Zapped - A Regan Reilly Mystery

It all started with a dream. Nothing exceptional, just a typical fantasy about a boy, the kind of dream that most teen girls experience. But Pattyn Von Stratten is not like most teen girls. Raised in a religious -- yet abusive -- family, a simple dream may not be exactly a sin, but it could be the first step toward hell and eternal damnation.

This dream is a first step for Pattyn. But is it to hell or to a better life? For the first time Pattyn starts asking questions. Questions seemingly without answers -- about God, a woman's role, sex, love -- mostly love. What is it? Where is it? Will she ever experience it? Is she deserving of it?

It's with a real boy that Pattyn gets into real trouble. After Pattyn's father catches her in a compromising position, events spiral out of control until Pattyn ends up suspended from school and sent to live with an aunt she doesn't know.

Pattyn is supposed to find salvation and redemption during her exile to the wilds of rural Nevada. Yet what she finds instead is love and acceptance. And for the first time she feels worthy of both -- until she realizes her old demons will not let her go. Pattyn begins down a path that will lead her to a hell -- a hell that may not be the one she learned about in sacrament meetings, but it is hell all the same.

In this riveting and masterful novel told in verse, Ellen Hopkins takes readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride. From the highs of true love to the lows of abuse, Pattyn's story will have readers engrossed until the very last word.

Private Investigator Regan Reilly and her husband, Jack, head of the Major Case Squad in New York City, have just gotten hitched! They've headed to Hennessy Castle, a romantic spot in western Ireland -- seemingly the perfect place to escape the world and the criminals they deal with daily -- to begin their lives together. But Hennessy Castle is hardly relaxing!

Their first afternoon in Ireland, Regan and Jack go out for a jog, stopping at an old graveyard at the edge of town. The first tombstone they see is marked REILLY. Turns out May Reilly, who died in 1822, was a talented lacemaker who made an exquisite tablecloth for a banquet at Hennessy Castle but was never paid. Legend has it that May has haunted the castle ever since.

Awakened in the middle of the night, Regan spots a mysterious woman on the back lawn of the castle. At the sound of Jack's voice, Regan turns her head for a moment. When she turns back, the woman is gone. A moment later, the hotel's fire alarm goes off.

In the ensuing melee, Regan and Jack meet a young American Irish couple, Sheila and Brian O'Shea, who have started a business selling Irish memorabilia -- but on this trip to Ireland their "business" is to pick up paintings they've commissioned from a superstitious amateur artist who doesn't realize the value of her work. The last thing these two online entrepreneurs want is for Regan and Jack to figure out what they're up to.

The following morning, May Reilly's famous tablecloth is discovered missing from the memorabilia room at the castle, and a note has been left for Jack by an elderly couple who checked out immediately after the fire. The "elderly" couple is, in fact, two international jewel thieves in disguise, who refer to themselves as "Jane and John Doe." Taunting Jack, who has been on their trail for more than a year, they claim responsibility for the theft of May Reilly's tablecloth, knowing full well that Jack won't be able to enjoy his honeymoon when he finds out they were right under his nose and may still be in Ireland.

With the help of Regan's Irish cousin -- Galway resident Gerard Reilly -- Regan and Jack hunt for the thieves who have eluded law enforcement for too long. Their search takes as many twists and turns as the winding country roads of the Emerald Isle, as they travel from tiny villages to the crowded pubs of Galway and back to Hennessy Castle -- where May Reilly is not resting in her grave!

Filled with Irish history and lore, and a cast of quirky characters on both sides of the Atlantic, Laced will take you on a journey that will keep you laughing, turning pages, and maybe even believing in ghosts!

The date is Saturday, April 2. Five April brides discover their wedding dresses have been stolen. One of the brides is private investigator Regan Reilly. Her wedding is in seven days.

Regan Reilly and her fiancé, Jack "no relation" Reilly -- head of the NYPD Major Case Squad -- are getting married! Regan had the perfect dress made by two young designers on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Arriving at the bridal salon to pick up her gown, Regan discovers the shop has been broken into, the designers bound and gagged, and wedding dresses for four of the April brides (her dress included) are missing. A fifth dress is in shreds on the floor. Even though it's a week before her wedding, Regan gets on the case, and in the process she meets an unusual mix of brides and grooms-to-be, or -- perhaps "not-to-be."

Over at One Police Plaza, Regan's bridegroom, Jack, is trying to solve a perplexing series of bank robberies. The robber, nicknamed "The Drip" by the NYPD because he always strikes during rainstorms, has been eluding the police for months. Jack is determined to crack the case before his upcoming nuptials.

