Showing results by publisher "Books in Motion" in Comedy & Humour

An informant in hiding. Killers on a mission. This is the perfect time for cupcakes. Sterling Carter lives in Wandering Springs, a small Washington town on the Canadian border. During the day, Sterling toils in a local bakery, learning a new craft. In his free time, he reads mystery novels, listens to his favorite music, and plays with his cat.

Aaron Tucker, aspiring New Jersey screenwriter and occasional freelance journalist, puts on his sleuthing hat after a young man with Asperger's syndrome is arrested for a senseless murder. Despite damning evidence, including the accused's confession and possession of the murder weapon, Tucker, who has an autistic son, finds the nature of the crime incompatible with his understanding of the suspect's symptoms. Persisting even after a local mobster warns him off, the amateur detective uses his son to pursue the truth.

The life of Aaron Tucker - freelance writer and stay-at-home dad - is anything but boring. In fact, Aaron manages to find himself in way more danger than your typical mild-mannered Jewish guy. He lands in a murder investigation when a leading conservative politician is found dead in his DC hotel room, discovered by his mistress after her long post-coital shower. She (a former object of Aaron's affection) asks Aaron to find the killer.

Introducing Bubba Mabry, a tough, comical private eye who's happy to get 30 bucks an hour acting as a security guard for some celebrity. In this case, it's the king himself, back from the dead and determined to keep a low profile - the one and only Elvis. Seems some fan is harassing him and Bubba is hired to tail the guy who turns out to be a tabloid hack. But when two bodies turn up and Bubba ends up as the prime suspect, he turns investigator.

Aaron Tucker isn't a detective. So he's baffled when the richest guy in his New Jersey town insists that Aaron, and Aaron alone, investigate the disappearance of his wife, who has inexplicably vanished from their home in the middle of the night. Funny, down-to-earth, lovable, and resourceful, Aaron Tucker, family man and freelance writer, reluctantly says yes, and continuously wishes he hadn't.

The biggest thing to happen to Skary, Indiana, is renowned horror novelist Wolfe Boone, or "Boo" as the locals fondly call him. For the past 16 years, the reclusive writer has been the town's greatest attraction, having unintentionally turned the once struggling Skary into a thriving tourist trap for the dark side.

But when a newly reformed Wolfe suddenly quits the genre and subsequently starts to pursue Skary's favorite girl-next-door, Ainsley Parker, the little town becomes truly horrified.

After Godiva's son Torch buys a condo in Las Vegas, his grandmother Flossie and great uncle Sterling decide to pay him a visit. When the old vaudeville magicians drag him to the Pageant of Peacocks starring sexy Mara the Magnificent, it's love at first sight. The romance blossoms, but when Torch returns from a meeting in LA, Mara seems cold and distant. Torch turns to his mother, the advice columnist, for a helping hand.

Miffed that vacation plans with her chronically absent boyfriend Jenks Jenkins have gone awry, she accepts a job in Baja. So what if she and her friend Jan are spectacularly unqualified to take her yacht on a thousand mile cruise in the eastern Pacific Ocean in the middle of hurricane season? Hiring a handsome, if somewhat fishy captain for the trip might keep them off the rocks, but probably won t do the same for her future with Jenks.

He’s the new owner of Rockafellers, a vintage record store struggling to find customers. Much of that is due to Headbangers, a competitor with a better product mix and an aggressive owner. There is also a local do-gooder group who wants Owen to fall in line with their vision for a kinder, gentler Costa Buena. None of that worries Owen, though, because he is determined to be the number one used-music store on the boardwalk - even if that means stepping on a few toes. But when a murder occurs shortly after his arrival, he’s identified as prime suspect number one.

When the owner of Oregon's largest cattle ranch - the Four Arrows - is shot by his horse in a freak accident, Royal Leckner suddenly finds himself charged with teaching the owner's retarded son to take over management of the ranch. The son, Leviticus Perrault, comes as part of an unmatched set, which includes Toofer, a man split between bickering Confederate and Union personalities; Tommy Two Hearts, half-white, half-Indian, and half-paralyzed; and Lou(ella), an idiot savant.

