A Ferrara Family Mystery Series

Christmas in Tranquility, New Jersey, means togetherness for the Italian-American Ferrara family—and an unexpected reunion for Alberta Scaglione. But someone has murder on their holiday wish list…

Alberta is delighted that her estranged daughter has arrived in Tranquility, even if Lisa Marie has an ulterior motive. Her son, Alberta’s twenty-one-year-old grandson, Sergio, hasn’t been heard from in six months, shortly after taking up with a woman named Natalie. Maybe Alberta and her crime-reporting partner-in-sleuthing granddaughter, Jinx, can track him down before Christmas?
 
After some fruitless searching, the Ferraras take a break to attend the Mistletoe Ball, a fundraiser for the local hospital. But the night takes a chilling turn when a snowman decoration splits open, revealing a body. Lisa Marie screams that it’s Natalie—and screams again when she sees a man emerge from behind some Christmas trees. The good news is they’ve found Sergio. The bad news: he’s a prime suspect for murder.
 
It seems Sergio’s former squeeze had some shady secrets. And with more than one family member’s future at stake, Alberta and Lisa Marie will have to put their past behind them and work together, or it’ll be a blue, blue Christmas…

Tranquility, New Jersey’s amateur drama troupe is staging a murder mystery at St. Winifred’s Academy and Alberta Scaglione couldn’t be more thrilled. Even her Italian-American famiglia are getting in on the act. But someone’s making deadly revisions to the script…

Alberta can hardly believe it. Her childhood screen idol, 1950s Hollywood starlet Missy Michaels, has signed up for the local Tranquility Players revival of the classic Arsenic and Old Lace. But before Missy memorizes a single line, she’s found dead in her dressing room wrapped in lace and clutching a bottle of arsenic. The ultimate drama-queen suicide? Everyone thinks so–except Alberta. A Ferrara woman knows murder when she sees it. Alberta also knows producer Nola Kirkpatrick’s checkered past: whenever she’s around, trouble abounds.

Alberta and her crime-reporting partner-in-sleuthing granddaughter, Jinx, have a hunch the murderer is among the Players. So Alberta joins the cast–reluctantly playing Missy’s role–to get closer to the truth. She notices the director is a little unbalanced, but aren’t they all? The leading man is a wildly obsessive Missy Michaels fanboy–but a murderer? Of course, the show must go on. But if Alberta and Jinx can’t nab the killer before opening night, it may mean curtains for more Players…including Alberta.

In J.D. Griffo’s fourth Ferrara Family Mystery featuring a multi-generational Italian-American sleuthing duo Alberta Scaglione and her twentysomething granddaughter, murder is on the menu at Tranquility, New Jersey’s local diner…

Alberta Scaglione thinks her cooking is better than anyone’s in Tranquility, New Jersey–but she doesn’t mind an occasional visit to Veronica’s Diner. During the breakfast rush, waitress Teri Jo seems stressed out. Not surprising on a busy morning, though Alberta, her sister Helen, and her granddaughter Jinx find it odd when Teri Jo asks them to deliver a package for her “just in case.”

Minutes later, Teri Jo rushes back to their table–not with a check in her hand but with a knife in her back. Veronica is upset but says she knows virtually nothing about her employee’s past, and the ladies aren’t sure whether to view her with sympathy or suspicion. Then they find an unusual figurine on the ground while snooping in the vicinity, and it becomes clear that this is a case for the Ferrara Family. With such a crowd at the crime scene, there are plenty of potential murderers on the menu, and the Ferraras will travel everywhere to figure out exactly where that figurine fits in…