Bücher veröffentlicht von Level Best Books

For a decade, the Magic Box game store in Marysburg, Indiana, has hosted a twenty-four-hour gaming marathon as a fund-raiser for a local charity. Shockwaves go through the town when the newest marathon champion is strangled less than an hour after the event's conclusion. In the parking lot right behind the game store. Marysburg resident and record store owner Darcy Gaughan isn't convinced the police are correct then they label the murder a robbery gone wrong. When the Magic Box's owner asks her to look into the case, she finds not everybody believes in fair play, especially when gamer reputations are at stake.

Liza Johnson, at loose ends on summer break from teaching fifth grade, is drawn into intrigue when her 84-year-old neighbor, Mrs. Wilkens, insists that Ramona, Liza's former GED student, has been murdered. Everyone assumes Ramona, a recovering addict, died of an accidental or intentional overdose, but Mrs. Wilkens is out to prove them wrong. Liza is urged to act when the voice in her head of her twin sister Charlee, who died at age four, tells her, Help Mrs. Wilkens. Spurred by the irrepressible Mrs. Wilkens and Charlee, Liza finds herself embroiled in an investigation involving a failing church, a very ill pastor's wife, and a secret within the walls of the parish house. Adding to the intrigue, she becomes the begrudging caretaker of Goldie, Ramona's cat-the only witness to her death.

Layla Dolak blamed her sister Erika for destroying all of her hopes and dreams. Over the past several years, Layla was kicked out of college, had most of her possessions and all of her hair stolen from her, and was about to lose custody of her daughter. And Erika, in Layla's mind, was responsible for all of that. So when Erika died suddenly, Layla thought she might have a chance at the life she wanted again. That changed when Layla's young daughter, Juniper, accused her mother of murder. Juniper asked Nerissa Kaiming and Isaiah Funderburke, who provide support for children in crisis her school, for help, and the sleuthing duo started looking to see if there was any truth to the allegations. Nerissa and Funderburke usually work as a team, but this case sees them following different investigative pathways as they unearth long-buried family secrets that could potentially obliterate the remains of an already fractured family.

New York City private eye Nic Knuckles gets the call all private investigators live for: a mysterious client with money to burn who needs answers and needs them now. The job is simple. Fly to Kleinstadt, Indiana, and determine whether fifteen years ago, teenage murder victim Mindy Bauerman got justice, or if her classmate, Timmy Hanlon, had been wrongly convicted and wasting away in prison. Nic's analytic skills lack the rigor of a Sherlock Holmes, as memories of past romantic failures derail his thinking. But they all pale in comparison to the long-running emotional issues Nic has with his mother. He may not have a silky-smooth interrogation style, and more than one Nature documentary has informed his decision-making, but Nic's saving grace is a relentless drive to solve criminal mysteries and a soft spot for forgotten victims and their loved ones. As Nic himself would say, "I'm a big city private eye with a boatload of heartbreak, traversing the universe in pursuit of justice for the little guy."

When Phoenix probation officer Casey Carson goes to work, she expects naked people to answer doors, meth-addicted clients to hit on her, and angry judges to chew her out in court. After a routine home visit with a client, a Diablo gang member, goes horribly wrong, she knows she must watch her back. Even she must admit that a one-eyed, bad-ass, angry gangster and his crew gunning for her is a bit more than she was trained to handle. Casey has even more reason to fear Diablo when her cousin Hope goes missing, and it looks like their handiwork. With women vanishing at an alarming rate in the area, police treat Hope's disappearance as a priority. Still, Casey can't sit on the sidelines, even with her ex-husband leading the investigation. After she receives information that proves her suspicions about Diablo right, the gang will do anything to keep her from sharing it with police, even if that means taking her on a one-way trip to the desert.

It all begins at 6:10 a.m. on a Friday morning when Glen Brebeuf calls demanding answers. He had reported his former lover, Elizabeth MacDonald, missing the previous day and Detective Mike O'Shea finds himself cleaning up the mess some rookie had made of the initial call. Within hours, Mike takes over the investigation and is on the doorstep of the missing elderly woman's home, determining that Elizabeth MacDonald-Sibby Mac to her friends-is not missing. Sibby Mac has been murdered. In Man At The Door, the third in Desmond P. Ryan's Mike O'Shea Crime Fiction Series, Detective Mike O'Shea solves a homicide, juggles an increasingly complex personal life, and continues to hunt for the cop-killer who has remained at large for the past thirteen years. Whether as a stand-alone or as your next step in the Mike O'Shea Crime Fiction Series, Man At The Door will keep you reading far too late into the night following Detective Mike O'Shea through the twists and turns of a homicide investigation.

