Hall, best known for his Edgar-nominated Stanley Hastings series, begins a new series with a heroine who provides an interesting variation on the older woman sleuth. Imagine Miss Marple as a promiscuous lush, and you have Cora Felton, known to crossword puzzle buffs around the country as "The Puzzle Lady." Cora and her niece, Sherry Carter, have moved to the small town of Bakerhaven, Conn., hoping to protect Sherry from an abusive ex-husband. The...

The enigmatic Emma Hurley left behind a puzzle in her will, and the first of the living heirs to solve it wins her estate. She also made Cora "Puzzle Lady" Felton the referee of the contest, not knowing that Cora's niece Sherry is the real brains of the outfit.

Cora Felton contemplates wedded bliss once again when she is courted by distinguished widower Raymond Harstein III, a relationship that is overshadowed by the arrival of cautionary cryptograms in the mail.

When nerdy cruciverbalist Harvey Beerbaum throws a birthday bash for Cora Felton at the Bakerhaven Library, it's no surprise that the centerpiece, a huge cake decorated like a crossword puzzle, is a complete bust—until a corpse thrown from the second floor stacks hits it dead center and fills in 14 down. Cora may hate birthdays almost as much as she hates crossword puzzles—but when it comes to solving crimes, no one can hold a candle to the Puzzle...

Stanley Hastings finally felt like a real PI, staking out a New Jersey motel to get evidence on a woman's cheating husband. It should have been a piece of cake. Only the husband wasn't cheating, someone killed him, and the cops are trying to pin the murder on the man apprehended at the scene, who just happens to be Stanley. To clear his name, Stanley will wind up jumping bail, impersonating a police officer, staking out a mob boss, and appropriating...

"When an elderly boarder at a Bakerhaven bed-and-breakfast drops dead during afternoon tea, there's nothing particularly suspicious about it--except for the Sudoku in his jacket pocket. But when a second body turns up in the window seat and an autopsy shows both men were poisoned with elderberry wine, the Puzzle Lady suspects she's dealing with a cold-blooded killer who for some reason is copying the Cary Grant movie Arsenic and Old Lace, in which...

"When young attorney Becky Balwin hires Cora Felton to accompany her to New York City to meet a new client in his penthouse apartment, the Puzzle Lady jumps at the chance. Cora is just coming off a bad breakup, and finding out that Chief Harper testified at a parole hearing for a killer she helped put away, has her feeling old. But when she and Becky arrive at the apartment, they find the man is dead. There's a puzzle on his chest, and a prowler is...

"The Puzzle Lady couldn't be happier. Matt Greystone, the rookie sensation who just signed a huge contract with the Yankees after coming to the team as the player to be named later in a trade with the Diamondbacks, winning 17 games as a starting pitcher, was coming to town to rehab from an arm injury. A diehard Yankee fan, Cora was delighted when Matt invited her to a weekend pool party. On the plus side, she got to meet Derek Jeter. On the minus...

"Teddy Fay is back in Hollywood and caught in two tricky situations. First, a rising star at Centurion becomes the target of malicious gossip, and Teddy must find and neutralize the source before the situation gets out of hand--or becomes violent. At the same time, Teddy finds himself targeted by a criminal thug bearing a grudge. It's a lot of knives to juggle, even for a former-CIA-operative-turned-movie-producer accustomed to hazardous working conditions....

After she accidentally frames her nemesis--Minami, the Sudoku Lady--for a murder at which a Sudoku puzzle was left at the scene, Cora Felton must clear her rival's name and trap the real killer.