History Sandbox / AnoneMouseJr

* #8: ''The Poison Pen'' (announced for April 2024)

** Anon's note: I own #4 (and #9 as of 03/30/23); first added the series to my wantlist because of its connection to other books I have via an anthology.\\\

** Anon's note: I own and have troped #1-3.\\\

* #10: ''Death Knells and Wedding Bells'' (announced for June 2023)

* ExecutiveMeddling: Justified. The original book was released in hardcover by one publishing company under the title ''Without Mercy'', but when she switched publishers to Berkley Prime Crime for the paperback reprint and sequels, they'd recently published a different book under that name and, to avoid confusion, retitled Kelner's book to ''Curse of the Kissing Cousins''.

''Second Chance Cat Mysteries'' is an armchair/amateur sleuth/CozyMystery series by Darlene Ryan writing as Sofie Ryan. The series features Sarah Grayson, who has opened a second-hand shop in North Harbor, Maine and is raising a rescue cat named Elvis. She also finds herself stumbling across mysteries, to the dismay of her boyfriend (a death examiner for the local medical office) who would prefer that she and four elderly friends of hers, who are also involved in her business, leave such things to the police.\\\

** Anon's note: I own 1-3 and 5 (need to get 4 before reading 5).\\\

** Anon's note: I own 1-4.\\\

* #10: ''Dressed to Drill'' (announced for May 2023)

* #11.5: ''Hopped Along'' (announced for January 2024)[[note]]Collected in [[Literature/LucyStoneMysteries Leslie Meier's]] ''Easter Basket Murder'' anthology.[[/note]]

* #10.5: "Perked Up" (2023) [[note]] Collected in [[Literature/LucyStoneMysteries Leslie Meier's]] ''Irish Coffee Murder'' anthology.[[/note]]

Due to publishing company Kensington's practices, as of 2023, a total of fourteen series by twelve authors are connected (though not part of the same continuity) via fourteen anthologies.\\\

** Anon's note: I own 1-9 and novellas 4.5, 6.5, 7.5 and 9.5.\\\

* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Every title, including the novellas, follows the same two-word pattern -- a verb (ending in "-ed" for the first ten books ad five novellas) followed by a nearly always shorter word.

** Anon's note: I own 1-8 and novellas 4.5, 6.5, 7.5 and 9.5.\\\

* #11: ''Death by Iced Coffee'' (announced for April 2023)

** Anon's note: I own books 1-13 (minus the e-book).\\\

** Anon's note: I own 1-4, 6 and 8-9; read #1 only as of this writing.\\\

** Anon's note: I own 1-8 and novellas 4.5, 6.5 and 7.5.\\\

* Note: ''Literature/JaineAustenMysteries'', ''Literature/MoongobbleAndMe'', ''Literature/TheEnchantedFiles'' and ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle'' were previously assembled on this page.

!!Kids' fiction (by "Creator.BruceCoville"):

[[folder: ''Always October'']]

[[folder: ''Oddities'' series]]

* Literature.OddlyEnough
** Anon's note: I own the omnibus and #4.\\\

''Oddly Enough'' and its sequels are an anthology series by Creator/BruceCoville. Each of them contains a mix of nine previously published and brand new stories, plus one essay, all by Coville himself (the exception is a new introduction in the omnibus ''Odds Are Good'', which is by Creator/JaneYolen instead); they're mostly standalones, though some are part of his existing series.

The series consists of the following:

* ''Oddly Enough'' (1994)[[labelnote:Contents]]"The Box" (1986; originally released in ''Dragons & Dreams: A Collection of New Fantasy and Science Fiction Stories'', edited by Jane Yolen, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh); "Duffy's Jacket" (1989; originally released in ''Things That Go Bump in the Night'', edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg); "Homeward Bound" (1988; originally released in ''The Unicorn Treasury'', edited by Bruce Coville); "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm" (1993; originally released in ''A Wizard's Dozen: Stories of the Fantastic'', edited by Michael Stearns); "Clean as a Whistle" (1994; original to collection); "The Language of Blood" (1994; original to collection); "Old Glory" (1991; originally released in ''2041: Twelve Short Stories About the Future by Top Science Fiction Writers'', edited by Jane Yolen); "The Passing of the Pack" (1988; originally released in ''Werewolves'', edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg); "A Blaze of Glory" (1994; original to collection)[[/labelnote]]
* ''Odder Than Ever'' (1999)[[labelnote:Contents]]"The Golden Sail" (1999; original to collection); "Biscuits of Glory" (1995; originally released in ''The Haunted House: A Collection of Original Stories'', edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg); "I, Earthling" (1994; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens''); "The Giant's Tooth" (1999; original to collection); "There's Nothing Under the Bed" (1995; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Nightmares''); "The Stinky Princess" (1999; original to collection); "The Japanese Mirror" (1996; originally released in ''A Nightmare's Dozen: Stories from the Dark'', edited by Michael Stearns); "Am I Blue?" (1994; originally released in ''Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence'', edited by Marion Dane Bauer); "The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones" (1997; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Magic II'')[[/labelnote]]
* ''Odds Are Good'' (2006; omnibus of the first two books; also contains an essay by Jane Yolen)
* ''Oddest of All'' (2008)[[labelnote:Contents]]"In Our Own Hands" (1999; variant of "In Our Hands", originally published in ''Bruce Coville's Alien Visitors''); "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" (2003; originally released in ''13: Thirteen Stories That Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen'', edited by James Howe); "The Ghost Let Go" (1994; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Ghosts''); "In the Frog King's Court" (2000; originally released in ''Ribbiting Tales'', edited by Nancy Springer); "The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond" (1996; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Spinetinglers''); "The Hardest, Kindest Gift" (2001; originally released in ''Half-Human'', edited by Bruce Coville); "The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado" (2008; original to collection); "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld" (2008; original to collection); "The Boy With Silver Eyes" (2008; original to collection)[[/labelnote]]

Tropes for sixteen of the 27 stories in this series are collected here. For the other eleven, see ''Literature/BruceCovillesBookOf''[[note]]contains tropes for "Duffy's Jacket" (1989), "Clean as a Whistle" (1994), "I, Earthling" (1994), "There's Nothing Under the Bed" (1995), "The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond" (1996) and "Biscuits of Glory" (1995)[[/note]], ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Stinky Princess" (1999)[[/note]], ''Literature/MagicShop''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones" (1997) and "The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado" (2008)[[/note]], ''Literature/NinaTanleven''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Ghost Let Go" (1994)[[/note]], and ''Literature/TheUnicornChronicles''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Boy With Silver Eyes" (2008)[[/note]].

!!''Oddly Enough'' contains examples of:

* AbominationAccusationAttack: In "The Passing of the Pack", the narrator's friend Wandis is accused of using witchcraft to seduce a woman's husband away from her (said narrator thinks it's more likely that the woman's own nagging is what drove him into Wandis's arms), and then the narrator is accused of witchcraft simply for sticking up for her, and both are found guilty and sentenced to death. Fortunately, they're rescued by the wolves.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: Happens to Jamie in "Homeward Bound", at the end -- his physical body is killed, but it frees him so he becomes one with everything.
* BackFromTheDead: Brion, the protagonist of "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", returns from the grave after being executed and angrily forces the king who ordered his demise to call back the soldiers he controls and withdraw his kingdom from the ongoing multi-sided war altogether. After three years of advising the king, Brion ultimately sees the other armies also decide to stop fighting and, with the threat ended for good, is thus able to return to his grave and rest in peace.
* BloodMagic: In "The Language of Blood", the main character is chosen to become the newest Speaker -- a vampire who, when they drink blood, goes into a Fit of Prophecy that lets them learn the necessary information to keep their country prosperous, such as what their enemies are doing.
* BurnTheWitch: In "The Passing of the Pack", the narrator's friend Wandis is sentenced to burn for performing witchcraft, and the narrator too when he tries to stick up for her. Fortunately, the wolves come and save them.
* BurningTheFlag: "Old Glory" revolves around the dystopian future of 2041 where the main character's great-grandfather ends up standing in front of a crowd, announcing that their flag no longer stands for what it used to, so there's no point in having it -- so he sets it on fire as a sign of protest (or at least tries to, since it's fireproof). And then gets shot by the government for doing so.
* BuryMeNotOnTheLonePrairie: "A Blaze of Glory" revolves around Tommy and his grandmother, the latter of whom is old and dying. In the last minutes of the story, the elves whom she helped as a young woman return to fulfill the only reward she wanted for her help -- to be taken back to Elfland and buried there.
* CavalryOfTheDead: Brion, the protagonist of "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm" (originally released in ''A Wizard's Dozen: Stories of the Fantastic'' and collected in Coville's anthology ''Oddly Enough''), leads one against enemy soldiers who've been sent to raid his kingdom. Unusually, the dead don't attack the living -- they just point out what it'll be like to be dead, and the soldiers decide they'd rather go home and live as long as possible.
* CompanionCube: Michael's special box in "The Box". He takes it everywhere -- to school as a child, to work as an adult, and even when he's in the hospital after a car accident, he sneaks out to the site of the crash to find it and get it back, all out of dedication to the task given him by the angel who entrusted the box to him.
* DraftDodging: In "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", there are people who avoid being drafted into their kingdom's army because they're physically unfit and others who avoid it because they're too frightened, too smart or simply "too loving"; this last category is the most dangerous, because objecting to the war has been made illegal. The protagonist, Brion, fits the last category and fakes being crippled to avoid serving in a war he doesn't believe in, but ends up revealing his true status and is arrested and [[OffWithHisHead executed]] for it.
* {{Dystopia}}: "Old Glory" is set in a dystopia future where by 2041, freedoms have eroded, free speech is no longer a thing, and a government organization exists to shoot dissenters on sight. Worst of all, the kids of this time think this is ''good''.
* EvilUncle: Jamie's uncle in "Homeward Bound". He's actually an evil wizard, who's captured and killed unicorns, taking their horns for his own purpose and forcing them into human shape afterward.
* ExpandedStatesOfAmerica: Implied in "Old Glory", where the U.S. flag now has sixty-two stars.
* FetchQuest: "A Blaze of Glory" has Tommy's grandmother tell him about the time she ended up in Elfland and had to go on one of these. It's not described in detail, other than to say it was quite a journey, but she succeeded in the end and brought back the stone containing the missing bit of the Elf queen.
* ForcedTransformation: In "Homeward Bound", Jamie discovers he's actually a unicorn forced into human shape, and it's said that his father was the same, whose horn was stolen before the wizard took his shape, forcing him into human form, and then his memories.
* ForeverWar: In "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", there's an endless war going on between the fifteen kingdoms on the continent of Losfar, and it's gone on for ''so'' long that when one kingdom pulls out, the others decide after a few years that this kingdom deserves punishment for daring to get prosperous while they're still spending their resources to defend themselves, and thus send armies of their own against the prosperous kingdom. Fortunately, Brion and his ghostly allies are able to finally bring the war to an end.
* HeartTrauma: In "Homeward Bound", a unicorn's horn must pierce a person's heart to heal them, undoing transformations and restoring memories, and even healing the emptiness and fear inside them.
* NeutralityBacklash: Attempted in "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm". Three years after Brion's kingdom pulls out of the Forever War with the other fourteen kingdoms of Losfar and starts minding their own business, the other kingdoms decide to send armies to invade and claim what they consider their fair share. Brion in turn calls up an army of his fellow dead to visit the camps of the enemy soldiers and point out to them that the continuing war will only lead to more senseless deaths, causing the other armies to all return home and leave them in peace.
* PassingTheTorch:
** "The Language of Blood" revolves around the main character becoming the next Speaker, learning from the current one of his duties, no matter how distasteful they may be -- namely, having to feed on someone three times a year, fatally the last time, in order to serve as a seer of sorts and learn the information needed to keep their country safe and prosperous.
** "The Passing of the Pack" is all about this, as the main character learns his father is a werewolf, who leads a pack of regular wolves and makes the hard decisions for them. His time has come, and he needs his son to learn what the boy needs to take his father's place as packleader.
* TrappedInAnotherWorld: "A Blaze of Glory" has Tommy's grandmother tell him the story of how, as a young woman, she fell through a hole in the world and had an adventure in Elfland, where she had to find a special item and return it to their Queen.
* TheUnreveal: The contents of the titular item in "The Box" are never revealed. All Michael's told is that it will change the world, like Michael himself has.

!!''Odder Than Ever'' contains examples of:

* AllGaysLoveTheater: In "Am I Blue?", Melvin says that certain groups, like people in the theatre, have a higher percent of gay people because they're naturally artistic. Though he points out that the stereotype about ''all'' people in theatre being gay is false, as most of them are actually straight (two thirds, at the theatre Vincent and Melvin visit) and only some of the gay characters are into theatre.
* CoolShip: "The Golden Sail" has Jan watching the harbor constantly for his father's return, since the man had gone off in search of the titular ship years ago. When the ship finally appears, Jan and his friend Samos board it, where they find it sails itself, can sail up a waterspout into the sea and can shrink itself into a coin for easy transport on land. In the end, after completing their mission on the island they've landed again, he's told that the ship is his now, and he and Samos board it once more and set off in search of adventure.
* EnemyWithout: In "The Japanese Mirror", the protagonist finds a strange mirror which absorbs his anger. At first, he sees nothing wrong with this as it seems to fix his anger issues. But as he becomes thinner and thinner, he finds out that a darker copy of him is lurking in the mirror, feeding off his anger and waiting to take over his body.
* EvilTwin: In "The Japanese Mirror", Jonathan's reflection in the titular mirror turns into ''his'' evil twin as it absorbs his anger, and outright plans to cause misery to the people in his life once it takes over his body.
* FairyGodmother: In "Am I Blue?", Melvin is a CampGay Fairy Godfather in every sense of the term. As an [[OurAngelsAreDifferent angelic being]] who, as a human, was killed in a gay-bashing, he insisted on reclaiming the term when choosing his {{Heaven}}ly career.
* FlyingUnderTheGaydar: In "Am I Blue?", this is {{discussed|Trope}} and {{defied|Trope}} by Melvin the CampGay [[FairyGodmother fairy godfather]]. He can easily drop the mannerisms and look more masculine just by adjusting his posture. However, he's proud of himself and refuses to hide, not least since he lost his first life to a HomophobicHateCrime.
-->'''Melvin:''' Protective coloration. You learn to use it to get along in the world if you want. Only I got sick of living in the box the world prescribed; it was far too small to hold me.
* ForcedOutOfTheCloset: In "Am I Blue?", main character Vincent ends up wishing for "gay fantasy #3", where every gay person -- those who are out, those who aren't and those who are undecided -- across the country turns blue for a day. At the end of the story, Vincent apologizes to any gay readers whom he may have caused trouble for by outing them in such a manner.
* FusionDance: At the end of "The Japanese Mirror", by accepting his anger as a part of himself and calling it back to him, Jonathan absorbs his evil double.
* {{Gaydar}}: In "Am I Blue?", Vincent gets a form of this, identifying gay people by the color blue. Also in the short story, everyone from coast to coast gets a form of this too, for twenty-four hours. The latter is a result of a wish granted by Vincent's [[{{Pun}} fairy]] godfather (the first is just "education" on Melvin's part, which falls under a different category altogether).
* HairTriggerTemper: In "The Japanese Mirror", Jonathan is noted for having had a foul temper that made him yell at anyone who triggered it, until the titular mirror begins absorbing his anger.
* IChooseToStay: In the end of "The Giant's Tooth", the giant finally catches Edgar and drags him out of his mouth, then soon flops down for a nap. Edgar, rather than taking the opportunity to escape, chooses to return to his home in the giant's mouth.
* MagicalQueer: Literal and very self-aware version of this in "Am I Blue", with Melvin -- a gay fairy godfather/guardian angel. Also played for tragedy, since Melvin ended up that way because he was killed in a gay-bashing incident.
* MirrorMonster: "The Japanese Mirror" features one that lurks within the titular mirror, making Jonathan's reflection look ugly in ''any'' mirror he looks in and gradually absorbing his anger until it can emerge and take over his body.
* NonResidentialResidence: A decidedly odd example in "The Giant's Tooth". Edgar gets grabbed and eaten by a giant, but is rescued by Meagan, whom the giant tried to eat long ago. Somehow, she managed to find a hole in a spot in his mouth, and began chipping away at the side of one of his teeth to dig out a place where she could live safely. She helps Edgar do the same, and together they save other people whom he tries to eat, each of whom digs out a home inside another of his teeth (to the giant's obvious discomfort).
* ResignationsNotAccepted: "The Golden Sail" has Jan discover that his father (who'd gone to sea ten years before) is bound to the throne of a golden land, where the locals essentially force a king to remain until he is used up and only release him from the throne when he dies and has a successor.
* SapientEatSapient: The giant in "The Giant's Tooth" is intelligent, but eats humans, who are also intelligent.
* SwallowedWhole: The giant in "The Giant's Tooth" has a habit of doing this. Justified in that he eats ''humans'', and his size naturally makes him big enough to just swallow them in one gulp.
* ThreeWishes: Vincent, the main character of "Am I Blue?" gets three wishes from his [[FairyGodmother Fairy Godfather]]. The first gets him a Swiss double mocha at a coffee shop. The second turns every gay person, coast to coast, blue for twenty-four hours. Vincent's final wish is for a homophobic bully to be turned blue as well... only for his fairy godfather to return smirking that [[ArmoredClosetGay that wish is still available]].
* YouAreWhatYouHate: "Am I Blue?" has two characters, one extremely homophobic politician and a bully who beat up the protagonist for being gay, who are both revealed to be gay themselves.

