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....From Publishers WeeklyIn Hess's 14th lighthearted mystery to feature bookseller sleuth Claire Malloy (after 2000's A Conventional Corpse), Emily Parchester, a lady of "a certain age," has been persuaded by the Farberville, Ark., Green Party to chain herself to a platform in a tree to protest the planned construction of a new housing development. On arriving home, Claire learns that her 16-year-old daughter, Caron, has taken in a young guest-the baby born to a mother known only as Wal-Mart. While feeding the baby and watching the local news for coverage of Miss Parchester's vigil, Claire is stunned to learn that the developer of the tract the Green Party is trying to stop has been found dead, and that the infant's mother has been brought in for questioning. Claire undertakes to get Miss Parchester out of the tree and reunite the mother and child, despite the repercussions for both her bookstore and her personal life. Farberville boasts a large population of eccentric characters, many of whom are old friends by now. (Fans of Margaret Maron's Judge Deborah Knott will appreciate "Judge Derby Nott," a tip of the hat from one master to another.) With her wry asides, Claire makes a most engaging narrator. The author deftly juggles the various plot strands, letting the local news reporter fill in the action in which Claire is uninvolved. The surprising denouement comes off with eclat.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalWhen a local developer tries to level a bunch of trees, a protester chains herself to one of them-while the developer's daughter apparently abandons her baby on bookseller-sleuth Claire Malloy's doorstep. By the time Claire tracks her down, the woman has been charged with murdering her father. Likely to be requested by fans of the series (e.g., Dear Miss Demeanor).Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

While investigating a sorority member's death at her daughter's college, Claire Malloy discovers the sorority sisters are participants in many bizarre rituals and illegal activities-the kind Claire would not want her daughter to be caught dead in.

Arly Hanks – the wildest chief of police in the Ozarks – has finally met her match. To her horror, she's been cajoled into chaperoning a group of ten hormonally challenged teens on a youth group camp out, along with the mayor's wife, the high school shop teacher, and preacher Brother Verber. Bunking with the crew is bad enough, but things get even hairier when one of the campers stumbles upon the body of a white-robed woman with a shaved head. And before Arly Hanks can do a head count, she finds herself hindered by a cast of crazies, while she tracks down a spacey cult whose initiation ritual could be a real killer.

Claire Malloy—now a married woman of leisure—tries her hand at volunteering, but instead lands her right in the middle of another murder investigationLongtime bookseller and single mother, Claire Malloy has recently married her long term beau and moved out of her less than opulent apartment into a sprawling, newly remodeled house. Her daughter, Caron, is making plans for college. All of which leaves Claire with something she hasn't had in quite a while: spare time. When her attempts to learn French cooking start getting "mixed" reviews, she agrees to help Caron and her best friend Inez in fluffing up their college applications by volunteering as an ESL tutor with the Farberville Literacy Council. But her modest effort to give back quickly becomes a nightmare when she's railroaded onto the Board of Directors of the troubled nonprofit. Vandalism, accusations of embezzlement, epic budget problems, and a cacophony of heavily-accented English...

When someone sabotages Jim Bob's grocery store with tainted tamale sauce, resulting in 23 cases of food poisoning and a sudden death, Police Chief Arly Hanks finds that her own mother, Rudy Dee, is one of the suspects. "This may be one of the funniest mysteries written in a long time…"-Ocala Star-Banner.

Arly (aka Ariel) Hanks, Chief of Police of Maggody, Arkansas (pop. 755), has been known to break out in hives just thinking about Manhattan. Her idea of a good time is running a speed trap at the edge of town, stomping around the ridge looking for Raz Buchanan's still, and having the blue plate special at Ruby Bee's Bar and Grill on Saturday night. So the last place on earth Arly wanted to be was back in Manhattan with its bright lights, memories of her nasty divorce… and, doggone it anyway, a most inconvenient murder. The week started out just dandy with the social event of the season, the long-awaited marriage of lovestruck Kevin Buchanan and his sweet, his beloved, his three-hundred-pound darling, Dahlia O'Neill. As if that didn't give the gossips enough to talk about, Ruby Bee won an all-expense-paid trip to New York as a finalist in the Koko-Nut Cooking Contest, and she and Estelle were on their way to show the city folks a thing or two. But before the week ended, the newlyweds went amok on their way to Niagara Falls, and Ruby Bee, while making a big splash in the Big Apple, was in the slammer for attempted murder! Flying to the rescue just about wiped out Arly's bank account, and checking into the Chadwick Hotel almost did the same thing for her reputation. The contest had brought together some of the most unlikely characters ever to turn on a Mixmaster, and in an embarrassingly short time, Arly found herself in the room of good-looking, unmarried Durmond Pilverman, whose talents went way beyond his skill at baking a Koko-Nut Kream Pie. But when a dead body turned up in the hotel dumpster, Arly smelled something suspicious in this national cook-off. And the.38 she found hidden in Durmond's dresser had her wondering if she was in danger of sleeping with the enemy. In this sixth mystery in the highly acclaimed Maggody series, the spunky, off-beat, appealing Arly Hanks once again stars in a thoroughly original, wonderfully funny whodunit.