In The Royalscope Fe-As-Ko, Northwest cattle rancher Royal Leckner finds himself in the middle of another fe-as-ko, this time in 1915 Hollywood. Dreams of stardom for her daughter, Elsie, and for herself entice Royal's wife, E.M., to buy a silent film company. She quickly renames it Royalscope Productions in order to convince her fuming husband it's a gift.

When Sheriff Jeff McQuede's friend, Barry Dawson, tricks him into attending a Bigfoot convention at the small town of Trails' End, he finds the adventure is only beginning. He is soon invited by the head of the research team, Dr. Adam Kurtz, to hike with them into the isolated mountains below Lost Man's Peak where few people ever venture.

During the Vietnam War, GIs who managed to survive their tour of duty in one piece - more or less - were flown home in chartered airliners. They called those planes "Freedom Birds". This is the story of three young men - from wildly different backgrounds - who meet on such a plane and make a pact to spend three days together in San Francisco. Their goal: to spend every cent of their mustering out money in a party of a lifetime.

Believing they have killed a revenue agent, Russ and Howie leave Arkansas and run to Oklahoma to Russ' uncle Tyge. He offers them $1,000 each to join a land rush and file on two homesteads for him. When they learn the money won't be paid until they prove up on the land for three years, they take off. They fail at robbing a stage then get a job driving one, which also ends in disaster. They get a job with a Wild West show and last one hilarious hour. A job with a roundup also ends in disaster.

Chester Watkins is not an ordinary person. He's a student of the old school with the tenacity of a bulldog. This cagey senior citizen funds himself plunged into an underground world where only the strong survive. Ravaged to death by a rogue vampire, this determined grandpa set out on a quest to apprehend his killer, and turn an immortal organization upside down. Unable to regenerate any teeth and looked upon with contempt by his enemies, his opposition makes the foolish mistake of underestimating his most powerful ability of all...his incredible mind.

Free-spirited Tracy cheers when her stuffy husband, Drew, loosens up enough to rearrange the nose of his boorish boss, Ian Dragger. But Drew's timing couldn't be worse. When Dragger is found floating face down in the Eatons' pool, deader than disco, Drew is the one that wily Detective Patti Garcia zeroes in on as her prime suspect. Still, Tracy expects to clear her sweetie in short order.

Remembering nothing from the day before, crotchety octogenarian Paul Jacobson must become an amateur sleuth to clear himself as a murder suspect when he finds a dead body in the trash chute of a retirement home. As Paul's snooping and short-term memory loss get him in trouble with the local police, his new friends and granddaughter Jennifer help him solve an expanding list of crimes. Paul finds romance as he struggles to escape a murderer intent on a repeat performance.

It seems that the FDR writer is back wanting more Fe-As-Ko stories from cowpoke Royal Leckner. This time it's 1897, Royal and E.M. have been married about four years. And so have Leviticus and Lou(ella) Perrault, owners of the Four Arrows ranch. Royal is still foreman of the ranch and caretaker of its owner. As he reminds us, Leviticus and Lou(ella) Perrault are "short a hat size," but "nice and honest, which is better than smart and fox-like any day." It's time to take the cattle to Portland for the annual sale, and Royal is bringing Leviticus along to teach him how "to sign on the dotted line."

When a soccer field complex springs to life seemingly overnight in the sleepy community of Skary, Indiana, and the local coffee shop begins offering computer access along with its suddenly overpriced beverages, nerves start getting edgy all over town. Is it possible new comer (and soccer mom) Katelyn Downey is hatching a diabolic plot to turn their slow-paced town into a den of hip suburban iniquity, or might this be the perfect solution to the community's financial woes?

It appears that everyone in Skary, Indiana, is having an identity crisis of epic proportions, including the town itself. Once known as the haunt of the world's most popular horror writer, Wolfe "Boo" Boone, Skary started losing tourist business after Boo abruptly abandoned his career. Now the little town with the big marketing hook is up a creek...and on the brink of bankruptcy.