Carol Higgins Clark fuses the two seemingly unrelated mysteries with an ingenious twist, taking readers from the streets of New York City, to the casinos of Atlantic City, and finally to that most popular wedding spot -- the one and only Las Vegas. She weaves a web of mystery around a charming, humorous tale of five April brides and the trials and tribulations they face planning their weddings.

Cursed opens on a cold and gray January morning. Sleet and snow are swirling as Regan arrives at a warehouse in Long Island City with a trunk full of her old case files from Los Angeles. After carting all her boxes into a storage unit, she heads back out into the snow, and her cell phone rings.

Abigail Feeney, a young woman who had lived across the hall from Regan in an apartment complex in the Hollywood Hills, is on the line. Abigail believes her life has been cursed since birth. She was born on Friday the 13th of January, and her parents gave her a name with 13 letters. A hairdresser on movie sets, Abigail was recently injured at work when a piece of scaffolding fell and knocked her over, and her arm was broken in two places. But that isn't why she is calling. "Regan!" she exclaims. "The 'no good bum' has been spotted in town. I desperately need the money he owes me. Can you please come out here and help me find him?"

Regan immediately knows the identity of the "no good bum." From her L.A. apartment, Regan had often seen Abigail's ex, Cody Castle, sitting by the pool, bent over his cell phone, text messaging nonstop. Before he disappeared three months ago, he borrowed $100,000 from Abigail. He promised to pay her back in three months.

"Find him?" Regan asks.

"Yes! My grandmother is flying here tomorrow. There's a condo she wants to buy me. But we need that money. She can't find out I don't have it. Regan, can't you spend a few days with me?"

If Regan weren't freezing, she might have made an excuse. But Jack was away at a seminar, Regan had never liked the "no good bum," and Abigail had brought her chicken soup when she'd had the flu last winter. Within hours Regan is on a flight to Los Angeles where her adventure with Abigail will take her from the beaches of Malibu, to the mountains north of the city, to the renovated lofts of downtown L.A.

Regan starts to feel Abigail's curse is contagious as she encounters a cast of characters who aren't always welcoming. Some are downright dangerous. And there's one who is the most dangerous of all...

Regan and Jack had considered going to Bermuda, but instead they decide to spend four days at his parents’ beautiful beachfront home on Cape Cod, a wonderful spot where they’d never been alone. During the summer the house overflowed with Jack’s family, bubbling with activity from morning until night. But to be up there for a weekend in April, just the two of them, sounded like a perfect escape.

Arriving at the Cape late at night, Regan and Jack are just in time to experience the beginning of a major storm. The next morning, Cape Cod Bay is quite a sight, churning with whitecaps. The wind is howling ferociously. Sheets of rain are pelting the house. Regan is looking forward to settling in the den with Jack and watching the storm.

However, the best laid plans . . .

In the bedroom, Regan opens the curtains to find Skip, the Reillys’ young caretaker, pressing his nose against the glass, supposedly checking for leaks. A moment later, Jack arrives home from the market, two gossipy older women who live up the street in tow. A branch crashed through their living room window, and they need a place to stay. When Regan thought things couldn’t get any worse, Skip comes running into the house, distraught that he’d just discovered Adele Hopkins, the woman renting the house next door, in a heap at the bottom of her staircase to the beach. Regan and Jack run back down with him, but huge waves are crashing on the shore. Hopkins is gone, presumably swept out to sea.

Who was Adele Hopkins? No one knows. The sixty-ish loner, who moved in five months ago, shunned her neighbors. Even her landlords, friends of the Reillys, have no idea how to locate her next of kin. Discovered in her dining room are stacks of apology cards she’d not yet sent and bags of decorative pillows that are embroidered with the saying grudge me, grudge me not.

Regan and Jack begin an investigation to help their friends track down Hopkins’s family. They start by interviewing two young women who own the shop where Adele had bought the pillows. Pippy and Ellen opened Pillow Talk after they both lost their jobs. When a newspaper article revealing the terrible way the women had been treated by their former employers was posted on the Internet, business took off, they started to become well-known, and the Pillow Talk website became a place for people who had had similar experiences to vent their feelings.

Pippy and Ellen just received an anonymous e-mail from someone who spews venom about her former rowing coach—Adele Hopkins. Could she be the same Adele Hopkins?

PI Regan Reilly and her husband, Jack, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, plan to spend the weekend at the Jersey shore with her parents. Regan’s mother, suspense writer Nora Regan Reilly, will be celebrating her birthday on Saturday. But Regan’s weekend gets off to an early start when she receives a phone call from her mother asking if she’d hop on a train right away.

