I really enjoy reading books by Charlaine Harris. She somehow manages to take ordinary situations and find the terrifying focus underneath - and she is not for the faint of heart. These may look like cozies but are not! She has written several series of which I've read most of and am starting to re-read once again.

See more about her books at this site - http://www.murderexpress.net/charlaineharris/index.htm

Aurora "Roe" Teagarden - a small town librarian, who seems to be followed by murder and mayhem

1. Real Murders
2. A Bone to Pick
3. Three Bedrooms, One Corpse
4. Julius House
5. Dead Over Heels
6. Fool and His Honey
7. Last Scene Alive
Roe is is reunited with the circumstances in her first murder when a movie comes to town to create a movie version of a book that was written about the grizzly murders. With this comes her former flame, Robin Crusoe, and her stepson Branson. It's been several years since I read the original books but it all came back quickly reading this latest installment.
8. Poppy Done to Death

The Shakespeare/Lily Bard Series - Lily is a profession house cleaner and survivor of a horrible kidnapping and rape while in her early 20's.

1. Shakespeare's Landlord
2. Shakespeare's Champion
3. Shakespeare's Christmas
4. Shakespeare's Trollop
5. Shakespeare's Counselor

Sookie Stackhouse Series - Sookie is a small town waitress with a disability - she can read minds. And then along comes Bill who is a blank slate. Quickly she finds out that she isn't alone in the disability department and finds herself attracting all kinds of supernatural creatues. Vampires, werewolves and spooks, oh my!

1. Dead Until Dark
2. Living Dead in Dallas
3. Club Dead

Quaker Silence by Irene Allen - Debut detective Elizabeth Elliott, 66-year-old Clerk of Meeting for a Boston church, embodies a number of Quaker qualities that aid her in discovering the killer of a wealthy but troubled Friend. Reluctantly pressured into clearing the name of a homeless man accused of the crime, Elliott persists in questioning suspects until she solves the case. An interesting approach to a murder mystery, plus learned about the Quaker religion. I'm looking forward to reading others by this author.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer - Twelve-year-old, Artemis Fowl, tries to buy back his mother's sanity while trying to discover if his father is still a live. This evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll.

Artemis Fowl: the Arctic Incident In his second adventure, the youngest, brightest, and most dangerous criminal mastermind is at boarding school when he receives an urgent e-mail from Russia. It's from a man Artemis never thought he'd see again: his father, who has been kidnapped by the Russian mafia and pleads for Artemis's help. Brings back familiar characters from the first book.

Artemis Fowl: the Eternity Code Discovering a way to build a super-computer using stolen fairy technology, young criminal mastermind Artemis sets out to blackmail a Chicago businessman but runs into a trap that leaves Butler mortally injured.

Nine Lives to Murder by Marian Babson - A backstage fall causes a preeminent English actor and a cat to miraculously switch bodies, and while the cat lies in the hospital in the actor's body, the actor in the cat's body tries to learn who pushed him. An entertaining read and I will read more by this author.

Bellwether by Connie Willis Statistician Sandra Foster and chaos theorist Bennett O'Reilly are brought together by a misdelivered package and urged into their own chaotic world of million-dollar grants, unlucky coincidences, setbacks, and eventually the ultimate answer. This is one of Willis' earlier books and not so much science fiction as the how scientists discover the answers in the most surprising places and ways. I love her books so much and it was interesting to read this much shorter book of hers as her newer books are very long but so good.