A cross between Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and a Cheers bartender, Sally Witherspoon, a fifty-something accountant turned biker-bar owner, loves solving puzzles. Up to now, she has focused on helping neighbors and friends find lost jewelry, lost pets, and lost loves. But when she finds her best friend and business partner, Bill Arnold, dead in a dumpster behind her bar on a Saturday night, she needs all her wits and grit to find out who did it. And she won't stop until she does.

Lauren and Kane each harbor a dark secret. One of them believes their secret is safely buried, but the other is very much aware their skeletons share the same closet. After Lauren experiences a traumatic assault, she returns to her small hometown of Lamington, Massachusetts. Finding a job in a local bookstore, she meets the charming Kane, a security consultant, and an immediate attraction sparks between the two. As their relationship develops, she puts her past behind her and looks forward to the future. When Lauren finds a box of Kane's hidden in the attic, long-buried memories are triggered. Faced with a discovery that makes her life a living nightmare and promises to destroy her hope of happiness, she takes matters into her own hands.

When Maddie McGuire finds herself tumbling over a cliff while hiking The Cotswold Way, she uncovers much more than ancient woods. Terrified by her shocking discovery, she returns to the safety of her international internship at the Roman Baths only to find competition in the form of the tittering, aristocratic Gwendolyn De Valence, who has captured the attention of everyone Maddie hopes to impress. Turning to her boyfriend Constable Edward Bailey, only reveals dark secrets about his past, leading her down a dangerous path which, this time, she may be unable to escape.

There are no lattes in jail. Décor diva, Sari-not-sorry Samson, a doting shih-tzu mom, loves her eclectic clients, coffee, and her bffs, though not necessarily in that order. Her meticulously organized life is turned upside down when the authority-shy interior decorator witnesses a suspect fleeing a murder scene. When Sari works up the nerve to report what she saw, a hard-nosed detective turns the tables and eyes her as a suspect. Mad as heck, and determined to prove her innocence, Sari steps way out of her comfort zone and dives into investigating the murder. Strange and sinister events shatter her peaceful existence, and against the advice of a madcap supporting cast-her granola-eating parents, her gbf, and her bff-Sari's tenacity gets the best of her. The suspects are many and the clues are piling up, but even Sari is shocked when she discovers the killer's identity. Get ready for snarky banter, fun flirtation, and an ensemble of quirky characters in this lighthearted Cozy Mystery.

Librarian Greta Plank is hard at work planning and preparing for Larkspur's Fall Festival and regional tourism showcase which, if successful, will be a boon to the local economy. But disaster strikes and chances of a positive review look slimmer than a periodical's spine when a series of pranks escalates and one of Larkspur's own is found dead the same day the reporter is set to arrive. Desperate to defend her town's character and get to the bottom of the circulating mayhem, Greta begins indexing suspects. Could the crimes be an outside job, undertaken by someone intent on harming the town's reputation? Or is someone closer to home trying to ruin Larkspur from the inside? With destruction of property, sabotage, and strange animal mishaps piling up on top of murder, Greta wouldn't recommend this 'choose your own (disastrous) adventure' to anyone. In the end, she must decide who she can trust so she can close the book on these crimes before the shadowy vandal authors another kill.

Penelope Sutherland is home for the holidays and looking forward to spending some quality time with her loved ones. She's also catering her first documentary, a history of the Vitrine Theater and the Big Apple Dancers, who put on the world famous Christmas Extravaganza each year in New York City. Penelope's best friend Arlena Madison is the director, and the granddaughter of one of the show's famous Snow Queens. But not everyone is in the holiday spirit. When one of the dancers mysteriously disappears then turns up dead right before opening night, it looks like Christmas might be cancelled. The police are at a loss to uncover who has it out for the theater company, so it's up to Penelope to cook up a plan to find out if the Vitrine is cursed or haunted by its past before the killer can strike again.