!!''Oddest of All'' contains examples of:

* AccidentalMurder: Depicted in "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", where the main character's grandfather writes how he tried to save his friend from a wild boar but accidentally struck the friend with his sword, inflicting a fatal wound.
* AmphibianAtLarge: In "In the Frog King's Court", main character Dennis has been examining the frogs in the local swamp, which are mutating due to chemical dumping, but even he's surprised when he sees one the size of a golden retriever -- far bigger than any normal frog. He later discovers he can be turned ''into'' a giant man-sized frog, in order to deliver an important message to the man who's doing the dumping.
* BenevolentAlienInvasion: "In Our Own Hands" has the Lyrans appear over Earth and promise one of these, essentially saying that if mankind agree to let them take total control of the world, they'll fix everything that's wrong with the planet -- war, poverty, hunger and other problems. Over the next while, mankind proceeds to debate over whether they can actually trust that the Lyrans are really as friendly as they seem or not.
* BewitchedAmphibians: Inverted and played straight in "In the Frog King's Court", wherein main character Dennis discovers his distant grandfather was actually a frog who turned into a human when a maiden kissed him, and that he has the potential to turn into a frog himself with the help of a potion (which lets him change on the nights before and after a full moon from then on), which he does in order to carry out a mission for the frog king Urpthur.
* TheBore: The narrator of "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" thinks of his eighth grade social studies teacher as one, remarking via narration that the man is someone "who you will probably see on the front of the ''National Enquirer'' someday as a mass murderer for boring twenty-six kids to death in a single afternoon."
* {{Curse}}: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", Melusine imprisons her father in the heart of a mountain out of anger for his role as TheOathbreaker, which led she, her sisters and her mother to be trapped on Avalon. In retaliation, her mother Pressina curses her to assume a monstrous form once a week, making her a snake from the waist down and giving her enormous bat-like wings, until she can find a man who never seeks to learn her secret. When her husband ''does'' reveal he has learned her true nature, her transformation becomes permanent, as well as making her immortal until someone can break the curse.
* CurseEscapeClause: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", narrator Geoffroi is able to break the curse on his grandmother Melusine by acting with love and courage to find and give her the item representing her mortality, which was separated from her at the moment of her transformation into a monstrous bat-winged human/snake hybrid. It also breaks the curse binding his great-grandmother Pressina to the mortal world.
* DevilsPitchfork: In "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld", the titular character dies in an accident and goes to Hell. The demons there carry pitchforks, which they often use to prod him with to keep moving along when he's stopped for a moment.
* FallenAngel: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", the main character is the great-grandson of a fallen angel, who was banished to Earth as punishment when she refused to take sides in the war between Lucifer and the Creator.
* ForbiddenFruit: In "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld", at the entrance to Hell, an angel presents Herbert with a box and tells him not to open it. Naturally, he can't resist the temptation, and opens it to reveal another box, then an envelope inside that box, and finally a letter inside the box -- which tells him he failed the SecretTestOfCharacter, and is now doomed to Hell for all eternity.
* GreenAesop: "In the Frog King's Court" revolves around this, as the main character Dennis witnesses the consequences of a nearby factory dumping chemicals in the swamp, causing the local wildlife to develop mutations like a fifth leg or extra eyes. He soon ends up agreeing to act and stop that pollution, with the help of some magic that unlocks the ability to turn into a frog like his ancestor.
* LiteralMetaphor: Lampshaded in "In Our Own Hands" -- the Lyrans inform mankind that if mankind agrees, they'll take total control of the planet, but they're placing that choice in humanity's hands... literally, as the narrator notes, when he finds a strip of alien material attached to his hand with a button for "Yes" and a button for "No", letting the user vote to either let the Lyrans take over Earth or reject their offer at the right time.
* {{Mutant}}: "In the Frog King's Court" starts off with main character Dennis looking around a swamp when he suddenly spots a five-legged frog, and later one with eyes on its shoulders. All evidence indicates that they're mutated due to chemical pollution from the factory nearby, which the frog king later confirms.
* {{Nephilim}}: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", the main character's grandmother, and by extension her ten sons and her grandson Geoffroi (the story's narrator) are this -- said grandmother is Melusine, the daughter of a FallenAngel.
* NeutralityBacklash: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", when Geoffroi hears the story of his great-grandmother Pressina, he learns that she -- like others -- refused to take sides in the war between Lucifer and the Creator when the former rebelled. Afterward, as punishment, she was banished to Earth.
* NoEnding:
** "In Our Own Hands" ends with Johnny contemplating his hand, still trying to decide how he's voting with five minutes to go before the vote to decide mankind's fate -- will they choose to let the Lyrans take over Earth and fix everything, or not?
** "In the Frog King's Court" ends with Dennis, in his giant frog form, about to confront the man who's been dumping chemical waste in the swamp, without showing the actual confrontation and what resulted.
* TheOathbreaker: In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", when Geoffroi hears the story of his great-grandmother Pressina, he learns that her husband had sworn an oath not to intrude upon her when she was giving birth, per her request (and because of the condition set upon her when she was banished to Earth). Unfortunately, out of excitement over becoming a father, he burst in on her during the birth anyway and in doing so lost her, as she was forced to take her daughters and flee to the isle of Avalon.
* OurWerebeastsAreDifferent: "In the Frog King's Court" sees main character Dennis gain the ability to become a were-frog, unlocking his own frog heritage (his distant ancestor was a frog turned human) with the help of a potion and letting him transform on the nights before and after the full moon.
* PerformanceAnxiety: The narrator of "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" has a bad case of this, as he cannot perform on stage. When he tries, he freezes up with terror and looks like he's paralyzed. During the events of the story, he's asked to perform on stage and manages to do so without freezing up for once... until everything ''else'' suddenly goes wrong in the last phase of the skit.
* RepetitiveName: In "What's the Worst That Could Happen?", the narrator's name is Murphy Murphy. His first name has been passed down through his mother's family, to be given to the firstborn son in every generation, and he lampshades that given this, she ''really'' should have thought better than to marry a man with "Murphy" as his ''last'' name. His sister, as he notes, agrees.
* SecretTestOfCharacter: In "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld", Herbert is given a box at the entrance to Hell, to be delivered to an unidentified someone, and told not to open it. The box turns out to be a test, which he fails miserably -- by opening all three layers, he's now damned to Hell, whereas if he'd left that last layer unopened, he could have gone to Heaven, no matter how bad he was in life.
* UnevenHybrid:
** In "In the Frog King's Court", main character Dennis discovers one of his ancestors was actually a frog who turned into a human, meaning he's mostly human but part frog himself from over twenty generations back. It's still enough to show through, giving him bigger eyes and a feeling of home whenever he's in a swamp.
** In "The Hardest, Kindest Gift", the main character is one eighth FallenAngel; his father and uncles were each a quarter fallen angel, and displayed unusual features, with one having different-colored eyes and another a boar-like fang, as well as having a fearsome temper.

----
Trivia:

* CreatorsOddball: "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" is one of Coville's very few stories to not have anything fantastic happening. There's no magical or supernatural elements, no aliens or fantastic technology, just a normal kid trying to confess to a girl that he likes her and get over his stage fright in time to perform in the skit they're supposed to do. Even when said skit goes horribly wrong, it's all due to natural causes.
----

!!Kids' fiction (other):

[[folder: Misc. Bruce Coville notes]]
* ''Literature/TheEnchantedFiles'' -- Anon's note: I have troped book 1 and published the page; one trope remains here as I haven't gotten confirmation that it's the right one for the setup.
** ImplausibleDeniability (?): Alex's reaction, when she first meets Angus (and has even ''held him in her hand''), is to utter "This can't be real" and think she's going crazy. She comes to admit he's real pretty quick though.
* ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle'' -- Anon's note: I've troped the full duology and published the page; one trope remains here as it's in the TRS queue.
** "Guttural Growler" (name to change once TRS has been applied): Igor almost always speaks in a growling tone, which Fauna notes in book 2 isn't because he's angry (usually) -- it's just the way he talks. He's also ''incredibly'' strong, as evidenced in the first book when he shoves aside a massive boulder.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Storm Runner''; by Jennifer C. Cervantes (for the ''Rick Riordan Presents'' imprint line)]]

* Literature.StormRunner
** Anon's note: I own book 1.\\\

The ''Storm Runner'' trilogy is the second series in the ''Creator/RickRiordan Presents'' imprint line, written by Jennifer C. Cervantes and focused on [[Myth/MayanMythology Maya]] and [[Myth/AztecMythology Aztec]] mythology. It centers around Zane Obispo, a boy whose adventure begins when he discovers his father is one of the Mayan gods, and that he's destined to release Ah-Puch (pronounced "ah-POOCH"), the Mayan god of death, darkness and destruction and the former ruler of the ninth lowest level of Xib'alb'a (the Mayan underworld) from his prison, which turns out to be only the first of his adventures.\\\

The series consists of:\\\

* #1: ''The Storm Runner'' (September 18, 2018)
* #2: ''The Fire Keeper'' (September 3, 2019)
* #3: ''The Shadow Crosser'' (September 1, 2020)
* ''The Cave of Doom'' (September 28, 2021; released in ''The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities: New Stories About Mythic Heroes'')\\\

The ''Shadow Bruja'' duology is the thirteenth entry in the ''Rick Riordan Presents'' imprint line, a sequel to the ''Storm Runner'' trilogy and focused more prominently on Aztec myth. It centers around Renata "Ren" Santiago (daughter of Pacific, the former Mayan goddess of time), who debuted in ''The Fire Keeper'', and consists of:\\\

* #1: ''The Lords of Night'' (October 4, 2022)
* #2: ''Dawn of the Jaguar'' (October 10, 2023)\\\

Not to be confused with the similarly titled ''Literature/StormRunners'' trilogy by Creator/RolandSmith.

----
!!This series contains the following tropes:

* {{Animorphism}}: Brooks is a half-human, half-Nawal, whose mother was a full Nawal, or shapeshifter. Due to this heritage, she's also able to change into an animal, but her human blood limits her to just one species -- a hawk, in her case, though she can also vary its size.

* BigEater: In book 1, Zane mentions that his dog Rosie (a Boxer/Dalmatian mix) is one of these, eating as much as an elephant.

* CanineCompanion: Rosie, a Boxer/Dalmatian mix who's missing one of her front legs, is this for Zane; he found her wandering the desert when he was ten and adopted her, and spends much of the first book seeking to rescue her from the underworld after she sacrifices herself to save him from a demon runner. After becoming a hellhound, she remains Zane's companion,

* DivineParentage: Zane Obispo is a godborn, whose mother is a mortal and whose father is Hurakan, the Mayan god of wind, storms and fire.

* EyeBeams: After becoming a hellhound, Boxer/Dalmatian mix Rosie gains the ability to use heat vision.

* GodOfFire: Hurakan is the Mayan god of wind, storms, and fire. His son [[TheHero Zane]] has inherited his fire abilities.

* GrowingWings: After becoming a hellhound, Rosie is able to grow a pair of bat-like wings and fly while in Xibalba.

* {{Hellhound}}: During the first book, when Zane's dog Rosie dies and goes to Xibalba, she becomes one of these, having her form altered (including growing in size to twice the size of a lion) and gaining supernatural powers.

* SuperMode: At the climax of book 3, Rosie's hellhound form becomes this, as she's granted the ability to change between her original form and her hellhound form.

