Booklists: suggested reading

 

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If You Like . . . Janet Evanovich Booklist

 

Books featuring strong, sassy female leads, offbeat characters, bounty hunters, more than a hint of romance, and humor . . .

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

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• The Miracle Strip
  Author: Bartholomew, Nancy
  Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312192991 Date: 1998
  Kirkus
  Sierra Lavontini, Bartholomew's unlikely detective, is a stripper - pardon, an "exotic dancer" in Panama City, Florida. Her brash and sassy debut pits Sierra against the manipulations of a putative best friend, the Mob who left one of its members lying dead in the woman's bathroom, the police - indeed, everyone but her dog Fluffy. Sierra has no choice but to dig in her five-inch heels and find the killer on her own.
  
• Drag Strip
  Author: Bartholomew, Nancy
  Publisher: Minotaur List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312202954 Date: 1999
  PW
  Sierra Lavotini, the classiest dancer at the Tiffany club in Panama City and star of the hit novel The Miracle Strip, returns in another action-packed adventure. This time, the death of another young Tiffany dancer sends Sierra in search of a killer.
  
• 5 Bodies to Die for
  Author: Bond, Stephanie
  $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780778327059 Date: 2009
  Booklist
  The Charmed Killer is on the loose in Atlanta, and Carlotta Wren is caught up in the terror--especially when her body-moving side business brings her dangerously close to the action. Carlotta can't shake the feeling that the killer's exploits are becoming personal.
  Updated 5.15.09
  
• Size 12 Is Not Fat: Heather Wells
  Author: Cabot, Meg
  Publisher: Avon $ 12.95 ISBN: 0060525118 Date: 2006
  PWLJ
  The #1 "New York Times" bestselling author strikes gold once more with a new series featuring a pop star-turned-girl detective in a mystery that rocks.
  Suggested Reading: Humorous Crime Fiction
  Updated 12.27.05
• The Butcher of Beverly Hills
  Author: Colt, Jennifer
  Publisher: Broadway $ 11.95 (paper) ISBN: 0767920112 Date: 2005
  With a razor-sharp wit that brings to life LA's most eccentric personalities, this novel marks the debut of two of the hottest sleuths since Stephanie Plum--and delivers a fast-paced, highly original tale that will keep readers guessing until the very end.
  Updated 7.25.05
• Lucky Stiff
  Author: Coonts, Deborah
  $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780765325440 Date: 2011
  Booklist LJ
  In this follow-up to Wanna Get Lucky, Lucky O'Toole thinks it's just another night in Las Vegas--until she discovers the body of one of Vegas's oddsmakers in a shark tank. When the police show up at the Babylon, Lucky realizes her previous night was far from routine.
  Updated 4.15.11
• Fast Women
  Author: Crusie, Jennifer
  Publisher: St Martin's $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312252617 Date: 2001
  Kirkus
  Nell Dysart brings calamity to her job at a detective agency, but even her boss has to admit that no matter how much he hates the confusion she's brought into his life, Nell shares his passion for making things right. It's not long before they share another passion--one they can't ignore--even in the face of distractions like adultery, blackmail, arson, murder, and really bad business cards.
  Updated 3/19/01
• Faking It
  Author: Crusie, Jennifer
  Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312284683 Date: 2002
  Kirkus
  Matilda "Tilda" Goodnight and Davy Dempsey both want something gorgeous gold-digger Clea Lewis has. When they cross paths in Clea's bedroom, Tilda and Davy reluctantly join forces to battle with a determined femme fatale, an inept art collector, a disgruntled heir, false identities, and worst of all, real love.
  Updated 6.29.02
• Tressed to Kill
  Author: Dare, Lila
  $ 7.99 ISBN: 9780425234747 Date: 2010
  PW
  When hairdresser Grace Terhune and her mother, Violetta, gussy up all the high-society ladies attending the town meeting, they find their snobbiest client dead. The police believe the mother-daughter duo did her in. Grace sets out to clear their names.
  Updated 3.18.10
  