Penelope's life revolves around cooking and keeping her Red Carpet Catering business afloat, and she's just landed a hearty new job for her and her staff. Just when Penelope thinks life couldn't be sweeter, a panicked late-night phone call from Max, her best friend's brother, ends abruptly with shots fired on his end. The next morning, a handsome model and club promoter turns up dead, and when the police serve up Max as their main suspect, Penelope risks it all to prove his innocence (and find him before the police do). With her relationship as sturdy as a soup sandwich and her own life being threatened, it's up to Penelope to find the truth before anyone else is eighty-sixed.

Lights, Camera...Cook!Penelope Sutherland and her Red Carpet Catering company just got their big break as the on-set caterer for an upcoming blockbuster. But when she discovers a dead body outside her house, Penelope finds herself in hot water. Things start to boil over when serious accidents threaten the lives of the cast and crew. And when the film's star, who happens to be Penelope's best friend, is poisoned, the entire production is nearly shut down. Threats and accusations send Penelope out of the frying pan and into the fire as she struggles to keep her company afloat. Before Penelope can dish up dessert, she must find the killer, or she'll be the one served up on a silver platter.

Filming a movie on a sunny Florida beach may seem like working in paradise, but dealing with the brutal heat, a difficult director, and a leading lady with a serious aversion to seafood makes for a challenging task for Penelope Sutherland and her Red Carpet Catering crew. After two girls go missing during a raucous beach party thrown by the movie's director, the cast and crew fall out of favor with the Andrea Island locals. When an eccentric celebrity chef is accused of the crime, Penelope steps in to help her former culinary school instructor find the truth. Surrounded by suspicious locals with a history all their own, she uncovers clues from the past, revealing an undercurrent of evil amid the powdered-sugar sand of their beach.

After surviving a brazen attack at one of her favorite local cafes, Penelope Sutherland is ready to escape the big city and head to her next film set. She and her Red Carpet Catering crew set up their kitchen on location in the tranquil mountains of Vermont, but peace and quiet aren't on the menu. Things heat up when a series of accidents befall the celebrity tennis pro consulting on the film. Mixing in an uptight director, an isolated location, and a quirky bunch of locals with secrets of their own creates a recipe for disaster. After Penelope suspects a connection between the cafe attack and the incidents on set, she must uncover the truth before her goose gets cooked.

Small Town. Big Secrets. Penelope and her Red Carpet Catering crew find themselves transported to a different world when they get to their newest movie set in rural Indiana. Surrounded by prickly locals, a nervous director out to prove herself, and a vast forest with secrets all its own, Penelope feels more homesick for the big city than ever before. When she finds their host, owner of Indiana's newest culinary hotspot, dead of an apparent suicide, Penelope works to uncover the darker truths boiling beneath the surface of his seemingly perfect life. Asked to help keep the late chef's restaurant afloat, Penelope is fried trying to juggle two kitchens and a ravenous cast and crew. When the chef's suicide turns out to be murder, and the restaurant is vandalized in the middle of the night, Penelope must find out who is behind it all before she's the next one on the chopping block.

What would you do if you were planning to kill your brother-but someone beat you to it? After former Olympic contender turned burn-out horse trainer Cillian Clarke is framed for the murder of his identical twin Christopher, a rising-star Virginia politician, Cillian is forced to go on the lam. But when someone from Christopher's past emerges and offers Cillian the chance to clear his name, Cillian is plunged headfirst into a sinister conspiracy that not only threatens the sanctity of democracy, but also promises to expose the devastating secret¿intertwining the brothers forever-the truth behind the death of a woman they both loved.

When resting in peace isn't an option... Corrie Locke may not be the best rookie lawyer in town, but when it comes to catching a killer, she's got the skills to bring a band of shifty-eyed suspects to their knees. When the wealthy matriarch of the dysfunctional Means family dies in her sleep, the family is convinced her death was anything but peaceful. They hire Corrie to prove it, but the only evidence they have to go on is a psychic's half-baked vision that it was murder. To put the matter to rest, Corrie sets her sights on proving the psychic is a fraud. After all, everyone knows psychics are crack-pots, don't they? But what should be a simple investigation morphs into something deadly. The deeper Corrie digs, the more bizarre clues are revealed, and a possible witness is found dead. As tempers rise, it is up to Corrie to catch a killer...who's about to strike again.

