Recently received

Final Sail (Dead-End Jobs #11) by Elaine Viets  (Obsidian hardcover, 1 May 2012).

Married private investigators Helen Hawthorne and Phil Sagemont have their hands full.
To catch a jewel smuggler on a luxury yacht, Helen has to pose as the ship’s new stewardess—but between serving drinks to the snobs, scrubbing floors, and cleaning up after seasick passengers, she’s starting to miss dry land almost as much as she misses Phil.

Meanwhile, Phil’s got his own job — trying to catch a sexy gold digger who may have killed her elderly new husband for his fortune.

Helen’s a help to Phil in his case, but when she’s on her own on the high seas, Helen needs to watch her step as she searches out the smuggler—or she may end up going from undercover to overboard…

A Fatal Fleece (Seaside Knitters #6) by Sally Goldenbaum Obsidian hardcover, 1 May 2012).

As Izzy Chambers and the Seaside Knitters prepare Izzy’s yarn studio for the tourist season, fellow knitter Birdie Favazza has her hands full with a visiting granddaughter she never knew existed. Gabby soon becomes a fixture in the town—riding off on Birdie’s bike, teaching her own crochet class, even striking up an unlikely friendship with a reclusive local fisherman named Finnegan, himself the source of much local turbulence.

But it’s Cass Halloran, the lobsterwoman, who stumbles over the body of the old fisherman, covered with leaves and sea grass, and wearing the yellow fleece vest she once made him. When Cass unwittingly becomes a suspect in his murder, the knitters rally to protect their dear friend.
Soon the Seaside Knitters will discover that caring for Gabby while casting their net for a killer is tricky business indeed.  They’ll have to keep their wits about them as they piece together the clues, working to catch a killer before one of their own winds up knitting behind bars.


The Wedding Shawl (Seaside Knitters #5) by Sally Goldenbaum (Obsidian trade paperback, 2 May 2012).

Izzy Chambers is about to get married, but much remains to be done. Then the wedding plans get complicated when the wedding party's hair stylist begins missing appointments. When she's found dead, things really begin to unravel. Rumors circulate about the stylist's past and her connection to an unsolved murder years ago.
All the Seaside Knitters really know is they must rally to find some answers, so Izzy can don the wedding shawl they're surprising her with- and replace the whispers about town with wedding bells.

(Hardcover version reviewed here.)


Brownies and Broomsticks (Magical Bakery #1) by Bailey Cates (Obsidian mass market, 1 May 2012).

Katie Lightfoot's tired of loafing around as the assistant manager of an Ohio bakery. So when her aunt Lucy and uncle Ben open a bakery in Savannah's quaint downtown district and ask Katie to join them, she enthusiastically agrees.
While working at the Honeybee Bakery—named after Lucy's cat—Katie notices that her aunt is adding mysterious herbs to her recipes. Turns out these herbal enhancements aren't just tasty—Aunt Lucy is a witch and her recipes are actually spells!
When a curmudgeonly customer is murdered outside the Honeybee Bakery, Uncle Ben becomes the prime suspect. With the help of handsome journalist Steve Dawes, charming firefighter Declan McCarthy, and a few spells, Katie and Aunt Lucy stir up some toil and trouble to clear Ben's name and find the real killer...


Copycat Killing (Magical Cats #3) by Sofie Kelly (Obsidian mass market, 1 May 2012).

It's been raining cats and dogs in Mayville Heights. The small town's been deluged, and now the local artists' co-op is on the verge of flooding. Kathleen has been up all night helping her friends move their creations to the safety of the upstairs studio.
The artwork survives, but when controversial mask maker Jaeger Merrill is found drowned in the co-op basement, Kathleen questions whether the death was accidental. After she discovers the artist was using an assumed name, she realizes she can't actually assume anything about him. With the help of handsome detective Marcus Gordon—and her cats' extraordinary powers of detection—it's up to Kathleen to unmask a killer.