A Boston woman visiting her Southern hometown must smoke out a fire-starting killer in this cozy mystery by a New York Times–bestselling author. Laura Fleming is always happy to visit her ever-extending family in Byerly, North Carolina. This time, though, it’s not kin calling her back home, but businessman Burt Walters. Burt’s hoping Laura can dig up dirt on Marshall and Grace Saunders, proposed buyers of Walters Mill. Laura knows Burt has good reasons for opposing the deal, and not just because the Saunderses are Yankees. But the mill has long been Byerly’s bread-and-butter, and stakes are high. Half her family is pro-buyout and half against—Laura’s Shakespeare-quoting husband, Richard, likens it to the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets, only nastier. Soon it’s more than tempers flaring, for a spate of suspicious fires culminates in Marshall’s death. With her cousin Linwood a prime suspect, Laura is called to uncover the truth. Amid a mess of double-crossing, blackmail and fraud, she sets a trap to catch a killer—but may catch more than she bargained for...

Nathaniel Lyon (1818–1861) was the first Union general to die in the Civil War. Killed at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, Missouri, he became the North’s first war hero, famed as the man who saved Missouri for the Union. In Damned Yankee, chosen by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book in 1991, Christopher Phillips portrays Lyon not as the savior of a border state threatened by secessionist extremists but as an unbalanced, monomaniacal Unionist zealot who purposely—and perhaps unnecessarily—brought war to a fragile state whose populace had voted overwhelmingly to stay out of the conflict. Phillips meticulously examines Lyon’s role in the Camp Jackson affair, his quest to oust the pro-southern governor of Missouri, and his campaign to eliminate the secessionist element in the state. He contends that Lyon’s actions in Missouri in 1861 were congruent with his dogmatic personality and troubled past. Damned Yankee is a complex, often shocking, portrait of one of the most controversial figures of the Civil War and a sobering study of how the faults of men may greatly affect history.

Like other fictional characters, female sleuths may live in the past or the future. They may represent current times with some level of reality or shape their settings to suit an agenda. There are audiences for both realism and escapism in the mystery novel. It is interesting, however, to compare the fictional world of the mystery sleuth with the world in which readers live. Of course, mystery readers do not share one simplistic world. They live in urban, suburban, and rural areas, as do the female heroines in the books they read. They may choose a book because it has a familiar background or because it takes them to places they long to visit. Readers may be rich or poor; young or old; conservative or liberal. So are the heroines. What incredible choices there are today in mystery series! This three-volume encyclopedia of women characters in the mystery novel is like a gigantic menu. Like a menu, the descriptions of the items that are provided are subjective. Volume 3 of Mystery Women as currently updated adds an additional 42 sleuths to the 500 plus who were covered in the initial Volume 3. These are more recently discovered sleuths who were introduced during the period from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1999. This more than doubles the number of sleuths introduced in the 1980s (298 of whom were covered in Volume 2) and easily exceeded the 347 series (and some outstanding individuals) described in Volume 1, which covered a 130-year period from 1860-1979. It also includes updates on those individuals covered in the first edition; changes in status, short reviews of books published since the first edition through December 31, 2008.

A Southern smalltown wedding attracts well-wishers—and a killer—in this cozy mystery by the New York Times–bestselling author of Mad as the Dickens. Romance is in the air—and so is murder—in the eighth in Agatha Award-winning author Toni L.P. Kelner’s small-town Southern mystery series. Laura Fleming knows that love plays by its own rules. After all, she did the unthinkable and married a Yankee. But even she’s shocked to hear that her indomitable Aunt Maggie, a spinster closer to eighty than seventy, has eloped with Big Bill Walters. Laura, her husband Richard, and their baby daughter hightail it home, where Laura discovers the real motive behind Aunt Maggie’s marriage. Someone is trying to kill Big Bill, and Aunt Maggie plans to stick close enough to find the culprit—with Laura’s help. Big Bill is Byerly’s wealthiest businessman, so it’s little surprise certain folks have a beef with him. In fact, there’s a stack of threatening letters going back decades to wade through. Claims of land theft and worker injury abound, plus Aunt Maggie’s one-time beau, Pudd’nhead Wilson, is back in town. Innocents are getting caught in the crossfire, and Laura concocts a risky plan to lure the killer into the open. But she’ll need to keep Aunt Maggie safe too, or Byerly’s oldest newlywed will soon be its newest widow . . . Praise for Wed and Buried “The Southern milieu with its friendly warmth and innumerable relatives belies the hatred and tensions smoldering beneath the surface in Kelner's eighth airy Laura Fleming cozy. . . . Good humor abounds amid the murder and mayhem in this sprawling family.” —Publishers Weekly “Decidedly homey characters, country charm, and upbeat tone.” —Library Journal