Claire Malloy believes there is just one thing better than chocolate...and it's not jumping a round in an aerobics class. Nonetheless, she gets roped into accompanying a chubby heiress named Maribeth to Faberville, Arkansas's hottest new fitness center. Personally, Claire thinks the best way for Maribeth to lose 160 unnecessary pounds would be to dump her abusive husband. But while Claire's teenage daughter Caron unsuccessfully tries every fad diet she can find (as long as it doesn't mean cutting out pizza), Claire has to admit Maribeth's commitment to diet, workouts, and supplements is working...until things go horribly wrong. Besides becoming moonstruck over the big-muscled fitness instructor, Maribeth is acting loony outside the gym as well. And when she ends up "accidentally" dead, Claire starts to exercise her instincts for crime...and hunt for a killer.From Publishers WeeklyMixing tensions and witticisms as usual, Hess's latest mystery, after A Really Cute Corpse , stars Claire Malloy of Farberville, Ark., bookstore owner and amateur sleuth. Maribeth Galleston (nee Farber), obese and depressed, knows her bullying husband Gerald is interested only in the millions she's due to inherit from the town's founder. Claire persuades Maribeth to enroll in the swank Ultima Diet Center and in Joseph (Jody) Delano's grueling exercise classes. Although elated by her initial success, Maribeth soon begins acting irrationally, causing a'her'? is this maribeth's own fatal accident? it should stand as is. Marybeth causes a fatal accident by driving her car into another character. fatal accident which, as Claire fears, sets off more crises. Defying warnings from her lover, detective Pete Rosen, Claire investigates the next tragedy, the murder of a young fitness buff at Delano's place. Suspecting the real target was Maribeth, Claire aims at discovering the killer's motive, thus falling into the trap requisite for a mystery heroine, and for her ordained victory. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review"Hess's books are funny, acerbic, touching, terrific."--Elizabeth Peters"Hess goes about things in a lively style. Her heroine, Claire Malloy, has a sharp eye and an irreverent way of describing what she sees."--The New York Times Book Review

After a crossbow killing at a cheap roadside motel, Ozarks police chief Arly Hanks finds herself investigating her first murder case. Her marriage over and career gone bust, Arly Hanks flees Manhattan for her hometown: Maggody, Arkansas. In a town this size, nothing much ever happens, so Arly figures she's safe as the town's first female chief of police—until the husband of one of the local barmaids escapes from state prison and heads for town. And that's not all. An EPA official with ties to polluting the local fishing hole has suddenly vanished off the face of the earth. As if two manhunts aren't enough to contend with, a body has been discovered at the pay-by-the-hour Flamingo Motel, shot clean through the neck with an arrow. For some reason, Maggody's residents—all 755 of them—have gone tight-lipped, stonewalling Arly's investigations, and Arly hasn't a soul to trust but her half-wit deputy. Now, as Maggody's finest, she'll have to show...

Maggody, Arkansas (pop. 755) is perceived of as a two-bit hick town, filled with one-bit hicks. But Mrs. Jim Bob Buchanan seeks to change that perception with her latest scheme—a charity golf tournament. This presents a bit of a challenge, since no one in Maggody plays golf and there is no course. But when the prize for the first hole-in-one is announced—a top of the line bass boat—nearly everyone in town develops a new-found interest in the sport. The town goes golf crazy, trying to learn the sport in time to win the bass boat, with limited success and maximum domestic disorder. Sheriff Arly Hanks, who has better things to worry about, just wishes it would all go away. When a small-town golf instructor wins the bass boat on the first day of the tournament, it looks like all the excitement is over. But the next morning, when he's found dead, sitting in the parking lot in the front seat of the bass boat, the prize is once again up for...