The best murder mysteries that will have you laughing your butt off

It was a hell of a long shot....

CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever—in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world's largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she's determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out of play. Unfortunately, she hasn't even unpacked a suitcase before her newly inherited dog digs up a human bone in her backyard.

Thrust into the middle of a bayou murder mystery, Fortune teams up with a couple of seemingly sweet old ladies whose looks completely belie their hold on the little town. To top things off, the handsome local deputy is asking her too many questions. If she's not careful, this investigation might blow her cover and get her killed. Armed with her considerable skills and a group of elderly ladies the locals dub The Geritol Mafia, Fortune has no choice but to solve the murder before it's too late.

I first read Louisiana Longshot because one of my readers said Jana DeLeon and I sounded a lot alike. I gave it a whirl to see what all the fuss was about, and they weren’t kidding! I feel like we are cousins separated at birth. Three things I love in a good book are a good mystery, romantic tension, and laugh-out-loud humor. Louisiana Longshot has all three in spades. Add to that a colorful cast of unusual characters and I was hooked from page one. Now the entire series is on my TBR list.

Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital.

Ricki’s dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation—collecting vintage cookbooks—into a vocation by launching the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.

The skills Ricki has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki’s past as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to haunt her.

Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success… or a recipe for disaster?

I love Ellen Byron’s sense of humor. She’s one of the writers behind popular television sitcoms like Just Shoot Me and Wings and I love a sitcom. My series takes place in Cape May where I grew up, so one of the things I’m drawn to is reading about settings that are new to me—like virtual vacations! Bayou Book Thief is set in New Orleans, and I’d always wanted to go there. After I devoured the first installment in the Vintage Cookbook series, I feel like I’ve been on the grand tour. With a colorful New Orleans setting, quirky characters, and beaucoup humor, Bayou Book Thief is a fun and funny read where the final scene took my breath away.

Smarmy personals ads. Daring declarations of love. Freelance writer Jaine Austen has penned them all. But no one needs her help more than geeky, gawky Howard Murdoch. His request is simple enough: a letter proclaiming his undying love for Stacy Lawrence, a gorgeous aerobics instructor. The fact that he's never actually met the woman gives Jaine pause—yet she soon overcomes her misgivings, and the unlikely Romeo lands a date! But his triumph is short-lived. On Valentine's Day, Howard finds Stacy bludgeoned to death with a Thigh Master—and is quickly named the prime suspect.

Jaine is shocked. Sure, Howard's awkward and eccentric. But a murderer? That's hard to believe. Especially after a little sleuthing reveals a plethora of people who harbored less-than-loving feelings towards the svelte Stacy. Now Jaine had better wrangle her clues quickly, before a crafty killer catches on—and puts a whole new spin on her ghost-writing career....

You’re probably beginning to see that I love a heroine that has zero interest in looking for murderers, but life keeps throwing them into these bizarre situations where they have to talk their way out of trouble. Story of my life. I also love a naughty cat, and Jaine’s Prozac does not disappoint. Prozac is full of attitude, and you always know what sassy thing she’s thinking. Laura Levine’s series also has another great cast of senior citizens who are living their lives to the fullest.

Meet Stephanie Plum, a bounty hunter with attitude. In Stephanie’s opinion, toxic waste, rabid drivers, armed schizophrenics, and August heat, humidity, and hydrocarbons are all part of the great adventure of living in Jersey.
She’s a product of the “burg,” a blue-collar pocket of Trenton where houses are attached and narrow, cars are American, windows are clean, and (God forbid you should be late) dinner is served at six.

Out of work and out of money, Stephanie blackmails her bail-bondsman cousin Vinnie into giving her a try as an apprehension agent. Stephanie knows zilch about the job requirements, but she figures her new pal, el-primo bounty hunter Ranger, can teach her what it takes to catch a crook. Her first assignment: nail Joe Morelli, a former vice cop on the run from a charge of murder one. Morelli’s the inamorato who charmed Stephanie out of her virginity at age sixteen. There’s still powerful chemistry between them, so the chase should be interesting…and could also be extremely dangerous.

This is another book I first discovered because of comparisons readers made to my own series. Both take place in South Jersey. Both have that Jersey girl attitude with a lot of romantic tension. And both have a detective who falls into the investigation through sheer bad luck. The Stephanie Plum books have a wonderful sidekick named Grandma Mazur, who could give my Aunt Ginny a run for her money. Together they would be a force to be reckoned with from the local senior center to an Atlantic City Casino where they would probably be thrown out for cheating some rich kid out of his inheritance.

English professor Lila Maclean is thrilled about her new job at prestigious Stonedale University, until she finds one of her colleagues dead.

She soon learns that everyone, from the chancellor to the detective working the case, believes Lila—or someone she is protecting—may be responsible for the horrific event, so she assigns herself the task of identifying the killer.
More attacks on professors follow, the only connection a curious symbol at each of the crime scenes. Putting her scholarly skills to the test, Lila gathers evidence, but her search is complicated by an unexpected nemesis, a suspicious investigator, and an ominous secret society.
Rather than earning an “A” for effort, she receives a threat featuring the mysterious emblem and must act quickly to avoid failing her assignment…and becoming the next victim.

I love the subtle humor in Cynthia’s series. She has a clever turn of phrase that keeps you giggling along to whatever uncomfortable situation Professor Lila Maclean finds herself in. With a university setting, Lila Maclean has a very different tone from the first four books on my list and I love that about it. I really like a broad range of settings, styles, and backgrounds in what I choose to read. This was my first academic mystery and I instantly fell in love. It’s like Hogwarts for grownups with a lot of Faculty backstabbing instead of spellcasting.