Books by Pamela Burford

Jane Delaney does things her paying customers can't do, don't want to do, don't want to be seen doing, can't bring themselves to do, and/or don't want it to be known they'd paid someone to do. To dead people. Life gets complicated for Jane and her Death Diva business when she's hired to liberate a gaudy mermaid brooch from the corpse during a wake-on behalf of the rightful owner, supposedly. Well, a girl's got to make a living, and this assignment pays better than scattering ashes, placing flowers on graves, or bawling her eyes out as a hired mourner. Unfortunately for Jane, someone else is just as eager to get his hands on that brooch, and he's even sneakier than she is, not to mention dangerously sexy. Just when she thinks her biggest problem is grand theft mermaid, things take a murderous turn. But hey, when you've teamed up with a neurotic seven-pound poodle named Sexy Beast, how can you go wrong?

A humorous romantic suspense novel that's fresh, quirky, and surprising! Find out why Snatched has been described as "Janet Evanovich meets the Coen Brothers." Is an uncomplicated divorce and a fresh start at forty too much to ask? Apparently it is for Lucy Narby, whose life goes from blah to bizarro when competing kidnappers lock horns in her kitchen. And really, does the victor have to be that hot? If this is the Stockholm syndrome, it sure didn't take her long to catch it! Lucy's kidnapper calls himself Will but looks suspiciously like former child TV star Ricky Baines, whose acting career was cut short when he himself was snatched and held for ransom 25 years ago in a notorious cold case that remains unsolved. Will's gang includes an aging French bombshell, an outlandish Irish giant with a mysterious past and a thing for Will's sister, and long-lost Cousin Hal-a charming fellow who neglects to mention that he happens to be the twisted sociopath who kidnapped Will when he was still America's favorite little star. Hal spent the past quarter century in the slammer for an unrelated murder, and now he's out and determined to locate the $2 million ransom Will's family paid. Someone else dug up the cash while Hal was behind bars, and that sort of thing tends to make twisted sociopaths a tad grouchy. Fortunately (or not), Lucy's bigamous ex is on the case. But so are a gay private eye in a fat suit and a bad-tempered parrot with an ax to grind, so no worries. Everyone has a secret and no one is who he seems when Kidnap Fever strikes.

What, Jane Delaney asks herself, could be better than skating on a frozen lake with sexy Martin McAuliffe? After all, Martin's thought of everything: • Yummy picnic lunch, complete with the requisite hot chocolate? Check.• Adorable, if slightly neurotic, canine sidekick? Check.• Chainsaw (don't ask)? Check.• Frozen corpse? Dang! And just when things were starting to get romantic! The authorities decide Allison Zaleski's death was an accident, but Death Diva Jane isn't so sure. For starters, some of the wealthy young woman's nearest and dearest had reason to want her out of the picture-her boy-toy husband and his greedy mistress for starters. But it isn't until Jane discovers Allison's secret video diary that the questions really start piling up. Such as: Who left a decapitated Barbie doll, altered to look like Allison, in her mailbox? And what, if anything, did Allison have to do with her first husband's death?

Celebrity chef Pierre Dewatre has everything going for him: swoon-worthy looks, a successful restaurant, and a budding TV career, not to mention that drop-dead-sexy French accent. Unfortunately for Pierre, the drop-dead part becomes all too real when Death Diva Jane and her furry little sidekick Sexy Beast discover him marinating in his own juices. So to speak. And okay, so the famous chef has been accused of cooking and serving endangered species, but that couldn't possibly have anything to do with his death. Could it? The inept detective in charge of the case has homed in on a single suspect: Jane's ex, who's only the Nicest Guy in the World. She's never gotten over him, even with a certain bad-boy bartender invading her personal space at every opportunity. Throw the victim's hot Parisian brother into the mix and it's little wonder Jane is having trouble concentrating on whodunit. You'd think having a high-strung, seven-pound poodle on your team would be the key to quickly solving a complicated murder. Turns out that's not necessarily the case. Who knew?