Decorated For Murder

Seville, Indiana, has five traffic lights and one interior design firm: Designer Jeans, co-founded by Jean Hastings and her daughter, Jean Jr. Lately they’re finding that the keen eyes needed for plotting color schemes and tracking down flea-market treasures also come in handy for interpreting more sinister designs. Although Jean is a designing woman, her business is in a bit of a slump. So when a new interior design job from Dona Deville comes her way she’s delighted. Dona has inherited an abandoned country cottage and wants Jean to take it from plain old shabby to gorgeous shabby chic. But Jean's plans for hurricane lamps and hand-hooked rugs are shelved when she opens the front door and discovers the well-heeled shoes of Dona herself, who has unfortunately been sent to meet her maker. Now Jean must piece together a pattern of a different sort in order to catch a killer with designs on murder.

In this holiday yarn from the USA Today bestselling author of A Finely Knit Murder, all Izzy Chambers Perry wants for Christmas is to keep her brother out of jail.... In Sea Harbor, the holidays mean cozy fires, festive carols, and soft skeins of yarn waiting to become hats and sweaters and scarves. And this year, Izzy and the other Seaside Knitters are also knitting tiny ornaments to decorate a tree for the first annual tree-trimming contest. Their holiday cheer is multiplied when Izzy’s younger brother, Charlie Chambers, unexpectedly arrives to volunteer at a local clinic. He brings with him outspoken hitchhiker Amber Hanson, who is returning to Sea Harbor to claim an inheritance. She quickly reacquaints herself with the area—and forms an unlikely friendship with Charlie. But their bond is shattered when her body is found beneath the undecorated trees on the Harbor Green. Charlie is a suspect in the murder, so Izzy and her fellow Knitters step in to uncover the truth. Their journey takes them into Charlie’s past and tests their fierce love for him. But it’s only by peeling away long-buried secrets that they can hope to restore joy to the season and enjoy the shining lights of the newly decorated trees....

I had a job I didn't understand on a magazine I understood even less. The pay was okay, but I had no idea what I had to do to earn it. Did it include murder?

Two and a half weeks ago magazine crafts editor Anastasia Pollack arrived home to find Ira Pollack, her half-brother-in-law, had blinged out her home with enough Christmas lights to rival Rockefeller Center. Now he's crammed her small yard with enormous cavorting inflatable characters. She and photojournalist boyfriend (and possible spy) Zack Barnes pack up the unwanted lawn decorations to return to Ira. They arrive to find his yard the scene of an over-the-top Christmas extravaganza. His neighbors are not happy with the animatronics, laser light show, and blaring music creating traffic jams on their normally quiet street. One of them expresses his displeasure with his fists before running off.In the excitement, the deflated lawn ornaments are never returned to Ira. The next morning Anastasia once again heads to his house before work to drop them off. When she arrives, she discovers Ira's attacker dead in Santa's sleigh. Ira becomes the prime suspect in the man's murder and begs Anastasia to help clear his name. But Anastasia has promised her sons she'll keep her nose out of police business. What's a reluctant amateur sleuth to do?Christmas craft projects included.

Haley Farrell's life is back on track. Cleared of any involvement in the murder of her best friend, Haley has found loyal decorating clients and has taken over a successful auction house. Life is good--even if she does have to deal with good-looking but infuriating general contractor Dutch Merrill once again. But when another body is uncovered, it's clear that the death was no accident. What's worse, Dutch is implicated. Haley realizes it's up to her to help him prove his innocence. Can she clear him of the crime--and keep herself out of danger at the same time? Immediately engaging and full of humor and heart, the second book in the Deadly Décor Mystery series continues the fun and excitement readers found in Design on a Crime. They'll be dying for more from this fun series!

The “enormously entertaining” (The Wall Street Journal) account of a shocking 1897 murder mystery that “artfully re-create[s] the era, the crime, and the newspaper wars it touched off” (The New York Times) AN EDGAR NOMINEE FOR BEST FACT CRIME • “Fascinating . . . won’t disappoint readers in search of a book like Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City.”—The Washington Post On Long Island, a farmer finds a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys discover a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumble upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. The police are baffled: There are no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era’s most perplexing murder mystery. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus, as their rival newspapers the World and the Journal raced to solve the crime. What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial. The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale—a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that forever changed newspaper journalism.

U.S. Marine Sergeant John Groover is found dead at Washington Field the very morning he is to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Roosevelt. Did he die from the old wounds he suffered at Guadalcanal? Kate Fallon, who was organizing Groover's reception, doesn't believe it and sets out to reveal the secret Groover was hiding behind all his medals. (July)

Inspector Bobby Cash of the Chicago PD and his partner, Kodak, have investigated many a homicide in their combined years on the force, but nothing like the new serial killer on the scene called, "the BUTCHER" by the Chicago press. During his investigation he inherits not only money but an unexpected romance as well . This book does contain graphic language.