Hiss of Death


Book Description

After a hospital employee ends up dead, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen--along with her sleuthing animal companions Mrs. Murphy, Pewter and Tucker--must find the murderer, all while Harry deals with a health crisis herself.




Sudden Death


Book Description

Outrageous, irrepressible and endlessly entertaining, the bestselling author of Rubyfruit Jungle and Bingo spins a behind-the-scenes tale of women's professional tennis that dramtically intertwines the heart-stopping excitement of competition and the lingering heartache of intimate human bonds. Carmen Semanan loves three things passionalty: tennis, money and professor Harriet Rawls. Just twenty-four, Carmen is at her peak as one of the world's top-seeded tennis champions, determined to win the coveted Grand Slam. She is protected from everything but the grueling demands of her sport by an avericious agent and her devoted gusty Harriet. All the odds are in her favor. But there are weeds growing in her paradise patch. Carmen's vey latin brother, Miguel, parlays her succes into a financial house of cards with deals that include smuggling, forgery, and fraud. Susan Reilly, Carmen's archrival and former lover, leaks word of Carms's relationship with Harriet to the press--and tennis's best-kept secret is blown into a front-page scandal. From the French Open to Wimbledon, jealousies, ambitions and passions are set to explode. Now, with everything she cherishes on the line, Carmen must test the true depths of her feelings-both on and off the court.




Hiss and Hers


Book Description

If only the bossy, beloved Agatha Raisin were as lucky at finding the right man as she is at catching killers in M. C. Beaton's New York Times bestselling mystery series—now a hit show on Acorn TV and public television. Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of everyone's favorite sleuth, M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin is as feisty as ever-armed with her famous wit and biting sense of humor. This time, though, there's some biting of a whole other sort going on. Agatha has fallen head over heels in love-again. This time, she has her eye on the local gardener, George Marston, but so do other women in their little Cotswold village. Shamelessly determined, Agatha will do anything to get her man-including footing the bill for a charity ball just for the chance to dance with him. And then George doesn't even show up. Only partly deterred, Agatha goes looking for him, and finds his dead body in a compost heap. Murder is definitely afoot, but this killer chose no ordinary weapon: A poisonous snake delivered the fatal strike. Rising to the occasion, Agatha rallies her little detective agency to find the killer, only to learn that George had quite a complicated love life. But murderously complicated? Well, if she can't have George, at least Agatha can have the satisfaction of confronting the other women and solving the crime. With Hiss and Hers, once again, "M. C. Beaton has a foolproof plot for the village mystery" (The New York Times Book Review) in the irresistible adventures of the irrepressible Agatha.




Cat of the Century


Book Description

Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen’s beloved, tart-tongued neighbor Aunt Tally is about to turn the big 1-0-0, and the alumnae association of Tally’s alma mater is throwing a big fund-raising bash in her honor. The plan is to celebrate Tally’s centennial and recoup some much-needed school revenue lost in the cratered economy, but when a killer blizzard bears down and a board member goes missing, it falls to Harry and her menagerie of mystery solvers to track down the truth behind what is rapidly becoming a perfect storm of embezzlement, political corruption, and the kind of long-smoldering enmity that can explode into murder. Does the key lie in a forty-year-old unsolved death? If so, Harry and her four-legged friends better find it or—even at a hundred years old—Aunt Tally may outlive them all.




Rest in Pieces


Book Description

Mrs. Murphy thinks the new man in town is the cat's meow.... Maybe she should think again. Small towns don't take kindly to strangers--unless the stranger happens to be a drop-dead gorgeous and seemingly unattached male. When Blair Bainbridge comes to Crozet, Virginia, the local matchmakers lose no time in declaring him perfect for their newly divorced postmistress, Marry Minor "Harry Haristeen." Even Harry's tiger cat, Ms. Murphy, and her Welsh Corgi, Tee Tucker, believe he smells A-okay. Could his one little imperfection be that he's a killer? Blair becomes the most likely suspect when the pieces of a dismembered corpse begin tuming up around Crozet. No one knows who the dead man is, but when a grisly clue makes a spectacular appearance in the middle of the fall festivities, more than an early winter snow begins chilling the blood of Crozet's very best people. That's when Ms. Murphy, her friend Tucker, and her human companion Harry begin to sort throughout the clues . . . only to find themselves a whisker away from becoming the killer's next victims.




