Nancy J Cohen Books In Order

Bad Hair Day Books In Order

  1. Permed to Death (1999)
  2. Hair Raiser (2000)
  3. Murder By Manicure (2001)
  4. Body Wave (2002)
  5. Highlights to Heaven (2003)
  6. Died Blonde (2004)
  7. Dead Roots (2005)
  8. Perish By Pedicure (2006)
  9. Killer Knots (2007)
  10. Shear Murder (2012)
  11. Hanging By A Hair (2014)
  12. Peril By Ponytail (2015)
  13. Facials Can Be Fatal (2017)
  14. Hair Brained (2017)
  15. Trimmed to Death (2018)
  16. Easter Hair Hunt (2020)
  17. Styled for Murder (2021)
  18. Hairball Hijinks (2018)
  19. A Bad Hair Day Cookbook (2019)

Light-Years Trilogy Books In Order

  1. Circle of Light (2010)
  2. Moonlight Rhapsody (2010)
  3. Starlight Child (2010)

Drift Lords Books In Order

  1. Warrior Prince (2012)
  2. Warrior Rogue (2013)
  3. Warrior Lord (2014)

Novels

  1. Silver Serenade (2010)

Non fiction

  1. Writing the Cozy Mystery (2014)

Bad Hair Day Book Covers

Light-Years Trilogy Book Covers

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Non fiction Book Covers

Nancy J Cohen Books Overview

Permed to Death

Meet Marla Shore, a Florida beauty salon owner with a knack for creating dazzling ‘dos and solving mysteries…
Marla was already having a bad day, but when one of her clients dies while getting a perm in her salon, her day just can’t get any worse…
until the smugly competent Detective Vail accuses her of poisoning the wealthy widow’s coffee creamer! Granted, Bertha Kravitz was hardly her favorite customer, but Marla could never have murdered the ornery woman. Now it’s up to the savvy stylist to find out just who did. Combing the woman’s privileged world for clues, Marla soon discovers that the town is crawling with potential suspects. As the case grows more snarled, Marla becomes determined to unmask a cunning killer before she’s outwitted and dead. ‘A terrific mystery debut for Nancy Cohen. Marla the beautician is a delight.’ Tamar Myers, author of Baroque and Desperate ‘A keeper…
I plan to reserve a permanent place on my bookshelf for this action packed, character driven series.’ Denis Dietz, author of Footprints In the Butter and Throw Darts At A Cheesecake

Hair Raiser

Not just your average South Florida beachcomber, Marla’s now a volunteer for Ocean Guard, a coastal preservation group. She’s even in charge of their upcoming Taste of the World fundraiser. But when chef Pierre Chevalier’s flaming Bananas Foster results in a three-alarm fire, she can’t help wondering: too much rum in the recipe-or sabotage? Something is beginning to smell fishy in sunny Palm Haven, and it isn’t just the polluted shoreline. But even Marla is stunned when Ocean Guard’s attorney, Benjamin Kline, is murdered. Not that she was crazy about the guy-in fact, nobody was. The victim had his share of enemies, though Marla’s old friend, the irritatingly appealing Detective Dalton Vail, is convinced the culprit was one of Ocean Guard’s esteemed board members. Now he’s counting on Marla to untangle the clues. The suspects couldn’t be more varied-or less likely-from likable businesswoman Babs Winrow to quiet, respectable banker Darren Shapiro. Even Digby Raines, the smarmy mayoral candidate himself, and creepy funeral director Stefano Barletti are on the ever-growing list. One of them snipped Ben Kline’s life short, and Marla’s determined to get to the root of a case that’s anything but cut and dried. And with her own brush with death serving as a blunt reminder that a killer’s still on the loose, Marla realizes that if she isn’t careful, the next thing to wash up on the sand might not be mere medical waste…
With her sassy style and flair for local color, Nancy J. Cohen has created another sleek page-turner that will leave readers eagerly awaiting their next appointment with the pert and plucky Marla.

Murder By Manicure

Since beauty is her business, salon owner Marla Shore figures she can surely rid herself of a few excess pounds of holiday flab without joining a gym. Unfortunately, daily walks with her slowpoke poodle fail to whittle her waistline, so Marla reluctantly gives in to a trial membership at Perfect Fit Sports Club. But she never dreamed that slimming down would mean running into a case of foul play, when fellow gym member Jolene Myers settles in for a soak in the whirlpool and drowns.

