture is wretchedly underexposed - until they stumble upon an insurance fraud scheme between the allegedly dead eccentric Mr. S. S. Pigeon and his business partner and beneficiary.

Lauren Crenshaw and her Norwegian Forest Cat Annie run their own certified cat cafe in the picturesque small town of Gold Leaf Valley, Northern California. Lauren's fun cousin Zoe helps out as well. Lauren, Annie, and Zoe are shocked when one of their favorite customers is poisoned. Steve came into the cafe nearly every day - but who wanted him dead? The trio find themselves suspecting their customers - even elderly Mrs. Finch, whom Lauren thinks of as a substitute grandmother, doesn't escape their scrutiny.

Mae West, a far cry from the Hollywood actress, has been thrown for a loop. Her plush lifestyle in the big city of New York comes to a screeching halt after the FBI raids her mansion and arrests her husband, Paul West, for a Ponzi scheme that rips people out of millions of dollars. Mae finds herself homeless, friendless, and penniless. All hope isn't lost... the only thing Mae got to keep that the government didn't seize is a tourist camp ground, Happy Trails, in Normal, Kentucky.

Meet Tommy Martini, the monk with an anger management problem. His meditations are interrupted by a legacy from his uncle, a crooked priest. Arriving in a New Age Arizona town to claim his inheritance, Brother Tommy meets a charismatic, smoking-hot cult leader who claims that women are being impregnated by alien beings while they sleep. Tommy’s own sleep is disturbed - by cartel hitmen, Mafia bill collectors, and women intrigued by his vow of chastity.

Jim Wekle's first day as a trooper on an island in Alaska could have gone better. It was raining, the coffee was bad, and within hours of stepping off the seaplane, he found a bikini-clad girl floating in a kelp bed. As Jim investigates who might have put the bullet in her back, he stumbles across a uniquely diverse and extraordinarily hilarious batch of island inhabitants. Puffing on his imported cigars, Jim soon learns that no one on the island is more unique, diverse, or hilarious than his unlikely counterpart: a man simply known as Kram.

On a desperate journey to recover her sister's lost soul, Valkyrie Cain goes up against the High Sanctuary itself, and there's nothing Skulduggery Pleasant can do to stop her.

If life in the Intelligence Service has taught John Bachelor anything, it's to keep his head down. Especially now, when he's living rent-free in a dead spook's flat. So he's not delighted to be woken at dawn by a pair of Regent's Park's heavies, looking for a client he's not seen in years. John doesn't know what secrets Benny Manors has stolen, but they're attracting the wrong attention. And if he's to save his own skin, not to mention safeguard his living arrangements, John has to find Benny before those secrets see the light.

When a freak accident hospitalizes Marty Golden's sister and condemns him to babysitter duty, he thinks it's just another case of hardwired bad luck in Silicon Valley. Until a suspicious murder suggests the mishap was no mere coincidence. Something must be done. Too bad this quirky, fashion-backward uncle isn't exactly hero material. Convinced his sister is in mortal danger, he follows clues to an oddball array of suspects. Armed with nothing but an eye for detail and powers of self-delusion, Marty tangles with gangsters, a cantankerous school secretary, and a perplexing woman.

The second in this hilarious cozy mystery series features a woman who is a talent agent for showbiz animals and discovers that she has a talent herself: solving crimes. Kay Powell, theatrical agent to non-human animals, is babysitting - that is, birdsitting - her client, a parrot named Barney, on the set of his new TV show, Dead City. When the show’s charismatic star is shot in his trailer between scenes, the only eyewitness to the crime is - you guessed it - Barney.

Twenty-nine-year-old Imogen Banks is hashtag struggling. After a disaster ends her career, destroys her home, and burns up all the money she’s saved to open her own bakery, she enters a baking contest for an all-or-nothing last-ditch chance at getting her life together. But when she arrives at the mysterious island off the coast of France, she discovers all the inhabitants of the quaint town are magical, and if she wins the contest, she’ll become the next royal baker at the castle on top of the hill. No worries that the last royal baker appears to have been murdered.

What do you get when you mix some albino terrier fur and sand from Alum Bay? Timothy Pinkerton knows, and he’ll do anything to get his grubby hands on more of what he needs for his secret formula. Anything, including hypnotising the town’s residents and stealing their homes.

Sherman Holmes has officially settled into his new city, and the World's Greatest Detective Agency has opened its doors. While his put-upon partner, Watson, would be happy to keep the jobs as simple as missing pets, when a worried worker with an outlandish tale of ghosts walks in, there's no stopping Sherman from taking the case. Now, the new duo must investigate a local "haunted" tourist site where the scares are going off-script and otherworldly interference is suspected.

On the longest night of 1895, a terrible storm rages above Harewood Hall. Max, Markham and an injured Peterson are welcomed in by the Harewood family but quickly realise that the gathering is far from celebratory. For tonight marks the Ordeal of the Haunted Room. Every Harewood heir must endure one terrifying night alone in the Haunted Room before he can inherit the family seat. Legend says that ghosts will murder anyone who isn't the true heir. Francis Harewood's ordeal will begin at midnight and end at dawn, but it isn't long before everything goes horribly wrong.

The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine is another mystifying manor-house stumper for Wodehousian bon-vivant and problem-solver Anty Boisjoly, when his clubmate asks him to determine who died first after a duel is fought in a locked room. The untold riches of the Tenpenny Tontine are in the balance, but the stakes only get higher when Anty determines that, duel or not, this was a case of murder.

Zack Walker is back, and much to his family's relief, the work-at-home science-fiction writer has left the house to take a job as a features writer for the city paper. But now that Zack's incessant plotting can no longer be hatched from the comforts of his own home, he must be ever more vigilant to outwit the evil at large, whether in the suburbs, the city, or his own imagination. Zack is ready - or so he thinks.

MEET LINDA. Linda lives a nice, normal life, on a nice, normal street with Terry, her perfectly ordinary husband. Linda’s not like everyone else, she keeps herself to herself. But she’s good at solving puzzles and there are times she sees things other people might have overlooked. Because nothing on Cavendish Avenue is quite as it seems. People have started to go missing in the neighbourhood and Linda will soon discover that some secrets can’t stay buried forever…

Sixteen delightful holiday short stories by some of your favorite Soho crime authors! This captivating collection of short mysteries and crime capers - which features New York Times best-selling authors, Crime Writers Association Gold and Diamond Dagger winners, and Edgar Award nominees - contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season.

The Bobton-Trent seniors certainly know how to make the most of their extravagant wealth - socialising, doing things, buying things and generally being more than a little bit...irresponsible.... Luckily for them, their son, Hubert Horatio, is an exceptionally intelligent, talented and sensible child. Unluckily for Hubert, this tends to mean that a lot of his spare time is spent steering his rather unruly set of grown-ups out of trouble.

If you like quirky characters, lots of twists and turns in your mysteries, and a whole lot of fun, then The Witch Squad is for you! Included in this collection are the first three books: The Witch Squad, Son of a Witch, and Witch Degrees of Separation.

After years spent working the birthday party and baby shower circuit, Anastasia Winters finally has a corner office and a host of supernatural clients all begging her to plan their special day. But following a brush of bad luck, she finds herself on the brink of losing it all. With an ultimatum from her boss on the table, she knows her next wedding has to be perfect. When the vampy mother of the groom is found dead, the bride goes on the run, and Anastasia is forced head-first into the murder investigation if she has any chance of getting the wedding back on track and keeping her job.