This first book in The Val & Kit Mystery Series introduces Realtor Valerie Pankowski and her best friend since childhood, Kit James. Val, who has just signed her divorce papers and a lease on a new apartment, receives a call from a prospective client, Mavis Woodstock (a vaguely familiar name). Mavis insists she has to sell her house as quickly as possible, but then doesn't keep her scheduled appointment. Kit, whose glamour belies her bold and often brash ways, remembers Mavis from their school days, an unattractive girl who was ignored when she was lucky, ridiculed when she was not. She also...

In this fourth book of The Val & Kit Mystery Series (a stand-alone, like the others), our ladies are back home in Downers Grove. Val is busy selling real estate, eager to take a potential buyer to visit the home of a widow living alone. He turns out not to be all that he claimed, and a string of grisly events follows, culminating in a perilous situation for Val. Her lifelong BFF Kit, however, is ready to do whatever necessary to ensure Val's safety and clear her name of any wrongdoing. The dishy Detective Dennis Culotta also returns to help, and with the added assistance of Val's boss, Tom...

Val embarks on a Mother's Day visit to her mom in Door County, Wisconsin, a peninsula filled with artists, lighthouses, and natural beauty. Her daughter, Emily, has arrived from LA to accompany her, and at the last minute her best friend, Kit, invites herself along. Val and Kit have barely unpacked their suitcases when trouble and tension greet them, in the form of death and a disturbing secret they unwittingly brought with them. As they get to know the locals, things take a sinister turn. And when they suspect someone close to them might be involved in blackmail-or worse-Val and Kit do what...

When one of them receives a mysterious letter, BFFs Val and Kit begin to unravel a sordid story that spans a continent and reaches back decades. It also takes them to Palm Desert, California, a paradise of palm trees, mountains, blue skies . . . and now murder. The men in their lives-Val's favorite detective, Dennis Culotta; her boss, Tom Haskins; and Kit's husband, Larry-play their (un)usual parts in this adventure that introduces a fresh batch of suspicious characters, including Kit's New York-attorney sister, Nora, and their mother. Val faces an additional challenge when her daughter,...

In this latest stand-alone, No. 6 in The Val & Kit Mystery Series, the lifelong friends are vacationing in England. After four days of sightseeing in London, the fiftysomething Val and Kit move on to a rented cottage in the bucolic village of Little Dipping, where Val's actress daughter, Emily, and son-in-law are temporarily living and where Emily has become involved in local theater. Val and Kit quickly immerse themselves in village life and befriend several locals, including the leader of the Brownie troop, the pub owner and his wife, and a curious eight-year-old named Ivy. They also manage...