This collection contains four licensed novellas in the Miss Fortune universe.

Sinful Science:

Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld, was a man with a wolf’s head. The Navajo skin walkers could turn into any animal they pleased. And of course there’s the Ho tinh, Hanoi’s nine-tailed fox. I was thinking I might write a story about the Ho tinh.

Gertie, that’s a great idea, Ally said. Are you going to write children’s books?

Oh, my goodness, no. There’s no money in children’s books. I’m thinking erotica.

Once Upon a Murder: It’s been crazy, the desk clerk said. We just had another big group stay here right before you guys, and they completely trashed the place. Shot out the security cameras with BB guns, pitched a couch off a seventeenth-floor balcony, and one room tried to flush a pillow down the toilet.

What kind of group was that? I asked.

Doll collectors’ convention.

Tabasco Fiasco: I found cooking to be something of a mystery. Fortunately, I had a strong stomach and what a fellow agent once enviously described as taste buds of steel.

Schooled: What’s Celia complaining about this time? Did I wash my car on a Tuesday? Wear off-white before Labor Day?
Sheriff Lee fidgeted and cleared his throat.

Celia Arceneaux is dead, Fortune.