Hiss Me Deadly


Book Description

Charlie and Diesel must catch a killer before he strikes another deadly note in this latest installment of the New York Times bestselling Cat in the Stacks Mysteries. Charlie Harris remembers Wilfred “Wil” Threadgill as one of the outsiders during high school in Athena. Although Wil was a couple of years ahead of him and his friend Melba Gilley, Melba had a big crush on Wil, who dropped out after his junior year. An aspiring musician, Wil hit the road for California and never looked back. Wil eventually became a star, fronting a band and writing award-winning songs. Coming back to Athena to work for two weeks with students in the college music department, Wil is now the big man on campus. Not everyone is happy to have him back, however. His entourage have been the target of several acts of petty harassment. At first they are easy for Wil to shrug off, but the incidents escalate and become more troubling. When one of the band members is killed Charlie worries that Melba, now deeply involved with the man at the center of the attacks, could be in deadly danger. It is up to Charlie and Diesel to find out who hates Wil Threadgill enough to silence his song . . . forever!




Wish You Were Here


Book Description

Curiosity just might be the death of Mrs. Murphy--and her human companion, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen. Small towns are like families: Everyone lives very close together. . .and everyone keeps secrets. Crozet, Virginia, is a typical small town-until its secrets explode into murder. Crozet's thirty-something post-mistress, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, has a tiger cat (Mrs. Murphy) and a Welsh Corgi (Tucker), a pending divorce, and a bad habit of reading postcards not addressed to her. When Crozet's citizens start turning up murdered, Harry remembers that each received a card with a tombstone on the front and the message "Wish you were here" on the back. Intent on protecting their human friend, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker begin to scent out clues. Meanwhile, Harry is conducting her own investigation, unaware her pets are one step ahead of her. If only Mrs. Murphy could alert her somehow, Harry could uncover the culprit before the murder occurs--and before Harry finds herself on the killer's mailing list.




Puss 'n Cahoots


Book Description

Instead of a proper second honeymoon, the newly remarried Harry and Fair Haristeen leave cozy Crozet, Virginia, for Shelbyville, Kentucky, site of the famous saddlebred horse show. There they’ll visit dear friends Joan Hamilton and Larry Hodge and enjoy a week among some of the finest horses, trainers, and riders in the country. But soon after they arrive, events veer mysteriously–and murderously–off course. First, Joan’s ruby and sapphire horsehead heirloom pin is stolen from her private box at the fairgrounds. Next, a young film star’s prize three-gaited mare disappears into thin air. There is no lack of suspects, from hotheaded trainers and jealous rivals to vicious ex-spouses. Then a body is found flagrantly murdered and it’s obvious to Harry that someone at Shelbyville is sending a strong message: winning is only secondary–first prize is survival. As Harry searches for clues, rediscovers life as a married woman, and deals with her upcoming fortieth birthday, her four-legged detective friends are already on the case. But is animal instinct any match for human depravity? Especially with two humans to protect and a killer on the prowl?




Hiss of Death


Book Description

Ah, spring! The brighter days and singing birds have a way of lifting people’s spirits, as well as those of their animal companions. But the season can also bring out the first blossoms of murder. As the redbuds open in Crozet, Virginia, Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen is especially excited—until a health crisis sends her reeling into the forbidding world of hospitals and doctors, treatments and procedures. Surviving this journey will be tough, but Harry has her animal friends—and her ever-helpful husband, Fair—to support her. Others are considerably less fortunate: A promising nurse’s lifeless body is discovered without a mark on her. Then another hospital employee, who had seemed in perfect health, is also found dead. There’s a mystery afoot—and that’s one thing Harry and her menagerie can’t keep their noses out of.




In Her Day


Book Description

For years a "lost" collector's item, here is the second novel from a brilliant young author testing her literary muscle, and it's bursting at the seams with Rita Mae Brown's trademark cast of characters and crackling quips. Written immediately after her classic Rubyfruit Jungle, In Her Day takes a loving swipe at the charged political atmosphere of Greenwich Village in the early seventies. Elegant art history professor Carole Hanratty insists brains transcend lust—until she crashes into Ilse, a revolutionary feminist flush with the arrogance of youth. Blazing with rhetoric, their romance is a sexual and ideological inferno. Ilse campaigns to get Carole to join The Movement, but forty-four-year-old Carole and her zany peers have twenty years of fight behind them and are wary of causes bogged down in talk. After all, says Carole's best friend, the real reason for a revolution is so the good things in life circulate. Her idea of subversion is hiring a Rolls-Royce to go to McDonald's. In Her Day, with its infectious merriment and serious underpinnings, proves that if politics is the great divider, humor is the ultimate restorative.