Claire Malloy Mystery
8 primary works • 22 total works
Book 3
Agatha Award-winning author Joan Hess, the prolific creator of the Claire Malloy and Maggody mysteries, is beloved for her clever sleuths, quirky characters, and her ingenious plotting.
At Farberville High, it's reading, writing ... and murder.
Who knows what evil lurks in the halls of Farbervilles' high school-or what blackmail is hidden in Miss Demeanor's Falcon Crier advice column? Certainly not bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy-until her daughter Caron persuades her to substitute for disgraced column editor and journalism teacher Emily Parchester. Surely Miss Parchester cannot be guilty of embezzlement. But the petty charges graduate to murder when Principal Weiss gets his last licks from Miss Parchester's peach compote. Miss Parchester herself, last seen at a local sanitarium, is suddenly missing. And now it's up to Claire to find someone who's been schooled in the fine art of murder...
Book 5
Book 6
Bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy has donned another hat (or is that a collar?)-as a petsitter extraordinaire. Her furry charges are Miss Emily Parchester's beloved basset hounds, Nick and Nora, and two very good dogs they are. Everything is just ducky...until they vanish. Other neighbors' pets have also disappeared, and no doubt a dognapper is on the prowl. . .
Switching to her sleuthing chapeau, Claire quickly locates the shabby abode of Newton Churls, who runs a black market in stolen animals. But instead of a pen filled with purloined pooches, Claire finds one very dead Newton-and it appears his own pit bull terriers did him in. Or did they? Claire smells a human rat behind the brutal murder. And mysteriously, Nick and Nora are still missing. Now Claire is doggedly determined to find them...and run a killer to the ground.
Book 7
THE PITTSBURGH PRESS
In this, the seventh adventure in the Claire Malloy series, Claire discovers a lot about her late, unlamented husband. The viperish family matriarch, Miss Justicia, gives a preview of her latest will at the decaying family estate in Louisiana. From snobbish Cousin Maxie and timid, tippling Pauline to beautiful Ellie and her porky dad, the Malloys appear a poisonous lot--and appeareances in this case are not deceiving. When Miss Jusiticia and her wheelchair end up in the bayou, Claire is certain that one of them assisted the old lady to her death. And snakes, snipers, and tapeworms notwithstanding, she's prepared to prove it....
Book 12
THE GIFT THAT GIVES ON GIVING. . .
With Farberville's college on holiday break, Claire Malloy's bookstore is quiet . . . deadly quiet. Breaking the silence is a little old lady looking for volumes on pagan rituals, applied magick, and Celtic mysticism. Claire is intrigued and-miffed that her lover, Farberville police Lieutenant Peter Rosen, says she's in a rut-happily accepts an invitation to welcome the winter solstice at dawn.
HOMICIDE FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Showing up at the Sacred Grove, Claire expects wild chanting or even nude dancing. Instead she ends up sitting on a stump watching the Arch Druid clean her bifocals. Then winter arrives and so does a dead man. Someone has shot the wealthy benefactor of Farberville's neo-pagans. Now Claire is mixing some snooping with her Christmas shopping. But instead of wrapping up the case, she finds out 'tis the season for ho- ho- homicide . . . and she may be the next victim.
Book 13
Farberville, Arkansas is playing host to its first ever mystery convention. Sponsored by the Thurber Farber Foundation and held at Farber College, Murder Comes to Campus is playing host to five major mystery writers representing all areas of the field. Dragooned into running the show when the original organizer is hospitalized, local bookseller Claire Malloy finds herself in the midst of a barely controlled disaster. Not only do each of the writers present their own set of idiosyncracies and difficulties (including one who arrives with her cat Wimple in tow), the feared, distrusted, and disliked mystery editor of Paradigm House, Roxanne Small, puts in a surprise appearance at the conference. Added to Claire's own love-life woes with local police detective Peter Rosen, things have never been worse.
Then when one of the attendees dies in a suspicious car accident, Wimple the cat disappears from Claire's home, and Roxanne Small is nowhere to be found, it becomes evident that the murder mystery is more than a literary genre.
Book 14
Faberville bookstore owner Claire Malloy is ruminating over the state of her love life when she gets disturbing news. Elderly Miss Emily Parchester is up a tree. Chained to an old oak, packing a thermos of tea and a gun, the retired schoolteacher is ready to go down with the ship, or rather the tree, before she'll let another historic piece of Farberville be bulldozed in the name of "progress," i.e., developer Anthony Armstrong's condominiums.
With Miss Parchester armed, and therefore dangerous, Claire fears this noble act will end tragically. Unfortunately, it does-when someone murders Armstrong. And suddenly Claire herself is out on a limb: a baby has been left on her doorstep, the child's teenage mom is suspect number one in Armstrong's death, and Claire needs to find the real killer fast. Especially when she discovers Miss Parchester knows more than she's willing to tell . . .
Book 16
A Renaissance Fair is coming to the relatively quiet college town of Farberville Arkansas, which is not the sort of news that usually sets local bookseller Claire Malloy's heart racing. But with Claire's daughter, Caron, being the perpetually petulant teenager that she is, and her fiance, Police Lieutenant Peter Rosen, away, she finds herself drawn into the strange inner workings of the group putting on the fair.
Stranger still: A Ren Fair volunteer has just been found burned in the wreckage of a rented home. Who is this woman, and why haven't any of her associates ever met her in the flesh? When the fair is set to open, tensions expose the dark secrets and malevolent schemes that lurk beneath the surface. Now, with Claire's dreams of a blissful wedding hanging in the balance, she has no choice but to fling herself into the battle and match wits with the killer . . .
