Murder on Bamboo Lane : An Officer Ellie Rush Mystery
Berkley Prime Crime
April 2014
304 pages paperback
$7.99
Trouble awaits rookie LAPD Officer Ellie Rush as she patrols the mean streets of Los Angeles on her bicycle…
Bike cop Ellie Rush dreams of becoming a homicide detective, but it’s still a shock when the first dead body she encounters on the job is that of a former college classmate.
At the behest of her Aunt Cheryl, the highest-ranking Asian-American officer in the LAPD (a source of pride for Ellie’s grandmother, but annoyance to her mom), Ellie becomes tangled in the investigation of the coed’s murder—with equal parts help and hindrance from her nosy best friend, her over-involved ex-boyfriend, a smoldering detective, and seemingly everyone else in her extended family…only to uncover secrets that a killer may go to any lengths to ensure stay hidden.
Bloom and Doom
By Beverly Allen
A Bridal Bouquet Shop Mystery #1
Berkley Prime Crime,
April 2014
304 pages paperback
$7.99
As the co-owner of The Rose in Bloom, Audrey Bloom creates magnificent flower arrangements for brides to be. Though helping to plan a wedding can be stressful, it’s nothing compared to the groom turning up dead.
A designer of eye-catching bridal bouquets—many of them based on the Victorian meanings behind each flower—Audrey Bloom is used to celebrations that end with happily ever after. In fact, every couple she’s worked with is still together, living in wedded bliss. But her perfect record is about to be broken.
Her childhood friend Jenny Whitney has reeled in the most eligible bachelor in Ramble, Virginia, and she’s hired Audrey to design the bouquet. But before Jenny can walk down the aisle clutching her blend of anemone, scabious, and pussy willow (a floral disaster in Audrey’s mind), the groom is found dead—sprinkled with bits of a bouquet. This is bad for business—not to mention for Jenny, who has become the prime suspect. So Audrey decides to do a little digging herself, hoping she won’t be the next Ramble resident pushing up daisies…
Death on Eat Street
By J.J. Cook
A Biscuit Bowl Food Truck Mystery #1
Berkley Prime Crime
April 2014
304 pages paperback
$7.99
Zoe Chase always wanted to own her own restaurant—but first, she’ll have to serve up a heaping helping of meals on wheels, with a side of mystery…
When she’s once again passed over for a promotion at work, Zoe decides to take the big leap and go for her dream. She quits, gives up her fancy digs, and buys a fixer-upper diner in a shady part of town. To keep above water during the renovation, she buys a used food truck to serve the downtown and waterfront of Mobile, Alabama.
Zoe starts to dish out classic Southern food—but her specialty is her deep-fried biscuit bowls that blow traditional bread bowls away.
After a promising start, things start to go downhill faster than a food truck without brakes. First, someone tries to rob the cash register. Next, Zoe is threatened by the owner of a competing food truck for taking their spot. And when the owner ends up dead inside Zoe’s rolling restaurant, Zoe and her sole employee, Ollie, find themselves hopping out of the frying pan into the fryer. They need to find the real killer, before both of them get burned.
Sugar and Iced
By Jenn McKinlay
A Cupcake Bakery Mystery #6
Berkley Prime Crime
April 2014
304 pages paperback
$7.99
Sugar and spice and murderous vice.
That’s what pageants are made of…
Normally Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaura wouldn’t be caught dead at a beauty pageant, but when Mel’s mom asks them to provide cupcakes for the seventy-fifth annual Sweet Tiara contest as a favor for her best friend, they can’t say no. Plus, between cooking up a daily display for the three-day event and sponsoring a cupcake creation challenge for the participants, Fairy Tale Cupcakes will get great publicity.
