Showing results by narrator "Julie McKay" in All Categories

“I don’t want to die,” said the man in the brown suit, who was the last passenger to board the little airplane, but he did. The other passengers thought he was just airsick and the pilots of the Dragonfly assumed it was a heart attack, but when they landed on Catalina Island where Miss Hildegarde Withers was enjoying her first vacation in five years, they bowed to her insistence that the body be examined by the island doctor as well as the chief of police.

After spending Christmas with her adoptive mother, dog-mom and amateur sleuth, Eve, is glad to be back home in Granite. She’s ready to get back to her normal life and is committed to following her New Year’s resolutions. Unfortunately the best of her intentions go out the window when a blizzard causes a power outage for the whole town.

Eve is bubbling over with happiness all evening…until they decide to look for Aidan’s work friend, Hector, who said he was going to grab something from his employee locker…an hour earlier. When they discover that Hector has met a tragic end, Eve is positive that the culprit is someone who is attending the party.

Proud dog owner and amateur sleuth, Eve, is delighted when she discovers that her friend Aidan is making plans to move into his new apartment…which is right across the street from the dental clinic where she works. She offers to help with the move, and the two spend a pleasant day together…until Aidan decides to search for his new landlord, who had been ignoring his calls all day. Unfortunately, they discover the landlord’s body in the back of the antique store, downstairs from Aidan’s new place.

The night before her father dies, 18-year-old Jeannie Vanasco promises she will write a book for him. But this isn't the book she imagined. The Glass Eye is Jeannie's struggle to honor her father, her larger-than-life hero but also the man who named her after his daughter from a previous marriage, a daughter who died. After his funeral, Jeannie spends the next decade in escalating mania, in and out of hospitals - increasingly obsessed with the other Jeanne. Obsession turns to investigation as Jeannie hunts for clues into the mysterious circumstances of her death.

Miss Hildegarde Winters, accompanied by her poodle, Talleyrand, is ready, willing, and able when nasty valentines upset a cartoon studio. With one murder down and three to go, Miss Withers and New York's Inspector Piper delve into poison ivy and a fantasy land when snooping around a school.

Thick flakes of snow are falling on Fifth Avenue at twilight - and then the body of a young man suddenly falls among them, mysteriously out of the sky. Momentarily the wheels of traffic are halted, but other wheels spin relentlessly on - the wheels of death, the wheels on which bloody murder moves silently through Manhattan’s streets. Once again Miss Hildegarde Withers, the schoolteacher-detective, matches her wits against an unknown X, armed only with the precious gift of common sense and a cotton umbrella.

A young man is stopped by the police, a body is found in his backseat, and he is convicted of murder. While he awaits execution, he makes out a will leaving all his money to the police lieutenant who handled his case. The lieutenant learns of this when Hildegarde Withers, schoolteacher and hard-boiled private eye, stops by. She determines to clear the man in the few days left before his execution. The opening paragraphs bear comparison with the opening of Chandler's short story "Red Wind".

Top model Violet Feverel should be a pretty picture riding the big red thoroughbred Siwash - but the front page photo on the tabloids is ugly as death. The police dub the tragedy an unfortunate accident. But Miss Hildegarde Withers, who stumbled across the girl's body on the Central Park bridle path, knows they are, unfortunately, wrong. Just plain horse sense tells her it was murder....

Hildegarde Withers, schoolteacher and amateur detective, stumbles onto the corpse of Jefferson Grammar School's attractive young music teacher. When Miss Withers goes for help, the body plays hooky, and when Homicide Inspector Oscar Piper starts to investigate, somebody tries to brain him with a shovel. The rest of the cops want to throw the book at the school janitor, who has flunked their pop quiz. But Miss Withers disagrees and decides to stay after school to ask her own questions.

It was all planned. A weekend away at an exclusive hotel in the Hollywood Hills where vampire PI Nick planned to have some alone time with his hexy honey, Jazz. have some alone time with his hexy honey, Jazz. Except Stonegate Manor isn’t what it appears to be. Jazz isn’t impressed. The hotel doesn’t boast spa facilities that seriously upset magick bunny slippers Fluff and Puff. A celebutante psychic is seriously ticking her off. Not to mention the old-fashioned bellhop is a zombie.

When sexy, buttoned-down accountant Jeff gets sucked into Cecilia's sticky, single-mom universe, his life turns inside out. Her checkbook's a nightmare, her oldest kid hates him, and she's messy, mouth-watering, independent, and annoyingly unforgettable. He can't stay away. Quirky Cecilia has her life (sort of) in order, and doesn't need a man pointing out where it's not. A single mom with three kids and a dog can't afford a sex life, even if he is hotter than ever, and strong just when she needs him to be. Plus, his parrot hates her.

Hildegarde Withers is on the hunt again, as a vacation in California lands her a movie job and two dealers to clear up. Her own death brings Inspector Piper to the scene, and her resurrection cuts through Hollywood red tape as she becomes a target for the killer.

Hildegarde Withers heads down Mexico way where the death in the afternoon involves neither a matador nor a bull. Inspector Oscar Piper is off on a junket to Mexico in the summer of 1937 (surrounded by a bunch of Democrats, huffed Miss Withers) when a customs inspector on a train headed for Mexico City sniffs a very potent bottle of cheap perfume and promptly drops dead. Quite naturally, Oscar telegraphs Hildegarde in Manhattan about the perfume and quite naturally Miss Withers packs her bags and heads south of the border, figuring Oscar is out of his depth if he has to rely on deductive reasoning rather than a rubber hose.

Something inexplicable has led Maggie Whitaker to the 16th century. Always a woman who has tried to do the right thing and live up to expectations, Maggie is beginning to learn the joy of following her own heart-even if it leads her across centuries. And especially since it has her crossing paths with Nicholas Layton, a dashing disinherited noble caught up in the dangerous intrigues of Elizabeth's royal court. There is something about this enchanting, perplexing Margaret that leaves Nicholas breathless.

What do you get when you take a witty housewife with deep, dark secrets and coop her up in a house with a frustratingly demonic dishwasher and a professional killer who just happens to look like The Gladiator? You get a thrilling tour de force of unexpected action that's peppered throughout with comedic beats and seriously dark undertones. From the opening paragraph all the way to the very end, Error Code is a non-stop romp. R. K. Howard is an American author.

In the beautiful, barren landscape of the Far North, under the ever-present midnight sun, Frances and Yasha are surprised to find refuge in each other. Their lives have been upended - Frances has fled heartbreak and claustrophobic Manhattan for an isolated artist colony; Yasha arrives from Brooklyn to fulfill his beloved father's last wish: to be buried "at the top of the world. They have come to learn how to be alone.

When pretty little Ina Kell arrived in Manhattan full of foolish dreams about making it big in show business, she had no idea how quickly she’d be in the headlines. But when TV personality Tony Fagan is murdered in the apartment building where she’s staying and she disappears shortly thereafter, the search is on, led by Inspector Oscar Piper and his long-time friend Hildegarde Withers.

When Inspector Oscar Piper asks his old friend Hildegarde Withers to stop meddling in murder, she surprisingly agrees. But old habits die hard and Hildy soon finds herself back in harness, investigating suspects and snooping for clues. Oddly enough, she spots a vital clue while looking at her own tank of tropical fish.

Americans are disgusted with watching politicians screaming and yelling at one another on television. But does all the noise really make a difference? Drawing on numerous studies, Diana Mutz provides the first comprehensive look at the consequences of in-your-face politics. Her book contradicts the conventional wisdom by documenting both the benefits and the drawbacks of in-your-face media.