Frank Carlson Library

When the garishly grotesque clan of wealthy carpetsweeper magnate Otto Brodie sweeps down upon Judith McMonigle's Hillside Manor Inn, it looks like there'll be a wild night of drinking, dining, and fortune-telling in the offing. But when their soothsayer-for-hire Madame Gushenka drops dead after someone douses her tea leaves with bug killer, harried hostess Judith and her irrepressible cousin Renie are left to clean up the mess. One of the Brodie...

Leaving the Hillside manor in capable hands, bed-and-breakfast hostess Judith McMonigle heads north to Vancouver's Hotel Clovia with her irrepressibly voracious cousin Renie for a pre-Thanksgiving getaway. But when an addled and impoverished popcorn vendor is murdered -- along with his foul-mouthed pet parakeet -- a local copper's suspicious gaze settles on the two visiting Americans. The cousins, in turn, suspect one of the "Sacred Eight" -- an odd-duck...

When she volunteers at the State B&B booth during Oktoberfest, trying to win some allies to save her inn, Judith McMonigle Flynn stumbles on a dead body and, agreeing to not get involved, convinces her cousin Renie to pose as the sleuth while she does the dirty work to solve this crime.

The picturesque town of Alpine in the Cascade Mountains is decked out in Christmas cheer, but at the Alpine Advocate, editor and publisher Emma Lord is fretting over how her brother and her son—both priests—will react to her affair with Sheriff Milo Dodge. Another family is singing the blues when Postmaster Roy Everson shows up with bones that may belong to his mother, who’s been missing for sixteen years. But the most disturbing discovery is...