It is the middle of the night ...The road is deserted ...A killer is waiting ...

Two traffic officers are killed on an isolated mountain pass in North Wales. Inspector Drake is called to the scene and quickly discovers a message left by the killer - traffic cones in the shape of a No 4.

The killer starts sending the Wales Police Service lyrics from famous rock songs. Are they messages or is there some hidden meaning in them?

Does it all mean more killings are likely? When a politician is killed Drake has his answer. And then the killer sends more song lyrics. Now Drake has to face the possibility of more deaths but with numbers dominating the case Drake has to face his own rituals and obsessions.

Finally when the killer threatens Drake and his family he faces his greatest challenge in finding the killer before he strikes again.

Halloween Hijinks: Amid a backdrop of zombies on the run and Halloween festivities, animal control officer Zoe Donovan is faced with losing something she loves in order to save someone she loves when she finds a dead body in the basement of a haunted house just two days before Halloween. With the help of her best friends, Levi and Ellie, and her dog Charlie, she delves into a mystery as complex and multilayered as the feelings she develops for her ex-nemesis Zak Zimmerman. Halloween Hijinks is the perfect recipe, combining holiday fun with a touch of humor, a pinch of romance, and a dollop of murder.

Zoe's Treasure Hunt: Zoe and Charlie meet a mysterious stranger at the hospital while doing therapy dog rounds. The man is in town to look for a 70 year old treasure. When he is unable to continue the journey into the past himself, Zoe and Charlie take over the quest with the help of Pappy and a few of his friends.

A UNIQUE MYSTERY. "Brilliant, engaging twist."—Kirkus Reviews.

NEW YORK. A third unexplained, passion-driven homicide. Their only link is that smell! —Eric Foster, a young scent specialist, is called in by the NYPD to assist with the investigation but ends up the prime suspect for these murders. Eric enlists help from Tanya, a forensic chemist, to prove his innocence. Their quest takes them to Yemen and France and into the dark underbelly of the world of perfumery.

Ebenezer Falls, Washington...a sleepy burg or murder central?

The game is afoot...as amateur sleuth Stevie Cartwright plunges head first into a murder investigation. With twists, turns, and suspects aplenty, this one will keep you guessing from start to finish.

USA Today bestselling cozy mystery author Dakota Cassidy serves up mayhem and murder in Witch Slapped, Book 1 of her series, Witchless In Seattle Mysteries.

"Oh, good. Not a problem. I'll invoke the Gods of Pilates. I'm sure they'd be happy to help. Hang on just one sec while I dial them up. Oh, wait. I can't. Know why I can't? Because my hands are tied behind my back with zip ties, Win!"

A rib-tickling cozy mystery complete with an ex-witch, a dead British spy, a cotton ball bat, and a cast of suspects that will keep you guessing right up to the end! Join the hunt for a murderer with Stevie, Winterbottom, and Belfry, in a race against time as the local police prepare an eight by ten cell for our intrepid ex-witch.

What's a girl to do when she's a broke, shunned ex-witch with a very tiny, very hungry bat familiar named Belfry to feed?

Hello. My name is Stevie Cartwright, and I've been witchless for thirty days.

If only there was a support group for down-on-their-luck ex-witches who've had their powers slapped right out of them (literally). Just as I was licking my wounds after returning to my hometown of Ebenezer Falls, WA, and navigating my suddenly non-magical existence with the help of my familiar, the only friend I have left in the world—things got sticky.

Enter an ex-spy and newly departed spirit named Winterbottom, who's infiltrated my life with his sexy British accent and a couple of requests...

Thanks to Belfry's successful attempt to use me as a human antenna to the afterlife, I can somehow hear Win. I should be ecstatic; helping departed souls used to be my witch specialty. It's like I got the teensiest piece of my old life back. Except Win's dropped me right at a dead woman's feet.

Madam Zoltar, the town's beloved fake medium, has been murdered, and Win wants me to catch the killer.

My old life won't be worth much if it gets me whacked before my new life has barely begun--and that seems to be exactly what the killer has planned!

This cozy mystery has a complete cast of oddball characters from witches to ghosts and bats to psychics. Witchless In Seattle Mysteries is a spin-off of Dakota Cassidy's bestselling paranormal romance series, A Paris, Texas Romance.

