Joan Hess

After a crossbow killing at a cheap roadside motel, Ozarks police chief Arly Hanks finds herself investigating her first murder case. Her marriage over and career gone bust, Arly Hanks flees Manhattan for her hometown: Maggody, Arkansas. In a town this size, nothing much ever happens, so Arly figures she's safe as the town's first female chief of police--until the husband of one of the local barmaids escapes from state prison and heads for town. And...

The madcap citizens of Maggody, Arkansas, descend on Graceland, and a bizarre murder mystery forces police chief Arly Hanks to pay homage to the King. When Chief of Police Arly Hanks came home to Maggody, Arkansas, after a bad divorce, she thought life here would be simpler than it was in New York City. But it's been one insane episode after another, and the latest eruption of chaos may just drive poor Arly around the bend. After all, Maggody is more...

Chief of Police Arly Hanks will do whatever it takes to keep Maggody from losing its mind in this charming cozy mystery.   In a town as peculiar as Maggody, Arkansas, it doesn't take much to tip the community into chaos. When Mayor Jim Bob Buchanon's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less takes out a full-page ad boasting the new supermarket's authentic tamales, gourmet deli counter, and various other bells and whistles, every restaurateur in town fears that Jim...

When charismatic evangelist Malachi Hope arrives in Maggody to set up a religious theme park called City of Hope, Arly Hanks, the local lady sheriff smells trouble once more. Two dead women later, she knows she is right.

After a long courtship, Claire Malloy--Arkansas bookseller and widowed mother--has finally said "I do" to her swain, Lt. Peter Rosen. Now they are on their honeymoon in Luxor, Egypt. Well, Claire is on her honeymoon--accompanied by Caron, her teenaged daughter, and Inez, Caron's best friend and frequent partner in adventure. Peter is mostly away on various mysterious consultations with equally mysterious government agencies for his new mysterious...

A renaissance fair is coming to the relatively quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas. Though resistant to getting involved, Claire Malloy, local bookseller and mother of the perpetually petulant teen Caron, finds herself drawn into the strange inner workings of the group putting on the fair. But a dark mood falls over the festivities when one of the organizers is a victim of arson, and her body is found in the burned wreckage of her rented house....