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Pickax's favorite columnist, James Qwilleran, is enjoying a brief vacation with his two Siamese cats at the Nutcracker Inn, in the nearby town of Black Creek. But the tranquillity of the place is interrupted by the discovery of a body floating down the creek -- the body of a man who had been a guest at the inn.

The residents of Pickax are delighted that the old bombed-out Pickax Hotel is reopening with a whole new look. Everyone is thrown into a topspin when one of the hotel's first guests winds up a victim of murder. Qwilleran and his brilliant Siamese put their whisker-twitching, crime-solving talents to work to find a killer.

When rare book collector Cliff Janeway is offered a lucrative bondsman job, he can't refuse, especially since the bail jumper might have a priceless copy of The Raven.

For Bernie Rhodenbarr a simple job leads to bigger things, after he is asked to appraise a library collection. He manages to make off with a cache of rare stamps, but is soon caught up in a scheme involving a stolen painting.

As J.R., Biggie Weatherford's 12-year-old grandson, recounts Biggie's uncanny ability to solve the peskiest cases, his observations are spiced with his wry adolescent view of grownups. A trip to a nearby town introduces J.R. to a ghost and presents Biggie with a perplexing local murder.

Mailman Luther Abernathy has a bad habit of opening everyone's mail and sharing their most intimate secrets with anyone who will listen. So it's no surprise J.R. finds him murdered one day. Time for Biggie to offer her sleuthing abilities in the investigation.

A victim of foul play, Firman Birdsong spends the Grand Opening of the Birdsong brothers' chicken restaurant dead under a table--with his gravy-covered, parsley-garnished body and his tomato-stuffed mouth. Biggie and her 10-year-old grandson JR investigate the murder. But as the suspect list swells, JR believes Biggie cares more about detecting than protecting him from a brewing custody battle--and the investigation takes an awful turn.

Ex-cowgirl and quilter Bennie moves to California to start over after the sudden death of her husband. Working as the curator of a folk-art museum, Benni uncovers clues to a small-town murder. Now it's up to this crackerjack sleuth to solve the crime.

FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers confronts the Navy's darkest secret--and his own painful past.

After her last harrowing case, Kate Martinelli is more than ready for routine police work and her newfound serenity with longtime lover Lee. But then she's called to the scene of a carefully executed murder, and everything changes.