Archives de catégorie : Mystery

SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN de Dwayne Alexander Smith & Pamela Samuels Young

SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN, the long-awaited second book from Dwayne Alexander Smith, is a dual POV rom-com suspense.

SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN
by Dwayne Alexander Smith & Pamela Samuels Young
Atria, July 2024
(via The Friedrich Agency)

Jackson Jones and Mackenzie Cunningham are both private investigators operating out of Los Angeles. While Jackson specializes in high-end clientele whose swagger matches his own, Mackenzie is scrappy, defensive, and easily underestimated. Despite many years in the same industry, they first meet when they are both hired to find the same missing woman. Unaware that they’ve entered a competition, they keep bumping heads until it’s clear that something suspicious is afoot. Equally attracted to and frustrated by one another, they soon realize that the client who hired them might actually be setting them up! Just as they shift from rivals to partners, Jackson and Mackenzie find themselves fighting for their lives, a string of bodies piling up around them. With no one to trust but each other, they race to solve the case before they can be forced to pay the price for their involvement.

Dwayne Alexander Smith is the author of Forty Acres, which was previously in development as a Feature Film at Netflix, with Luke Cage’s Cheo Hodari Coker attached to write, and Jay-Z attached to produce. Dwayne is also under contract with Audible to write an eight-episode original radio play for Kevin Hart and Charlamagne Tha God’s imprint. When Dwayne received an NAACP Image Award in 2014 for his debut novel, he happened to meet a fellow author named Pamela Samuels Young, whose novel Anybody’s Daughter won an award that same year.

Pamela Samuels Young has been widely published in both commercial suspense and erotica, and many of her characters have legal backgrounds that mirror Pamela’s own. Netflix is also developing Pamela’s work, having optioned the first two books in her Vernette Henderson series, which follows a Black female attorney from Compton, working in a corporate firm. Felicia D. Henderson is attached as Executive Producer (Empire, Everybody Hates Chris, Sister Sister).

DETECTIVE DUCK: THE CASE OF THE STRANGE SPLASH de Henry Winkler, Lin Oliver, and Dan Santat

The first book in a smart and funny new chapter book series from bestselling creators Henry Winkler, Lin Oliver, and Dan Santat.

DETECTIVE DUCK: THE CASE OF THE STRANGE SPLASH
(Detective Duck #1)
by Henry Winkler, Lin Oliver, and Dan Santat
Amulet/Abrams, October 2023

Willow Feathers McBeaver, aka Detective Duck, is a crime-solving (and very precocious) little duck. She and her animal pals live on Dogwood Pond, a beautiful pond in New England adjacent to Lazy Days, a human campground. Dogwood Pond has always been a pristine spot with clear water, abundant wildlife, and shady willow trees, but now it is encountering puzzling problems—mysteries that arise from human-caused disruptions in nature, such as water pollution, refuse, warming climate, and human encroachment.

Fortunately, Detective Duck is on the job, solving these puzzling mysteries before they get out of hand and destroy their habitat! Armed with her ever-present satchel for collecting clues, her logical mind, and endless curiosity, she boldly goes where no pond creature has before, determined to unravel the mysteries and solve any environmental problem that besets her beloved Dogwood Pond!

BOOK 2 coming FALL 2024

Henry Winkler is an Emmy Award–winning actor, writer, director, and producer who has created some of the most iconic TV roles, including Arthur “the Fonz” Fonzarelli on Happy Days and Gene Cousineau on Barry.

Lin Oliver is a children’s book writer and a writer and producer for both TV and film. She is currently the executive director of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). They both live in Los Angeles.

Dan Santat is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 100 books for children, including Are We There Yet, After the Fall, and The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend, for which he won the Caldecott Medal. He lives in Southern California with his wife, two kids, and many, many pets.

I ONLY READ MURDER de Ian & Will Ferguson

A once-beloved television sleuth finds herself far from Hollywood and witness to a murder during a small-town theatre production—and is convinced it’s up to her to solve the case. Introducing a new comedic crime series from the bestselling Ferguson brothers, in the vein of Richard Osman, Simon Brett, Alexander McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street Series, and Schitt’s Creek.

I ONLY READ MURDER
by Ian Ferguson & Will Ferguson
HarperCollins Canada, June 2023

Miranda Abbott, once known for the crime-solving, karate-chopping church pastor she played on network television, has hit hard times. Turned down for a role on a cable reality show, Miranda is facing ruin when a mysterious postcard arrives, summoning her to Happy Rock, a small town in the Pacific Northwest. But when she gets there, nothing is what she expected.
In dire straits, she signs up for an amateur production at the Happy Rock Little Theatre, competing against the local real estate agent for the lead role. On opening night, one of the actors is murdered, live, in front of the audience. But out of 100 witnesses, no one actually saw what happened. Now everyone is under a cloud of suspicion, including the sardonic town doctor, the local high-school drama teacher, an oil-stained car mechanic, an elderly gentleman who may or may not have been in the CIA—and Miranda herself. Clearly, the only way to solve this mystery is for Miranda to summon her skills as television’s Pastor Fran and draw on the help of her new sidekick, Susan, a shy bookstore clerk who seems to know everyone’s secrets. Because the show must go on!