Body Wave

Salon owner Marla Shore is pretty hard to shock, but she’s truly stunned to learn that her hateful ex husband, Stanley Kaufman, has been arrested for the murder of his third wife, Kimberly and wants Marla to find the ‘real’ killer. Stan’s plenty of things, but he’s no murderer. So who could have stabbed the beautiful young heiress and left her body lying at the foot of her stairs? Marla soon finds herself going undercover at the exclusive compound of one of South Florida’s most wealthy families and quickly figures out that plenty of people had it in for the former Mrs. Stan Kaufman. Certainly Stan’s most recent ex wife Leah isn’t shedding any tears over the woman who stole her husband. Kim also had run ins with Uncle Morris, manager of the family’s coffee growing empire. Then there were her twisted ties to crazy like a fox Aunt Florence, gospel spouting televangelist Jeremiah Dooley, not so ex boyfriend Gary Waterford, and Kim’s dubious ‘best’ friend, Lacey Mills. With all the bad blood Kim left behind, it isn’t long before Marla’s making serious waves. From affairs and blackmail plots to bitter rivalries and fraud, the case is a tangled mess that leaves Marla vulnerable to a killer who’s on to her true identity and will stop at nothing to find a permanent solution to the problem…

Highlights to Heaven

Professional hair stylist and amateur sleuth Marla Shore lands a case close to home when her pet loving neighbor a man aptly named goat disappears, leaving his animals alone and a dead body in the master bedroom. The corpse might be just another anonymous stiff except for the distinctive bronze highlighting his hair. Marla on the scene and ready for anything immediately recognizes the signature technique of the Heavenly Hair Salon in Fort Lauderdale and the work of stylist Cutter Corrigan. Curiosity is part of Marla’s motive in deciding to help ID the dead man by questioning the proprietor of Heavenly Hair before the police do. But a powerful physical attraction to sexy Detective Dalton Vail is a major factor in her effort to impress him with her sleuthing skills. And before she even leaves the murder scene, Marla makes another that suggests the killing involves the exotic pet trade, where fancy fur coats are illegally made from local Tabbies and Rovers. How could gentle Goat be involved in that? Outraged and upset, Marla vows to use her contacts in the salon biz to find out the truth. Soon her unofficial questioning of other area hairdressers turns up a surprising link between Goat, the victim, and her own past. The long and short of it is danger for Marla, as she gets closer to uncovering a hair raising secret someone would kill to keep.

Died Blonde

There’s no love lost between Marla and Carolyn Sutton. Carolyn has never forgiven Marla for leaving Hairstyle Heaven to open her own place, especially since Marla’s clientele grew as Carolyn’s faded away. Carolyn retaliated by relocating near Marla, but couldn’t put the highlights back in the balance sheet. Still, it’s a nasty shock when Marla enters the meter room behind the shopping center that houses both salons and tumbles over her rival’s body. Carolyn’s neck is broken and a hank of her hair is missing. Marla’s powerful curiosity would have been enough to send her snooping for clues, but when Detective Dalton Vail, her very significant other, actually asks her for help, nothing can hold her back. Her quest becomes even more personal when Wilda Cleaver, Carolyn’s trusted psychic and new owner of her salon, insists that Carolyn’s spirit is begging Marla to solve her murder. Adding a dose of blackmail, Wilda warns that someone Marla loves is in great danger but won’t give details until Marla cracks the case. Marla’s got her work cut out for her poor Carolyn was far from popular…
and maybe even farther from honest. There’s Carolyn’s snubbed sister, Linda, who only inherited an unspecified, ‘valuable’ collection that appears to be missing, the chiropractor whose shady dealings Carolyn had uncovered, and the immigration lawyer who apparently had been issuing suspicious visas for Hairstyle Heaven’s French born staff. Add to all this some surprising news from Detective Vail and a blossoming romance for Marla’s mother, and Marla’s well coiffed head is soon spinning. It will take all her skill to untangle the snarl of suspects, trim the list down to unmask the murderer and learn what’s behind Wilda’s eerie premonitions before someone Marla loves is next.

Dead Roots

Nancy J. Cohen’s Bad Hair Day mysteries tease with humor and satisfy with style. Nary a touch up is called for in Marla Shore s seventh outing as sleuth extraordinaire but she ll need all the snooping skills she can muster when a family reunion on a Florida plantation uncovers shadowy secrets and Dead Roots Marla s a little nervous about her family reunion at Florida s historic Sugar Crest Plantation Resort. It s the first time her clan will meet her fianc , Detective Dalton Vail and vice versa. There s little hope of much privacy. One wing of the hotel is condemned and off limits while the rest is packed this Thanksgiving weekend with visitors, from city council members debating the feasibility of developing the property into a living history theme park to paranormal experts investigating the site s many ghosts. Not exactly a romantic getaway.

