Showing results by author "Kelly Oliver" in All Categories

London, 1918. Fiona Figg finds herself back in Old Blighty saddled with shuffling papers for the war office. Then a mysterious card arrives, inviting her to a fancy house party at Mentmore Castle. This year’s Ascot-themed do will play host to a stable of animal defense advocates, and Fiona is tasked with infiltrating the activists and uncovering possible anti-war activity. Disguised as the Lady Tabitha Kenworthy, Fiona is more than ready for the “mane” event, but the odds are against her when both her arch nemesis and would-be fiancé arrive unexpectedly and “stirrup” her plans.

Jessica James is broke and counting down the days until she can defend her philosophy thesis. Desperate to get out of her grubby attic digs, she and her friends break into her professor’s office…only to find her adviser dead in the tub. Scoping the crime scene for clues, she leaves evidence that makes her both a suspect and a target. Suspecting the school's Russian janitor of doing more than sweeping the floors, Jessica mounts an investigation. Her ragtag posse helps her uncover a related date-drug scandal, and she fears she’s the next on the killer’s to-do list.

1917. New York. Notorious spy, Fredrick Fredricks, has invited Fiona to Carnegie Hall to hear a famous soprano. It’s an opportunity the War Office can’t turn down. Fiona and Clifford are soon on their way, but not before Fiona is saddled with chaperon duties for Captain Hall’s niece. Is Fiona a spy or a glorified babysitter? From the minute Fiona meets the soprano aboard the RMS Adriatic it’s treble on the high C’s. Fiona sees something—or someone—thrown overboard, and then she overhears a chemist plotting in German with one of her own countrymen!

What's the best way to purge an unfaithful husband? Become a spy for British Intelligence, of course. Desperate to get out of London, and determined to help the war effort and stop thinking about her philandering husband, Fiona Figg volunteers to go undercover. At Ravenswick Abbey a charming South African war correspondent has tongues wagging. His friends say he's a crack huntsman. The War Office is convinced he's a traitor. Fiona thinks he's a pompous prig. What sort of name is Fredrick Fredricks anyway? Too bad Fiona doesn't own a Wolseley pith helmet.

Will following her heart mean losing her head? It could mean losing her job. Fiona Figg trails her nemesis Fredrick Fredricks to Moscow. But when she arrives at the grand Metropol Hotel, the bounder has vanished. After Fiona doesn’t show up for work at the War Office, Kitty Lane raises a red flag and tracks her to Russia. Seeking haven at the British Embassy, Kitty and Fiona become embroiled in a plot to overthrow the Bolshevik government. But the plot turns deadly when Fiona goes undercover as a governess in the household of Iron Viktor, the Bolsheviks’ Head of Secret Police.

1918 Italy. When a deadly blizzard traps Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane in the Dolomite Mountains, it’s all downhill from here. Their hotel is snowed-in, and no one can get in or out. Then a man is found dead in his locked hotel room – and the killer is still on the premises. But with no murder weapon and too many suspects, their investigation is treading on thin ice.

File clerk turned British agent, Fiona Figg, is more comfortable wearing a fake mustache than a ballgown. When a royal ball ends with a royal body in the middle of the dance floor, Fiona trades her dancing slippers for practical Oxfords and sets out to investigate. As she tracks her nemesis, the Black Panther, from Vienna to the Austrian countryside, a hunting accident makes her rethink her loyalties. Can Fiona prevent the Black Panther from striking again, save her own skin, and find a decent cup of tea, all before the emperor realizes she’s a spy?

Twelve-year-old Kassy O’Roarke wants to win the Thompson prize at her school newspaper. Her pesky little brother Percy and his key-stealing ferret try to help, and that’s when the trouble begins. Apollo the cougar cub goes missing from their family’s petting zoo. Kassy puts her detective skills to the test to find him before Animal Control does. Can Kassy outsmart the dogcatcher and rescue Apollo before being grounded for life?

In Hunting Girls, Kelly Oliver examines popular culture's fixation on representing young women as predators and prey and the implication that violence - especially sexual violence - is an inevitable, perhaps even celebrated, part of a woman's maturity. In such films as Kick-Ass (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and Maleficent (2014), power, control, and danger drive the story, but traditional relationships of care constrict the narrative. Even the protagonist's love interest adds to her suffering.

When Jessica James wakes up half naked behind a dumpster in downtown Chicago, she thinks at first the hot intern feeding her Fiery Mule Slammers slipped her a Mickey. But after a pattern of similar incidents around Northwestern Research Hospital makes the news, Jessica realizes she wasn't raped, she was robbed. Robbed of something as valuable as life itself. The "dumpster girls" are all top of their class, attractive college students, who are drugged and dropped unconscious behind dumpsters. When rape-kits all come back negative, the police are baffled. But when the perp escalates and kills one of his victims, Jessica takes it on herself to solve the bewildering mystery and save herself and her friends as the "thief" closes in on them. Hunting for the predator, Jessica discovers secrets about her own identity that force her to rethink her past. The solution to the mystery lies in the cowgirl philosopher's boot-cut genes.

Jessica James is back in the saddle in this fast-paced and funny whodunit. Facing life as an unemployed philosopher, a pair of pocket rockets in Texas Hold 'Em sends her to Italy, where she takes a crash course in art crimes. She lands an internship with the FBI. But wouldn't you know it, her new boss is Federal Marshal Lexington Colt. Does sharing an old boyfriend count as a conflict of interest? Jessica and Lexi once again have to team up to catch a killer and solve one of the biggest art heists in history. Grab it now and start the fun.

Jessica's latest adventure takes her to the wilds of Wyoming, where she meets Federal Marshal Lexington Colt, a sort of female version of Justified's Raylan Givens. Can the two women quit sizing each other long enough to catch a serial killer? If you like strong women who take on the baddest bad guys, you'll love Cottonmouth because it is the perfect mix of suspense, mystery, intrigue, and romance.

If Nancy Drew had a pesky little brother and lived in a petting zoo...meet 12-year-old Kassy O'Roake. Pets are disappearing from Lemon Tree Heights. With her family’s petting zoo at stake, Kassy has to stop the dognapping ring, and fast. Hot on the trail of a missing cockapoo, Kassy discovers a mysterious key and a treasure map hidden inside a wall. Just when she’s close to cracking the case, her brother Crispy and his faithful ferret Freddie go missing. To find her brother and the missing pets, Kassy gathers all her courage and ventures into the local cemetery.

With only an old photograph to go on, Jessica James is sent on a mission by her dying mother to find a washed-up magician called the Mesmerizer. Along the way, Jessica gets way more than she bargained for when she stumbles into a black market organ ring and learns secrets about her mother that will change her own life forever.

Ivy League student Jessica James isn’t thrilled to be back home in Montana. But her boring summer break becomes a nightmare when her cousin dies at the local sawmill. Devastated by the death, she can’t help but draw connections between the supposed accident and her own father’s unsolved demise.