Come Hell Or Highball

Come Hell Or Highball
Author: Maia Chance
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250067871

In this Prohibition-era caper, society matron Lola Woodby agrees to recover a stolen film reel for its rightful owner, but before she can retrieve it, the man in possession of the reel is killed

Come Hell or Highball

Come Hell or Highball
Author: Maia Chance
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466876549

31-year-old society matron Lola Woodby has survived her loveless marriage with an unholy mixture of highballs, detective novels, and chocolate layer cake, until, her husband dies suddenly, leaving her his fortune...or so Lola thought. As it turns out, all she inherits from Alfie is a big pile of debt. Pretty soon, Lola and her stalwart Swedish cook, Berta, are reduced to hiding out in the secret love nest Alfie kept in New York City. But when rent comes due, Lola and Berta have no choice but to accept an offer made by one of Alfie's girls-on-the-side: in exchange for a handsome sum of money, the girl wants Lola to retrieve a mysterious reel of film for her. It sounds like an easy enough way to earn the rent money. But Lola and Berta realize they're in way over their heads when, before they can retrieve it, the man currently in possession of the film reel is murdered, and the reel disappears. On a quest to retrieve the reel and solve the murder before the killer comes after them next, Lola and Berta find themselves navigating one wacky situation after another in high style and low company. Charming, witty, often laugh-out-loud funny, Maia Chance's Come Hell or Highball is the first in the Discreet Retrieval Agency Mysteries and introduces a sparkling new voice in crime fiction.

Teetotaled

Teetotaled
Author: Maia Chance
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2016-10-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466883596

After her philandering husband died and left her penniless in Prohibition-era New York, Lola Woodby escaped with her Swedish cook to the only place she could—her deceased husband’s secret love nest in the middle of Manhattan. Her only comforts were chocolate cake, dime store detective novels, and the occasional highball (okay, maybe not so occasional). But rent came due and Lola and Berta were forced to accept the first job that came their way, leading them to set up shop as private detectives operating out of Alfie’s cramped love nest. Now Lola and Berta are in danger of losing the business they’ve barely gotten off the ground—work is sparse and money is running out. So when a society matron offers them a job, they take it—even if it means sneaking into a slimming and exercise facility and consuming only water and health food until they can steal a diary from Grace Whiddle, a resident at the “health farm.” But barely a day in, Grace and her diary escape from the facility—and Grace’s future mother-in-law is found murdered on the premises. Lola and Berta are promptly fired. But before they can climb into Lola’s brown and white Duesenberg Model A and whiz off the health farm property, they find themselves with a new client and a new charge: to solve the murder of Grace’s future mother-in-law. Teetotaled, Maia Chance's sparkling new installment in the Discreet Retrieval Agency Mysteries will delight readers with its clever plotting, larger-than-life characters, and rich 1920s atmosphere.

Gin and Panic

Gin and Panic
Author: Maia Chance
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250109051

Lola and Bertie are hired by Lord Sudley to retrieve a hunting trophy from the Connecticut mansion of big-game hunter Rudy Montgomery. But, when Montgomery is found shot to death and the police rule it a suicide, Sudley believes it's murder and wants Lola and Bertie to find the killer.--adapted from book jacket.

Naughty on Ice

Naughty on Ice
Author: Maia Chance
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250109086

Naughty on Ice is the latest in Maia Chance’s dazzlingly fun Prohibition-era caper series featuring society matron Lola Woodby and her stalwart Swedish cook, Berta. The Discreet Retrieval Agency is doing a brisk holiday business of retrieving lost parcels, grandmas, and stolen wreaths. But with their main squeezes Ralph and Jimmy once more on the back burner, both Lola and Berta pine for a holiday out of New York City. So when they receive a mysterious Christmas card requesting that they retrieve an antique ring at a family gathering in Maple Hill, Vermont, they jump at the chance. Sure, the card is signed Anonymous and it’s vaguely threatening, but it’s Vermont. In Maple Hill, several estranged members of the wealthy Goddard family gather. And no sooner do Lola and Berta recover the ring—from Great-Aunt Cressida Goddard’s arthritic finger—than Mrs. Goddard goes toes-up, poisoned by her Negroni cocktail on ice. When the police arrive, Lola and Berta are caught-red-handed with the ring, and it becomes clear that they were in fact hired not for their cracker-jack retrieving abilities, but to be scapegoats for murder. With no choice but to unmask the killer or be thrown in the slammer, Lola and Berta’s investigations lead them deep into the secrets of Maple Hill. In a breathless pursuit along a snowy ridge, with a lovelorn Norwegian ski instructor and country bumpkin hooch smugglers hot on their heels, Lola and Berta must find out once and for all who’s nice...and who’s naughty.

Bad Housekeeping

Bad Housekeeping
Author: Maia Chance
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2017-06-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 168331168X

When 28-year-old Agnes Blythe, the contented bifocals-wearing half of an academic power couple, is jilted by her professor boyfriend for the town Pilates instructor, her future is suddenly less than certain. So when her glamorous, eccentric Great Aunt Effie arrives in town and offers a job helping to salvage the condemned Stagecoach Inn, what does Agnes have to lose? But work at the inn has barely begun when the unlikely duo find the body of manipulative Kathleen Todd, with whom Agnes and Effie both have recently had words. Words strong enough to land them at the top of the suspect list. The pair have clearly been framed, but no one else seems interested in finding the real murderer and Agnes and Effie's sleuthing expertise is not exactly slick. Nevertheless, they're soon investigating a suspect list with laundry dirtier than a middle school soccer team's and navigating threats, car chases, shotgun blasts, and awkward strolls down memory lane. In Bad Housekeeping, the first novel in the Agnes & Effie cozy mystery series by Maia Chance, danger mounts, deadlines loom, ancient knob-and-tube wiring is explored, and the ladies learn a thing or two about the awful, wonderful mistake that is going back home.