----
!!Trivia:

* TributeToFido: Jennifer Cervantes based Zane's dog Rosie, a boxer/Dalmatian mix, off her own dog, who passed away about six months after book 1 was released.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Universal Monsters''; by Larry Mike Garmon]]

* Literature.UniversalMonsters
** Anon's note: I own 1-5.\\\

''Universal Monsters'' is a six-part series by Larry Mike Garmon, released by Scholastic for younger readers in 2001-2002 and based on some of the classic Franchise/UniversalHorror films. The series begins when three 21st century teenagers -- Robert "Captain Bob" Hardin, Joe Motley and Nina Nobriega -- from San Tomas Inlet in Florida have an accident with a prototype of an experimental holographic movie projector (illicitly borrowed from the Universal Studios theme park) and a lightning storm, releasing the monsters and other antagonistic characters from the films ''Film/{{Dracula|1931}}'' (1931), ''Film/{{Frankenstein|1931}}'' (1931), ''[[Film/TheMummy1932 The Mummy]]'' (1932), ''Film/BrideOfFrankenstein'' (1935), ''[[Film/TheWolfMan1941 The Wolf Man]]'' (1941) and ''Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon'' (1954) into the real world. Consequently, the trio have to hunt down the escapees and return them to the films.\\\

The series consists of:\\\

* #1: ''Dracula: Return of Evil''
* #2: ''The Wolf Man: Blood Moon Rising''
* #3: ''Frankenstein: Anatomy of Terror''
* #4: ''The Mummy: Book Of The Dead''
* #5: ''Creature From the Black Lagoon: Black Water Horror''
* #6: ''Bride Of Frankenstein: Vow Of Vengeance''

----

!!Adult's fiction (1):

[[folder:''Event Group''; by David Lynn Golemon]]

* Literature.EventGroupAdventures
** Anon's note: I own 1-7 and 10.\\\

''Event Group Adventures'', or just ''Event Group'', is a series of thrillers by David Lynn Golemon and revolves around "the most secret organization in the United States", dedicated to studying the hidden truths behind the myths and legends propagated throughout world history, from [=UFO=]s to Noah's ark to various cryptids and mysterious disappearances. As book 1 begins, the organization is joined by Major Jack Collins, recruited as their new leader, and kicks off a new era in the group's existence.\\\

The series consists of:\\\

* #01: ''Event'' (2006)
* #02: ''Legend'' (2007)
* #03: ''Ancients'' (2008)
* #04: ''Leviathan'' (2009)
* #05: ''Primeval'' (2010)
* #06: ''Legacy'' (2011)
* #07: ''Ripper'' (2012)
* #08: ''Carpathian'' (2013)
* #09: ''Overlord'' (2014)
* #10: ''The Mountain'' (2015)
* #11: ''The Traveler'' (2016)
* #12: ''Beyond the Sea'' (2017)
* #13: ''Empire of the Dragon'' (2018)
* #14: ''Season of the Witch'' (2019)

----
!!The series contains examples of:

* BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: Mentioned in book 4, where Jack Collins states that there's no conclusive proof of their existence. One book later, they actually appear, living in Canada, where the local tribe of Tlingit Indians refer to them as the Chulimantan, or "They Who Follow". The creatures have excellent camouflage abilities, tend to send signals by beating on trees with wooden clubs, are attracted to shiny things, and are descended from the prehistoric apes known as Giganticus Pythicus, which followed prehistoric man over the Bering land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.

* DidAnastasiaSurvive: Book 5, ''Primeval'' (released in 2010 -- a year after Anastasia's death was confirmed in real life), states that yes, Anastasia and Alexei did indeed escape, with the aid of Russian soldiers loyal to their father (a pair of body doubles were left in their place), and made it to Canada, along with a whole lot of gold and two enormous diamonds (payment to the lead soldier). Most of the soldiers died in the fall of 1918 after attempting to betray their leader (believing the bad luck that had fallen on them was because of a curse on the Romanovs and wanting to kill the two children in order to save their own lives), and Alexei the following March, but Anastasia and the lead soldier not only survived, they married and lived out the rest of their lives in that area, dying of old age in the mid 1950s; they were survived by their daughter. Anastasia's daughter married at some point, but her own child and their spouse died later (one in childbirth, the other a few years later), and by the end of the book, only Anastasia's great-granddaughter remains, content to live out her life in peace and asking the protagonists to keep her ancestry a secret.

* StockNessMonster:
** Some odd, turtle-shelled plesiosaurs show up in a lagoon in Brazil in book 2.
** According to book 4, the Loch Ness Monster ''used'' to be real, but the species went extinct during World War II.

* StockUnsolvedMysteries: Many are covered, including Roswell (which forms an ongoing plotline that serves as the focus of books 1, 6 and 9, with book 11 dealing with the fallout), the fate of Amelia Earhart, the truth about Atlantis and the truth about the Philadelphia Experiment.

* WholeEpisodeFlashback: Book 10 is this in more ways than one. Its prologue is set just before book 1, then jumps ahead to just ''after'' book 1, and shows main protagonist Jack Collins receiving and starting to read a journal by an ancestor of his that records the very first Event, back before the organization was even founded, in the 1860s. The rest of the book, save for the epilogue, is the events recorded in the journal.

[[/folder]]

----

''Oddly Enough'' and its sequels are an anthology series by Creator/BruceCoville. Each of them contains a mix of nine previously published and brand new stories, plus one essay, all by Coville himself (the exception is a new introduction in the omnibus ''Odds Are Good'', which is by Creator/JaneYolen instead); they're mostly standalones, though some are part of his existing series.\\\

The series consists of the following:\\\

* ''Oddest of All'' (2008)[[labelnote:Contents]]"In Our Own Hands" (1999; variant of "In Our Hands", originally published in ''Bruce Coville's Alien Visitors''); "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" (2003; originally released in ''13: Thirteen Stories That Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen'', edited by James Howe); "The Ghost Let Go" (1994; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Ghosts''); "In the Frog King's Court" (2000; originally released in ''Ribbiting Tales'', edited by Nancy Springer); "The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond" (1996; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Spinetinglers''); "The Hardest, Kindest Gift" (2001; originally released in ''Half-Human'', edited by Bruce Coville); "The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado" (2008; original to collection); "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld" (2008; original to collection); "The Boy With Silver Eyes" (2008; original to collection)[[/labelnote]]\\\

Tropes for sixteen of the 27 stories in this series are collected here. For the other eleven, see ''Literature/BruceCovillesBookOf''[[note]]contains tropes for "Duffy's Jacket" (1989), "Clean as a Whistle" (1994), "I, Earthling" (1994), "There's Nothing Under the Bed" (1995), "The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond" (1996) and "Biscuits of Glory" (1995)[[/note]], ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Stinky Princess" (1999)[[/note]], ''Literature/MagicShop''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones" (1997) and "The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado" (2008)[[/note]], ''Literature/NinaTanleven''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Ghost Let Go" (1994)[[/note]], and ''Literature/TheUnicornChronicles''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Boy With Silver Eyes" (2008)[[/note]].\\\

* "In Our Own Hands"
* "What's the Worst That Could Happen?"
* "In the Frog King's Court"
* "The Hardest, Kindest Gift"
* "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld"

[[/folder]]

[[folder: ''The Enchanted Files'']]
* Anon's note: I have troped book 1 and published the page; one trope remains here as I haven't gotten confirmation that it's the right one for the setup.

* ImplausibleDeniability (?): Alex's reaction, when she first meets Angus (and has even ''held him in her hand''), is to utter "This can't be real" and think she's going crazy. She comes to admit he's real pretty quick though.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Goblins'' duology]]
* Anon's note: I've troped the full duology and published the page; one trope remains here as it's in the TRS queue.

* "Guttural Growler" (name to change once TRS has been applied): Igor almost always speaks in a growling tone, which Fauna notes in book 2 isn't because he's angry (usually) -- it's just the way he talks. He's also ''incredibly'' strong, as evidenced in the first book when he shoves aside a massive boulder.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Images (Cozy Mysteries)]]

* ''Bewitching Mysteries''; by Madelyn Alt -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81ijalfugl.jpg]]
* ''Bibliophile Mysteries''; by Kate Carlisle -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91o5vj3kyal.jpg]]
* ''Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries''; by Ali Brandon -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81ghcyulxhl.jpg]]
* ''Bookmobile Cat Mysteries''; by Laurie Cass -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81tu3mk0pjl.jpg]]
* ''Bookstore Café Mysteries''; by Alex Erickson -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91cq04gnqfl.jpg]]
* ''Cat Rescue Mysteries''; by T. C. [=LoTempio=] -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81ya3rqcjhl.jpg]]
* ''Cats and Curios Mysteries''; by Rebecca M. Hale -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/914rpd3fpl.jpg]]
* ''Dead-End Job Mysteries''; by Elaine Viets -- [[quoteright:307:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/41zucua1b7l.jpg]]
* ''Dream Club Mysteries''; by Mary Kennedy -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81fyo3itjtl.jpg]]
* ''Fixer-Upper Mysteries''; by Kate Carlisle -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91bffpsogbl.jpg]]
* ''Haunted Home Renovation Mysteries''; by Juliet Blackwell -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81f09p8dlsl.jpg]]
* ''Key West Food Critic Mysteries''; by Lucy Burdette -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81vima2bel.jpg]]
* ''Knit & Nibble Mysteries''; by Peggy Ehrhart -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81ezbljw3_l.jpg]]
* ''Laura Fleming Mysteries''; by Toni Kelner -- [[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/51qx706z5el.jpg]]
* ''Lighthouse Library Mysteries''; by Vicki Delany as Eva Gates -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/912vxwxaqul.jpg]]
* ''Magical Cats Mysteries''; by Darlene Ryan as Sofie Kelly -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91zfiototjl.jpg]]
* ''Maine Clambake Mysteries''; by Barbara Ross -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/9107bpnr2dl.jpg]]
* ''Nick & Nora Mysteries''; by T. C. [=LoTempio=] -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/910plgmkbwl.jpg]]
* ''Novel Idea Mysteries''; by three authors as Lucy Arlington -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91q1dcb3j_l.jpg]]
* ''Scottish Bookshop Mysteries''; by Paige Shelton -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/910yzqdpkwl.jpg]]
* ''Scumble River Mysteries''; by Denise Swanson -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/71w6n5bluml.jpg]]
* ''Second Chance Cat Mysteries''; by Darlene Ryan as Sofie Ryan -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81_ez1_irll.jpg]]
* ''Sunny & Shadow Mysteries''; by Claire Donally -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91hala4lqil.jpg]]
* ''"Where Are They Now?" Mysteries''; by Toni Kelner -- [[quoteright:309:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/51vp9ompvml.jpg]]
* ''Witchcraft Mysteries''; by Juliet Blackwell -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/919gzmvve4l.jpg]]
* ''Witch's Cat Mysteries''; by Delia James -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91uyg7oszpl_2.jpg]]

[[/folder]]
----

* Note: ''Literature/JaineAustenMysteries'', ''Literature/MoongobbleAndMe'' and ''Literature/TheEnchantedFiles'' were previously assembled on this page.

* Anon's note: I have troped book 1 and published the first chapter; one trope remains here as I haven't gotten confirmation that it's the right one for the setup.

* Literature.GoblinsInTheCastle
** Anon's note: I own book 1. As of 10/06/22, I own book 2.\\\

''Goblins in the Castle'' is a 1992 children's novel written by Creator/BruceCoville. It tells the story of William, a young boy who has lived in Toad-in-a-Cage Castle his entire life. But one night, he meets the mysterious Igor, who lives in the castle dungeons, and soon afterward discovers the strange secret behind the castle's North Tower, which has always been kept locked. When he unlocks it one night, his actions lead him into a dangerous quest to rescue his new friend from the land of the goblins.\\\

''Goblins on the Prowl'' (2015) continues the story a year later from the point of view of William's friend Fauna, and reveals both their origins, as well as that of the enormous stone toad that gave the castle its name.\\\

Coville's short story "The Stinky Princess", originally published in 1999 in his anthology ''[[Literature/OddlyEnough Odder than Ever]]'' and introducing the goblin seer Flegmire (later featured in ''Goblins on the Prowl'') has also been identified as a prequel to the series via the [[https://www.brucecoville.com/guestbook/ guestbook on his website]].\\\

The series is part of the same universe as Coville's ''The Foolish Giant'', ''Literature/TheDragonslayers'', ''Literature/TheUnicornChronicles'' series, the ''Literature/MagicShop'' series, and the short story ''Wizard's Boy'' (1996)[[note]]Collected in ''[[Literature/BruceCovillesBookOf Bruce Coville's Book of Magic: Tales to Cast a Spell on You]]'' (1996) and ''The One Right Thing'' (2008)[[/note]].\\\

!!The series in general provides examples of:

