Jill Churchill

Pompous, pig-headed attorney Robert Stonecipher is a major pain in the ham hocks. So no one is terribly upset when he's fatally mashed by a falling rock of hams at the new deli where suburban single mom Jane Jeffry's son works part-time. But when Stonecipher's most obnoxious employee meets an equally appropriate end, Jane knows the fat's really in the fire. And though her homicide detective honey Mel VanDyne disapproves, Jane is determined to dive headfirst into this deadly daze of swine and neuroses -- and hunt a hog-wild murderer despite her own killer agenda as homemaker/PTA/church/community busyperson.

Silence of the Hams

It's So hard to Kill Good Help These Days. . . With three kids to raise on her own, Jane Jeffry sometimes needs a hand with the housework. But many of her complaining neighbors believe that the Happy Helper cleaning lady they all share wouldn't know a dustball if she was choking on it. That hardly seems reason enough, however, to do the disreputable domestic in. So when the charwoman in question is discovered strangled to death with a vacuum cleaner cord, Jane decides to dig up the real dirt--if the tenacious single mom can find any time to spare between her PTA meetings and car-pooling duties. But despite her busy schedule, Jane is determined to tidy up the whole murderous mess--even if it means provoking a killer who may live as close as next door.

Grime and Punishment

Wealthy old Auguste Caspar Snellen, the legendary Pea King, is long gone, but his greatest legacy lives on: the Snellen Museum, an institution dedicated to the glorification of local lore and legumes. But at this year s annual Pea Festival, the museum sustains a terrible loss when its able, innovative director, Regina Price Palmer, is shot to death during a noisy reenactment of a Civil War battle. Suburban single mom Jane Jeffrey was a costumed participant in the deadly pageant. Now her part-time work at the museum has put Jane and best friend Shelley Nowack in the midst of a veritable podful of murder suspects. And it s up to Jane and Shelley to determine who fatally beaned poor Regina--before another victim is planted six feet under.

War and Peas

One would never guess to look at suburbanite homemaker Jane Jeffry that she would be interested in murder, but she's practically an expert on the subject. Which is why, with best buddy Shelley Nowack in tow, Jane's booking down to a nearby mystery writers' convention to mingle with the agents, publishing bigwigs, and famous authors ... and to maybe drum up interest in her own recently completed manuscript. But what would a mystery convention be without a mystery? So when a famous ego-squashing editor is undone by an anonymous poisoner, and a much hated book-bashing journalist is himself bashed quite nastily in the parking lot, Jane and Shelley jump right on the case, ready to snoop, eavesdrop, and gossip their way to a solution. But the would-be killer they seek is no open book. And trying to read him/her/them may turn out to be harder -- and deadlier -- than anyone initially imagined.

Bell, Book, and Scandal

It's beginning to look a lot like murder 'Tis the season to jolly and suburban mom Jane Jeffry's in a mad scramble to finish her cookie baking and household chores before her teenage kids arrive home. Also expected are two moms-both the late husband's mother and the disapproving mater of Det. Mel VanDyne, Jane's significant other. The kitchen is a disaster zone, the dog has decorated the house with hair, and the earsplitting racket coming from the neighbors tacky, music-making Christmas display is driving Jane crazy. Now she has to get the green icing out of her hair and be ready to host her post-caroling dinner party. One thing Jane isn't ready for is a surprise visit from a muckraking TV "action reporter," disguised as Santa Claus. The nasty old St. Nick is out to wrap a happy holiday caroling into a package marked "scandal," but before he has a chance to color the event with yellow journalism, his red-suited body slides off the neighbor's roof to land, silenced forever, on the horns of a plastic reindeer. It looks like Santa's mishap is no accident and, with the help of her friend Shelley, Jane finds plenty of suspects. The phony Santa has an ex-wife and a female assistant who both hate him, and plenty of nice people ruined by tales of naughtiness. Now Jane has to find the Grinch who thought murder was a way to save Christmas before the holiday turns into the unhappiest day of the year.

The Merchant of Menace

Janice Young Brooks

Suburban Chicago widow Jane Jeffry hates cooking, but loves food. She can't think of a worse fate than a rustic outing in a Wisconsin resort where she discovers a corpse, seemingly bludgeoned by a frying pan. When the body disappears and the "victim" reappears, Jane sets out to find out what's going on in this wacky wilderness wonderland.

Fear of Frying

Jane Jeffry, suburban sleuth extraordinare, and her friend, Detective Mel VanDyne, have braved a blizzard to join her friend Shelley at a Colorado ski resort. In spite of having all their kids along, Jane and Shelley imagine a few mindless days of relaxation. But their hopes are dashed on their first attempt to ski when Jane careens into a snowman that hides a very real -- and every dead -- body. The slopes are littered with suspects -- a convention of genealogists led by a political fruitcake who thinks she's going to put her hand-picked Tsar on the Russian throne, a mysterious crimson-clad skier who's always on the horizon, and ex-stockbroker who's hiding from his investors, and an irate tribe of Native Americans. Jane has to take a census of the suspects and make some grave assumptions about who was vacationing with malicious intent.

From Here to Paternity

Single mom Jane Jeffry allows a film crew to use her backyard as a location, and soon finds herself on the track of the killer of a blackmailing prop man.

A Knife to Remember

Life is hectic enough for suburban single mom Jane Jeffrey this Christmas season--what with her having to survive cutthroat church bazaar politics and finish knitting the afghan from Hell at the same time. The last thing the harried homemaker needs is an unwelcome visit from old acquaintance Phyllis Wagner and her ill-mannered brat of a teenage son. And the Wagner picture becomes even more complicated when a dead body is woven into the design. Solving a murder, however, is a lot more interesting than knitting, so Jane's determined to sew the whole thing up. But with a plethora of suspects and the appearance of a second corpse, this deadly tapestry is getting quite complex indeed. And Jane has to be very careful not to get strangled herself by the twisted threads she s attempting to unravel.