Ian Ferguson won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for Village of the Small Houses and is the co-author, with his brother, Will, of How to Be a Canadian, which was shortlisted for the Leacock Medal and won the CBA Libris Award for non-fiction. A writer and creative director in the film and television industry, he lives in Victoria.
Will Ferguson is a three-time winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour. His novels include his debut, HappinessTM, sold in twenty-three languages; 419, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize; and The Finder, which won the 2021 Arthur Ellis Award for Crime Fiction. With his brother, Ian, he is the author of the mega-bestseller How to Be a Canadian. He lives in Calgary.

THE ELLERY QUEEN JR. MYSTERY STORIES d’Ellery Queen Jr.

Two brave young sleuths connected to one of the greatest detectives of all time tackle their own cases in these eleven whodunits.

THE ELLERY QUEEN JR. MYSTERY STORIES
by Ellery Queen
Open Road Media, 1941-1966; 2015
(via JABberwocky)

For mystery fans, the name Ellery Queen brings to mind the sophisticated amateur sleuth who helped solve some of New York City’s most confounding cases. But he wasn’t the only one in his household with an eye for crime solving.
Here are eleven puzzling mysteries, nine solved by Djuna, the Queen family’s quick-witted assistant, with the help of his trusty Scottie, Champ; and two solved by Gulliver Queen—the chip-off-the-old-block nephew to the legendary detective himself.

Book 1: THE BLACK DOG MYSTERY (1941/2015)

A gang of young sleuths and a trusty terrier put their noses to a bank robbers’ trail.
Ellery Queen’s young apprentice, Djuna, is preparing for an afternoon of fishing when a stranger leans out of his car window and asks for directions to Canada. A few minutes later, Djuna watches as the man’s friends come running out of the local bank and into the getaway car, guns blazing, before taking off for the Canadian border.
It is a mystery that could baffle even Djuna’s famous boss, but with the help of a ferocious black Scottie named Champ and a few crime-solving friends, he will find the culprits. It will be the greatest adventure of his life.
Ellery Queen is one of the world’s finest detectives, but his adventures are nothing compared to the Ellery Queen Jr. Mystery Stories. Join Queen’s apprentice, Djuna, and his trusty Scottie, Champ, on adventures filled with danger, suspense, and thrills.

Other books in the series:

2. The Golden Eagle Mystery
3. The Green Turtle Mystery
4. The Red Chipmunk Mystery
5. The Brown Fox Mystery
6. The White Elephant Mystery
7. The Yellow Cat Mystery
8. The Blue Herring Mystery
9. The Mystery of the Merry Magician
10. The Mystery of the Vanished Victim
11. The Purple Bird Mystery

Mystery writer and American detective extraordinaire, Ellery Queen is the creation and nom de plume of mystery writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee. Writing for over 40 years, the character of Ellery Queen became one of the most famous of America’s fictional detectives. Adapted for television, radio, and film, the Ellery Queen stories reached incredible heights of popularity worldwide and spawned the monthly Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, which is still going strong today.

OF MANNERS AND MURDER d’Anastasia Hastings

The first in the delightful new Dear Miss Hermione mystery series from Anastasia Hastings. Set in 1885 London, it features complicated familial relationship, romance, and murder.

OF MANNERS AND MURDER:
A Dear Miss Hermione Mystery
by Anastasia Hastings
Minotaur Books, February 2023

1885: London, England. When Violet’s Aunt Adelia decides to abscond with her newest paramour, she leaves behind her role as the most popular Agony Aunt in London, « Miss Hermione, » in Violet’s hands.
And of course, the first letter Violet receives is full, not of prissy pondering, but of portent. Ivy Armstrong is in need of help and fears for her life. But when Violet visits the village where the letters were posted, she finds that Ivy is already dead.
She’ll quickly discover that when you represent the best-loved Agony Aunt in Britain, both marauding husbands and murder are par for the course.

Anastasia Hastings is a penname for Connie Laux who has, over a thirty-year career, published 65 novels in a number of different genres and under a number of names. She began writing historical romance, and has also written contemporary romance, YA, and a children’s book. Over fifteen years ago, she set her sights on writing in her favorite genre, mystery, and since then has published 30+ mysteries for Minotaur and Penguin Random House. As Kylie Logan, she wrote the Jazz Ramsey books for Minotaur as well as a number of cozy mysteries for Berkley, including the League of Literary Ladies series, the Ethnic Eats series, and the Button Box mysteries. She’s also written the Haunted Mansion mysteries as Lucy Ness and the Love is Murder mysteries (set in a romance bookstore) as Mimi Granger. As Casey Daniels, she authored the Pepper Martin mysteries, a series in which she put her knowledge of old cemeteries and the paranormal to good use. She is a Sherlock Holmes devotee, a Victorian England aficionado, and she enjoys learning about history as it applies to the everyday lives of the people who lived it. Connie learned to love mysteries at an early age thanks to her dad who was a Cleveland Police detective. He not only introduced her to the Holmes stories, he took her along on his days off and they went in search of stolen cars. Connie lives outside of Cleveland with her husband, David, and her Airedale, Eliot Ness, who is a ribbon-winning show dog when he’s outside and a couch potato when he’s home.