* AccidentalMisnaming: The Baron can never remember William's name. William finds it ''very'' annoying that he can't be bothered to do so, but keeps quiet whenever it happens. He seems to have gotten better by the time of ''Goblins on the Prowl'' though.
* AllWitchesHaveCats: The sorceress Granny Pinchbottom has a black cat, seen briefly in the first book and revealed in ''Goblins on the Prowl'' to be named Midnight, in her cottage.
* AmbiguouslyHuman: Igor. He ''looks'' human, but claims to have just "happened" rather than being born, has lived over six hundred years, and says he's died before (but evidently got better). It's lampshaded in ''Goblins on the Prowl'', where Fauna notes at one point that "I'm counting Igor as human, though no one is entirely sure about that."
* AmphibianAtLarge:
** The goblin Prince Bindlepod, from "The Stinky Princess", has a frog companion who's big enough for he and Princess Violet to ride on comfortably.
** Toad-in-a-Cage Castle is named for a giant stone toad in a cage in the Grand Hall. In ''Goblins on the Prowl'', it gets brought to life, abducts William and takes off across the countryside with him, with its origin being revealed over the course of their adventure.
* BackFromTheDead:
** While not shown on-screen, Igor says of dying that "Igor done that before" and that the experience was "not fun".
** Discussed briefly in ''Goblins on the Prowl'' when Fauna is visiting Granny Pinchbottom, with the latter voicing the opinion that reviving the dead is generally a bad idea.
* BeneathTheEarth: Goblin Land, or Nilbog as it's properly known, is hidden deep beneath the surface in a cavernous area.
* BigFancyCastle:
** Toad-in-a-Cage Castle, which is big enough to have four towers and several floors, and is full of winding and hidden passageways. There's also a large stone toad in a cage in the Grand Hall, which gives it its name.
** Goblin Castle is big as well, with ''seven'' towers emerging at various odd angles.
* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: Nilbog's buildings. The place has no straight lines or corners, the buildings are all helter-skelter with one side taller than the other, and they're all rounded at the edges.
* CallingYourAttacks: Igor tends to yell "Bop!" whenever he bops someone on the head with his bear.
* CanonWelding: While the original story was a standalone, follow-up material connected it to some of Coville's other works.
** The 2008 short story ''The Boy With Silver Eyes'' features both the goblins' home of Nilbog and a Guardian of Memory from ''Literature/TheUnicornChronicles'', revealing those settings are connected, and by extension the ''Literature/MagicShop'' series (both ''The Unicorn Chronicles'' and the ''Magic Shop'' series have mentioned the wizard Bellenmore, who helped the dragons leave Earth when it was too dangerous for them to remain).
** ''Goblins on the Prowl'' elaborates on this, explicitly mentioning Bellenmore and the departure of the dragons, along with mentioning the events of ''The Dragonslayers'' (that book's Princess Wilhelmina is noted as now being Queen of the Forest of Wonder) and ''The Foolish Giant'' as having happened in the past, with Harry (the titular giant) being a cousin of the father of Bonecracker John, who's a friend of Igor's and tells the story to he and his traveling companions. The story's villain, an evil wizard who ends up being hit with his own Spell of Stonely Toadification, is actually the giant stone toad of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle.
* CollectorOfTheStrange: ''Goblins On the Prowl'' reveals that the Baron keeps a collection of cannonballs from famous battles. They're seen on the fireplace in the Great Hall in the first book, but aren't specifically identified as a collection until the second.
* CompanionCube: Igor's ever-present bear. William takes care of it for him after the goblins carry him off, but returns it to him when he comes to William's rescue during the final battle of the book.
* CreepyHousekeeper: Downplayed with Hulda. She always yells (because of her bad hearing), and uses her mutilated finger (which is missing its last joint) to scare William into behaving, claiming that Granny Pinchbottom will bite off the end of ''his'' finger too if he doesn't keep out of the sweet jar. She's also not the best at keeping the castle clean, as evidenced by her letting the laundry sit for months and not bothering to dust the castle for even longer (William notes that he likes to write his name in the dust, and the only signatures that are gone are those that have been covered with new dust). But she's really harmless, and a good cook. She's also genuinely worried about the Baron when he falls into an enchanted sleep in ''Goblins on the Prowl''.
* DirectLineToTheAuthor: In the author's note at the end of the first book, Coville claims Igor to be real (and that he's Coville's "half-mad twin brother" who was born in October to Coville's May), and that one night, he brought the story to Coville after several years of friendship, though it took several more years to get it published. The author's note at the end of ''Goblins on the Prowl'' states that Igor later brought him that story as well.
* DoorstepBaby: William, who was brought to Toad-in-a-Cage Castle in a basket as an infant. ''Goblins on the Prowl'' explains how he came to be brought there.
* FlatEarthAtheist: Karl, who tends to be ''very'' skeptical where the existence of magical beings is concerned, though he comes around eventually -- he originally claims in ''Goblins in the Castle'' that Granny Pinchbottom is just a fictional character (which turns out to not be true, as William meets her after leaving the castle). He does it again in ''Goblins on the Prowl'', when Igor proposes going to visit his giant friend Bonecracker John, and Karl responds by sighing and saying that giants only exist in stories. While Bwoonhiwda is offended by this, Igor just shrugs it off as Karl being "smart, just not as smart as he thinks he is".
* GlowingFlora: Nilbog and its buildings are lit by a glowing fungus. Somehow, it remains glowing even after it's been picked for eating.
* GreatBigLibraryOfEverything: While its contents aren't really discussed, the library in Toad-in-a-Cage Castle has so many books, the Baron had to renovate a section of the building (via knocking out the walls between seven rooms) to make a single room big enough to hold them all.
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Not exactly ''gold'', but William is easily one of the nicest people in the series, and is known for his butter-colored hair.
* HiveMind: ''Emotional'' hive mind, at least. The goblins have individual minds, but are all connected to their king in such a way that his madness becomes theirs, and when he's restored to sanity, their madness is also cured.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Igor's weapon of choice is his teddy bear, which he uses to bop people on the head.
* ItsWhatIDo: A species-wide version -- Borg, the goblin king's counselor, explains to William at one point that they both help people out and play little jokes because "That's how we were made."
* {{Keet}}: The goblins, generally. Especially the younger ones. They're full of wild energy, love playing games and bouncing around, and are all around excitable. The only exception seen is Borg, an advisor to the king and one of the Ten Oldest Goblins, who is calm and composed the entire time he's onscreen (except briefly, when he's furious at what he perceives as William's "betrayal" over calling Igor his friend).
* NoNameGiven:
** In the original book only, the goblin king is this trope; he's only ever referred to by his title. The sequel later averts it on the very first page, identifying him as "King Nidrash".
** The Baron and his great-grandfather go unnamed in the first book.
* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: The goblins, while definitely weird (no two look exactly alike -- some are big, some are small, some have varying-size limbs, some don't have limbs at all, and some have or don't have tails), are mostly snarky and pragmatic, and tend to be a lot more decent than many human characters. They also have a sort of emotional hive-mind; their King's emotions affect all the others. Meaning that when he's happy, they're happy, and when he's in an angry and deranged mood, so are the rest of them.
* ThePrankster: The goblins have a tendency to pull off harmless pranks, such as switching salt for sugar, tying laundry in knots, and leading children to play in the mud. But they can also do some more dangerous ones, such as putting soap on the stairs, which could cause someone to slip and break their neck (which nearly happens to Karl when he slips on a soap-coated step and falls on his rear, sliding the rest of the way down them). Rather fittingly, ''Goblins on the Prowl'' reveals that a group of goblins is properly called a "mischief".
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Igor's lived in the castle for six hundred years.
* SdrawkcabName: The goblins come from the land of Nilbog -- "Goblin" spelled backwards.
* SolitarySorceress: The witch Granny Pinchbottom is a sort of boogeyman figure the main character William was taught to fear, but when he encounters her, she turns out to be well-intentioned, though somewhat duplicitous and scary, and gives him [[ItMayHelpYouOnYourQuest a few items he needs]]. She helps Fauna out too in the sequel.
* ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: Herky has a tendency to announce how he's feeling most of the time, such as "Herky sad", "Herky mad" and "Herky hurtie!"
* ThirdPersonPerson: Both Igor and Herky do this; neither ever refers to themself as "I", just using their own names.
* UndergroundCity: The land of Nilbog is mainly one big city, in a deep, dark cavern.
* YouNoTakeCandle: Igor's grammar is not the best, and Herky's isn't much better.

!!''Goblins in the Castle'' provides examples of:

* AnAesop: In the author's note at the end, Coville offers one -- "If you try to lock away life's wild energy, sooner or later there will be a price to pay."
* AlienBlood: Implied -- when Herky gets his tail caught in a rock and has to have it pried loose, it's oozing something green where the skin is torn. On seeing it, William wonders if it's goblin blood.

** Never touch Igor's hump. Even a friendly pat on it from someone he likes is enough to make him furious. William remembers the lesson well enough from the one time he does it, not knowing better, that he later warns Fauna against doing so (as she recalls at one point in ''Goblins on the Prowl'').
** Don't ask the Baron what's in the North Tower -- Karl, the castle librarian, says he asked once and nearly got fired for it. Once the Tower is actually opened and the contents are unleashed though, he doesn't seem to mind anymore.
* BewitchedAmphibians: Discussed briefly -- Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] reveals his presence to William for the first time when he threatens to turn William into a toad if he doesn't set down the strange carving he's looking at.
* BoringReturnJourney: After the goblin king is restored, William and co. stay in Nilbog a few days longer, then return home with no trouble whatsoever.
* BucketBoobyTrap: The morning after the goblins are freed, William and Karl make their way down to the laundry room to find Hulda, and also the Baron. When the Baron announces it's time to take a break and have breakfast, he opens a door... and a bucket of water promptly falls on his head.
* CabinFever: Essentially what happened to the goblins during their long imprisonment, driven mad (both psychologically and emotionally, as they became ''very'' angry over being left alone in the dark for a hundred and twenty-one years) due to having no outlet for their wild energy.
* CardCarryingVillain: Subverted; Herky would ''like'' people to believe he's one, since he keeps insisting that "Herky bad!", but his actions prove that he's really a nice guy at heart.
* CelestialDeadline: Once every eleven years, the spell holding the goblins prisoner weakens, and they can be freed on that night. They spend the time calling out for someone to release them, but it takes until the eleventh weakening (121 years exactly after it was first cast) before William frees them.
* ClockTampering: The morning after the goblins are released, it's discovered that they changed the time on one of the clocks as one of their pranks -- it's early morning, but the clock is striking two.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The evil sorcerer Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] is clearly not all there. He manages to forget what he's talking about after a few sentences until he's reminded, and William thinks to himself that "Clearly a few of the buttons in Ishmael's brain had come undone."
* DisneyDeath: Herky, who falls out the window with the evil sorcerer Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] while clinging to his shoulder. When he turns up alive (to William and Fauna's great relief), he explains that he jumped free, clung to the wall and climbed back up to the window.
* DisneyVillainDeath: In the climax, the evil sorcerer Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] falls out a window to his death.
* DoNotCallMePaul: The evil sorcerer is a strange version -- he always says "My name is Ishmael. But don't call me that!" Igor, who was friends with said sorcerer in the past, is apparently familiar enough with his opinion of it to say "Don't call him that!" when William uses the name while trying to pass on the other man's warning.
* DynamicEntry: During the final battle, Igor arrives just in time (courtesy of Herky going and freeing him) and comes flying through the door, whereupon he gets his bear back and starts fending off the goblins trying to attack William.
* EasilyForgiven: Once the goblins find out Igor (whom they'd called their "greatest enemy" for his betrayal of them) was just an UnwittingPawn for the real villain and was tricked into leading them into a trap rather than betraying them of his own free will, they forgive him without any issue. It takes Igor a while to finally realize this though.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Well, not exactly "evil", but according to Granny Pinchbottom, the old Baron "didn't understand play, didn't believe in mischief, didn't know how to laugh." This is why he locked the goblins away -- because he couldn't understand their wild energy and thought they were evil, not realizing that they just liked to play and had been protecting the local children from danger and keeping the land productive, whereas the village now limps along every year without their help. Played straight with the evil sorcerer Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]], who claims the goblins only caused "chaos", and that "Nothing could be settled, nothing could be quiet, nothing could be calm while they were around. It was like having too many children." He then calmly reveals the trickery he used to lure the goblins into a trap, to William's horror.
* FantasticLightSource: After William meets Granny Pinchbottom and tells him how he freed the goblins, she gives him an amulet containing a "knot of light" as thanks for freeing them. It only works in total darkness though.
* ForeignQueasine: Goblins subsist on food like lizards and fungi, and are disgusted by normal bread (though Herky reluctantly eats some anyway when there's no way for him to get his usual fare). William has a hard time stomaching it when he's in Nilbog -- at one point in his narration, he thinks that "I don't think dinner should glow in the dark." In a later scene, he's only able to bring himself to eat the local food because he can't see what it is.
* FurnitureBlockade: After the goblins are released, William and Karl decide -- for their own safety -- to barricade themselves in a room (settling on William's, since it's closest), so they won't get harmed by whatever's roaming the halls. They bar the door and brace it with a chair for good measure.
* HeelRaceTurn: The goblins, in both directions. Before, they were friends to humanity, but after being locked away, they grew angrier and angrier, until they were determined to destroy the people who left them in the dark. They return to their friendlier selves when their King is healed and restored to sanity.
* HellYesMoment: The goblins all have a moment of joy and delight when they realize the human they've brought to their king is not an invader but William of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle, their liberator and the hero of the goblins.
* HypocriticalHumor: When William asks Hulda what's in the North Tower, she doesn't know, and guesses it was closed off because the housekeeper back then left it a disaster area and the Baron decided to lock it rather than deal with the mess -- "After all, the last housekeeper didn't take care of this place the way I do." William has to resist the urge to snort because Hulda is nowhere near as good as she claims, noting that he's written his signature in the dust all over the castle many, many times, and the only ones that aren't there anymore are because they got covered in new dust.
* IKnowYourTrueName: Discussed briefly -- William, having snapped at Herky that his name ''was'' William (after getting tired of Herky just calling him "butterhead boy") recalls at one point how Hulda "had told me names were magical, and much could be done by someone who knew your true name."
* IllTimedSneeze: William has the misfortune to sneeze while carrying the goblin king's head, causing him to wake up and realize he's been stolen.
* IneptMage: The evil sorcerer Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] is this by the time the story takes place. At the end of his first appearance, he disappears in a puff of smoke, but wherever he's gone to, apparently it wasn't easy -- William hears his voice "as if from a great distance, exclaim "Wow, that ''hurt!''"". Later, when he tries to stall or silence several people at once, he can't hold it for too long.
* InvisibilityCloak: Granny Pinchbottom gives one to William, which only works when the hood is raised.
* KillItWithFire: Discussed -- according to Igor, after the goblins' spirits were sucked out and imprisoned, he suggested burning their bodies. The old Baron, however, rejected the idea because the bodies had to stay intact in order to maintain the spell keeping their spirits trapped.
* KnockoutAmbush: Played with -- while William and Igor are on their way to see Granny Pinchbottom, they get ambushed twice by goblins. The second time, William is briefly knocked out, awakens in time to see Igor get carried away, then gets hit from behind and is knocked out ''again''. The goblins, not realizing who William is at the time, are only interested in carrying Igor away though.
* LifeOrLimbDecision: At one point, Herky's tail gets caught between a couple of rocks, and Fauna initially wants to cut it off to get him free, to Herky's great distress, as he begs her not to do so. In the end, she just settles for using the flat of her knife to pry the tail loose.
* LockedInTheDungeon: The goblins' alive but spiritless bodies are all locked in the dungeons of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle for years. William, Fauna and Igor later spend some time locked in the dungeons of the Goblin King's castle.
* LosingYourHead: Cutting off the head of the goblin king put the final seal on the spell that put all the goblins into dormancy, but the head itself is still alive, and it's reanimated when his spirit returns to it. Reversing this and reattaching his head to his body, by means of a magic collar, restores his sanity and that of the other goblins by extension.
* ManBitesMan: While William and Fauna are trying to get the maddened goblin king's head onto the bed so they can reconnect him to his body, he bites onto Fauna's hand. It backfires, as she ends up shaking him loose and causing him to hit the wall, knocking him senseless long enough for them to get him in place.
* MonsterInTheMoat: Early on, William's narration reveals that his nurse fell in the moat of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle and got eaten by "something-or-other" when he was five. Exactly what the something-or-other is has never been specified. It gets brought up again in ''Goblins on the Prowl'' when Fauna recalls William telling her about the incident, and looks down to see large, dark shapes with enormous eyes swimming in the moat.
* MysteriousMist: The North Tower of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle is enveloped in mist, signifying the spell that keeps the spirits of the goblins trapped there. The first time William sees the outside of the Tower after the goblins are freed, the mist is gone.
* NeatFreak: When the goblins leave a house, they have a tendency to leave it cleaner than it was before they entered it. This is first seen when they thoroughly clean Toad-in-a-Cage Castle on their way out (though not without causing some mischief in the process).
* NeverFoundTheBody: The evil sorcerer Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] disappears into thin air after falling to his death; William suspects he's dead for good though because the last of the magic around the North Tower (which said sorcerer had placed there) disappeared at the same time.
* NoIndoorVoice: Hulda, the castle maid, always shouts. Justified because she's mostly deaf and shouting is the only way for her to hear herself talk. William's narration reveals he was relieved when he figured this out, because until then he'd thought it meant she was permanently mad at him.
* NoOntologicalInertia: When the sorcerer who cast the spell on the North Tower dies, the last of the magic in it wears off.
* OnlyTheChosenMayWield: The light-providing amulet that Granny Pinchbottom gave William. It only works in his hands, as evidenced when it doesn't glow for Herky and even stops when William hands it to Fauna. Once it's back in his hands, it comes back on with no problem.
* RealAfterAll: When William was younger, the castle housekeeper terrified him with stories of "Granny Pinchbottom", who punishes naughty children and whom she claims bit off part of one of her fingers. William was terrified of the same thing happening to him, until the castle librarian Karl saw his nervous behavior and told William that his father had long ago told ''him'' that Granny Pinchbottom was just a story the old ladies in the area used to terrify kids into behaving. After he lets the goblins out though, William learns from Igor that Granny Pinchbottom is very much real, and soon meets her himself.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Once freed, the goblins plan to do this in retaliation for being sealed away for a hundred and twenty-one years. When William restores their king and he regains his sanity, he calls it off.
* ScareEmStraight: According to Karl, Granny Pinchbottom is just a fictional character whom the old ladies in the area use to scare children into behaving, with threats that she'll "come tweak your cheeks while you sleep" or bite off part of a finger that they stuck where it didn't belong too many times. William later learns that she's RealAfterAll.
* ScreamingWoman: Subverted with Hulda -- the morning after the goblins are freed, William and Karl have come out of William's room when they hear her scream and hurry to her aid. The next time she screams though, they realize it isn't in fright, but anger, which turns out to be because all the laundry -- newly cleaned by the goblins -- has also been completely tied into knots.
* SealedGoodInACan: The goblins had their spirits sucked out and imprisoned in the North Tower of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle, and their bodies locked in the dungeons, all because the old Baron and his sorcerer ally thought they were evil rather than just mischievous.
* SecretPath: Toad-in-a-Cage Castle is ''littered'' with them, including one that leads to every room on its floor, and the one that leads from a clock to a staircase that goes down to the dungeons. William's been exploring the castle for years and found many, but knows there's more that he hasn't found yet.
* SecretRoom: Discussed early on, as William notes via narration that he's found a number of them in the castle.
* SimilarItemConfusion: Done deliberately by the goblins, who filled the sugar bowl with salt during their mischievous rampage. William only discovers this ''after'' he's spooned some into his coffee, resulting in a SpitTake.
* SpitTake: During breakfast, the morning after the goblins are freed, William finds they've filled the sugar bowl with salt, but doesn't realize it until after he's spooned some into his coffee, which he ends up spitting across the table.
* StaircaseTumble: The morning after the goblins were freed, as Karl and William are heading down the stairs, Karl slips on one, his feet flying out from under him and causing him to slide the rest of the way down. Thankfully, he's unharmed. William quickly discovers the stair was coated in soap, courtesy of the goblins.
* SupernaturalAid: When William goes off on his quest, Granny Pinchbottom provides him with some magical items to help, including an amulet that provides light, a hooded invisibility cloak, and the collar that, when used to attach the Goblin King's head to his body, will heal him.
* SupernaturalSensitivity: The goblins are said to have a form of this, as Granny Pinchbottom admits that she's too powerful -- they'd sense her coming long before she got anywhere near their king.
* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: One of the goblins' pranks, the night they're freed, involves this -- they filled the sugar bowl on the dining room table with salt. William doesn't discover it until he's spooned some into his coffee and taken a sip.
* ToiletHumour: Goblins think farts are hilarious, as evidenced when one pulls his nose and lets out a massive fart, then he and the other two goblins with him proceed to laugh hysterically.
* UnwittingPawn: Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] is eventually revealed to have tricked Igor into betraying the goblins, whom he thought of as friends, by having him be the one to invite them into a trap. This nearly gets Igor killed by the goblins after they're freed, but it's called off after the truth comes out.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes:
** Goblins, who prefer the cool underground, fear fire and its heat. Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] and the old Baron used this to their advantage, lighting a ring of fire to trap the goblins so they couldn't get away while the sorcerer worked the spell that drew their spirits out of their bodies and imprisoned them.
** Herky at least isn't fond of water, as he scrambles up William's leg to avoid getting wet in a river, panics when it starts raining, and ''really'' freaks out when they have to cross under a waterfall. However, Nilbog is full of rivers and waterfalls, so it's not a species-wide trait.
* AYearAndADay: During the final battle, Ishmael[[note]][[DoNotCallMePaul Don't call him that!]][[/note]] explains that it took he and the old Baron a year and a day of researching to find the spell they'd use, and another year and a day to actually prepare the spell.