Farewell to Yarns

Encumbered by her overbearing future mother-in-law's schemes for her wedding, Jane Jeffry signs up for a self-defense class but finds herself enmeshed in a dangerous investigation when one of her classmates is murdered.

A Jane Jeffry Mystery

The Accidental Florist

Depression-era New Yorkers Lily and Robert Brewster are delighted when they inherit a fortune from their late great-uncle Horatio, if they live in his rural Hudson mansion for ten years, but the sibling sleuths soon discover that Horatio was murdered and they have become prime suspects in the crime, in the first of a new series of mysteries. Original.

A Grace and Favor Mystery

Anything Goes:

With the kids away for the summer, Jane Jeffrey has ample time to take a writing course, but when an annoying older student dies after eating at the student buffet, she strives to find a literary lawbreaker before he or she can strike again. Reissue.

Quiche Before Dying

When a corpse turns up during a reunion gathering of her friend Shelley's former high-school girls' club, Jane Jeffry must get to the boom of a shocking senior-year scandal that could hold the key to the killing. Reissue.

The Class Menagerie

The latest delectable cozy from Agatha Award winner Churchill has suburban single mom Jane Jeffry sleuthing again when a wedding she is planning at a monastery-turned-hunt club turns into a killer affair.

A Groom with a View

Suburban mom Jane Jeffry and her equally green-thumbless best friend Shelley Nowack could kill plastic plants. But their scheme to improve themselves vegetatively dies on the vine when the celebrated botanist slated to teach a class at the local Community Center is mysteriously beaten into a coma -- and her replacement turns out to be Dr. Stewart Eastman, an arrogant, self-promoting boor. Did Dr. Eastman or a fellow classmate assault their original instructor? And who later plants a corpse in Eastman's compost heap? There's certainly an abundant crop of suspects. And it's up to Jane to weed out a killer.

Mulch Ado About Nothing

"Homemaking" is about to take on a whole new meaning for Jane Jeffry, now that she's agreed to help the prosperously divorced Bitsy Burnside restore and redecorate a decrepit old neighborhood mansion. Bitsy's decision to employ an almost all-woman crew has prompted Jane's quick-witted best bud Shelley Nowack to dub the project, "the House of Seven Mabels" -- but it's also engendered some nasty ill will. And when what begins as a series of anonymous, mean-spirited "pranks" ends up leaving one of the workwomen lying dead at the foot of a staircase, Jane and Shelley decide to try and nail the assassin. But the more Jane saws away at the truth, the more it appears that she may be painting herself into a corner, leaving herself no exit if a crafty killer decides to make Jane Jeffry the next demolition project.

The House of Seven Mabels

Lily Brewster and her brother Robert were living high on the hog in Manhattan until the Crash of '29 took the family fortune south. Abruptly penniless, they have taken up residence in their late great-uncle Horatio's upstate estate on the banks of the Hudson and are slowly getting used to small-town life. But while tearing down a dilapidated ice house on the property, Robert inadvertently stumbles upon a well-dressed, mummified human corpse, the obvious victim of foul play. And as Lily works hand-in-hand with the disarmingly attractive Chief of Police howard Walker on the local front and Robert pursues the Manhattan connection in search of their well-heeled John Doe's identity, a second dead body turns up to complicate an already complexly murderous matter -- tying the Brewsters up in a knotty mess of deception and betrayal ... and leaving them dangerously exposed to the watchful eyes of a killer.

Someone to Watch Over Me

If Lily and Robert Brewster no longer have a penny to their names, at least they have a roof over their heads in this bleak Depression November of 1932 -- the sprawling estate of their late great-uncle in Voorburg-on-Hudson. But then a badly disguised stranger offers to pay generously to hold a very secret meeting there shortly before the national election. And soon one of the mystery guests is murdered in his bath, a local grade school teacher goes missing, and a little boy is kidnapped. With Pretty Boy Floyd rumored to be somewhere near, the nasty business smacks of underworld activity -- or possible political conspiracy aimed at sabotaging Roosevelt's election. Either way, Chief Howard Walker has nowhere to house all the suspects except at the local Hospital for the Criminally Insane. And the Brewster siblings are going to have their hands full tying the various ends together . . . and ferreting out the killer who abused their hospitality.

A Grace & Favor Mystery

Love for Sale

Sister and brother Lily and Robert Brewster may not have a penny to their names, but at least they're in good company––times couldn't be tougher in the Hudson River Valley during the Great Depression, and even the much–revered Chief of Police has lost his home. Their poor town has been stripped of its Post Office, too; now mail gets dumped off the trains steaming up the Hudson River, and people have to rummage through the bags to find their letters and packages. When Robert helps a young widow and her newly–arrived German grandfather haul the old man's trunks to his granddaughter's shop, he thinks he may have found a new set of friends––especially the kind train porter who helps them out. But when a red swastika is found painted on the widow's shop window, and the train porter is found dead, Robert knows that something much deeper, and much darker, is happening in his sleepy little town. Even back at Grace & Favor Mansion, where Lily and Robert live, things are falling apart. The Chief of Police has just unearthed a very, very old skeleton––right on the grounds! Could the two murders be related? It's up to Lily and Robert to find out the truth, before their quiet community is town apart by hatred, secrets, and a killer who may have set his sights on Grace & Favor...

Who's Sorry Now?

A weekend party designed to raise money for a floundering estate turns deadly when one of the guests is found dead and another disappears, in a lively mystery featuring 1930s brother and sister sleuths Lily and Robert Brewster. Reprint.

Jill Churchill

About

Books

Join the club