• First Grave on the Right
  Author: Jones, Darynda
  $ 21.99 ISBN: 9780312662752 Date: 2011
  LJ Booklist
  Charley sees dead people. And it's her job to convince them to "go into the light." But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (i.e. murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice.
  Updated 4.15.11
• Dial H for Hitchcock: CeCe Caruso
  Author: Kandel, Susan
  $ 13.99 ISBN: 9780061826672 Date: 2009
  PW
  Cece Caruso--mystery biographer extraordinaire, vintage clothing enthusiast, and part-time sleuth--is in freefall. First, she calls off her wedding, for reasons even she can't explain. Second, her newest biography (of Alfred Hitchcock) is way past due.
  Updated 10.27.09
  
• Dating Dead Men
  Author: Kozak, Harley Jane
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385510187 Date: 2004
  LJKirkusPW
  Kozak's debut novel is a smart, funny, fast-paced mystery in the tradition of Janet Evanovich featuring greeting card artist and small business owner Wollie Shelley, a woman who's looking for love--and job satisfaction--in all the wrong places when she literally stumbles across a murder that irrevocably changes her life (in some ways, for the better).
  Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery Debuts | All Stars
  Updated 12.8.03
• Dating Is Murder
  Author: Kozak, Harley Jane
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 19.95 ISBN: 0385510349 Date: 2005
  LJKirkus
  With Dating Is Murder, Kozak delivers another sparkling treasure, a laugh-out-loud funny, literate mystery for readers of Janet Evanovich and Sue Grafton, and for Kozak's own growing legion of fans.
  Updated 11.2.04
• Liar Liar: Cat Deluca
  Author: Larsen, K.J.
  $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781590587256 Date: 2010
  LJ
  Private Investigator Cat DeLuca and her Pants on Fire Detective Agency have a reputation for catching cheaters. It's a skill Cat mastered when married to her run-around ex, Johnnie Ricco. Life takes a strange turn when a reporter for the Chicago Tribune (Rita Polansky) masquerades as a client with a liar-liar husband. Rita retains Cat to follow Chance Savino, a steamy guy with a pocketful of smuggled diamonds. Can Cat solve the case before she becomes the next victim?
  Updated 8.9.10
• A Bad Day for Pretty
  Author: Littlefield, Sophie
  $ 24.99 ISBN: 9780312559755 Date: 2010
  PW
  This is the thrilling sequel to Littlefield's debut, the IMBA and San Francisco Chronicle bestseller A Bad Day for Sorry. Crime fiction hasn't seen a character as scrappy, mean, and incredibly appealing as Stella in a long time.--Entertainment Weekly.
  Updated 4.29.10
• Revenge of the Spellmans
  Author: Lutz, Lisa
  $ 25 ISBN: 9781416593386 Date: 2009
  PW LJ Booklist
  The author of the "New York Times" bestseller The Spellman Files and Curse of the Spellmans returns with the third installment in the series that features the zany, dysfunctional Spellman family.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 3.3.009
  
