Claire Malloy mysteries
She would have killed for a bestseller—but someone beat her to it...
Professor of Passion, the smutty new romance from Mildred Twiller—a.k.a. Azalea Twilight—isn't the kind of book Claire Malloy likes to hock at her bookstore, but Claire agrees to host a book party for her friend's trashy tale. As torrid as the novel is, it's nothing compared to the evening. After the party, poor Mildred is found dead in her home—stranged
When you make a game of murder, be careful who the players are...
Who could resist the mock-murder weekend at the charming Mimosa Inn— certainly not bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy, who decides to bring her petulant daughter Caron along for some detecting. As the guests settle in for a weekend of sleuthing, dressed as their favorite literary detectives, many a Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot stand poised to solve a murder.
Agatha Award-winning author Joan Hess, the prolific creator of the Claire Malloy and Maggody mysteries, is beloved for her clever sleuths, quirky characters, and her ingenious plotting. We invite you to enjoy this delightful Claire Malloy mystery, and to discover why Sharyn McCrumb calls Joan Hess "the patron saint of comic mystery."
At Farberville High, it's reading, writing...and murder.
Who knows what evil lurks in the halls of Farbervilles'
When Claire Malloy's best friend Luanne Bradshaw goes down with a badly sprained ankle, someone must fill in her shoes as Thurberfest beauty Pageant coordinator and usher a bevy of aspiring beauty queen through the two-day event. Enter Claire Malloy to the rescue. But this is one job Claire would gladly be fired from. Now, already fending off a hostile theater owner, and overly-agressive personal trainer, an incontinent show-dog, a fifteen-year-old
...Claire Malloy believes there is just one thing better than chocolate...and it's not jumping a round in an aerobics class. Nonetheless, she gets roped into accompanying a chubby heiress named Maribeth to Faberville, Arkansas's hottest new fitness center. Personally, Claire thinks the best way for Maribeth to lose 160 unnecessary pounds would be to dump her abusive husband. But while Claire's teenage daughter Caron unsuccessfully tries every fad
...Murder is going to the dogs. . .
Bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy has donned another hat (or is that a collar?)-as a petsitter extraordinaire. Her furry charges are Miss Emily Parchester's beloved basset hounds, Nick and Nora, and two very good dogs they are. Everything is just ducky...until they vanish. Other neighbors' pets have also disappeared, and no doubt a dognapper is on the prowl. . .
Switching to her sleuthing chapeau,
Things that go bump in the Bayou...
For bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy getting a root canal beats going to a Malloy family reunion. But it is time her fifteen-year-old daughter Caron visits her deceased father's relatives. Now Claire and Caron have arrived at Malloy Manor, a run-down mansion in Louisiana's bayou country...where the mosquitoes are big enough to barbecue, the swamp is crawling with alligators, the butler looks like
Claire Malloy loves her life. But how did it go by so fast? A bookstore owner, part-time sleuth, and full-time single mother, Claire is about to turn the big four-oh! Good thing her teenage daughter, Caron, has just been recruited by the Kappa Theta Eta girls—whose sorority house is next door to the Malloys'—to be a consultant for the cosmetics empire My Beautiful Self, Inc. At the very least, Claire can get a little help with those
...Murder is no laughing matter—especially when it comes to marriage. So before Luanne gets in too deep with her new flame, a dentist named Dick, she'd like her best friend to do a background check. Did Dick murder his two previous wives? That's what Arkansas bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy intends to discover...
Everything Claire turns up on this would-be blue-beard keeps leading her down a slippery slope. The police are determined
10. Busy bodies
At first it seems like a prank. How could Veronica Landonwood be the voice on the other end of the phone when she died three decades ago? But as Arkansas bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy is about to find out, her cousin "Ronnie" is very much alive—and in trouble. And could use Claire's help...
Today, Ronnie is a renowned scientist living in Chicago. But when she was a teenager, she had a run-in with a famous Hollywood producer
THE GIFT THAT GIVES ON GIVING. . .
With Farberville's college on holiday break, Claire Malloy's bookstore is quiet . . . deadly quiet. Breaking the silence is a little old lady looking for volumes on pagan rituals, applied magick, and Celtic mysticism. Claire is intrigued and—miffed that her lover, Farberville police Lieutenant Peter Rosen, says she's in a rut—happily accepts an invitation to welcome the winter solstice at
Farberville, Arkansas is playing host to its first ever mystery convention. Sponsored by the Thurber Farber Foundation and held at Farber College, Murder Comes to Campus is playing host to five major mystery writers representing all areas of the field. Dragooned into running the show when the original organizer is hospitalized, local bookseller Claire Malloy finds herself in the midst of a barely controlled disaster. Not only do each of the writers
...Farberville, Arkansas is normally a quiet college town, where bookseller Claire Malloy tends her small store and raises her somewhat dramatic teenage daughter Caron. But this week, it's gone a bit out of control. A local group of activists calling themselves the Farberville Green Party is protesting a developer's plan to remove a copse of trees by having retired schoolteacher Miss Emily Parchester camp out in one of them while chained to it by
...15. The Goodbye Body
Claire Malloy runs a bookstore in the normally quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas - an enterprise which provides the verging-on-meager living for her and her deeply sarcastic teenage daughter Caron. So when emergency work forces Claire and Caron to abandon their apartment for a few weeks, they are in no financial position to put themselves up in style and Claire is thrilled to accept a customer's offer to let them stay at her well-stocked,
...A Renaissance Fair is coming to the relatively quiet college town of Farberville Arkansas, which is not the sort of news that usually sets local bookseller Claire Malloy's heart racing. But with Caron, Claire's perpetually petulant teenage daughter, being pulled into volunteering (or face the horror of doing homework over the summer) and her fiancé, Police Lieutenant Peter Rosen, away, Claire finds herself drawn into the strange inner workings
...17. Mummy Dearest
After a somewhat long and, at times, strange courtship, Claire Malloy — a single, widowed mother of a teenage daughter and a bookseller in Farberville, Arkansas - has finally said 'I do' to her swain, Lt. Peter Rosen of the Farberville Police Department. Now they are on their honeymoon in Luxor, Egypt. Well, Claire is on her honeymoon - accompanied by Caron, her teenaged daughter, and Inez, Caron's best friend and frequent partner in adventure.
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