The debut of Philly Prep English teacher and accidental sleuth, Amanda Pepper, (and of C.K. Mackenzie, homicide detective) won the World Mystery Convention's "Anthony" for best first mystery. When the body of a colleague is found dead in Amanda's living room, she has to clear herself of suspicion-and make sure she isn't the next victim as well. And all she's got as a clue to the real killer's identity is a locket shaped like Winnie-the-Pooh.

Amanda is sorting books for a school fundraiser, when she comes across a book for battered women that contains a special and frightening message from its original, anonymous owner. Desperate to learn who donated the books, Amanda's search leads her to deliberate brutality and its cold-blooded consequences.

Amanda Pepper's friend Sasha has a photography assignment in Atlantic City, and she invites her broke schoolteacher friend to come along for a free mini-vacation. But the two quickly discover there's more to lose than money at the shore when Sasha finds a stranger bludgeoned to death in her bed. When a witness identifies Sasha as having been at the scene, she Goes Directly To Jail and does not pass "Go." Under the boardwalk and between the slot machines,...

Philidelphia schoolteacher Amanda Pepper is drawn into a murder investigation after she witnesses the murder of a New Year's mummer, and a friend, who happens to be the prime suspect, uses her for an alibi.

Philly Prep English teacher Amanda Pepper fears for her bright senior student Adam Evans. Increasingly erratic, unkempt, and isolated, Adam is an accident waiting to happen. So when a young woman is murdered at the landmark Free Library while Amanda and her class are touring the premises, Adam--now mysteriously missing--becomes the prime suspect.

Worried about the background of Emmie Cade, her son's enigmatic young fiancée, Claire Fairchild hires amateur sleuth Amanda Pepper to investigate some mysterious anonymous letters that hint at scandal--and worse--in Emmie's past.

No matter the season, the Philadelphia private school where Amanda Pepper teaches English is never a center of tranquility. But with Halloween and the annual Mischief Night party only days away, the hope is that nothing more than old-fashioned vandalism and pranks will take place. No such luck. Trouble erupts long before the witching hour, as the school is plagued by a series of mishaps ranging from the trivial to the potentially deadly–and most...