• Sticky Fingers
  Author: Martin, Nancy
  $ 25 ISBN: 9780312573737 Date: 2011
  PW
  Roxy Abruzzo barely escaped big trouble in her first adventure, Foxy Roxy. Now Roxy is determined to stay on the straight and narrow--except that she gets in over her head doing a few jobs for her uncle Carmine, one of the last oldtime mob bosses in Pittsburgh.
  Updated 2.14.11
• The Bitch Factor
  Author: Rogers, Chris
  Publisher: Bantam List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0553106597 Date: 1998
  LJ
  After ten years in the Houston's D.A.'s office, watching the guilty get off on technicalities, Dixie Flannigan decides to embrace a more hands-on style of justice: she becomes a bounty hunter. Tracking an accused child-killer to North Dakota, Dixie finds herself facing not only a blizzard, but also suspicions that the man is really innocent.
• Dogs Don't Lie
  Author: Simon, Clea
  $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781590588604 Date: 2011
  Booklist
  Pru Marlowe isn't your ordinary animal psychic. A tough girl on the run from her own gift, Pru left the big city to return to her picturesque Berkshires hometown looking for a little peace. Too bad that her training as an animal behaviorist got her mixed up with Lily, a rescue dog, and Charles, her person. Now Charles is dead, and Lily looks good for it. After all, Lily is a pitbull, a fighting-ring dropout, and way too traumatized to give Pru a clear picture of what she has witnessed. But Pru knows something about bad girls trying to clean up, and, with a sense of justice strong enough to overcome her dislike of human society, she takes the case. Listening to the animals, Pru picks up clues--and learns there are secrets in the pretty little town that make murder look simple. Unable to tell anybody about her psychic abilities, uncertain at times about her own sanity, Pru comes to realize that if she clears Lily, she'll likely become the prime suspect--or the next victim. While the only creature she can totally trust is her crotchety tabby Wallis, Pru's got to uncover the real killer--and find a way to live with her gift--before the real beasts in the town savage her and those she has come to love. The first in the Pru Marlowe "pet noir"series. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 3.7.11
• False Profits
  Author: Smiley, Patricia
  Publisher: Mysterious $ 23.95 ISBN: 0892967900 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Featuring a fresh new voice and cast of characters, False Profits will appeal to fans of the novels by Janet Evanovich.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 9.7.04
• Bubbles Unbound
  Author: Strohmeyer, Sarah
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525945806 Date: 2001
  Agatha Winner Best First Novel
  Bubbles Yablonsky knows there is more to life than doing hair in Lehigh, Pennsylvania. She goes back to school, enters journalism classes and gets a job at a local newspaper for on-the-job training. When Bubbles stumbles upon a crime scene on the way home from an assignment, she's suddenly up to her roots in a nasty murder investigation. This title is the debut novel in a new mystery series.
  
• Bubbles Ablaze
  Author: Strohmeyer, Sarah
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525947388 Date: 2003
  The irrepressible heroine of Strohmeyer's Agatha Award-winning series makes her usual headline-grabbing entrance just in time to heat up Pennsylvania's coal country--in another rip-roaring tale of murder and mayhem.
  Updated 7.19.04
• Bubbles a Broad
  Author: Strohmeyer, Sarah
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: Date: 0525947981 2004
  In the newest installment in Strohmeyer's wacky mystery series, Bubbles Yablonsky, everyone's favorite flaky hairdresser/reporter/amateur sleuth, attempts to solve a sticky homicide and uncover possible corruption at the highest levels of the steel industry.
  Updated 7.19.04
• Half-Priced Homicide: A Dead-End Job Mystery
  Author: Viets, Elaine
  $ 23 ISBN: 9780451229892 Date: 2010
  PW
  The national bestselling author who turns minimum wage into maximum hilarity (Nancy Martin, author of Murder Melts in Your Mouth) presents a high-society murder mystery.
  Updated 3.18.10
  
• The Dangerous Edge of Things
  Author: Whittle, Tina
  $ 24.95 ISBN: 9781590588178 Date: 2010
  PW LJ
  Tai Randolph thinks inheriting a Confederate-themed gun shop is her biggest headache -- until she finds a murdered corpse in her brother's driveway. Even worse, her supposedly respectable brother begins behaving in decidedly non-innocent ways, like fleeing to the Bahamas and leaving her with both a homicide in her lap and the pointed suspicions of the Atlanta PD directed her way. Suddenly, she has to worry about clearing her own name, not just that of her wayward sibling. Complicating her search for answers is Trey Seaver, field agent for Phoenix, an exclusive corporate security firm hired to investigate the crime. Trey is fearless, focused, and -- much to Tai's dismay -- utterly impervious to bribes, threats and clever deceptions. Still in recovery from the car accident that left him cognitively and emotionally damaged, Trey has constructed a world of certainty and routine. He has powerful people to answer to, and the last thing he wants is an unpredictable stranger "detecting" on Phoenix turf. Tai's inquiry leads her from the cold-eyed glamour of Atlanta's adult entertainment scene to the gilded treachery of Tuxedo Road. Potential suspects abound, including violent stalkers, vengeful sisters, and a paparazzo with a taste for meth. But it takes another murder -- and threats to her own life -- to make Tai realize that to solve this crime, she has to trust the most dangerous man she's ever met.
  Updated 12.14.10