Another puzzling, fiendishly complicated mystery for Inspector Cullot and his world-famous Team to solve… Can the Inspector, together with Sergeant Watkins and Cullot’s gorgeous daughter Stephanie, solve the mystery of the corpse that disappeared? Such a mind-boggling mystery is soon followed by a whole series of disappearing corpses being reported all over London… And, worst of all, is the fourth member of Scotland Yard’s top-notch Team, namely the bumbling, bemused PC Blunt, the actual murderer? Is the love of Cullot’s life, the still stunningly attractive ex-movie star Joan Butler, somehow involved? And what’s the role, if any, of Lord Fotheringay, Stephanie’s latest lover, in the whole affair? Cullot and his elite Murder Squad embark on one of the most baffling cases they have ever met in their pursuit of a horde of suspects, clues and disappearing corpses across London, leading them into direct confrontation with one of the most ruthless gangs the world has ever known, as well as a collection of the sexiest and most jaw-droppingly appealing women imaginable, and the swankiest, most fashionable habitations in the land…until a bloody and violent finale in a luxury country house… Oh, and of course…as always, the chase is accompanied by the wit and sparkling repartee the world’s greatest detective and subordinates bring to all their cases. And what about Sergeant Watkins’s red-hot love for Stephanie, Cullot’s beautiful and outrageously provocative daughter? Will there be a successful conclusion to his tormented passion? Read on, if you can take the thrills, the twists, the laughs and the inimitable panache of yet another case in the breath-taking annals of the world’s most famous detective.

Halloween - parties, costumes, decorations, pranks and . . . murder? Annie Fisher and her friends at the Black Cat Café are right in on all the town’s Halloween excitement with everyone competing for the best couples costume award.

But when a man turns up dead, a real-life Halloween murder comes to Catfish Cove. With Annie’s friend as the main suspect, she finds herself caught up in the whirlwind of sorting through stories, alibis, and new suspects. When loyalties change and true identities are revealed, Annie isn’t sure what is true or who is lying.

With each new twist and turn, Annie tries to stay one step ahead of the killer so she can clear her friend’s name and stay safe herself. As time ticks away and she gets closer and closer to the truth, she begins to question her own mortality. Who can she believe? And more importantly, who can she trust with her life?

***PoisonBuried Punch is approx. 300 pages and is volume 6 in the Black Cat Cafe Cozy Mystery Series. Lyndsey’s books can be read and enjoyed in any order.

It's Christmas. 1929. Los Angeles. John Devin, ex-Marine and current PI, sits at his bar stool nursing a whisky and cracked ribs. Then a buddy walks in. Out of the blue. Like fate brought him in. The buddy’s request: keep him alive until he sells a certain diamond. But that diamond leads Devin on a chase through LA that eventually leads to Chinatown and the leader of its underworld, a man with a hidden secret. Sometimes people are brought together for a reason. And sometimes that reason, is to die.

If you like your detectives hard-boiled and with attitude, with a strong sense of right, and characters you want to spend time with, grab "Red Is For Blood." Then join Devin as he solves his way through the amazing 1930s - the most dangerous, glittering, low-life time in Los Angeles’ crime filled history.

*** For a limited time, you can get TWO short stories, including an exclusive Kempston Hardwick story for free — go to this website to find out more > adamcroft.net/vip-club (just copy and paste into your browser) ***

Charlie Sparks brought a whole new meaning to dying on stage...

Charlie Sparks had it all. A former primetime television personality, his outdated style has seen him relegated to the scrapheap.

When he collapses and dies during a stand-up routine at a local pub, mysterious bystander Kempston Hardwick is compelled to investigate his suspicious death.

As Hardwick begins to unravel the mystery, he quickly comes to realise that Charlie Sparks's death throws up more peculiar questions than answers.

The first Kempston Hardwick mystery

Exit Stage Left has been adapted as a radio play, starring Robert Daws (The Royal, Jeeves & Wooster, Outside Edge), Emily Atack (The Inbetweeners) and Ted Robbins (Phoenix Nights, Little Britain).


"Adam Croft is one of the best new writers in Britain." - Stephen Leather

Do you ever wonder where the line is between dark and light? Do you believe the brightest light can be pulled into the depths of darkness? Do you believe that the blackest soul can find their way into the light?