Brilliant and beautiful art recovery expert, Emma Kelly, has her suspicions about all the sleepers showing up in the art market. Someone is amassing a fortune, but to what end? When she witnesses the murder of a renowned artist in a Washington, DC museum, and her husband, FBI Assistant Director in Charge, Elliott Baldwin, discharges his weapon in public to save her life, they are drawn into investigating a forgery ring. In the exciting second installment of the Big Picture Trilogy, The Canvas, the body count rises, culminating in a terror attack outside the walls of the Vatican. Emma unmasks her foe, but he's only getting started.¿ How long can she protect the greatest collection of art the world has ever known and her double life?

It's 1982, and everyone is trying to "Escape From New York." Terence Devine, a charismatic Vice cop with one eye on removing his family to Florida, is caught on tape taking money from a pimp. Forced to cooperate with the district attorney's investigation into his own unit, Devine's position becomes even more precarious when he's linked to the murder of a sex worker whose customers include some of the most powerful men in the city. Despite his fevered efforts to deflect the inquiry into the woman's death, Devine receives a life sentence for killing her. Forty years later his long-estranged daughter, Sheila, a documentary filmmaker, reaches out to him in prison. When they meet, Devine insists he's innocent. Sheila is reluctant to delve into her family's troubled history and ridicules her father's claims, although she sees the box-office potential in making a movie about him. But as she examines his case she starts to question his guilt, and the pointed questions she asks place her own life in danger. Public Morals is the story of people trying to right the wrongs of a world corrupted by power and greed. It is also about the elusive nature of justice and the difficulty of escaping the past, even when your life depends on doing just that.

In Killer in a Winter Wonderland, the much-anticipated holiday-themed fourth book in the Rosalie Hart Cozy Mystery Series, Wendy Sand Eckel once again brings the fictional town of Cardigan, Maryland to life and delights with suspense, humor, and mouth-watering menus. Holidays are fickle things - often good, but sometimes not so good. It's December in the quirky town of Cardigan, and Rosalie Hart has been thrown several curve balls. For one, her ex-husband has booked a semester break vacation to Dubai with their only daughter, Annie, leaving Rosalie alone for Christmas. And following a renovation, Rosalie's restaurant, the Day Lily Café, is open for business with an expanded dining room and a chef with an inflated ego. To make matters worse, when her head waiter and best friend Glenn Breckinridge is concerned about a neighbor who hadn't returned home, they learn he had been murdered while riding his bike on River Road. In the midst of the holiday hustle and bustle, Rosalie and Glenn pair up once again to uncover who killed Bill Rutherford on that raw wintry night. With delectable menus, high stakes sleuthing, and the rich atmospheric scenes only the holiday season can provide, Killer in a Winter Wonderland is a cornucopia of delicious fare, compelling new and returning characters, and a fast-paced tale that will keep one riveted to the last page.

When Hollywood comes to small-town Connecticut, it should be the stuff of dreams-but when a fading movie star ends up dead, a whole different kind of stuff hits the fan. Unity Historical Society head and antique household items-stuff!-expert Christian Shaw is on set when actor Brett Studebaker falls from the pulpit during a streaming service shoot in an old church. She, the "dads she should have had," Garrett and Ed, her son Henry, who has a photographic memory and Type-1 Diabetes, and her colorful friends end up helping Assistant State's Attorney Joe Poli track the killer. Along for the ride: her giant tuxedo cat, Cookie, Ed and Garrett's big red mutt, Norm, and Joe's tiny dog, Cannoli. Woodworking, embroidery, old poisons, and vintage weapons all figure in the case, which comes together in a wild scene at the Historical Society on Fourth-Grade Field Trip Day.

One brilliant spring morning, a woman named Carolyn Macgregor comes to Mike Ramsey's apartment with an astonishing announcement: she thinks she is his half-sister. Mike is skeptical at first, but eventually he comes to believe Carolyn's story-that his mother gave birth to her first child when she was only sixteen, and gave up her baby for adoption. When Carolyn begins searching for information about the father she never knew, she attracts the attention of some very dangerous people. She is beaten up and told to stop asking questions, and then she disappears. Mike feels obliged to find her. He soon realizes that his search for Carolyn is really a search for her father, a man who seems desperate to keep his identity secret. To save Carolyn, and himself, Mike must uncover that secret and learn the painful truth about what happened to his mother. While Mike struggles to cope with these events from the past, he faces a pressing problem in the present. His relationship with Marie Romaine has become tense and complicated. He knows he must do something about that before he loses the woman he loves.

