In the stately nineteenth-century homes on Philadelphia's Delancey Street, the wilder passions scarcely ruffle the peace. Murder is unthinkable, particularly a murder involving an upscale book discussion group, of which schoolteacher Amanda Pepper is a devoted member. Nevertheless, on the day after a heated discussion of a fictional heroine's suicide, book group member Helen Coulter falls to her death from her roof garden. Helen's death is declared a suicide but Amanda is convinced otherwise. Why is this admirable woman dead? And if she was killed, who performed the heinous act? Amanda's investigations will draw her into a zone of great danger, where Helen Coulter's ice-hearted killer is once more ready to strike. . . .

Book three in the Anthony Award-winning mystery series featuring Amanda Pepper, the resourceful English teacher at Philly Prep. Available for the first time in ebook format!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.Gillian Roberts is "the Dorothy Parker of mystery writers, laughing when—especially when—it hurts, and giving more wit per page than most writers give per book." - Nancy Pickard

Book two in the Amanda Pepper mystery series. Available for the first time in ebook format!Amanda attempts to instill the spirit of Christmas by having her students prepare and serve a meal for the homeless, but her plan backfires. A wealthy and politically ambitious parent, Alexander "Sandy" Clausen, turns the event into a lavish, catered publicity and personal photo-op. Worse, his party ends in fire and death with his daughter, Amanda's student, one of three people who insist they alone started the fire. Amanda wants to solve the crime with her sometime boyfriend and cop C.K. Mackenzie, and is equally determined to teach the the elusive killer a lesson or two as well.From Gillian Roberts, the Anthony Award- winning author of CAUGHT DEAD IN PHILADELPHIA.

Available for the first time in ebook format, this special edition includes a new introduction from author Gillian Roberts and an exclusive interview with Amanda Pepper herself! When a high school senior shows signs of mental illness, Amanda attempts to get him help, but she's rebuffed by his parents. When the same boy then becomes the prime suspect in a murder at the Philadelphia Main Library, and runs away, Amanda, who knows he's confused and in need of help—whether or not he committed the crime—has no choice but to run after him. And to run into the possibility of becoming the next victim herself.

Gillian Roberts has been recognized and presented with multiple awards for her Amanda Pepper mystery series. Now, collected here for the first time, are 14 short stories by this bestselling mystery author. From cats to marriages and dogs to dentists, these stories cover a wide range of themes and all are infused with Roberts' well-known sense of humor. Pulled from out-of-print anthologies and recovered from magazines, these stories represent 25 amazing years in the writing career of one of the mystery genre's most-beloved authors.

In her new novel starring Philadelphia schoolteacher Amanda Pepper, Gillian Roberts once again mixes mystery and mirth. This time Roberts explores Philadelphia's unique flesh and blood "historical monument"-- the Mummers, who live (and perhaps are willing to die) for a few hours of glory every New Year's Day.The famous Mummers' Parade is an extravaganza that draws enormous crowds who cheer through chattering teeth, as more than thirty thousand clowns, string bands, and fancy brigades strut their stuff up Broad Street. But this year, while the music blares and the Mummers dance, a reveling Pierrot suddenly sinks to the ground, shot dead.Amanda is, at first, only a horrified spectator. But when the prime suspect--her friend and fellow teacher at Philly Prep--falsely claims to have been with her at the time of the murder, Amanda can no longer stay on the sidelines.Is the murder a flare-up of deadly rivalries? Is it connected with the disappearance, the week before Christmas, of another Mummer, the heir to a meat-packing family? Does someone disapprove of the Mummers' feathers, sequins, and string bands? And why is no one in the tight-knit world Amanda investigates willing to tell the truth about anything?With Amanda on the scene, the who in whodunit doesn't stay secret for long. In The Mummers' Curse, Gillian Roberts is, as always, at the head of the parade.From Publishers WeeklyPhiladelphia's New Year's Day Mummers' Parade, a splashy, fiercely competitive affair, turns murderous in yet another funny Philly puzzler for schoolteacher Amanda Pepper (In the Dead of Summer, etc.). Amanda watches as a costumed Pierrot collapses in the middle of the parade?shot dead. Vincent Devaney, a Mummer who teaches with Amanda at Philly Prep, is prime suspect. An old friend of the dead man, Vincent had also been his rival for the leadership of their "Fancy Club," one of the organizations in the secretive world of Mummerdom. Complicating matters is the fact that Vincent falsely claims he was with Amanda during the shooting. Amanda's significant other, homicide detective K.C. Mackenzie, trusts her sufficiently to ask her to chat with Vincent to find out "what's really going down." But after a gun surfaces in Amanda's voluminous purse, and the corpse of another Mummer turns up in an abandoned factory, even Mackenzie's dinner conversation crosses the line from chit-chat to interrogation. Roberts effectively balances the subject of pride, Philadelphia's local color and Amanda's mounting problems. Written with a fine sense of just how much is enough, the Amanda Pepper series is notable for how comfortably it occupies the space between cozy and city-grit crime fiction. Author tour. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalSeries heroine and Philadelphia schoolteacher Amanda Pepper (In the Dead of Summer, Ballantine, 1995) witnesses the murder of a clown in the Mummer's Parade. When a fellow teacher (and principal suspect) falsely names Amanda as his alibi, she begins sleuthing. Fascinating plot and wit-filled prose.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Mellow old Philadelphia, where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have flourished for centuries, now has a new claim to fame. The City of Brotherly Love has been proclaimed number one in the nation...for hostility. English teacher Amanda Pepper, crabbily gearing up for summer school at exclusive Philly Prep, feels she fits right in with the hostility mode.And it's going to get worse. Amanda gets her first prickling of unease in her own classroom, where a reading of Romeo and Juliet activates some very strange chemistry. Then the computer science teacher begins receiving anonymous "go-back-to-Africa" phone calls. A young Vietnamese boy dies in a drive-by shooting. And late one night, outside a Chinatown massage parlor, student April Tuong is kidnapped.Random violence? Perhaps. But Amanda refuses to let gentle April vanish without at least asking a few questions, starting in her own classroom.Gillian Roberts's Philadelphia is the real thing. So, too, are her wit...