It took Detective Paul Sutton exactly eleven days to know that retirement wasn’t going to work out for him. Only eleven days to realize that he could not put his last case, the only case of his career that he was unable to solve, down. Watching it grow cold and forgotten by everyone except himself and the deceased’s husband, Sutton fought hard against the urge to work it on his own. He thought he could let it go, but he was wrong, dead wrong. Now, back on the job as a Cold Case Detective, Sutton is given another chance to solve the case that has tormented him for two years.

Kali Hanson is dealing with a special type of torment as she attempts to navigate a tangled web of deceit where the monsters wear masks of light and the darkness lurking inside a person is impossible to recognize from the outside. How does a girl who has everything going for her find herself in the middle of a deadly puzzle, forced to witness those she loves most commit acts of ultimate betrayal - a puzzle where boundaries blur and the difference between truth and lies is indiscernible?

Sutton is in a race against the clock to find a missing girl who may be the key. He will put it all on the line to make sure this monster doesn’t get a chance to kill again. Will he be too late, and is a physical death the only death one can suffer? Even if he saves her, will her life ever be the same?

An anonymous tip leads DCI Morton to a detached house in Richmond where he finds the body of Ellis DeLange, celebrity photographer and socialite extraordinaire.

Morton must investigate the details of Ellis' private life while keeping the baying mob of journalists out front away from the investigation, dealing with Ellis' highly secretive celebrity friends and trying to answer the one question that keeps on nagging at him: who called in the anonymous tip?

The investigation takes a bizarre turn when a key witness reveals she saw a man fleeing from the crime scene in the dead of night - without any clothes on.

Smart-mouthed food writer Trudi Wells loves her new life in Europe. But after witnessing the death of her elderly landlady, Trudi knows that it couldn't have been an accident — despite what the police claim. Can Trudi figure out what really happened to the owner of Prague’s most famous spice shop?

"Murder and Pestle" is a clean cozy mystery, set in Europe. It is the follow-up to the clean cozy mystery "Knife Skills," set in California.

The Owl & Raccoon series combines the raw cop talk of police thrillers with locked room puzzles designed to delight mystery buffs. Now readers can get the first three novellas in the series, combined in one boxed set.

In Owl & Raccoon 1: The Single Staircase, a baby disappears from a third-floor nursery while her parents sit just a few feet away. In Owl & Raccoon 2: WDYG, Owl & Raccoon race to learn how a teenage girl could have gone missing from a mall restroom while her friends wait just outside the door. And in Owl & Raccoon 3: Not With A Bang, a hostage vanishes from a bus completely surrounded by a SWAT team. 

At the heart of these three novellas, you'll find Owl & Raccoon themselves. Two quiet, competent men whose frustration and cynicism only barely hides an icy resolve to bring missing children home.

The Owl and Raccoon mysteries are one of the most innovative things going in American crime fiction. They'll delight fans of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly alike. And this boxed set is the perfect way to get the whole series of mysteries in one place.

New Orleans pastry chef Rita Lucero is out to bake her way to the top. But when she finds her almost-ex-husband killed with a chef's knife in his back, she becomes suspect number one. Now it's up to her to find the real killer before she winds up as the next victim served.

Ron Ketchum saw his share of the dark side of life as a cop in Los Angeles. Then he left L.A. to become the chief of police in the Sierra Nevada resort town of Goldstrike. One sunny morning in the mountains, though, he comes upon a crime unlike anything he’s ever seen before.

He finds the body of an African American man nailed to a tree.

The victim is a highly respected minister, and his father is the nationally known televangelist Jimmy Thunder. Ron, on the other hand, has described himself in court as a recovering bigot.

Goldstrike’s mayor for life and movie icon, Clay Steadman, wants Ron to catch the killer fast. Adding to the pressure, the victim’s grandmother comes to town. She tells the media mob that has descended on Goldstrike that God will curse the town until the killer is caught.

That’s when a rogue mountain lion begins attacking people. At first, the attacks happen on the wilderness outskirts of Goldstrike. Then the predator moves into town, leaping a fence into a family’s backyard. Finally, it turns the tables on one of the hunters sent out to bring it down.

Looking for a killer, hunting a lion and defending his own integrity — makes being a cop in L.A. seem like the good old days.