Regan had just finished delivering bad news to a high school classmate. Hayley Patton is a successful New York City event planner, who had become suspicious that her beau, Scott, was seeing other women and hired Regan to follow him. When Hayley got the lowdown on Scott’s treachery, she vowed revenge with such vehemence that Regan is worried that Hayley might go too far.

Turns out Nora had also just spoken to an agitated high school classmate. Karen Frawley Fulton, who lives in San Diego, called Nora after learning her mother’s plans for the day. To Karen’s shock, Edna Frawley just sold their home at the Jersey shore and is having a garage sale to end all garage sales. Everything the beautiful young actress Cleo Paradise left behind when she recently rented the house is up for grabs. The irrepressible Edna even rented a plane to fly over the beach touting the sale, using Cleo’s name as bait. Karen’s heading East but asks Nora to please go to the house and, she hopes, curtail any other outrageous antics her mother probably has in mind. Nora agrees and asks Regan to join her.

Regan and Nora arrive at the Frawley home to find a mob of garage-sale junkies waiting at the front gate. Regan is astonished to see Scott’s brand-new fiancée, who quickly makes herself scarce.

Once inside the house, Regan becomes increasingly suspicious about why Cleo left so many belongings behind when she vacated Edna’s home unexpectedly. Was she in that much of a hurry? Regan wonders. “Where did Cleo go?” is a question too many people are suddenly asking. But no one has the answer. It isn’t long before Regan finds herself searching for Cleo, whose next hours may be her last.

L.A.-based private detective Regan Reilly flies to Las Vegas -- the mythic city of cash and flash, glamour and kitsch -- to help an old school chum, Danny Madley. Danny is producing the pilot of a reality TV show, Love Above Sea Level. The show features three couples who all have experienced the proverbial Seven Year Itch and are now vying for the chance to renew their wedding vows and win one million dollars. But someone is trying to sabotage the show before Danny can shoot the final scene at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Danny's show is in competition with the sitcom Take Me Higher for a coveted permanent slot on Hot Air Cable, also known as the Balloon Channel. Both shows involve hot air ballooning, and both have casts of characters who are more than capable of disrupting production of Love Above Sea Level. Regan's job is to find out who is making trouble and why.

Is the culprit one of the contestants on Love Above Sea Level? Could it be the advice columnists Danny has hired -- Aunt Agony and Uncle Heartburn -- who are there to help rekindle the sparks between the husbands and wives? Is it Danny's right-hand man, Victor, a local Vegas boy Danny met while gambling? Or his cameraman Sam, who would much rather be surfing than working? Is it Bubbles Ferndale, producer of the sitcom, who is desperate to make her show the one that wins the competition? Is it Danny's ex-girlfriend, the Vegas showgirl Honey? Or her friend Lucille, a dealer in one of the casinos? Could local entrepreneur Roscoe Parker, the owner of the Balloon Channel and mastermind behind the TV competitions, be the source of all Danny's problems? There is no shortage of suspects and no shortage of mishaps.

From their base in the Fuzzy Dice Hotel, a decidedly third-rate establishment, Regan tries to help Danny keep his production on an even keel. Danny's well-meaning, meddlesome parents complicate matters. Jealousy among the Love Above Sea Level contestants escalates. Mysterious, inexplicable events keep occurring. Regan is determined to keep Danny's show on schedule, and she'll do whatever it takes -- on land and in the air!

Popped is a funny, fast-paced jaunt that takes readers from the fancy Vegas casinos to the run-down hotels off the Strip, from the grounds of the hot air balloon fields up into the heavens as the balloons fly over the arid Southwest.

Now Regan is in New York to attend a crime conference organized by her celebrity-author mother. A friend, Thomas Pilsner -- the frenetic president of the Settlers' Club on Gramercy Park -- calls Regan, desperately pleading for help. Thomas is distraught over the sudden suspicious deaths of two members of the Settlers' Club. The men had promised to donate a cache of valuable diamonds to save the Club. But now the diamonds are gone, the men are dead, and Thomas is a mess. He fears the police will suspect he is at the heart of both mysteries, and worse yet, he'll lose his job.

Enter Regan. Who better than the star of Decked, Snagged, Iced, and Twanged to solve the mystery of the missing diamonds and suspicious deaths? Who better to contend with the quirky characters around the Club, such as Lydia Sevatura, the self-styled "Princess of Love," who operates a dating service, and her butler, Maldwin Feckles, who has just opened the first school of butlering in New York City? And who better than Carol Higgins Clark, with her sparkling, canny prose, to keep the readers guessing to the end "who done it"?