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.

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 shes attempting to unravel.

With the kids packed off on their summer road trips, it's an ideal time for Jane Jeffrey to pursue other interests, so the harried suburban mom enrolls in a writing course at the community college. But when an obnoxious aged classmate keels over dead after sampling a tasty treat from a pot luck student buffet, Jane realizes there's a culinary killer among the local would-be literati.

Despite a full schedule, frazzled suburban single mom Jane Jeffrey has agreed to help out during a two-day gathering of her friend Shelley's former high school girls' club. So while the reunited ladies are dishing dirt, Jane is sweeping it up - and inadvertantly becomes privy to all sorts of interesting gossip and long smoldering resentments. But then a corpse turns up among the one-time student body. And unless Jane gets to the bottom of a nasty senior-year scandal, more alumnae will die at the hands of a calculating classmate who's majoring in murder.

Popular detective Jane Jeffry's quiet domesticity is shattered when Hollywood comes to suburbia. The tension starts when a film crew becomes intent on using Jane's backyard as a primary location. When the set manager is stabbed to death, Jane must solve the crime fast—before the killer strikes again.

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.

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.

Wealthy old Auguste Caspar Snellen, the legendary Pea King, is long gone, but his greatest legacy lives the Snellen Museum, an institution dedicated to the glorification of local lore and legumes. But at this years 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 its up to Jane and Shelley to determine who fatally beaned poor Regina—before another victim is planted six feet under.

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.

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.

Caterers Jane and Shelly are pleased as punch to host a lavish wedding in the old monastery, but when a sudden thunderstorm knocks out the electricity, murder breaks the guests' nuptial spell, and Jane steps in to investigate. Reprint.

Pub 2001-10-02 272 eng Avon Books 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 Eastmans compost heap Theres certainly an abundant crop of suspects. And its up to Jane to weed out a killer.

"Homemaking" is about to take on a whole new meaning for Jane Jeffry, now that she's agreed to help the prosperouslydivorced 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.

You can't judge a book by its cover. To look at her, one would never think suburbanite homemaker Jane Jeffry would be interested in murder and mayhem. But after all the corpses she's come across—and killers she's unmasked—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 brightest lights of literary crime . . . and maybe drum up some interest in her own recently completed manuscript. They're all there: editors, agents, publishing bigwigs, and famous authors like Jane and Shelley's personal fave, Felicity Roane. Even Jane's longtime honey, Detective Mel VanDyne, is a scheduled guest speaker. Of course there are bound to be some bad apples in the bunch: macho-malicious literary critic,cum snake, Zac Zebra, for example, and loudmouth Vernetta Strausmann, who self-published her despicable whodunit and successfully hawked it on the Internet. However, what would a mystery convention be without a mystery? So one is graciously supplied when a famous ego-squashing editor keels over at the speaker's podium, undone by an anonymous poisoner. And when a much-hated book-bashing journalist is himself bashed quite nastily in the parking lot, it seems fairly certain that at least one real-life murderer is stalking the proceedings. But who is he/she/them? The dirt-dishing, pseudonymous Internet gossip monger "Ms. Mystery," who's lurking around there somewhere? The local bookseller who dearly loves "Modern Golden Age" women writers? The avid reader who seems to know a bit too much about the personal lives of the famous attendees? Jane and Shelley are onthe case, ready to snoop, eavesdrop, and gossip their way to a solution. But the killer they seek is no open book . . . and may turn out to be harder—and deadlier—to read than they initially imagined.

Excellent Book

Jane Jeffry and longtime beau Detective Mel VanDyne finally decide to marry, but Mel's overbearing mother wants to take charge of not only the rehearsal dinner but the actual wedding. Since Jane half expected Mel's mother to steamroll the entire event, she agrees—but with rules of her own. No bridesmaids, no groomsmen. And she can't tell Jane what to wear. But during what should have been a blissful interval between the engagement and the bouquet toss, several other occurrences take place. Mel convinces Jane and her best friend, Shelley Nowack, to take a women's safety class. They learn a lot, but the class is cut short when a dead body is discovered. So between Jane's wedding planning, her new writing project, and a battle between both mother-in-laws (which Jane encourages), a murderer must be found before this bride can walk happily down the aisle.