The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee

The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee
Author: Charlotte MacLeod
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2012-11-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453277595

When the seeds of a mystery are planted, gardening club member Dittany Henbit digs up clues in the cozy series from the international bestselling author. The Grub-and-Stakers gardening club has traditionally limited its activities to serving tea and gossiping about wildflowers, but when water department supervisor John Architrave is found murdered in the woods, club member Dittany Henbit turns to solving mysteries. After Architrave’s will reveals that he bequeathed his ramshackle old house to the Grub-and-Stakers, with instructions for it to be turned into a museum, Dittany resigns herself to weeks of cleaning out the mansion and sorting through donated town “artifacts.” The task turns interesting, however, the minute bodies start falling from the sky. The new curator is airing out the house’s attic when he takes his tumble off the roof. So unlikely is it that he would fall out the tiny attic window, that Dittany has no choice but to attempt to add one captured killer to the young museum’s permanent collection.

The Grub-and-Stakers Move a Mountain

The Grub-and-Stakers Move a Mountain
Author: Charlotte MacLeod
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2012-11-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453277609

A small town gardening—and archery—club must solve a murder case and save their town from developers in the first cozy mystery featuring Dittany Henbit. Anyone growing up in Lobelia Falls is taught to learn the elegant, ancient, and occasionally deadly art of shooting with a bow and arrow. Practicing the craft, freelance secretary Dittany Henbit is strolling through the woods with her bow at her side when she meets a surveyor making surveys where he shouldn’t. Dittany is giving him what-for when an arrow goes whizzing above her head. It is sharp enough to kill, and was not fired by accident, but Dittany wasn’t the target. She and the surveyor find Mr. Architrave, the head of the water department, not far away—lying dead beneath the trees that he loved so much. Progress is coming to Lobelia Falls, and one resident will do anything to stop it. But in a town where every child can shoot, how can Dittany discover who drew the killer bow?

The Grub-and-Stakers House a Haunt

The Grub-and-Stakers House a Haunt
Author: Charlotte MacLeod
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2012-11-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453277560

A widowed gardener meets a ghost from frontier times who’s out for revenge: “The screwball mystery is Charlotte MacLeod’s cup of tea” (Chicago Tribune). Zilla Trott is pouring her cat some chamomile tea when the drifter appears in her kitchen. He is grubby and crude—not at all the kind of person you’d usually find in the pleasant town of Lobelia Falls—but something about him intrigues the aging widow. Perhaps it’s his rugged good looks, or the way he seems to come from another time and place. Or perhaps it’s the fact that he’s been dead for nearly a century. When Lobelia Falls was in its rough-and-tumble frontier infancy, Hiram Jellyby was the best mule driver the town had ever seen, until an argument over a hidden cache of gold left him bleeding to death in a back alley. He returns in spectral form to secure a proper burial, and finds that in modern-day Lobelia Falls, no one knows more about turning the soil than Zilla Trott’s gardening buddies—all members of Dittany Monk’s fearless Grub-and-Stake Gardening and Roving Club.

The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke

The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke
Author: Charlotte MacLeod
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2012-11-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453277587

The curtains almost close on an actor in this cozy gardening club mystery featuring amateur sleuth Dittany Henbit and her husband, Osbert Monk. When Jenson Thorbisher-Freep announces an amateur theatrical contest, the women in the Grub-and-Stake gardening club race to join in. They enlist Osbert Monk as their playwright—not only is he married to their club leader Dittany Monk, but he’s famous the world over as Lex Laramie, bestselling novelist of Westerns. Taking the legend of Dangerous Dan McGrew as his inspiration, Osbert delivers a rough draft faster than the Pony Express. Now all the Grub-and-Stakers have to do is cast it. To play McGrew, Dittany picks town cad Andrew McNaster, who has recently improved his manners in an attempt to woo Osbert’s aunt, Arethusa. The gunslinger’s performance gets a bit too real on opening night, though, when his prop bullets are replaced with real ones, and claim the toe of a fellow thespian. Is McNaster as nice as he pretends to be? Or has he taken his part too close to heart, and decided to become very dangerous indeed?

Sequels

Sequels
Author: Janet G. Husband
Publisher: American Library Association
Total Pages: 793
Release: 2009-07-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0838909671

A guide to series fiction lists popular series, identifies novels by character, and offers guidance on the order in which to read unnumbered series.

Great Women Mystery Writers

Great Women Mystery Writers
Author: Elizabeth A. Blakesley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2006-11-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0313049068

Mysteries are among the most popular books today, and women continue to be among the most creative and widely read mystery writers. This book includes alphabetically arranged entries on 90 women mystery writers. Many of the writers discussed were not even writing when the first edition of this book was published in 1994, while others have written numerous works since then. Writers were selected based on their status as award winners, their commercial success, and their critical acclaim. Each entry provides biographical information, a discussion of major works and themes, and primary and secondary bibliographies. The volume closes with appendices and a selected, general bibliography. Public library patrons will value this guide to their favorite authors, while students will turn to it when writing reports.

Mystery Women, Volume Two (Revised)

Mystery Women, Volume Two (Revised)
Author: Colleen Barnett
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2011-12-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1615950095

Many bibliographers focus on women who write. Lawyer Barnett looks at women who detect, at women as sleuths and at the evolving roles of women in professions and in society. Excellent for all women's studies programs as well as for the mystery hound. Look at the popularity of such reading guides as Willetta Heising's Detecting Women (3rd ed. 0-9644593-7-X) or Amanda Cross' fiction (Honest Doubt 0-345-44011-0 11/00).

Investigating Women

Investigating Women
Author: David Skene-Melvin
Publisher: Dundurn
Total Pages: 298
Release: 1995-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1459725433

Meet some fascinating females: Jennie Baxer, 1890s journalist and world traveller Nelvana of the Northern Lights, created for comic book-starved Canadians during the Second World War the 60s’ Eve Adam, the "Rock Hit of Prague," whose methods violate all the "rules" for detective books and, very much of the 1990s, vampire detective Vicki Nelson, whose beat is Toronto’s Queen Street West As well as the fifteen investigating women in the book, Skene-Melvin’s introduction describes hundreds of female sleuths and their creators in an in-depth analysis of women detective fiction by Canadians. You will recognize many of the writers included in Investigating Women: Grant Allen, Robert Barr, Marisa De Franceschi, Adrian Dingle, Katherine V. Forrest, Hulbert Footner, Maurice Gagnon, Margaret Haffner, Joan Hall Hovey, Tanya Huff, Medora Sale, Josef Skvorecky, and Betsy Struthers. For each of the selections a brief note sets the story; bibliographies help readers find other books by the authors featured in Investigating Women.