The web of tension connecting Marla s relatives adds a most unwelcome tint of anxiety to the whole affair. Elderly Aunt Polly, whose Russian father, Andrew Marks, once owned Sugar Crest, is desperate to find the treasure in gemstones he hid there before the place is torn down. Meanwhile, Cousin Cynthia piques Marla s interest with talk of a family curse. Apparently the plantation was built on an Indian burial mound, and two eerie Cossacks were somehow involved in Andrew s very premature death. What one thing has to do with the other, no one can say.

But when Aunt Polly is found suffocated in her bed, her nursing aide vanished, there s no excuse for silly speculations. It s time for Marla to unravel the tangle of lies that tie her family to Sugar Crest a tangle that reaches all the way back to Tzarist Russia. And while she s on the hunt, she might as well consider those with money to lose if the demolition is delayed like local businessmen and Cynthia’s husband, who is anxious to invest in the theme park.

Things get even more desperate when the body of the resort s groundskeeper is found on the nature trail. Whatever is going on at Sugar Crest, someone is willing to go to great lengths to keep it hidden. But he or she hasn’t planned on Marla, who will stop at nothing to learn the truth before the killer strikes even closer to home.

Perish By Pedicure

Beauty shows are known for a lot of things: glitz, glamour, products, catfights, very big bordering on scary hair ‘creations’, and some equally oversized egos. What they’re not usually known for is cold blooded murder, but that’s exactly the case when Luxor Products company director Christine Parks is found dead in her hotel room facedown in a foot bath. And suspect number one is Marla’s college roommate, Georgia Rogers. It was Georgia who got Marla the job working behind the scenes at the beauty show. The least Marla can do is try to clear her name. One thing is clear: Christine Parks didn’t make many friends. Everyone who worked with the miserable woman had a reason to hate her. From serial cheating to indulging in blackmail, threats, lawsuits, bad investment advice and worse, she was a walking Bad Hair Day, and the list of possible suspects is longer than a pop diva’s hair extensions. The questions swirling through Marla’s expertly coiffed head are pure chaos: Who hated Christine strongly enough to kill her? Did someone slip her poison at their company cocktail party? And is it possible that Dalton’s ex in laws could be more annoying and disapproving? Dealing with her own domestic crises is going to have to take a back seat to solving a crime that’s getting more complicated and deadlier by the day. When a model with top secret information for Marla turns up dead at the Russian baths, things go from bad to worse in a hurry. Behind the thumping house music and dazzling, high platform hair tricks of Florida’s hottest beauty show, something very ugly is going down, something that goes beyond polish and style to the dark heart of corruption, greed, and killer takes all ambition of the beauty biz. And if Marla isn’t careful, she just may end up on the wrong end of a murderer’s very skilled hands.

Killer Knots

Nancy J. Cohen’s Bad Hair Day mysteries are a cut above the rest rich, full, and stylish. Now her beautician sleuth Marla Shore puts down her curling iron and picks up her skills at detection when she books passage on a cruise ship with a killer aboard. Soon it’s full steam ahead toward mayhem and murder…
in a case sure to have Marla going off the deep end. Killer Knots Scissor wielding sleuth Marla Shore is looking forward to a leisurely cruise with her fianc Dalton Vail. Too bad Dalton’s teenage daughter and his parents are along for the ride. Instead of a seduction at sea, Marla is meeting the in laws and hoping nothing goes too terribly wrong. It’s a vain hope. A mysterious envelope stuck into her cabin door reads: I know what you did and I have what you want. If it hadn’t been addressed to ‘Martha’ Shore and obviously delivered by mistake, Marla might have feared it referred to the nudie pictures buried in her past. But that embarrassment would been better than what the note does foretell: troubled waters lie dead ahead. So instead of cruise control, Marla’s on high alert, searching for the note’s recipient before the cruise goes down the drain. If Marla doesn’t find the culprit fast, this spunky stylist may end up with her own split end: caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Silver Serenade

A beautiful assassin and a desperate fugitive join forces to catch a terrorist before he starts an intergalactic war. Ace pilot Jace Vernon is forced to flee his home world after being framed for murder. He seeks justice, but S.I.N. agent Silver Malloy gets in his way. The platinum-haired beauty counters his every move in a quest to clear his name. As he makes it his mission to break down her defenses, he doesn’t count on the personal consequences of success. Silver refuses to abort her deadly mission even if it means killing the one man Jace needs alive to prove his innocence. Her resolve wavers when Jace’s charms melt the barriers around her heart. Can she help him win his case, even if it means betraying her family and ruining her career?

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