Now that she's back from her honeymoon, Claire Malloy must face the reality of her home life: It's too close for comfort. A two-bedroom apartment is a formula for disaster for her new husband, Police Chief Peter Rosen, and her teenage daughter, Caron. Time to go house hunting-before they all kill each other. Figuratively speaking, of course . . .
Or not. Ever since Claire found the perfect home-a well-preserved large house on a large plot of land in Hollow Valley-she has been up to the roof with problems. Not only has the real estate agent gone mysteriously missing but soon Claire learns that the house's previous owner died in circumstances labelled "accidental." And new bodies from Hollow Valley are starting to pile up . . . Now it's up to Claire to dig up the dirt-and unearth a killer. Can she solve the mystery before her dream house turns into a living nightmare?
Claire Malloy-a single, widowed mother of a teenage daughter and a bookseller in Farberville, Arkansas-has finally said 'I do' to her swain, Peter Rosen of the local police department. Now they are on their honeymoon in Luxor, Egypt. Well, Claire is on her honeymoon, accompanied by her daughter Caron, and Inez, Caron's best friend and frequent partner in adventure. Peter, meanwhile, is mostly away doing business in his new, completely undiscussed role in law enforcement.
At the glamorous Winter Palace in Luxor, Claire is intent on a quiet, uneventful stay involving shopping, and tourist sites. But despite her determined efforts to avoid trouble, the tenor of the trip quickly switches from sleepy to creepy. First, Caron and Inez are chased through darkened deserted alleys by persons unknown. Then a blond college student of their recent acquaintance is kidnapped by two young men on horseback in a scene reminiscent of a Hollywood horror film. Something is clearly afoot in this tourist paradise . . . and now Claire will stop at nothing to find out what.
NO. 9 OF 2
Murder is no laughing matter-especially when it comes to marriage. So before Luanne gets in too deep with her new flame, a dentist named Dick, she'd like her best friend to do a background check. Did Dick murder his two previous wives? That's what Arkansas bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy intends to discover . . .
Everything Claire turns up on this would-be blue-beard keeps leading her down a slippery slope. The police are determined to prove Dick guilty of double homicide, but Claire's not so sure. Something about his story just doesn't add up. But if Dick didn't do the deed, who did? The only thing Claire knows for sure is that Luanne won't have a moment's rest until she finds out . . .
NO. 1 OF 2
NO. 4 OF 2
NO. 10 OF
Since his recent arrival, avant-garde artist Zeno Gorgias has been turning heads and attracting gawkers in the otherwise tame college town of Farberville Arkansas. Zeno's "interactive" art-featuring an undressed woman lounging beside a coffin on his front yard-is neither welcome by the community nor punishable by law. But as local bookseller and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy is about to find out, sometimes there's a dark side to one's freedom of artistic expression . . .
Strange things keep happening to Zeno and his oeuvre. First, his estranged wife comes to town, demanding he be committed to a mental institution. Then Zeno's house mysteriously goes up in flames. And if that's not enough, a dead body is found inside of the infamous coffin. Now that Zeno has been arrested for murder, it's up to Claire to figure out what on earth is going on in Farberville . . . while the real killer remains on the loose.
NO. 8 OF 2
Claire Malloy loves her life. But how did it go by so fast? A bookstore owner, part-time sleuth, and full-time single mother, Claire is about to turn the big four-oh! Good thing her teenage daughter, Caron, has just been recruited by the Kappa Theta Eta girls-whose sorority house is next door to the Malloys'-to be a consultant for the cosmetics empire My Beautiful Self, Inc. At the very least, Claire can get a little help with those fine lines around her eyes...but at what cost?
Turns out there's a high price to pay to look one's best. After a series of dangerous and suspicious incidents, including a hit-and-run "accident" that kills a sorority sister, it becomes clear to Claire that the beauty business in Farberville, Arkansas, is getting pretty ugly-and with every new makeover another dark circle rises from beneath the surface . . .
Who could resist the mock-murder weekend at the charming Mimosa Inn-- certainly not bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy, who decides to bring her petulant daughter Caron along for some detecting. As the guests settle in for a weekend of sleuthing, dressed as their favourite literary detectives, many a Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot stand poised to solve a murder. But fiction becomes alarmingly real, as the mock-murder victim isn't just playing dead-- he's really been bashed to death. More determined than even to find the killer, Claire combs the grounds of the lovely inn for this most uninvited guest.
Claire Malloy runs a bookstore in the normally quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas - an enterprise which provides the verging-on-meagre living for her and her deeply sarcastic teenage daughter Caron. So when emergency work forces Claire and Caron to abandon their apartment for a few weeks, they are in no financial position to put themselves up in style and Claire is thrilled to accept a customer's offer to let them stay at her well-stocked, well-equipped palatial home while she is traveling.
Of course, nothing is ever that easy. No sooner do Claire and Caron ensconce themselves than disquieting events start to occur - dubious people show up looking for the 'traveling' owner of the house; the owner herself turns out not to be who she claimed and is now seemingly on the run; and a dead body keeps turning up - and subsequently disappearing - around the grounds of the house. Determined, for once, to stay out of the mysterious doings, Claire's hand is finally forced when the disappearing body turns out to be only the first corpse to turn up . . .
When you make a game of murder, be careful who the players are...
Who could resist the mock-murder weekend at the charming Mimosa Inn-- certainly not bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy, who decides to bring her petulant daughter Caron along for some detecting. As the guests settle in for a weekend of sleuthing, dressed as their favorite literary detectives, many a Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot stand poised to solve a murder. But fiction becomes alarmingly real, as the mock-murder victim isn't just playing dead-- he's really been bashed to death. More determined than even to find the killer, Claire combs the grounds of the lovely inn for this most uninvited guest.