Naughty on Ice

Naughty on Ice
Author: Maia Chance
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250109078

Naughty on Ice is the latest in Maia Chance’s dazzlingly fun Prohibition-era caper series featuring society matron Lola Woodby and her stalwart Swedish cook, Berta. The Discreet Retrieval Agency is doing a brisk holiday business of retrieving lost parcels, grandmas, and stolen wreaths. But with their main squeezes Ralph and Jimmy once more on the back burner, both Lola and Berta pine for a holiday out of New York City. So when they receive a mysterious Christmas card requesting that they retrieve an antique ring at a family gathering in Maple Hill, Vermont, they jump at the chance. Sure, the card is signed Anonymous and it’s vaguely threatening, but it’s Vermont. In Maple Hill, several estranged members of the wealthy Goddard family gather. And no sooner do Lola and Berta recover the ring—from Great-Aunt Cressida Goddard’s arthritic finger—than Mrs. Goddard goes toes-up, poisoned by her Negroni cocktail on ice. When the police arrive, Lola and Berta are caught-red-handed with the ring, and it becomes clear that they were in fact hired not for their cracker-jack retrieving abilities, but to be scapegoats for murder. With no choice but to unmask the killer or be thrown in the slammer, Lola and Berta’s investigations lead them deep into the secrets of Maple Hill. In a breathless pursuit along a snowy ridge, with a lovelorn Norwegian ski instructor and country bumpkin hooch smugglers hot on their heels, Lola and Berta must find out once and for all who’s nice...and who’s naughty.

Cocktail Codex

Cocktail Codex
Author: Alex Day
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2018-10-30
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 160774970X

From the authors of the bestselling and genre-defining cocktail book Death & Co, Cocktail Codex is a comprehensive primer on the craft of mixing drinks that employs the authors’ unique “root cocktails” approach to give drink-makers of every level the tools to understand, execute, and improvise both classic and original cocktails. JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • WINNER OF THE TALES OF THE COCKTAIL SPIRITED AWARD® FOR BEST NEW COCKTAIL OR BARTENDING BOOK • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE “There are only six cocktails.” So say Alex Day, Nick Fauchald, and David Kaplan, the visionaries behind the seminal craft cocktail bar Death & Co. In Cocktail Codex, these experts reveal for the first time their surprisingly simple approach to mastering cocktails: the “root recipes,” six easily identifiable (and memorizable!) templates that encompass all cocktails: the old-fashioned, martini, daiquiri, sidecar, whisky highball, and flip. Once you understand the hows and whys of each “family,” you'll understand why some cocktails work and others don't, when to shake and when to stir, what you can omit and what you can substitute when you're missing ingredients, why you like the drinks you do, and what sorts of drinks you should turn to—or invent—if you want to try something new. Praise for Cocktail Codex “Learn the template, and any cocktail you can think of is within reach.”—Food & Wine “Too bad all college textbooks weren’t this much fun.”—Garden & Gun “A must for amateur and pro mixologists alike.”—Chicago Tribune “If Dora the Explorer turned twenty-one, split herself into three people, and decided to write the Magna Carta of booze books, this would be the result. And, unlike every other book you’ll read this year, Cocktail Codex is packed with actual knowledge you can use in the real world. Please, please, can Cinema Codex be next?”—Steven Soderbergh, filmmaker

Me and the Sky

Me and the Sky
Author: Beverley Bass
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2019-09-10
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0525645519

The groundbreaking female pilot featured in the hit Broadway musical Come from Away tells her story in this high-flying and inspiring picture-book autobiography! When Beverley Bass was a young girl in the late 1950s, she told her parents she wanted to fly planes--and they told her that girls couldn't be pilots. Still, they encouraged her, and brought her to a nearby airport to watch the planes take off and land. After decades of refusing to take no for an answer, in 1986 Beverley became the first female pilot promoted to captain by American Airlines and led the first all-female crewed flight shortly thereafter. Her revolutionary career became even more newsworthy when she was forced to land in the remote town of Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001, due to US airspace closures. After several days there, she flew her crew and passengers safely home. Beverley's incredible life is now immortalized in the hit Broadway musical Come from Away. Here, discover how she went from an ambitious young girl gazing up at the sky to a groundbreaking pilot smiling down from the cockpit. "Inspiring and up, up, and away all the way."--Kirkus "An inspiring biography about one woman's determination to forge a new path."--Booklist

The Sweet Far Thing

The Sweet Far Thing
Author: Libba Bray
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 746
Release: 2010-07-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0731814924

It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Having bound the wild, dark magic of the realms to her, Gemma has forged unlikely and unsuspected new alliances both with the headstrong Felicity and timid Ann, Kartik, the exotic young man whose companionship is forbidden, and the fearsome creatures of the realms. Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test those bonds. As her friendship with Felicity and Ann faces its gravest trial, and with the Order grappling for control of the realms, Gemma is compelled to decide once and for all which path she is meant to take. Pulled forward by fate, the destiny Gemma faces threatens to set chaos loose, not only in the realms, but also upon the rigid Victorian society whose rules Gemma has both defied and followed. Where does Gemma really belong? And will she, can she, survive?