Comprar Con Nosotros

If you enjoy character-driven cozy mysteries and haven't met Miss Zukas, you really should. Miss Zukas is a reference librarian in the Bellehaven, Washington public library who, with her exuberant artist friend Ruth, seems to encounter more than her share of cadavers whose demise she feels compelled to investigate. Helma Zukas, a send-off of the stereotypical prim and proper librarian, uses logic, persistence and an insatiable thirst for knowledge to solve crimes she is not invited to solve by the local police. While the quirky Helma can be maddening at times, she's comfortable in her own skin and the first friend you'd call on in a crisis.

Author Jo Dereske, uses her Lithuanian heritage and many years of living in northwestern Washington - Bellehaven is a fictitional version of Bellingham - to add color to the series and anyone who has worked in a library will appreciate her evident knowledge of the behind-the-scenes goings-on in a busy public library.

All books in the series are now available in Kindle editions. In order of publication they are:

Miss Zukas and the Library Murders. Avon/Harper Collins. Print Length: 272 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (13 reviews). Kindle edition $5.53. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"When a body turns up in the middle of the fiction stacks, the police are baffled. But Miss Helma Zukas is tracking some baffling questions of her own. With the aid of her not-so-proper best friend, Ruth, a six-foot-tall bohemian artist, the two are soon in hot pursuit of the truth." - http://www.jodereske.com/

Miss Zukas and the Island Murders. Avon/Harper Collins. Print Length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $5.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"When an anonymous note reminds her of her vow to bring her high school classmates together for a twenty-year reunion, Miss Helma Zukas begins organizing the perfect celebration. When a secret saboteur strands Helma and her old classmates on a fogbound island with a murderer in their midst, the intrepid librarian-sleuth takes charge, with a dubious assist from her raffish friend Ruth." - Amazon.

Miss Zukas and the Stroke of Death. Avon/Harper Collins. Print Length: 210 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $5.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Librarian Miss Helma Zukas reluctantly agrees to employ her long dormant canoeing skills in the service of the Bellehaven Library relay race team in the famous Snow to Surf Race. But first she has a more pressing obligation - namely keeping her flaky artist friend, Ruth Winthrop, off Death Row. After Ruth rejects the advances of a dirty old man in a local bar, he inconveniently turns up dead outside her studio." - Amazon.

Miss Zukas and the Raven's Dance. Avon. Print Length: 256 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $5.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"A most unusual death has landed Helma Zukas right in the middle of another murder scene. Stanley Plummer had been cataloging a collection of Native American books for Bellehaven's new Cultural Center when his body was found in the center's ladies room - stabbed through the heart and clutching a Barbie doll. Miss Zukas is asked by the library to finish the cataloging. Now she's been asked by the victim - in a letter dated the day he died - to get to the bottom of the mystery." - Amazon.

Out of Circulation. Avon/Harper Collins. Print Length: 212 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $5.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Miss Helma Zukas is reluctant to go hiking on the Cascade mountains, but her friend Ruth is insistent. When she agrees to go, Helma, ever the librarian, does her research, reading up on survival techniques, packing like a pro, and making up a list for her irresponsible friend. As usual, Ruth comes unprepared, having neglected to read Helma's list. But even Helma's careful preparation couldn't have anticipated the discovery of a dead body high in the rocky wilderness." - Amazon.

Final Notice. Avon/Harper Collins. Print Length: 240 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (11 reviews). Kindle edition $5.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Librarian Helma Zukas usually keeps her home as well organized as the library where she works so she never expected a visit from her elderly Aunt Em to turn her life into chaos and provide her with the makings of a hair-raising whodunit. The moment Helma and her fearless friend Ruth arrive at the airport to pick up the slightly dotty dowager, the trouble begins when Aunt Em's purse is snatched. Helma can't believe her favorite aunt would be involved in anything unsavory but, with a little investigation, she discovers that Aunt Em's life is not quite an open book." - Amazon.

Miss Zukas in Death's Shadow. Avon/Harper Collins. Print Length: 224 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (4 reviews). Kindle edition $5.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"With an audit going on at Bellehaven's Public Library, it couldn't be a worse time for librarian Helma Zukas to be serving a sentence of fifty hours of community service. But Miss Zukas stubbornly refused to pay what she thought to be an unjust traffic fine and now she's doing time at the Promise Mission for Homeless men. When Helma discovers there's a rash of thefts going on at the mission, she's appalled. Add to that, the unannounced visit of a high school flame who intends to win her hand. But none of that can compare to the shock when, during the fist night of her service, a body is found just outside the mission's back door." - Amazon.

Miss Zukas Shelves the Evidence. Avon/Harper Collins. Print Length: 256 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (8 reviews). Kindle edition $5.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"In a boldly personal move, Police Chief Wayne Gallant has arranged a meeting between his children and Bellehaven librarian, Helma Zukas. But the long overdue introductions are interrupted - by murder. And when the chief's investigation leads to a nearly fatal fall from a cliff, a potentially incriminating library book is found within reach. When the police demand the library turn over the borrower's name, Miss Zukas is determined to uphold the privacy rights of library patrons and deletes the information from library records - but not before she takes note of it."

Bookmarked to Die. Avon/Harper Collins. Print Length: 368 p. Amazon customer rating: None yet. Kindle edition $5.50. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Librarian extraordinaire Miss Wilhelmina Helma Zukas wakes up on the morning of her forty-second birthday in the throes of more than one midlife crisis. Her championing a collection of local authors' works ignites a dangerous firestorm of jealousy and anger in tiny Bellehaven. She's blackmailed by her conniving boss, library director May Apple Moon, into attending group counseling sessions and two of the participants turn up dead. An obnoxiously bubbly new librarian is turning the head of Helma's longtime admirer, Police Chief Wayne Gallant. And worst of all, her uncuddly feline companion, Boy Cat Zukas, disappears." - http://www.jodereske.com/

Catalogue of Death. Harper Collins. Print Length: 352 p. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (10 reviews). Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"At last, construction begins on a new library for Bellehaven, a gift of Franklin Harrington, scion of old Bellehaven money, and one of the locally famous Harrington triplets. But when a freak snowstorm hits, Bellehaven is brought to its knees. Not so Miss Helma Zukas who is at her post, dispensing library information, overseeing wayward employees, and soothing a busload of stranded gamblers. Suddenly, an explosion rocks the snowy day, destroying the library site, killing the benefactor and a penny–pinching city finance czar. The snow melts but not trouble. Shockingly, Ms. Moon thrusts the new library project onto Helma. And Helma soon discovers why, uncovering secrets and shady dealings from start to finish - secrets in the library, in the City, and in the Harrington family - secrets worth killing for." - Amazon.

Index to Murder. Harper Collins. Print Length: 272 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (9 reviews). Kindle edition $7.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"No one could be more orderly or organized than dedicated librarian Helma Zukas. No one could be more rash and raucous than avant-garde artist Ruth Winthrop. Yet the two women are best friends and a resourceful, ingenious, crime-solving team. So when two of Ruth's latest paintings - each depicting an ex-lover who met a very untimely and mysterious end - are stolen, the amazing amateur detectives get to work. But digging through Ruth's romantic rendezvous turns up more than broken hearts. There's an angry ex-wife, a jealous fellow artist, and a rampaging group of local tree-huggers..." - Amazon.

For more information about the author and her work, stop in at Jo Dereske's website.