Elaine Viets

Hired to inspect the stores of designer Denessa Celedine anonymously, mystery shopper Josie Marcus's less than stellar report is the least of the designer's problems, after she is found strangled with one of her own expensive snakeskin belts. Original.

Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper

Dying in Style

The ultrawealthy families of Chouteau Forest may look down on a woman like death investigator Angela Richman, but they also rely on her. When a horrific car crash kills a Forest teenager, Angela is among the first on the scene. Her investigation is hardly underway, however, when she suffers a series of crippling strokes. Misdiagnosed by the resident neurologist, Dr. Gravois, and mended by gauche yet brilliant neurosurgeon Dr. Jeb Travis Tritt, Angela faces a harrowing recovery. It's a drug-addled, hallucinating Angela who learns that Dr. Gravois has been murdered...and the chief suspect is the surgeon who saved her life. Angela doesn't believe it, but can she trust her instincts? Her brain trauma brings doubts that she'll ever recover her investigative skills. But she's determined to save Dr. Tritt from a death-row sentence--even if her progress is thwarted at every turn by a powerful and insular community poised to protect its own.

Brain Storm

Helen and Phil go undercover as cat show participants after an argument between a celebrity couple over the custody of their cat ends abruptly when the husband is murdered and the cat goes missing, in the latest mystery in the series following Board Stiff.

A Dead-end Job Mystery

Catnapped!

On the run from her past, Helen Hawthorne becomes a salesclerk at an elite clothing boutique in Fort Lauderdale - a seemingly mundane job that unexpectedly plunges her into a world of danger when she discovers that her employer has been embezzling money and dealing drugs. Original.

Shop Till You Drop

Helen Hawthorne investigates after the owner of the Page Turners bookstore is murdered.

Murder Between the Covers

The Dead-End Job Mysteries

In the exclusive, gated enclave of Olympia Forest Estates, death investigator Angela Richman watches a mansion go up in a fiery blaze. With it, seventy-year-old financier Luther Delor, a drunken, bed-hopping rhinestone cowboy. Embroiled in a bitter divorce, Delor may have scandalized Chouteau Forest, but his murder has united it against the accused: Delor’s twenty-year-old girlfriend, Kendra Salvato, an “outsider.” With an engagement ring bigger than Chouteau County, she’s being railroaded straight to death row as a gold-digging killer. All there is against Kendra is vicious gossip and anti-Mexican rage, and both are spreading like wildfire. Meanwhile, Angela is trying to douse the flames with forensic work that’s putting the Forest on edge. After all, facts could implicate one of their own. Now, sifting through the ashes of a vicious crime—and the guilty secrets of the privileged—only Angela can get to the truth, and prevent an innocent woman from getting burned.

Fire and Ashes

Ice Blonde

In their latest undercover assignment as a stewardess on a private yacht, husband and wife private investigators Helen Hawthorne and Phil Sagemont attempt to catch a jewel thief in the new mystery from the best-selling author of Pumped for Murder. 20,000 first printing.

Final Sail

When her fiancâe's mother, Lenore, is accused of murdering a crazy bridezilla, bride-to-be and mystery shopper Josie Marcus must find the real killer before her own wedding can proceed.

Murder is a Piece of Cake

Helen Hawthorne's latest dead-end job at a high-priced Fort Lauderdale beauty salon is jeopardized when one of the salon's biggest clients, a gossip blogger and cable-TV star, is murdered at his own wedding and the salon's owner, Miguel Angel, is named th

Killer Cuts

In the ninth book in the best-selling series, Helen dutifully attends to the snobby patrons who frequent her high-end consignment shop, but becomes a main suspect when one of her customers is found dead in a dressing room.

Half-price Homicide

After opening a new private investigation agency with her husband, Helen Hawthorne takes a job at a gym to track a cheating husband in the tenth book in the national best-selling Dead-End Job mystery series. 25,000 first printing.

Pumped for Murder

Josie Marcus, a mystery shopper and a single mom, goes to uncover the truth behind a hot young designer's murder in the mall's parking lot, not believing that her best friend's husband committed the crime.

Accessory to Murder

While enjoying the City Eats Food tour in St. Louis, Josie loses her appetite when a fellow patron at Tillie's Off the Hill Italian restaurant is poisoned and the owner, an old friend of Josie's mother, asks her to investigate.

Death on a Platter

Suspicious after a customer's paddle boarding death, Florida business owner Sunny Jim hires married private investigators Helen and Phil to dive in and catch the killer in the latest installment in the national best-selling series following Final Sail.

Board Stiff

When she is hired to mystery-shop in the chichi Soft Shoe store to expose a salesman with a penchant for ladies' insoles, undercover retail spy Josie Marcus, after a series of strange events, finds herself trapped in a world of gambling, blackmail, and desperate housewives in stilettos. Original.

High Heels are Murder

Mystery shopper and mom Josie Marcus investigates the cruel means to breed designer dogs, but things turn deadly when her source, a disgruntled pet shop employee named Edna, is murdered.

The Fashion Hound Murders

When Josie Marcus, a mystery shopper and single mother, is assigned to rate Christmas shops, she discovers who has been naughty and nice when a deadly secret ingredient in a special holiday cake brings about yuletide murder and mayhem. Original.

Murder with All the Trimmings

While mystery-shopping at a chain of lingerie stores, Josie Marcus stumbles upon the dead body of an old high school acquaintance whose hands are bound with the bra she just purchased, prompting Josie to bust out her abundant sleuthing skills. Original.

Elaine Viets

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