!!''Goblins on the Prowl'' provides examples of:

* TheAgeless: [[spoiler: Fauna. It's revealed that ]] The sorceress Sophronia has also been visiting the Baron for years, but never looks any older.

* AstralProjection: While visiting Granny Pinchbottom, Fauna receives a potion called Sleep Walk, with enough for four or five uses. It grants the user the ability to project out of their body, and is ''mostly'' safe, but has a time limit of two hours before the drinker is shut out of their body. Also, they aren't completely invisible -- some people can see them out of the corner of their eye, and others will think they've seen a ghost. Fauna gifts it to William (since she's wearing the gift that was ''meant'' for him and can't get it off), who ends up using it to keep in contact with Fauna and the others who are following after him to rescue him when he's abducted by the giant toad.

* BewitchedAmphibians: While examining the giant stone toad, Fauna finds a hidden spot on its base with a mirror. The mirror then shows her a video replay of a man getting hit by a spell and turning into a giant stone toad (the very toad in the Great Hall, as it turns out later).

* BiggerOnTheInside: Bwoonhiwda's wagon, much to Fauna's surprise (and everyone's convenience). It turns out to be enchanted, and has as many rooms inside as they need. When asked how she got an enchanted wagon, all she'll say is "The queen knows a wot of wizahds."

* ClingyMcGuffin: Once it's put on, Solomon's Collar (which lets the user [[SpeaksFluentAnimal understand and be understood by animals]], among other things) won't come off.

* DeathGlare: When Bwoonhiwda says that Queen Wilhelmina's court wizard had predicted a problem with the giant stone toad, the Queen sent her to investigate. When Karl in turn asks why the Queen would send a woman to do so, Bwoonhiwda gives him such a nasty look that Fauna's surprised his hair doesn't burst into flames. She later gives Igor a similar look when he makes a joke that sounds like he's making fun of her speech impediment, to his distress.

* DoNotCallMePaul: After learning her real name, Fauna still prefers to go by "Fauna" rather than [[spoiler:Gertrude]].

* ElmuhFuddSyndwome: Bwoonhiwda speaks in this manner, always replacing her "R"s and "L"s with "W" when she speaks. She's ''very'' frustrated when people have a hard time understanding her as a result, and takes considerable offense when people make jokes that rely on her speech impediment (as Igor learns the hard way when she says they "We must sweep!" and he responds with "Can't sweep! Got no bwoom!"). She later explains to Fauna that her parents had the same problem, which is why her name really ''is'' Bwoonhiwda and not Brunhilda, as Karl initially assumed when she first introduced herself.

* EmbarrassingNickname: John the giant doesn't like being called "Bonecracker", due to it having been earned in an incident he doesn't like to remember where he accidentally, and badly, injured a knight in an effort to save his life from John himself.

* FaintingSeer: In the prologue, a goblin seer named Flegmire comes to the court of the goblin king to enter a trance and give a prophetic warning. Unfortunately, she fails to complete it before screaming and fainting.

* ForcedSleep: Shortly after the stone toad comes to life and the group finds the warning "Beware of Helagon" on its pedestal, the Baron recognizes the name and is about to tell them what he knows about the man (or wizard, rather), only to be suddenly forced into an enchanted sleep. Bwoonhiwda later tells the cast that they need to break the spell soon or he'll die of starvation.

* ForcedTransformation:
** When John the giant reads the story of "The Foolish Giant", he tells how Harry the giant was the only thing keeping an evil wizard away from the village where he lived. When Harry was forced to leave, the wizard decided he no longer had to worry, and demonstrated his power by casting the "Spell of Total Cowliness" on the mayor's wife, turning her into a cow for three hours. Igor happily notes that this is his favorite part of the story.
** The same story reveals that an evil wizard named () accidentally turned himself into a giant [[TakenForGranite stone]] toad, which was placed in what became known as Toad-in-a-Cage Castle for safekeeping.

* GaleForceSound: Played for laughs -- when Fauna enters the room where Bwoonhiwda is sleeping, the latter's snoring is loud enough to almost knock Fauna back out the door.

* GentleGiant: Literally with "Bonecracker" John, a giant who is actually quite nice, but has an undeserved reputation as a result of his having badly injured a knight once.

* GivenNameReveal: Late in the book, Fauna's real name is revealed, along with her true identity -- [[spoiler:Gertrude, the long-lost older sister of the Baron of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle]].

* GlassShatteringSound: Bwoonhiwda is introduced this way, as Herky suddenly brings her into the castle and she proceeds, upon seeing the missing toad statue, to let out a shriek that shatters the glass pitcher Igor had brought a little earlier. It's also loud enough to wake Hulda out of a sound sleep, which is quite the achievement considering the latter is mostly ''deaf''.

* HauntedFetter: The ghost Werdolphus can only manifest in one of two places -- Toad-in-a-Cage Castle, where he died, or near the cannonball which killed him. He has Fauna and her group take the latter with them on their journey to rescue William so he can travel between it and the castle, bringing messages back and forth.

* HelicopterParents: The Baron turns out to have had these, as he mentions during the "Goblin Freedom Day" celebration. Apparently, his parents went overprotective out of fear of losing him like they did his big sister, who just vanished one day.

* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: As explained in the in-universe historical tale of "The Foolish Giant", an evil wizard threatened to turn the titular giant into a giant stone toad. When he ''did'' cast the spell, it bounced off Harry's shaving mirror and turned the wizard into a giant stone toad instead.

* HornyVikings: Subverted by Bwoonhiwda -- she matches the appearance, up to and including a horned helmet, and can be violent and short-tempered, but she's really a nice person and a loyal servant of Queen Wilhelmina.

* InVinoVeritas: During the "Goblin Freedom Day" celebration, the Baron has had a bit much to drink and starts opening up more as a result, getting to talking about the old days and admitting that he had an older sister who went missing, along with how his parents treated him as a result. After a while, he catches himself:
-->"Listen to me going on! Must be the brandy."

* InnocentlyInsensitive: Igor, not being the best with people, accidentally offends Bwoonhiwda terribly when he makes an attempt at a joke that she takes as a shot at her speech impediment. He hurriedly explains that he's not making fun of her, just making a joke and that he wants to be her friend, and Fauna has to step in and assure Bwoonhiwda that Igor wasn't ''trying'' to offend her, he's just not good with people sometimes. Bwoonhiwda, after giving it some thought, accepts his apology but warns him not to do that again, or she'll hurt him. Severely.

* JumpingOutOfACake: During the castle's celebration of "Goblin Freedom Day", Hulda goes to cut the cake, only for it to shriek... and then Herky leaps out of it. It turns out he'd made a hiding space inside it after it was thoroughly baked and cooled, so he could leap out to surprise everyone. Hulda is ''not'' amused.

* LaughingAtYourOwnJokes: When Fauna tries on Solomon's Collar (which lets her understand and be understood by animals), she has a brief talk with a squirrel, who makes a pun on the word "nut" and then cracks up at his own joke.

* LieDetector: Magical variant -- Solomon's Collar, on top of letting the wearer [[SpeaksFluentAnimal understand and be understood by animals]], tightens and starts to choke them whenever they lie.

* LongLostRelative: The book has this as its big reveal -- [[spoiler:Fauna turns out to be Gertrude, the Baron's older sister, who went missing before he was born. It's as much a surprise to her as it is to the others.]]

* LoudSleeperGag: Bwoonhiwda snores. ''Very'' loudly. While Fauna is able to fall asleep before Bwoonhiwda did and ''started'' snoring, she figures she can't get ''back'' to sleep once she awakens and hears it, so she ends up taking her blankets and making a bed in the main room of the wagon.

* LoveAtFirstSight: Igor is smitten with Bwoonhiwda from the moment he lays eyes on her, though his social awkwardness means his attempts at courting her don't go so well for a while.

* TheMagnificent: When Fauna meets and befriends a female lindling, she learns her new friend is know as "Sterngrim the Awesome", which she thinks is "kind of a big name for someone your size".

* NarrativeProfanityFilter: When William and Fauna head into the library to find the book that was supposed to be for him, this happens a couple of times when he can't find it:
-->The surface of Karl's desk was empty, the book nowhere in sight.
-->William said a bad word, then tried to open the drawers.
-->They were locked.
-->He said an even worse word.

* NeverLearnedToRead: Igor, as he notes at one point. He's distressed by this, because it means he can't read stories to his giant friend John, who has to transcribe them into a larger volume so he can re-read them himself.

* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Solomon's Collar keeps revealing new powers -- it's initially said to let the user [[SpeaksFluentAnimal understand and be understood by animals]], but it turns out it also chokes the user if they lie, lets them see and hear ghosts, (). Justified in that Granny Pinchbottom only ''told'' Fauna about the first ability, letting her discover the rest as time went on.

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Very early on, Fauna knows something's up when she sees a group of goblins sneaking through the forest, ducking behind trees and looking behind them suspiciously, as if they don't ''want'' to be seen, rather than bounding along like usual.

* OnceDoneNeverForgotten: "Bonecracker" John the giant has a reputation for viciousness as a result of an incident long ago -- when a person is afraid in his presence, it makes him hungry. If he's hungry, he's likely to ''eat'' that person. When the knight Sir Mortimer falsely accused him of devouring cattle and stealing young maidens, John picked him up to discuss things, but Sir Mortimer was overcome with fright, triggering John's hunger reflex... so to save Sir Mortimer's life, he threw him far, far away. The landing broke just about every bone in Sir Mortimer's body (which is ''not'' what John intended to do), and ever since then, he's been known as Bonecracker John, which does not please him (Igor, on the other hand, thinks he should be proud of it).

* OneSteveLimit: Subverted -- when she and the others are read the story of "The Foolish Giant", Fauna thinks it's nice that the giant's only friend, a boy named Will Smith, has the same first name as her friend William.

* OnlyMostlyDead: While Fauna's visiting her, Granny Pinchbottom reveals she's working on a combination spell/recipe which is supposed to be given to someone who's on the brink of death and hold them in that state for a while, though since she was interrupted while working on it, she doesn't know if it'll actually work. She still gives Fauna a piece, just in case, which comes in handy when the Baron suddenly collapses and seems to be dying -- the specipe saves his life, but won't wake him up.

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: While on their way to Nilbog, Fauna and her group meet the winged lindlings, one of whom explains they are all that is left of the dragons -- most of the great dragons have left for another world, but the lindlings were left behind because they were too small to be noticed. When Fauna finally gets a look at her, she finds that lindlings look pretty much like regular dragons (snaky body, four short legs and two bat-like wings), just smaller.

* PardonMyKlingon: Early on, Fauna watches a group of goblins searching her cottage for something. When a goblin who's otherwise been speaking English suddenly yells "Urxnagle!" in frustration after they fail to find what they're looking for, she guesses that it's a goblin cuss word.

* {{Portmanteau}}: Granny Pinchbottom has come up with one for some of her creations -- "specipe", a combination of "spell" and "recipe", which is used when she's creating a new goo-like substance with a specific magical purpose. The word's use initially confuses Fauna the first time Granny uses it in her presence; thankfully, Granny explains when Fauna expresses this confusion.

* RecognizableBySound: Early on, Fauna hears a ''second'' visitor coming toward her cottage, and is annoyed at first (she doesn't like having company, particularly ''uninvited'' company)... until she recognizes the distinctive clump of a heavy boot, followed by the slow drag of another foot, which tells her it's very likely to be her and William's friend Igor. She's quickly proven right.

* SpeaksFluentAnimal: When Fauna visits Granny Pinchbottom's cottage early on, the sorceress gives Fauna an item known as "Solomon's Collar", which grants the wearer the ability to understand animal talk and be understood by them in turn, though with limitations (it doesn't work with bugs, but it's sometimes good for a spider). It's ostensibly meant for William, but Fauna decides to try it on first, whereupon [[ClingyMcGuffin she finds she can't get it back off]].

* SpinOffspring: Downplayed -- a minor character who shows up to help the main group briefly at one point is an unnamed bear. Before departing, he reveals that he's the nephew of the similarly unnamed bear that accompanied Princess (now Queen) Wilhelmina in ''Literature/TheDragonslayers''.

* TakenForGranite: It turns out the stone toad was actually [[BewitchedAmphibians an evil wizard turned into a giant toad]] and simultaneously petrified, via being hit with his own Spell of Stonely Toadification. William accidentally reverses the stone transformation, which prompts the toad to grab him and run off across the country.