Spend time in the Big Apple with your soon-to-be-favorite wise-cracking amateur sleuth, Melanie Deming, as she follows clues from glamorous Park Avenue mansions filled with super-rich moms to gritty soup kitchens. Snarky writer and health fanatic Melanie is shocked to find the body of her gorgeous co-worker. She's scared of every germ, yet she must have justice for her friend. A blue-eyed, hard-to-resist journalist wants Melanie for a screenplay and more. But she could lose her marriage and her life by stalking a killer who now stalks her. Killer Calories is filled with colorful characters, NYC scenes, and laugh-out-loud dialogue, yet the twists and turns will keep you guessing till the end.

Love is in the air when Hollywood arrives in Mermaid Bay, and the town may never be the same. Fans will do almost anything to get a glimpse of the actors or a chance to be an extra in the Love Channel's "My Coastal Valentine." Crowds flock to the cozy beach town from all over and business is booming for Christmas shop owner, Jade Hicks until the body of a testy reporter is found in one of the actors rooms. And if murder isn't bad enough, someone tries to kill the show's star, hunky Raphael Allard. The cozy little beach town feels cursed, as the Love Channel threatens to pull out of the project. Jade and the gang, Lorelei, Peppermint Patti, Bernie, Chloe, and Neville the Devil Cat, have to solve the crimes before it ruins the town's reputation and breaks the hearts of fans across the country.

Raising butterflies is peaceful and calm, until someone dies. Majestic Monarch Butterfly Farm might flitter away forever. That is, unless Seneca James acquires the property next door. She and Winifred, her costume-wearing cat, have a fight on their hands. Their land sits next to a milkweed-covered field, essential for monarchs. If she's unsuccessful in buying it, her precious, winged friends won't survive. When people end up dead on her farmland, Seneca is suspected of murder. What is it about the milkweed field that's worth killing for? And who's the murderer?

A quiet tree-lined street in New Orleans erupts in panic when the body of Sally Wilcox is discovered by her landlord. Sally had been stabbed, and she was clutching a kitchen knife in her hand at the time of her death. Later, police discover evidence at the scene which implicates Sally's son, Jeremy, in her murder. He was arrested the next day. Law school professor Emma Thornton is convinced by a friend to take Jeremy's case. She begins her investigation into Jeremy and his family and the facts surrounding the night of the murder. Layer after layer of family secrets slowly reveal themselves as the numbers of murders and kidnappings multiply. Holding the key to the killer's trail and the case's final resolution, Emma's success depends on whether she can maintain control over her own reckless impulses.

Lenore is a professional mourner with the unwanted gift of a peculiar variety of precognition. She spends her days pretending to grieve for strangers and her nights genuinely grieving her recently deceased boyfriend. When Lenore is hired to attend the funeral of wealthy businessman Elliott Brindle, she discovers that she not only is the sole attendee but that, as a result of a curious stipulation in the will, she is now the heir to his estate. Upon inspecting his open casket, she finds a small gold watch in his mouth, engraved with the name of his missing daughter, Riley. She discovers that her newly inherited house is filled with all manner of strange secrets, not least of which is the cryonically frozen corpse in the backyard shed. Her arrival at the house instigates an encounter with Brindle's former colleague, Csaba, who controls a cult of cryonics-obsessed aristocrats who want to find Brindle's long-lost daughter for a variety of bizarre and sinister reasons. Meanwhile, Lenore's brother Darius is working on the set of a mysterious film that seems to never finish production, and whose lead star has been invited to be the cult's spokesperson. Lenore and Darius soon cross paths with an alarmingly pallid young man named Orin, who is also trying to come to terms with a recent death; his own. As the threads of their stories bind together and the search for Riley continues, Lenore discovers that there is far more to the cult-and to Riley-than any of them could have guessed.

Shay appears to have the perfect marriage to Gideon Wells, Boston's most popular news anchor. But their lives are ripped apart when she is attacked outside the soup kitchen where she volunteers. Depressed and struggling to remember who assaulted her, Shay hires a new maid to help her around the house while she recovers from her injuries. But this new maid is not what she seems, and things go from bad to worse, causing Shay to revisit a painful childhood past that she's been desperately trying to forget.