But the world of pageants is even hotter than Mel’s kitchen. A high-strung judge and a pushy stage mom target Lupe, a young friend of Mel and Angie’s, at the competition and aim to take her out—by any means necessary. When the same judge shows up dead underneath Mel and Angie’s cupcake display, Lupe is crowned the lead suspect. Now Mel and Angie will have to find the real killer quickly or Lupe may be strutting the catwalk in prison pinstripes…
Ghost of a Gamble
By Sue Ann Jaffarian
A Ghost of Granny Apples Mystery #4
Berkley Prime Crime
April 2014
304 pages paperback
$7.99
Spiritual medium Emma Whitecastle knows a good ghost when she feels one—like her own sweet Granny Apples, long gone but still as famous for her apple pies as she is for helping her great-great-great-granddaughter get to the core of the most baffling mysteries…
When Emma gets word of a sticky spirit problem in Las Vegas, she and the ghost of Granny Apples hit the road for Sin City. The spooked one is Dolly, a former showgirl. Dolly is haunted by Lenny, a dead Vegas hood worried about an aging mobster named Nemo coming after the leggy old bombshell. Dolly’s playing dumb, but Emma’s making a blind bet that she knows more about Nemo than she admits.
When Nemo is found dead, Dolly goes missing—and lands herself on a short list of suspects. Emma, Granny, and their pals comb Las Vegas to find her, only to discover the truth behind a casino heist gone bad, a hidden stash of stolen loot, and a missing wise guy who’s not letting death come between him and setting things straight. And Emma and Granny Apples aren’t about to fold until they save Dolly’s neck and put her past to rest.
The Blackwoods Farm Enquiry
By Ann Purser
An Ivy Beasley Mystery #5
Berkley Prime Crime
April 2014
304 pages paperback
$7.99
Retiree Ivy Beasley, a college student? Interested in penning her memoirs, Ivy decides to take a creative writing course. But it’s hard to find time to put pen to paper when this current chapter is so full of lies, jealousy and murder…
Rumors are flying around the village of Barrington about Mrs. Winchen Blatch, a reclusive widow living alone in her old farmhouse. In the past few weeks, the widow claims she has been tormented by ghostly visitations, so she hires Ivy and her fellow investigators at Enquire Within to get to the bottom of the mystery. Ivy’s new classes are very close to the widow’s farmhouse, perfect for combining studying and snooping…
With each new clue—a dark chamber, a smoking cigar and an amorous lodger—it becomes harder to separate fact from fiction. And when the ghost is revealed to be flesh and blood, the lonely widow may be in more trouble than Ivy and her team can handle…
A Roux of Revenge
By Connie Archer
A Soup Lover’s Mystery #3
Berkley Prime Crime
April 2014
304 pages paperback
$7.99
STIRRING UP TROUBLE
Snowflake, Vermont, is known for its skiing in winter—and its soup all year round, thanks to Lucky Jamieson’s By the Spoonful. Autumn brings golden leaves, pumpkin rice soup, the annual Harvest Festival…and murder.
Lucky’s soup shop is busier than usual this October, with groups of itinerant travelers in town to work the Harvest Festival. One newcomer seems to take a particular interest in Lucky’s young waitress, Janie, spying on her from across the street. Is the stranger stalking Janie?
After an unidentified man is found murdered in a van by the side of the road, simmering suspicions about the travelers are brought to a boil. But when Janie is put in harm’s way, Lucky must join forces with the travelers to turn up the heat on a killer…
Widow’s Tears
By Susan Wittig Albert
A China Bayles Mystery #21
Berkley Prime Crime
April 2014
304 pages paperback
$7.99
First Time in Paperback
Herbalist and ex-lawyer China Bayles is “in a class with lady sleuths V. I. Warshawski and Stephanie Plum” (Publishers Weekly). In Widow’s Tears, a haunted house may hold the key to solving the murder of one of China’s friends…
After losing her family and home in the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Rachel Blackwood rebuilt her house a hundred miles inland and later died there, still wrapped in her grief.
In present-day Texas, Claire, the grandniece of Rachel’s caretaker, has inherited the house and wants to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. But she is concerned that it’s haunted, so she calls in her friend Ruby—who has the gift of extrasensory perception—to check it out.
While Ruby is ghost hunting, China Bayles walks into a storm of trouble in nearby Pecan Springs. A half hour before she is to make her nightly deposit, the Pecan Springs bank is robbed and a teller is shot and killed.
Before she can discover the identity of the killers, China follows Ruby to the Blackwood house to discuss urgent business. As she is drawn into the mystery of the haunted house, China opens the door on some very real danger…