* YouOweMe: Granny Pinchbottom has a habit of doing this, requiring people to do something for her if she's helped them (it's usually nothing hard, as seen when she asks Fauna to chop some wood for her in return for the advice she's just given). Inverted in the first book, where she gives William a light-making amulet in return for his having recently freed the goblins.

!!"The Stinky Princess" contains examples of:

* HonoraryUncle: The end of the story reveals that Princess Violet and Prince Bindlepod ended up marrying and having children. Their kids all treat Bindlepod's frog companion, who taught them how to swim, as an honorary uncle.

* InterspeciesRomance: Violet, princess of a human kingdom, ends up falling in love with Bindlepod, the prince of Nilbog, who soon returns her feelings. They end up marrying, living in a home halfway between Violet's kingdom and the gates of Nilbog, and having seven children.

* LittleStowaway: Violet, the title character of the story, chooses to stow away in the goblin Bindlepod's saddlebag and run away to Nilbog with him. He is not amused when he finds her and insists on returning her to her parents, but the stench of goblin from said saddlebag has become entrenched in her body, and proves too horrible for the king to accept having her around their kingdom anymore.

Trivia:

* One of the goblins is named Borg, not to be confused with the villains from ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' (who predate the book's publication).

* "Guttural Growler" (name to change once TRS has been applied): Igor almost always speaks in a growling tone, which Fauna notes in book 2 isn't because he's angry (usually) -- it's just the way he talks. He's also ''incredibly'' strong, as evidenced in the first book when he shoves aside a massive boulder.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: ''Goblins On the Prowl'' was originally set to have much more pronounced references to ''Literature/TheDragonslayers''. As Coville wrote on his guestbook, in the first draft, "Bwoonhiwda was accompanied by Queen Wilhelmina's daughter, who was named Pink. But the editor felt that the book was overpopulated and someone had to go. Alas, it was Pink who got the ax."

[[folder: ''Oddities'' series]]

* Literature.OddlyEnough
** Anon's note: I own the omnibus and #4.\\\

''Oddly Enough'' and its sequels are an anthology series by Creator/BruceCoville. Each of them contains a mix of nine previously published and brand new stories, plus one essay, all by Coville himself (the exception is a new introduction in the omnibus ''Odds Are Good'', which is by Creator/JaneYolen instead); they're mostly standalones, though some are part of his existing series.\\\

The series consists of the following:\\\

* ''Oddly Enough'' (1994)[[labelnote:Contents]]"The Box" (1986; originally released in ''Dragons & Dreams: A Collection of New Fantasy and Science Fiction Stories'', edited by Jane Yolen, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh); "Duffy's Jacket" (1989; originally released in ''Things That Go Bump in the Night'', edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg); "Homeward Bound" (1988; originally released in ''The Unicorn Treasury'', edited by Bruce Coville); "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm" (1993; originally released in ''A Wizard's Dozen: Stories of the Fantastic'', edited by Michael Stearns); "Clean as a Whistle" (1994; original to collection); "The Language of Blood" (1994; original to collection); "Old Glory" (1991; originally released in ''2041: Twelve Short Stories About the Future by Top Science Fiction Writers'', edited by Jane Yolen); "The Passing of the Pack" (1988; originally released in ''Werewolves'', edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg); "A Blaze of Glory" (1994; original to collection)[[/labelnote]]
* ''Odder Than Ever'' (1999)[[labelnote:Contents]]"The Golden Sail" (1999; original to collection); "Biscuits of Glory" (1995; originally released in ''The Haunted House: A Collection of Original Stories'', edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg); "I, Earthling" (1994; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens''); "The Giant's Tooth" (1999; original to collection); "There's Nothing Under the Bed" (1995; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Nightmares''); "The Stinky Princess" (1999; original to collection); "The Japanese Mirror" (1996; originally released in ''A Nightmare's Dozen: Stories from the Dark'', edited by Michael Stearns); "Am I Blue?" (1994; originally released in ''Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence'', edited by Marion Dane Bauer); "The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones" (1997; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Magic II'')[[/labelnote]]
* ''Odds Are Good'' (2006; omnibus of the first two books; also contains an essay by Jane Yolen)
* ''Oddest of All'' (2008)[[labelnote:Contents]]"In Our Own Hands" (1999; variant of "In Our Hands", originally published in ''Bruce Coville's Alien Visitors''); "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" (2003; originally released in ''13: Thirteen Stories That Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen'', edited by James Howe); "The Ghost Let Go" (1994; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Ghosts''); "In the Frog King's Court" (2000; originally released in ''Ribbiting Tales'', edited by Nancy Springer); "The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond" (1996; originally released in ''Bruce Coville's Book of Spinetinglers''); "The Hardest, Kindest Gift" (2001; originally released in ''Half-Human'', edited by Bruce Coville); "The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado" (2008; original to collection); "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld" (2008; original to collection); "The Boy With Silver Eyes" (2008; original to collection)[[/labelnote]]\\\

Tropes for sixteen of the 27 stories in this series are collected here. For the other eleven, see ''Literature/BruceCovillesBookOf''[[note]]contains tropes for "Duffy's Jacket" (1989), "Clean as a Whistle" (1994), "I, Earthling" (1994), "There's Nothing Under the Bed" (1995), "The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond" (1996) and "Biscuits of Glory" (1995)[[/note]], ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Stinky Princess" (1999)[[/note]], ''Literature/MagicShop''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Metamorphosis of Justin Jones" (1997) and "The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado" (2008)[[/note]], ''Literature/NinaTanleven''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Ghost Let Go" (1994)[[/note]], and ''Literature/TheUnicornChronicles''[[note]]contains tropes for "The Boy With Silver Eyes" (2008)[[/note]].\\\

!!''Oddly Enough'' contains examples of:

* AbominationAccusationAttack: In "The Passing of the Pack", the narrator's friend Wandis is accused of using witchcraft to seduce a woman's husband away from her (said narrator thinks it's more likely that the woman's own nagging is what drove him into Wandis's arms), and then the narrator is accused of witchcraft simply for sticking up for her, and both are found guilty and sentenced to death. Fortunately, they're rescued by the wolves.

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: Happens to Jamie in "Homeward Bound", at the end -- his physical body is killed, but it frees him so he becomes one with everything.

* BackFromTheDead: Brion, the protagonist of "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", returns from the grave after being executed and angrily forces the king who ordered his demise to call back the soldiers he controls and withdraw his kingdom from the ongoing multi-sided war altogether. After three years of advising the king, Brion ultimately sees the other armies also decide to stop fighting and, with the threat ended for good, is thus able to return to his grave and rest in peace.

* BloodMagic: In "The Language of Blood", the main character is chosen to become the newest Speaker -- a vampire who, when they drink blood, goes into a Fit of Prophecy that lets them learn the necessary information to keep their country prosperous, such as what their enemies are doing.

* BurnTheWitch: In "The Passing of the Pack", the narrator's friend Wandis is sentenced to burn for performing witchcraft, and the narrator too when he tries to stick up for her. Fortunately, the wolves come and save them.

* BurningTheFlag: "Old Glory" revolves around the dystopian future of 2041 where the main character's great-grandfather ends up standing in front of a crowd, announcing that their flag no longer stands for what it used to, so there's no point in having it -- so he sets it on fire as a sign of protest (or at least tries to, since it's fireproof). And then gets shot by the government for doing so.

* BuryMeNotOnTheLonePrairie: "A Blaze of Glory" revolves around Tommy and his grandmother, the latter of whom is old and dying. In the last minutes of the story, the elves whom she helped as a young woman return to fulfill the only reward she wanted for her help -- to be taken back to Elfland and buried there.

* CavalryOfTheDead: Brion, the protagonist of "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm" (originally released in ''A Wizard's Dozen: Stories of the Fantastic'' and collected in Coville's anthology ''Oddly Enough''), leads one against enemy soldiers who've been sent to raid his kingdom. Unusually, the dead don't attack the living -- they just point out what it'll be like to be dead, and the soldiers decide they'd rather go home and live as long as possible.

* CompanionCube: Michael's special box in "The Box". He takes it everywhere -- to school as a child, to work as an adult, and even when he's in the hospital after a car accident, he sneaks out to the site of the crash to find it and get it back, all out of dedication to the task given him by the angel who entrusted the box to him.

* DraftDodging: In "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", there are people who avoid being drafted into their kingdom's army because they're physically unfit and others who avoid it because they're too frightened, too smart or simply "too loving"; this last category is the most dangerous, because objecting to the war has been made illegal. The protagonist, Brion, fits the last category and fakes being crippled to avoid serving in a war he doesn't believe in, but ends up revealing his true status and is arrested and [[OffWithHisHead executed]] for it.

* {{Dystopia}}: "Old Glory" is set in a dystopia future where by 2041, freedoms have eroded, free speech is no longer a thing, and a government organization exists to shoot dissenters on sight. Worst of all, the kids of this time think this is ''good''.

* EvilUncle: Jamie's uncle in "Homeward Bound". He's actually an evil wizard, who's captured and killed unicorns, taking their horns for his own purpose and forcing them into human shape afterward.

* ExpandedStatesOfAmerica: Implied in "Old Glory", where the U.S. flag now has sixty-two stars.

* FetchQuest: "A Blaze of Glory" has Tommy's grandmother tell him about the time she ended up in Elfland and had to go on one of these. It's not described in detail, other than to say it was quite a journey, but she succeeded in the end and brought back the stone containing the missing bit of the Elf queen.

* ForcedTransformation: In "Homeward Bound", Jamie discovers he's actually a unicorn forced into human shape, and it's said that his father was the same, whose horn was stolen before the wizard took his shape, forcing him into human form, and then his memories.

* ForeverWar: In "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm", there's an endless war going on between the fifteen kingdoms on the continent of Losfar, and it's gone on for ''so'' long that when one kingdom pulls out, the others decide after a few years that this kingdom deserves punishment for daring to get prosperous while they're still spending their resources to defend themselves, and thus send armies of their own against the prosperous kingdom. Fortunately, Brion and his ghostly allies are able to finally bring the war to an end.

* HeartTrauma: In "Homeward Bound", a unicorn's horn must pierce a person's heart to heal them, undoing transformations and restoring memories, and even healing the emptiness and fear inside them.

* NeutralityBacklash: Attempted in "With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm". Three years after Brion's kingdom pulls out of the Forever War with the other fourteen kingdoms of Losfar and starts minding their own business, the other kingdoms decide to send armies to invade and claim what they consider their fair share. Brion in turn calls up an army of his fellow dead to visit the camps of the enemy soldiers and point out to them that the continuing war will only lead to more senseless deaths, causing the other armies to all return home and leave them in peace.

* PassingTheTorch:
** "The Language of Blood" revolves around the main character becoming the next Speaker, learning from the current one of his duties, no matter how distasteful they may be -- namely, having to feed on someone three times a year, fatally the last time, in order to serve as a seer of sorts and learn the information needed to keep their country safe and prosperous.
** "The Passing of the Pack" is all about this, as the main character learns his father is a werewolf, who leads a pack of regular wolves and makes the hard decisions for them. His time has come, and he needs his son to learn what the boy needs to take his father's place as packleader.

* TrappedInAnotherWorld: "A Blaze of Glory" has Tommy's grandmother tell him the story of how, as a young woman, she fell through a hole in the world and had an adventure in Elfland, where she had to find a special item and return it to their Queen.

* TheUnreveal: The contents of the titular item in "The Box" are never revealed. All Michael's told is that it will change the world, like Michael himself has.

!!''Odder Than Ever'' contains examples of:

* AllGaysLoveTheater: In "Am I Blue?", Melvin says that certain groups, like people in the theatre, have a higher percent of gay people because they're naturally artistic. Though he points out that the stereotype about ''all'' people in theatre being gay is false, as most of them are actually straight (two thirds, at the theatre Vincent and Melvin visit) and only some of the gay characters are into theatre.

* CoolShip: "The Golden Sail" has Jan watching the harbor constantly for his father's return, since the man had gone off in search of the titular ship years ago. When the ship finally appears, Jan and his friend Samos board it, where they find it sails itself, can sail up a waterspout into the sea and can shrink itself into a coin for easy transport on land. In the end, after completing their mission on the island they've landed again, he's told that the ship is his now, and he and Samos board it once more and set off in search of adventure.

* EnemyWithout: In "The Japanese Mirror", the protagonist finds a strange mirror which absorbs his anger. At first, he sees nothing wrong with this as it seems to fix his anger issues. But as he becomes thinner and thinner, he finds out that a darker copy of him is lurking in the mirror, feeding off his anger and waiting to take over his body.

* EvilTwin: In "The Japanese Mirror", Jonathan's reflection in the titular mirror turns into ''his'' evil twin as it absorbs his anger, and outright plans to cause misery to the people in his life once it takes over his body.

* FairyGodmother: In "Am I Blue?", Melvin is a CampGay Fairy Godfather in every sense of the term. As an [[OurAngelsAreDifferent angelic being]] who, as a human, was killed in a gay-bashing, he insisted on reclaiming the term when choosing his {{Heaven}}ly career.

* FlyingUnderTheGaydar: In "Am I Blue?", this is {{discussed|Trope}} and {{defied|Trope}} by Melvin the CampGay [[FairyGodmother fairy godfather]]. He can easily drop the mannerisms and look more masculine just by adjusting his posture. However, he's proud of himself and refuses to hide, not least since he lost his first life to a HomophobicHateCrime.
-->'''Melvin:''' Protective coloration. You learn to use it to get along in the world if you want. Only I got sick of living in the box the world prescribed; it was far too small to hold me.

* ForcedOutOfTheCloset: In "Am I Blue?", main character Vincent ends up wishing for "gay fantasy #3", where every gay person -- those who are out, those who aren't and those who are undecided -- across the country turns blue for a day. At the end of the story, Vincent apologizes to any gay readers whom he may have caused trouble for by outing them in such a manner.

* FusionDance: At the end of "The Japanese Mirror", by accepting his anger as a part of himself and calling it back to him, Jonathan absorbs his evil double.

* {{Gaydar}}: In "Am I Blue?", Vincent gets a form of this, identifying gay people by the color blue. Also in the short story, everyone from coast to coast gets a form of this too, for twenty-four hours. The latter is a result of a wish granted by Vincent's [[{{Pun}} fairy]] godfather (the first is just "education" on Melvin's part, which falls under a different category altogether).

* HairTriggerTemper: In "The Japanese Mirror", Jonathan is noted for having had a foul temper that made him yell at anyone who triggered it, until the titular mirror begins absorbing his anger.

* IChooseToStay: In the end of "The Giant's Tooth", the giant finally catches Edgar and drags him out of his mouth, then soon flops down for a nap. Edgar, rather than taking the opportunity to escape, chooses to return to his home in the giant's mouth.

* MagicalQueer: Literal and very self-aware version of this in "Am I Blue", with Melvin -- a gay fairy godfather/guardian angel. Also played for tragedy, since Melvin ended up that way because he was killed in a gay-bashing incident.

* MirrorMonster: "The Japanese Mirror" features one that lurks within the titular mirror, making Jonathan's reflection look ugly in ''any'' mirror he looks in and gradually absorbing his anger until it can emerge and take over his body.

