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Jane Jeffry Books In Order

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Publication Order of Jane Jeffry Books

Grime and Punishment (1989)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Farewell to Yarns (1991)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Quiche Before Dying (1993)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Class Menagerie (1994)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Knife to Remember (1994)Description / Buy at Amazon
From Here to Paternity (1995)Description / Buy at Amazon
Silence of the Hams (1996)Description / Buy at Amazon
War and Peas (1996)Description / Buy at Amazon
Fear of Frying (1997)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Merchant of Menace (1998)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Groom with a View (1999)Description / Buy at Amazon
Mulch Ado About Nothing (2000)Description / Buy at Amazon
The House of Seven Mabels (2002)Description / Buy at Amazon
Bell, Book, and Scandal (2003)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Midsummer Night's Scream (2004)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Accidental Florist (2007)Description / Buy at Amazon

The Jane Jeffry series is a series of national award winning books based on the cozy mystery and suspense genre. They are written by highly popular American author Janice Young Brooks under the pen name of Jill Churchill. There is a total of 16 books in the series, which were released between 1989 and 2007. Each and every book of the series features the lead character in the role of Jane Jeffry. She is introduced into the series as an amateur sleuth living in Chicago, Illinois, as a suburban housewife. Author Jill has described Jane as a widow, who lives along with her 3 children. Most of the time, she remains in her house doing the household chores and raising her children. And whatever time Jane gets apart from these activities, she indulges in carrying out amateur sleuthing works along with one of her neighbors and best friend, Shelley Nowack. Very often in the series, it is seen that the two ladies join detective Mel Van Dyne to solve the various mysteries. Author Jill Started writing this series in the year 1989 and came up with its debut book called Grim and Punishment in the same year. The series finally ended in the year 2007 with the last book titled as The Accidental Florist. As the series progresses, it is seen that Jane and Shelley get stuck in murder cases on many occasions. Due to this, detective Van Dyne has to come to their rescue and then all three of them work together to solve the murder mysteries. Author Jill has set the titles of every book in the series in the form of puns on the literary works, reflecting the domestic and cozy life of Jane Jeffry which she lives between the crime solving capers.

One of the successful books written in the Jane Jeffry series by author Jill Churchill is titled as ‘Bell, Book, and Scandal’. The Avon books released it in the year 2004. At the beginning of the book, author Jill has said that no one can judge by looking at home maker Jeffry that she would be interested in mayhem and murder. However, after dealing with the numerous corpses and unmasking the various killers, it appears that she has become an expert in this subject. This is the reason why is has decided to go to a nearby mystery authors’ convention along with her buddy and partner Shelley Nowack to work with the brightest lights and help to write an interesting crime book. She also hopes to show them her own recently finished manuscript. When Jane arrives at the convention, she finds that all the elements of literary publication are present, including agents, editors, publishing giants, as well as the popular authors such as Felicity Roane. Even detective Mel is present there as a guest speaker. And among such prominent personalities, there were some bad ones also. They include the malicious critic named Zac Zebra and the loudmouthed Vernetta Strausmann. Vernetta had self published her popular book and helped herself become a sensation over the internet.

The mystery at the convention just begins when a popular ego squashing editor comes up to the podium, being undone by a poisoner. Also, a hated journalist gets bashed very badly in the venue’s parking lot. Due to these incidents, it becomes quite clear that a real life killer is present among the ones present at the writer’s convention. Everyone begins to wonder who could that person be among them. The suspicions fall on a pseudonymous online gossip monger named Ms. Mystery, a local bookseller who loves the works of modern age women authors, and a reader who seems to have a lot of knowledge of the personal lives of all the people present there. But, these are only suspicions and no one able to get any evidence to reveal the killer. At this point, Shelley and Jane Jeffry decide to take the matters in their own hands and begin sleuthing to find the mystery killer. However, the killer seems to be a tough nut to crack and keeps getting harder to catch and deadlier with the passage of time.

One of the other books successfully written in the series is titled as ‘The Merchant of Menace’ The Avon Books is the publisher of this book also, which released it in 1999. The plot begins by showing Jane Jeffry extremely busy with her household chores. She wants to finish cookie and baking and the related chores before her kids reach home from school. She is also expecting the arrival of two mothers, one of which is her late husband’s mom and the other is the mother of her newfound sweetheart Detective VanDyne. Mel has already warned Jane that his mother is quite disapproving. The situation becomes extremely tiring and hectic for Jane as her kitchen is in a state of complete disaster. Also, her dog has caused a lot of mess in the whole house with its hair. A Christmas display happening in the tacky and the music making neighborhood makes Jane go even more crazy as an ear-splitting racket keeps coming into her house. In the middle of such a mess, Jane Jeffry is required to get out the green icing of her hair and prepare herself to host a post caroling dinner party for the two women.

One thing for which she does not seem ready is the surprise visit from a muckraking television action reporter. He arrives disguised in the form of Santa Claus. This nasty TV reporter seems to have made all the plans to turn a happy holiday party into a scandal. But, before he could play his act of yellow journalism, someone ends his life. His dead body suited as Santa Claus slides from the roof of Jane’s neighbor and land on a plastic reindeer’s horns. When Jane comes to know about this incident, she seems pretty much certain that the death of the action reporter did not take place accidentally. So, she joins hands with her sleuthing friend Shelley once again and begin to track the activities of the suspects in search of clues. After a little while into the investigation, Jane finds out that the reporter had a female assistant and an ex-wife, both of whom used to hate him a lot. A plenty of other nice people around the victim felt ruined by his naughty reportings. Now, Jane needs to find out the person who committed the murder and tried to spoil the happy occasion of Christmas holidays. And she needs to do it as soon as possible because the killer is still on the loose and might try to silence her forever.

Book Series In Order » Characters » Jane Jeffry

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