Philip is a happy man --- the owner of a pet store and a referee for kids' soccer. Jeffrey is the sole sane person in a world filled with morons. The two of them are about to collide in a series of outrageous events that will send them running for their lives.

In the eighth installment of Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series, our inquisitive heroine helps a new friend discover the identity of her father.

On the way back from a trip to Hawaii, her dream vacation-turned-nightmare, Stephanie Plum is roped into a complex case when her seatmate on the flight is found dead in a garbage can after the L.A. layover --- and she alone may hold critical evidence.

Bernie is invited to give the keynote speech at the Great Western Private Eye Convention, but it’s Chet that the bigshot P.I. in charge has secret plans for. Meanwhile, Chet and Bernie are hired to find a kid who has gone missing from a wilderness camp in the high country. As if that weren’t enough, matters get complicated at home when a stray puppy that looks suspiciously like Chet shows up.

A woman with a murky past who kills herself --- or was it murder? A dying old man cared for by the son he pummeled mercilessly. A lovely woman whose life is about to splinter into a thousand fragments. A professional shoplifting ring racking up millions in stolen goods. A brutal and unscrupulous gangster. A wandering husband, rich and powerful. A spoiled kid awash in gambling debt thinking he can beat the system. A lonely widower mourning the death of his lover, desperate for answers that may be worse than the pain of his loss. An elegant but ruthless businessman whose dealings are definitely outside the law: the spider at the center of the web.

The precocious Flavia de Luce must solve a murder that took place while the entire village gathered to see a movie starring the famed Phyllis Wyvern being filmed at the de Luces’ decaying English estate.

Dead bodies are showing up on the empty construction lot of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. No one is sure who the killer is, or why the victims have been offed, but Stephanie’s name is on the killer’s list. 

During World War II, Julia and Paul Child joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and were involved in the McCarthy Red spy hunt in the 1950s. Jennet Conant relates the OSS experiences of the Childs and their eccentric colleague, Jane Foster.

Isabel Dalhousie has been asked to investigate candidates for the new headmaster position at a local boy’s school. When she receives an anonymous warning about one of them, she discovers deep secrets not just about the candidates, but also about her own life.

What starts as rumors over new paintings by a dead artist quickly becomes something far more desperate --- a high-stakes crisis that PI's Lydia Chin and Bill Smith will find themselves risking everything to resolve.