On a crisp, fall night, Serena Westwood wakes to the faint stirs of her crying baby. Bottle in hand, she tiptoes to the other side of the house, sneaks up to the crib, looks in. A wave of panic grips her as her real nightmare begins. Inside the crib, there is no baby.

Wynter Evans is a promising young reporter for a television station in St. Louis, but even a bright future doesn't take away her pain over the disappearance of her brother nine years ago. So when she stumbles across a photograph of a boy with an eerie resemblance to him, she can't pass up the chance to track him down. With research for work as her cover, she sets out with one of the station's photogs for the place where the picture was taken: the town of Sanctuary.

Almost as soon as she arrives, she meets the town's handsome young mayor, Rueben King, and together they begin to uncover long held secrets that could tear the small town apart and change everything Wynter thought she knew about her life. As the truth of her family's past hides in the shadows, it's clear someone will stop at nothing to keep the answers she's searching for hidden forever--even if the cost is Wynter's very life.

From Publishers Weekly Starred Review:

The bill for lies told decades earlier comes due for Kate Cranbrook, the complex narrator of Buhmann’s superior debut. In 1986, while Kate was a college student at Sweet Briar in western Virginia, she was raped and witnessed a murder. Kate’s eyewitness testimony convicts a man who’s released more than 20 years later based on DNA evidence. The development isn’t a complete surprise to Kate, who has lived with the knowledge that she perjured herself. Her life since the trial has been a disappointment, and her social life is limited by her possessive and creepy father, Pop, who keeps her on a tight leash. That constraint becomes even more difficult to bear when Kate, who works as a landscaper, falls for a gardener, Tony, and hopes she has found the love of her life. Things don’t go smoothly, and more blood is shed along the way to a jaw-dropping, but logical, climax that will make veteran mystery readers eager for more of Buhmann’s work.

Big Al's Books & Pals 2014 Readers' Choice Awards: Mystery Nominee

Twenty years ago, Kate Cranbrook’s eyewitness testimony sent the wrong man to prison for rape and murder. When new evidence exonerates him, Kate says that in the darkness and confusion, she must have mistaken her attacker’s identity.

She is lying.

Kate would like nothing better than to turn her back on the past, but she is trapped in a stand-off with the real killer. When a body turns up on her doorstep, she resorts to desperate measures to free herself once and for all from a secret that is ruining her life.

Little Italy, 1946 - Sophia Mancini would have enjoyed the grand opening celebration of her family’s private detective agency if the volatile chef at Vincenzo’s Ristorante had actually survived the meal. But before Sophia’s chilled spoon hit the spumoni, someone plunged a knife into Vincenzo’s back and the word on everyone’s lips went from mangia to murder.

Sophia soon finds herself trailing crime boss Frankie Vidoni, chatting with his mouthy mistress Maria, and dodging henchman Mooch DiMuccio. She’s suspicious of Vincenzo’s widow, Stella, and his assistant chef, Eugene, because they don’t appear the least bit dismayed by Vincenzo’s passing. There is no conversation Sophia won’t eavesdrop on, no question she won’t ask, and no danger she won’t face to find the killer.

Four magical sisters. Three twisty mysteries. And a cat that's too smart for her own good.

This set contains books 1-3 in the Blackmoore Sisters Cozy Mystery Series: Dead Wrong, Dead & Buried and Dead Tide

Dead Wrong

**** Nominated Best Mystery Romance in the 2014 Indie Romance Convention Awards ****

There’s more than one secret in the old Blackmoore house. Some have been buried for a long time and some are sitting closer to the surface.

Morgan and Fiona Blackmoore enjoy their simple life in the sleepy ocean-side town of Noquitt Maine where they offer herbal remedies and crystal healing for locals and tourists alike.

...Until Morgan is accused of killing the town shrew, Prudence Littlefield.

Suddenly the girls find themselves scrambling to find the real killer while they battle a crooked Sheriff, planted evidence, and a long list of suspects that all had a reason to want Prudence dead.

Handsome Jake Cooper is new to the Noquitt Maine police force, which is exactly why Fiona Blackmoore doesn't trust him. But with time running out and the evidence against her sister piling up, Fiona has to make a choice - will she trust Jake with her sisters case ... and her own heart?