* NonResidentialResidence: A decidedly odd example in "The Giant's Tooth". Edgar gets grabbed and eaten by a giant, but is rescued by Meagan, whom the giant tried to eat long ago. Somehow, she managed to find a hole in a spot in his mouth, and began chipping away at the side of one of his teeth to dig out a place where she could live safely. She helps Edgar do the same, and together they save other people whom he tries to eat, each of whom digs out a home inside another of his teeth (to the giant's obvious discomfort).

* ResignationsNotAccepted: "The Golden Sail" has Jan discover that his father (who'd gone to sea ten years before) is bound to the throne of a golden land, where the locals essentially force a king to remain until he is used up and only release him from the throne when he dies and has a successor.

* SapientEatSapient: The giant in "The Giant's Tooth" is intelligent, but eats humans, who are also intelligent.

* SwallowedWhole: The giant in "The Giant's Tooth" has a habit of doing this. Justified in that he eats ''humans'', and his size naturally makes him big enough to just swallow them in one gulp.

* ThreeWishes: Vincent, the main character of "Am I Blue?" gets three wishes from his [[FairyGodmother Fairy Godfather]]. The first gets him a Swiss double mocha at a coffee shop. The second turns every gay person, coast to coast, blue for twenty-four hours. Vincent's final wish is for a homophobic bully to be turned blue as well... only for his fairy godfather to return smirking that [[ArmoredClosetGay that wish is still available]].

* YouAreWhatYouHate: "Am I Blue?" has two characters, one extremely homophobic politician and a bully who beat up the protagonist for being gay, who are both revealed to be gay themselves.

!!''Oddest of All'' contains examples of:

* "In Our Own Hands"
* "What's the Worst That Could Happen?"
* "In the Frog King's Court"
* "The Hardest, Kindest Gift"
* "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld"

!!Kids' fiction (other):

[[folder:''Storm Runner''; by Jennifer C. Cervantes (for the ''Rick Riordan Presents'' imprint line)]]

* Literature.StormRunner
** Anon's note: I own book 1.\\\

The ''Storm Runner'' trilogy is the second series in the ''Creator/RickRiordan Presents'' imprint line, written by Jennifer C. Cervantes and focused on [[Myth/MayanMythology Maya]] and [[Myth/AztecMythology Aztec]] mythology. It centers around Zane Obispo, a boy whose adventure begins when he discovers his father is one of the Mayan gods, and that he's destined to release Ah-Puch (pronounced "ah-POOCH"), the Mayan god of death, darkness and destruction and the former ruler of the ninth lowest level of Xib'alb'a (the Mayan underworld) from his prison, which turns out to be only the first of his adventures.\\\

The series consists of:\\\

* #1: ''The Storm Runner'' (September 18, 2018)
* #2: ''The Fire Keeper'' (September 3, 2019)
* #3: ''The Shadow Crosser'' (September 1, 2020)
* ''The Cave of Doom'' (September 28, 2021; released in ''The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities: New Stories About Mythic Heroes'')\\\

The ''Shadow Bruja'' duology is the thirteenth entry in the ''Rick Riordan Presents'' imprint line, a sequel to the ''Storm Runner'' trilogy and focused more prominently on Aztec myth. It centers around Renata "Ren" Santiago (daughter of Pacific, the former Mayan goddess of time), who debuted in ''The Fire Keeper'', and consists of:\\\

* #1: ''The Lords of Night'' (October 4, 2022)
* #2: ''Dawn of the Jaguar'' (October 10, 2023)\\\

Not to be confused with the similarly titled ''Literature/StormRunners'' trilogy by Creator/RolandSmith.

----
!!This series contains the following tropes:

* {{Animorphism}}: Brooks is a half-human, half-Nawal, whose mother was a full Nawal, or shapeshifter. Due to this heritage, she's also able to change into an animal, but her human blood limits her to just one species -- a hawk, in her case, though she can also vary its size.

* BigEater: In book 1, Zane mentions that his dog Rosie (a Boxer/Dalmatian mix) is one of these, eating as much as an elephant.

* CanineCompanion: Rosie, a Boxer/Dalmatian mix who's missing one of her front legs, is this for Zane; he found her wandering the desert when he was ten and adopted her, and spends much of the first book seeking to rescue her from the underworld after she sacrifices herself to save him from a demon runner. After becoming a hellhound, she remains Zane's companion,

* DivineParentage: Zane Obispo is a godborn, whose mother is a mortal and whose father is Hurakan, the Mayan god of wind, storms and fire.

* EyeBeams: After becoming a hellhound, Boxer/Dalmatian mix Rosie gains the ability to use heat vision.

* GodOfFire: Hurakan is the Mayan god of wind, storms, and fire. His son [[TheHero Zane]] has inherited his fire abilities.

* GrowingWings: After becoming a hellhound, Rosie is able to grow a pair of bat-like wings and fly while in Xibalba.

* {{Hellhound}}: During the first book, when Zane's dog Rosie dies and goes to Xibalba, she becomes one of these, having her form altered (including growing in size to twice the size of a lion) and gaining supernatural powers.

* SuperMode: At the climax of book 3, Rosie's hellhound form becomes this, as she's granted the ability to change between her original form and her hellhound form.

----
!!Trivia:

* TributeToFido: Jennifer Cervantes based Zane's dog Rosie, a boxer/Dalmatian mix, off her own dog, who passed away about six months after book 1 was released.

[[folder:''Universal Monsters''; by Larry Mike Garmon]]

* Literature.UniversalMonsters
** Anon's note: I own 1-5.\\\

''Universal Monsters'' is a six-part series by Larry Mike Garmon, released by Scholastic for younger readers in 2001-2002 and based on some of the classic Franchise/UniversalHorror films. The series begins when three 21st century teenagers -- Robert "Captain Bob" Hardin, Joe Motley and Nina Nobriega -- from San Tomas Inlet in Florida have an accident with a prototype of an experimental holographic movie projector (illicitly borrowed from the Universal Studios theme park) and a lightning storm, releasing the monsters and other antagonistic characters from the films ''Film/{{Dracula|1931}}'' (1931), ''Film/{{Frankenstein|1931}}'' (1931), ''[[Film/TheMummy1932 The Mummy]]'' (1932), ''Film/BrideOfFrankenstein'' (1935), ''[[Film/TheWolfMan1941 The Wolf Man]]'' (1941) and ''Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon'' (1954) into the real world. Consequently, the trio have to hunt down the escapees and return them to the films.\\\

The series consists of:\\\

* #1: ''Dracula: Return of Evil''
* #2: ''The Wolf Man: Blood Moon Rising''
* #3: ''Frankenstein: Anatomy of Terror''
* #4: ''The Mummy: Book Of The Dead''
* #5: ''Creature From the Black Lagoon: Black Water Horror''
* #6: ''Bride Of Frankenstein: Vow Of Vengeance''

----
!!This series provides examples of:

