As all of Tinker's Cove prepares to celebrate Julia Ward Howe Tilley's 90th birthday, Lucy Stone is preoccupied with the apparent suicide of the town's oldest attorney. When Lucy turns up an intriguing tie between the dead man and Miss Tilley, she's on the trail of a killer.

As excited as Elizabeth is to hit the Big Apple, Lucy's less thrilled to be heading straight into post-holiday shopping crowds in the middle of a flu epidemic. But, Elizabeth has won mother/daughter winter makeovers in Manhattan from Jolie magazine and Lucy is in. The pampering is nice (never underestimate the transformative powers of a $500 haircut) and the glitz and glamour of haute couture is bizarrely fascinating, but bitterness and aggression lurk behind the Jolie's hipper-than-thou faade. And things turn downright ugly when self-absorbed fashion editor Nadine Nelson falls mysteriously ill and then dies. But this Manhattan murder mystery hits too close to home when Elizabeth gets rushed to the hospital with symptoms that are disturbingly similar to Nadine's. Now, it's up to Lucy to dress down a killer before the ball drops in Times Square...

In Joanne Fluke's "Gingerbread Cookie Murder," Hannah Swensen finds her neighbour Ernie Kusak with his head bashed in and sprawled on the floor of his condo next to an upended box of Hannah's Gingerbread Cookies - and discovers a flurry of murder suspects that is as long as her holiday shopping list. Jaine Austen, the heroine of Laura Levine's "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies," finds herself enlisted to help with her parents' retirement community's play "The Gingerbread Cookie That Saved Christmas". Playboy Dr. Preston McCay is playing the role of the gingerbread cookie when he "accidentally" falls to his death during the final act. Now Jaine must figure out if one of the doctor's jealous lovers was capable of murder. In "Gingerbread Cookies and Gunshots" by Leslie Meier, when Lucy Stone discovers the body of Rick Juergens, whose five-year-old son Nemo disappeared, she senses foul play. Crumbs from a gingerbread cookie Lucy gave to Nemo are found in the back seat of Rick's car. With the hours quickly ticking till Christmas, Lucy races against the clock to find a killer before he strikes again.

Fall has come to the peaceful Maine town of Tinker's Cove, and amidst all the seasonal glory appears the most beautiful sight of all: the yellow school bus. As parents rejoice and kids grumble, it's back to school time, and for mother-of-four Lucy Stone, it isn't a moment too soon. Requested by her twelve-year-old daughter to "get a life," Lucy has done just that: she has a job at the local paper and is taking a night class in Victorian English Literature. As if juggling family, job, and school wasn't enough, the sometime sleuth now has another mystery to solve. And it starts with a bang. A bomb goes off with the noon lunch bell at the local elementary school, but not before all the kids are safely evacuated and Carol Crane, the new assistant principal, is hailed as a hero. By the time the smoke clears, the fallout has resulted in murder. Everyone is stunned when the most popular teacher at school is arrested for the crime. But not everyone is buying the open-and-shut case, including Lucy Stone, who senses there's more to things than meets the eye. Especially when she discovers that her sexy English professor - who could pose a dangerous temptation to a happily married woman - may know more about the murder than he's telling. It soon becomes clear that Lucy is flirting with danger in more ways than one, as sizzling secrets and explosive surprises provide a primer for the most diabolical of motives. Hot on the trail of a clever killer, this seasoned mother of four must harness the courage and cool aplomb necessary to get to the bottom of a crime that could be repeated - and just might give Lucy an education on the fine art of murder.