Annie Darling, owner of the Death on Demand bookstore, is shocked to hear talk about her husband, Max, and a beautiful blonde.By the time she's faced down a hostile police chief and bailed Max out of the Chastain, South Carolina, jail, the lady has vanished and Max is the prime suspet in an unspecified crime.

"Bailey Ruth's supervisor, Wiggins, is worried about a dear old friend. The ghost of elegant Lorraine Marlow haunts Adelaide's college library. Known as the Lady of the Roses, she plays matchmaker, using the fragrant flowers to pair up students. But someone's making mischief after hours, leaving roses strewn about the library, destroying a gargoyle, and stealing a valuable book. Concerned with Lorraine's reputation among the living, Wiggins dispatches...

In this highly entertaining puzzle (after 1999's Death on the River Walk), 70-ish sleuth Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins (aka Henrie O) is in a somber, reflective mode, as befits her age and her life experiences. Recovering from pneumonia, Henrie O isn't sure she feels up to the task of dealing with the emotional maelstrom stewing around the Bermuda wedding of her son-in-law, Lloyd Drake, and beautiful Connor Bailey, a wealthy widow. A granddaughter, unhappy...

When a wealthy woman in Adelaide, Oklahoma, is found dead, it's up to that irrepressible spirit Bailey Ruth, on assignment from Wiggins and Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, to protect a little boy, foil a murderer, and save Christmas. There's only one teeny hitch: how can Bailey Ruth figure out which family member was desperate enough to kill when everyone has a motive?

Since her fiance's death, Nela Farley has been plagued by the sense that she understands the thoughts of cats. Nela knows it's irrational, and decides that she's just transferring her own thoughts. Then her sister, Chloe, goes on a trip and asks Nela to fill in at her job. Arriving at the place Chloe arranged for her to stay, Nela sees the previous tenant's cat and thinks: "...dead and gone...she loved me...board rolled on the second step..." And...

When the pastor's wife discovers a murdered body on her porch, ghost sleuth Bailey Ruth Raeburn applies her beyond-the-grave talents for solving puzzles to keep suspicion from falling on the innocent pastor.

In her toughest case yet, Bailey Ruth, the irrepressible ghost sleuth, returns to earth to protect Kay Clark, a former Adelaide, Okla., acquaintance, from danger -- and discover who killed Kay's husband.

"Annie's friend and fellow shop owner Ves Roundtree is a very wealthy woman. Her rich brother entrusted her with his estate, and upon her death, his fortune is to be divided. Several cash-strapped islanders are in line to collect life-changing inheritances. The problem is, Ves is very much alive. Ves hosts a dinner for the prospective beneficiaries and feels a chill in the air that has nothing to do with the wintry season. Not long after, she suffers...

In small-town Oklahoma in the summer of 1944, a young reporter investigates the murder of her acquaintance.

Three deaths are linked to Broward's Rock Island's youth recreation center, and its director. When she asks Max to help clear her name, Annie is right there with her husband to help.