"DELIGHTFUL...COLORFUL...Roberts plunks her mystery amid the glitter and grime of casino life."--L.A. Daily NewsAfter a tough year of teaching at Philly Prep, Amanda Pepper decides to go to Atlantic City with her friend, Sasha Berg. Yet a beach vacation turns deadly when a bludgeoned corpse shows up in their hotel room--and Sasha is the prime suspect.So Amanda hits the boardwalk to track down the real killer, chasing down clues around the surf and in the casinos, and discovering along the way that appearances are more than deceiving: they can be criminal and, sometimes, downright murderous...."Roberts combines appealing characters, a good puzzle and some serious messages in an entertaining whole."--Publishers Weekly"The Dorothy Parker of mystery writers."--Nancy Pickard"Gillian Roberts is a mystery reader's dream come true."--Lia MateraFrom Publishers WeeklyPhiladelphia teacher Amanda Pepper is vacationing with Sasha Berg, a woman photographer friend willing to share the hotel room she will occupy while working in Atlantic City. On arrival, their hotel gives them a free upgrade to a luxurious, high-roller ' s suite. After Sasha heads out for a dinner date, Amanda departs with policeman C. K. Mackenzie, her significant other who is in town on a case. They're roused by a 1 a.m. call from Sasha, who has found a dead man in the suite and been arrested for murder. Suspecting that Sasha has been framed, Amanda tries to track down her friend's date and to learn if the victim, who ran his own investment firm, truly deserved his "man-of-the-year type" reputation. Besides getting help from her beau, Amanda is assisted by two spunky women--Georgette, who lives on the beach, and Lala (for lollapalooza), an older widow engaged in a husband-snaring scheme--who add ginger and depth to the tale. Aside from a finale that finds Amanda surrounded by a crowd of tourists that seem too dim even to operate slot machines, Roberts ( With Friends Like These ) combines appealing characters, a good puzzle and some serious messages--about women and poverty--in an entertaining whole. Literary Guild and Mystery Guild selection; author tour. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus ReviewsNot only is Philly Prep teacher Amanda Pepper able to launch her vacation with a free junket to Atlantic City, ``America's Number One Vacation Destination,'' but she and her photographer friend Sasha Berg, in town for a shoot, get a breathtaking upgrade at their casino hotel. The only fly in the ointment is financial advisor Jesse Reese, to whose usual suite they've been moved--and who seems so determined to hang on to it that he turns up bludgeoned to death in Sasha's bed. When witnesses identify Sasha as the woman on Reese's arm on his way up to the suite, and Sasha's alibi turns out to be anything but a stand-up guy (a glaring loose end, this), the police move to downgrade her accommodations. It's up to Mandy (With Friends Like These..., 1993) and her sometime lover, Philly cop C.K. Mackenzie, to smash the frame--though C.K. proves to be little help. As Mandy uncovers evidence of Reese's schemes to defraud trusting senior citizens on a grand scale, she starts to see so many of the locals as potential scam victims- -Reese's brassy widow, Poppy; his former partner, Ray Palford; a homeless woman named Georgette who jealously guards her stretch of the boardwalk--that you'd think the town had hung out a banner for a Fleeced by Reese convention. So the mystery's not much of a stretch for Mandy, despite a lineup of zany suspects who keep popping up as abruptly as jack-in- the-boxes...or casino staffers. As usual, Roberts's sprightly heroine is much more engaging than the story she has to tell. (Literary Guild/Mystery Book Club selections) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The famous Mummers' Parade is an extravaganza that draws enormous crowds who cheer as more than thirty thousand clowns, string bands, and fancy brigades strut their stuff up Broad Street. But this year, while the music blares and the Mummers dance, a reveling Pierrot suddenly sinks to the ground, shot dead. Amanda is, at first, only a horrified spectator. But when the prime suspect - her friend and fellow teacher at Philly Prep - falsely claims to have been with her at the time of the murder, Amanda can no longer stay on the sidelines. Is the murder a flare-up of deadly rivalries? Is it connected with the disappearance, the week before Christmas, of another Mummer, the heir of a meatpacking family? Does someone disapprove of the Mummers' feathers, sequins, and string bands? And why is no one in the tight-knit world Amanda investigates willing to tell the truth about anything?