Add in an old mansion on the cliffs of Maine, an attic full of mysterious treasures, and a cat that has the uncanny ability to show up at exactly the right time and Fiona has her hands full proving the Sheriff's accusations about her sister being a murderer are Dead Wrong.

Dead & Buried

Summers in the seaside town of Noquit Maine are quiet and relaxing ... unless you find a mysterious dead body, a hunky ex-boyfriend shows up and you start getting instructions from ghostly relatives.

That’s exactly what happens to Morgan Blackmoore.

Suddenly, she finds herself in a race against time as she’s launched into a dangerous treasure hunt that pits her against modern day pirates who think she has the key to a three hundred year old secret.

To complicate matters even more, one of her sisters keeps talking to the ghost of their dead grandmother, another has crystals with unusually powerful healing properties and her cat has an uncanny habit of showing up in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

Not to mention that her ex-boyfried, Luke Hunter, suddenly shows up in town after ten years of being overseas and claims to want to help her fight off these deadly pirates, but Morgan finds herself fighting her attraction to him instead.

Will Morgan outwit the treasure hunters and find the real killer before Sheriff Overton puts her in jail?

Dead Tide

For three hundred years, the Blackmoore house has harbored a valuable secret …

The Blackmoore sisters learn about this secret from the dying lips of the historian they hired to decipher their centuries old family journal. Too bad he never gets the chance to tell them exactly what he has uncovered...or where to find it.

But someone else knows where to find it, and they are prepared to take it from the Blackmoore’s no matter what the cost.

The sister’s are forced to put their newly discovered paranormal powers to the test as they fight off treasure stealing pirates in between figuring out clues from ghosts, decoding an old journal, finding their way through an underground maze and dodging quicksand, bottomless pits and whirlpools.

Oh, and did I mention the dark and mysterious stranger that keeps showing up--is he friend or foe?

Of course, their trusty cat, Belladonna is around to give them a helping hand when they need it ... and she has a secret of her own.

Will the Blackmoore sisters be able to figure out where the treasure is and get to it before the dead tide turns and hides it for another three hundred years?

Robert Tracy is spirited away from his own execution. A top-secret government project makes him an offer he can't refuse: work for us or disappear permanently. With no choice, he embarks on a mission to undo a terrorist attack that has already occurred, by being sent back in time 36 hours.

But all is not as it seems. Soon, a conspiracy at the highest level of government to seize total power over the country threatens the second chance at life he has been given. Not knowing whom he can trust, he must fight to save himself, as well as a woman in the past who was drawn into the battle for the very survival of the country.

Spanning both time, and the width of America, 36 is a unique thrill ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

36 is the new, action adventure thriller from Dirk Patton, the best selling author of the V Plague series. Readers and critics are blown away:

"I was hooked from the very beginning. It's rare to get so involved in a book that you are rooting for certain characters, and praying that others get the bullet they deserve."

"As someone who reads roughly 16 books a month, I feel I am a pretty good judge of writing both classics and new authors....Mr. Patton is one of the best I have seen in many years.....don't miss this one and be ready for the next one in his other series."

"A real page turner that has some great twists. Dirk Patton has shown he can write a Stephen King sized novel with great detail, yet still keep it fast paced and engaging. There are real layers to this story. It is not just how the main character changes the past but how much he, and his situation, evolve in the same timeframe."

"36 has the most interesting and complex angle to time travel ever. Saved from his own execution, given a new identity, trained, and sent back in time 36 hours to thwart terrorist attacks, all is going well until he is sent on his latest mission. Forced to question the motives of the people who send him, he has to quickly separate the good guys from those who are trying to destabilize the country. A well written book, as are all of Dirk Patton's VPLAGUE series books."

"36 is just as spellbinding as the Plague series - time travel, government conspiracy intrigue, beautiful girls, guns - what's not to like ! Loved the characters and the multiple story lines."

"I didn't think Mr. Patton could give me a character I love nearly as much as John Chase, but he did!! I was hooked on '36' from page one. Robert Tracy is a relatable guy and you really feel for the situations he's thrust into throughout the book. I love the sci-fi part of it as well (being a self proclaimed nerd and proud of it!) and though there were hints at some pretty complex physics principals it was easy to understand (and even, believe..?) and engaging."