* AdaptationalVillainy: In the original film, [[spoiler:Maleva is a benevolent ally who tries to help Larry after he becomes a Wolf Man. In book 2, she possesses Wilma Winokea and proves to be as malevolent as the werewolves that feature in the story]].
* AllForNothing: In book 5, Captain Bob uses his [[SkeletonKeyCard library card to try and break into Ben Browning's RV]]. It breaks... and then it turns out the door was unlocked the whole time.
* AllJustADream: Subverted in book 3. Fritz has [[PastExperienceNightmare vague memories of his death at the Creature's hands]] in the movie, but Herr Henry Frankenstein has convinced him they're just a dream. He never figures out Herr Frankenstein was lying.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: In book 5, while investigating the Gill Man's cave, the group finds a pile of bones, including a skull from a great white shark. Sharks don't have bones, except for their teeth -- the skulls are pure cartilage, far softer than bone.
* BackForTheFinale: All the previously captured monsters are re-released in book 6.
* BerserkButton:
** ''Don't'' mess with Captain Bob's yacht captain's hat. He gets downright ''furious'' when the Wolf Man destroys it in book 2, physically attacking the monster in anger (luckily, the hat is restored when the Wolf Man and its allies are defeated).
** In book 5, the Gill Man's destroying Rita Crockett's teddy bear (a Christmas gift from when she was five) prompts her to go berserk and attack it.
* BigBrotherInstinct: Sister case in book 1 -- when Dracula comes to abduct Angela Chavarria, her big sister Devin tries to save her. It doesn't ''work'', as Devin falls under his sway again, but it's the thought that counts.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: In book 1, shortly after meeting Dr. Dunn, Bob comes under attack by a swarm of oversized ticks. Devin Chavarria, who's becoming a vampire courtesy of Dracula, later claims to have sent them; it ultimately turns out she was lying and they were actually a shapeshifted Dracula (as revealed when more giant ticks later turn up in his base of operations and then turn back into him when Captain Bob starts smashing them).
* BigDamnHeroes: In book 3, Joe has been attacked by the Creature (which intends to kill him), only for Francisco "Trey" Trejo to show up at the last minute and attack it from behind, saving Joe's life. Unfortunately, the Creature is able to capture Trey and run off with him.
* BigFriendlyDog: In book 2, Gayle Braddock (whose boyfriend has become Larry Talbot's Wolf Man) has a big friendly Siberian husky named Snow -- a present from said boyfriend. In her first scene, Snow comes to Gayle's side to comfort her when she's upset.
* BitchInSheepsClothing:
** In book 1, Devin Chavarria's boss is Dr. Abel Dunn. She thinks he's her friend, but in actuality he's Dracula, escaped from [[Film/Dracula1931 his movie]] and out to turn her into one of his brides.
** In book 4, Levi Tovar claims to be the son of Professor Angus Tovar, and a friend of the group. He turns out to be Imhotep.
* BizarreTasteInFood: As revealed in book 1, Captain Bob likes using peanut butter instead of mayonnaise on his sandwiches (including with bologna and other meats) after having first done so years before as an emergency substitution when he'd run out of mayo. It grosses out Nina though. Book 5 reveals that his friend Skylar does the same.
* BrilliantButLazy: Captain Bob. He's got an IQ of 130, but can barely keep his grades up because he thinks his classes are boring and is irritated that the high school won't let him take any advanced classes in his freshman year.
* CanonForeigner: Book 5 features [[spoiler:a Gill ''Woman'', somehow created by the desires of the Gill Man]].
* CassandraTruth:
** In book 1, after their penultimate fight with Dracula, the teens try to warn police detective Turner about Dr. Dunn being Dracula. Naturally, he doesn't believe them and thinks they just hallucinated the vampire stuff.
** In book 4, after they get attacked by a baboon and jackal, Nina tries to tell Levi Tovar about their battles with the monsters. He thinks she's making it up and angrily storms out. He later apologizes, but still doesn't believe... until later on. It ultimately turns out he was faking -- he knew it was real, because he was Imhotep the entire time.
** In book 5, the teens try to convince Rita Crockett that the Gill Man is an escapee from a movie. She doesn't believe them until the very end.
* CatScare: Late in book 1, as the trio are exploring Carfax Hotel, they open one of the basement doors and see a pair of yellow eyes... but it turns out to just be a frightened cat.
* CatchPhrase: Bob's is "I'm off, said the madman". Nina thinks it's a cheesy exit line, but he takes it seriously.
* ChairmanOfTheBrawl: During book 4, when he and Nina are attacked by a baboon and jackal (really the reanimated heads on a set of canopic jars), Levi Tovar grabs a lounge chair and throws it at the jackal. Nina later takes it up and uses it to fend off the jackal when it tries to attack her again, and then uses it against the baboon.
* ChildProdigy:
** In book 1, when Captain Bob asks Dr. Dunn how a 23-year-old is a fully licensed dentist, Dunn claims to have been one of these who finished high school when he was twelve.
** Book 4 has Hannah Tucker, one of Professor Tovar's graduate assistants -- only twelve, but she's already earned two degrees, in ancient languages and anthropology. Unfortunately, she's also obnoxious.
* ClassClown: Captain Bob is always joking around, in and out of school.
* CoffinContraband: A variant in book 4, wherein Joe discovers that the Egyptian exhibit (containing the sarcophagus and mummy of an ancient Egyptian queen, along with the rest of her tomb's contents) includes an ornate couch, and that its legs each hide an ancient figurine containing the four pieces of the Scroll of Thoth that Imhotep needs to revive her.
* ConvulsiveSeizures: In book 3, Francisco "Trey" Trejo suffers from these -- a sudden stabbing pain in his head, falling to the ground with his heart pounding, and sometimes nightmares.
* CrammingTheCoffin: In book 4, Professor Angus Tovar is attacked early on by the mummy of Imhotep. His body is later discovered inside the coffin of the priest who was buried with the queen that would be the focus of Professor Tovar's exhibit. Later, Stacy [=McDonald=] is found alive in Imhotep's coffin. Somehow, she isn't nearly as upset as they'd expect.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Slice for Devin Chavarria in book 1. He stalks her, gets violent towards any other man he sees near her, and is very possessive.
* DepravedDentist: Downplayed in book 1 -- Dracula poses as Dr. Abel Dunn, a local dentist, but doesn't torture his patients ''during'' visits. Instead, he uses his assistant and customers to find prospective victims, and has been secretly manipulating said assistant to make her into one of his brides.
* DuctTapeForEverything: Book 5 has the gang visiting Captain Bob's friend Skylar Crockett, who can make anything out of duct tape -- wallets, suits, book covers, a tote bag, Christmas tree ornaments and a football are all mentioned or shown.
* DumbStruck: Claimed to be the case in book 1. After his encounter with Dracula, Todd Gentry was found babbling about a wolf that walked upright like a man; the newspapers say he hasn't spoken since due to the trauma, but his girlfriend admits to Nina that he's talked to her in his brief times awake, blaming himself for his dad's being in a coma.
* EvilAllAlong: In the very end of book 2, it's revealed that the spirits from ''The Wolf Man'' had fused with real people -- [[spoiler:Deputy Chad Barnes and ''his'' mother Wilma Winokea]] -- when they were released from the films. Said characters drive past the trio when the teens are heading out of town, giving them nasty looks and proving they're just as evil even when they ''aren't'' possessed. Joe and Captain Bob later theorize that their evil is what drew said spirits to them when they were released from the films.
* TheExecutioner: Subverted in book 4 -- Joe decides to pull a prank on Nina and Stacy by showing up behind them in an executioner's costume with a fake ax. All it gets him is a black eye, courtesy of Levi Tovar. He later explains that he'll be dressed as one for the period he'll be working in at the exhibit they're taking part in. Another executioner later shows up and genuinely attacks Joe and Captain Bob while they're sneaking around the Egyptian exhibit... except Detective Turner later tells them it was just a robot intended for the exhibit, and they must have turned it on by accident.
* {{Expy}}: Invoked and discussed -- the monsters tend to find or merge with people whom they'll ''make'' fill in the roles of other characters from their movies, which the heroes figure out late in the main events of book 1.
** In book 1, the band member Slice ended up as Renfield, his girlfriend Devin can be inferred to have filled in for Lucy Weston (as Dracula's first female victim), and her sister Angela fills in for Mina Seward.
** In book 2, Don Earl Abernathy ends up in the role of Lawrence Talbot, being bitten by a werewolf under similar circumstances and becoming Talbot's Wolf Man. His girlfriend Gayle fills the basic role of Larry Talbot's love interest Gwen [[spoiler: but adds in a partial werewolf transformation]]. [[spoiler:Wilma Winokea ends up possessed by, and in the role of, the gypsy Maleva, while her son John becomes the first expy of Maleva's son Bela, and her older son Chad, John's half-brother, becomes the second.]]
** Subverted in book 3 -- none of the normal human characters end up filling the roles of characters from the films.
** In book 4, Nina ends up in the role of Helen Grosvenor, whom Imhotep believes is the reincarnation of Anck-Su-Namun, leading him to and sacrifice her to revive his love.
** In book 5, Rita Crockett ends up in the role of Kay Lawrence, as the Gill Man's love interest. [[spoiler: At least, until he somehow creates a Gill ''Woman'' to fill the role.]]
%%** In book 6,
* FailedASpotCheck: In book 5, a teacher stops Captain Bob in the hall and asks for his hall pass. He gets detention for not having one... except later, he finds it was in his shirt pocket (and not his pants pockets, where he'd checked) the entire time. [[SadistTeacher Said teacher, it's determined, must have seen it there but gave him detention anyway.]]
* FightDracula: The plot of book 1 deals with this, as Dracula has escaped from his movie and the heroes have to find a way to send him back.
* FlareGun: In the prologue of book 5, Skyler Crockett tries to use one as a weapon against the Gill Man. Unfortunately, it doesn't work because it isn't loaded. Later, Captain Bob fires one into Ben Browning's dinghy, and ends up blowing up its engine.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** Early in book 3, Nina is told about an exhibition opening in a month, which students interested in Western civilization and humanities can help out with... and it includes an Egyptian exhibit, including a mummy. This reveal comes long before the SequelHook at the end has Joe realizing the implications and figuring out that their next monster to deal with will be from ''The Mummy''.
** In book 4, Levi Tovar mentions he's claustrophobic... hinting that he's really Imhotep, because "Who wouldn't be claustrophobic after centuries of being cooped up in a tomb?"
* FrankensteinsMonster: In book 3, Herr Frankenstein creates a new Creature out of dead body parts, which serves as one of the antagonists of the book. However, he comes to realize that this is not the right way, and becomes determined to use a still-living body with a new brain for his next Creature, trying to use Joe as the body and Francisco "Trey" Trejo as the source of the brain.
* FriendOnTheForce: Detective Mike Turner, who serves as the mentor for Joe and Captain Bob's "Forensics Club" at their school. It's subverted in the first two books, where he doesn't believe their claims about movie monsters being on the loose, but becomes a SkepticNoLonger in book 3 after seeing Herr Frankenstein and Fritz and helps the teens out in books 3 and 4.
* FunTShirt: Book 1 introduces a variant, which continues to show up throughout the series -- Captain Bob and Joe each own a leather jacket with "Born to Raze Hell" on the back, specifically embroidered at their request.
* FusionDance: After realizing the monsters have escaped from their movies, Joe and Captain Bob initially theorize that Dracula has fused with a real person and taken him over. It's subverted in his case, but the climax of book 2 confirms that some of the others ''did'' merge with real people when they were first released from the films, [[spoiler:starting with Bela the gypsy and his mother Maleva]].
* GadgeteerGenius: Skylar Crockett in book 5. He's built a "Crockett car", an improvised vehicle, in his tech-ed class -- effectively a cross between a golf cart and an elongated skateboard.
* GaleForceSound: In the final battle of book 2, the Wolf Man is able to blow Nina, Joe and Captain Bob to the ground just by barking and sending a powerful wind at them.
* GhostShip: As in the original novel, Dracula's presence is first hinted at when father and son duo Ralph and Todd Gentry, out for some late-night fishing, find an abandoned ship, covered in blood with its only occupant a wolf (who turns out to be a shapeshifted Dracula).
* GoingCommando: Referenced in book 5 -- when Captain Bob has to serve detention and won't have time to pack extra clothes before they leave that afternoon, he says he'll just borrow some of his friend Skylar's (since that's who they're visiting). When Joe asks about underwear, Captain Bob shrugs it off and says he just won't wear any. It's subverted when Nina ends up delaying the trip so he can clean off the chalk dust he's gotten covered in, and gets a chance to pack as a result.
* HarpoonGun: Book 5 features Ben Browning, a short-tempered man and retired naval officer (or so he claims; he later says he's a marine biologist from the Florida Keys) who doesn't like anyone setting foot on his property and is willing to threaten (and shoot at) them with a spear gun to make them leave. When the teens team up with him later, he reveals it's actually loaded with tranquilizers.
* HereWeGoAgain: At the end of book 1, Nina shows the others that Dracula may be back in his movie, but the other five films are still missing some of their characters, so they'll have to keep an eye out for signs of them in the real world and send them back.
* HeroicDog: Gayle Braddock's husky, Snow, in book 2. She comes to Gayle's rescue when the Wolf Man breaks into her bedroom, despite the danger to herself, and gives her life protecting her owner. Fortunately, she revives when the werewolves are all defeated.
* HiddenDepths:
** Book 3 reveals that Detective Mike Turner is just as familiar with the classic Universal monsters as the teens, to the point of reminding them that Henry Frankenstein was just a student and therefore ''Herr'' Frankenstein in the movie, not ''Doctor'' Frankenstein.
** Likewise, Captain Bob thinks of high school senior Oscar Morales as just a dumb jock, but his biology teacher reveals that Oscar's actually very smart and a natural for surgery.
* HolyBurnsEvil: In book 1, to protect his friends, Joe pulls out a cross and presses it against Devin Chavarria's forehead, leaving a burn mark (as shown afterward) and causing her to pull away and pass out. In the final battle, Nina holds up a cross in front of a flashlight, causing a giant shadow that burns Dracula himself. Unfortunately, Devin promptly disarms her.
* HolyWater: Used late in book 1 against Dracula and Devin, causing the latter's flesh to bubble as if hit by acid when she gets splashed by it. It also heals Angela, who's been partially transformed, when it's poured down her throat and on her wounds.
* HorribleHousing: Book 5 has a variant -- Ben Browning has rigged up an old bungalow on the beach, full of fish heads and such, where people think he lives. Subverted when it turns out it's a decoy, set up to keep people away (which Nina figures out beforehand because it looks ''too'' unpleasant to be for real), and he really lives in his RV.
* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: In book 2, Captain Bob says all but the last word of the trope name when Wilma Winokea names the place of black water -- Deadman's Landing -- which she says is sacred to her people, and where she claims her son underwent the ritual to become a skinwalker.
* IHeardThat: Late in book 1, Nina mutters an exasperated "''Freshmen,''" under her breath after a back-and-forth with Captain Bob. When he says the trope name, she retorts that he was ''meant'' to. He and Nina later throw the trope back and forth a few times towards the end of book 5.
* ImAHumanitarian: In book 3, Fritz is apparently a cannibal, trying to bite into Captain Bob with the intention of eating him. He's fended off, fortunately.
* InMediasRes: The first chapter of each book starts with a civilian encountering the monster of the film before the second chapter switches to following the PowerTrio of the series.
** Book 1 starts with father and son duo Ralph and Todd Gentry, out for some late-night fishing, finding an abandoned ship that turns out to have been depopulated by a recently [[RefugeeFromTVLand released from his movie]] Dracula.
** Book 2 starts with Don Earl Abernathy and his girlfriend Gayle Braddock attending a carnival before Don gets attacked and bitten by a Wolf Man.
** Book 3 starts with Herr Frankenstein and Fritz stealing a body from a graveyard, intending to use its hands for a new incarnation of the FrankensteinsMonster, while Detective Mike Turner investigates a different crime and ends up witnessing the duo speeding and then carrying their stolen coffin, whereupon he confronts them and ends up knocked out, with Herr Frankenstein planning (but never getting the chance, as later revealed) to harvest ''his'' hands.
** Book 4 starts with Professor Angus Tovar and his student Karl Homer in their office at the San Tomas Inlet Convention Center, the Professor analyzing a recently-arrived strip of papyrus... and after Karl leaves, Professor Tovar suddenly gets attacked by the mummy of the priest he found with the queen who's the focus of the exhibit.
** Book 5 starts with Trent and Skyler Crockett, out fishing in the middle of the night, only for Trent to get mauled by the Gill Man.
%%** Book 6 starts with
* InnocentlyInsensitive: In book 3, after Nina gets back at her classmate Stacy [=McDonald=] with a thinly-veiled insult, Stacy whines to their teacher that Nina called her fat. Mrs. Hoving, however, completely misunderstands and thinks they were both using the slang word "phat", meaning "cool", and asks "Isn't that supposed to be cool with you kids today or something?", causing Stacy to gasp and (just as the bell rings) stomp out of the room.
* InSeriesNickname:
** A self-given one -- Bob Hardin wants everyone to call him "Captain Bob", adapted when his favorite uncle gave him a worn-out yacht captain's hat. Only Joe really uses it though. He also calls Captain Bob by the nickname "madman" from time to time.
** Francisco Trejo, introduced in book 3, prefers to be called Trey.
** Skylar Crockett, featured in book 5, is sometimes called "Sky" for short.
* InvoluntaryShapeshifting: In book 2, Don Earl Abernathy can't control his Wolf Man transformation -- just getting angry is enough to trigger it.
* {{Irony}}: Book 2 has Don Earl Abernathy, a vegetarian, becoming the flesh-eating Wolf Man.
* ItOnlyWorksOnce: In book 2, the method that returned Dracula to his film (a modified camcorder, equipped with a reversed version of the program that fixed the faulty film projector) doesn't work on the next monster at first; the trio quickly figure out they have to modify their camcorder for each monster or group of monsters.
* ItsPersonal: In book 3, Captain Bob says this after Fritz's attack on him wrecks his moped, bought with the money he earned interning at Universal Orlando.
* LightningCanDoAnything: The villains are first released from their films when a lightning strike hits while "Captain Bob", Joe and Nina are watching said films on an experimental holographic movie projector. It doesn't help that they took the broken prototype instead of the working version.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: Book 5 reveals that Captain Bob has come to think of Joe and Nina as his honorary brother and sister in their time together.
* LivingStatue: In book 4, the statue heads on the canopic jars (containing the organs of the queen whose mummy is on display) are brought to life as full animals (or in one case, an Egyptian warrior) by Imhotep, who uses them to attack people.
* MarsNeedsWomen: In book 5, as in the original film, the Gill Man is searching for a mate. It initially fixates on Rita Crockett, Skylar's older sister, and later tries to abduct Nina.
* MomentKiller: Captain Bob, who somehow interrupts any time Nina tries to get close to a guy. She gets ''really'' irritated about it in book 4 when he interrupts she and Levi Tovar, who has similar interests to her. Captain Bob, for his part, doesn't seem to understand why she's angry at him.
* MonsterMash: Book 6 sees the return of all the previous monsters, bringing them together for the first time in the setting.
* {{Mummy}}: Naturally in book 4. The plot revolves around an exhibit of the mummy and sarcophagus of an ancient Egyptian queen and the contents of her tomb. Imhotep (having escaped from his movie) tries to revive her as Anck-Su-Namun, but Captain Bob and the others stop him.
* MythologyGag: Invoked by the film-escapees, who tend to recreate aspects of their original films in the modern world in this series. Examples from specific books include:
** ''Dracula'':
*** In the original film, Dracula arrives in London on what seems to be [[GhostShip an abandoned ship]], having fed on and killed the crew. In book 1, he's first seen on a similarly abandoned ship, having again fed on the crew.
*** In the original film, Dracula's base in London was the abandoned Carfax Abbey. In book 1, his base in Florida is the abandoned Carfax Hotel. This gets lampshaded in book 2 when Joe, Captain Bob and Nina are recapping what they know about the first monster in the hopes of figuring out how to deal with the Wolf Man.
** ''The Wolf Man'':
*** In the original film, Larry Talbot has his fortune told by the gypsy Maleva, who sees the pentagram on Jenny (a friend of Larry's love interest)'s palm and tells Larry to leave her tent. Soon after, Larry saves a woman from a werewolf via beating it to death with a silver object (his cane) he bought to impress a woman, but is bitten and becomes another werewolf. In this book, Don Earl Abernathy has his fortune told by Wilma Winokea, an Ocala shaman, who sees a pentagram on his forehead and tells him to leave her tent. Soon after, Don Earl saves a woman from a werewolf via hitting and driving it off with a silver object (the belt buckle) that his girlfriend won earlier, but is likewise bitten and becomes a werewolf himself.
*** In the original film, Larry has come back to his father's home in Wales, Great Britain. In the book, the Wolf Man manifests in Wales, Florida. This gets lampshaded when the teens are putting the facts together.
** ''Frankenstein'':
*** In the original film, Fritz tries to steal a good brain, but drops and breaks it, so he takes a criminal brain instead. In ''Film/YoungFrankenstein'', Igor does the same, but claims the brain came from one "Abby Normal" (really "Abnormal"). Captain Bob does a deliberate ShoutOut to this when he explains that Fritz did the same thing all over again -- he claims the stolen brain came from a "De Viant". When Nina doesn't recognize the name and Captain Bob starts snickering, Nina catches on and even lampshades it -- "Fifty thousand comedians out of work and you think you're Creator/MelBrooks!"
** ''Creature from the Black Lagoon'':
*** While looking for the Gill Man, Joe, Captain Bob and their friend Skylar run across a house owned by a man, Ben Browning, whom they think might be the human form of the Gill Man. He's not ([[spoiler: in fact, he turns out to be Dr. Mark Williams -- also escaped from the film -- instead]]), but he shares the same name as Rico Browning, who played the Gill Man in its underwater scenes.
*** Near the end of the book, the characters suddenly realize that Rita Crockett shares her name with the boat that the film characters used to travel down the Amazon River.
%%** ''Bride of Frankenstein'':
%%***
* MysteryMeat: Referenced for humor in book 1, when Captain Bob says he isn't eating the cafeteria food at Ponce de Leon High School that day because they're serving [=UFO=]s -- "Unidentified Food Objects".
* NoOntologicalInertia: When the monsters are defeated and pulled back into the films, people remember what happened, but any damage they've done is reversed as well, up to and including reviving most people who were killed during their rampages and leaving no physical evidence, which helps people rationalize it away as a hoax.
* NoSell: As discovered late in book 1, the monsters are "not of this world" and cannot be killed in the standard methods (like a stake through the heart for Dracula) -- they heal automatically from them. The heroes have to instead find a way to trap them back in their movies.
* OpenFlyGag: Subverted early in book 3. Nina gets back at Captain Bob (who's being his usual irritating self) by telling him his fly's open. Captain Bob promptly looks down and makes a face as he realizes she just tricked him -- he's wearing sweatpants and therefore doesn't ''have'' a fly.
* PastExperienceNightmare: In book 3, Fritz has vague memories of his death at the Creature's hands in the movie, but Herr Frankenstein has convinced him they're AllJustADream.
* PestController: In book 1, an army of giant ticks attacks Captain Bob, and Devin Chavarria later claims she was the one who sent them. Subverted when the penultimate battle reveals they were actually a transformed Dracula.
* ThePowerOfLove: In book 5, this is what [[spoiler:allows the Creature From the Black Lagoon to create a mate for himself]].
* RecklessGunUsage: In book 2, when Joe meets Deputy Chad Barnes, Barnes claims to be guilty of this -- when he was practicing his quick draw, he was startled by Sheriff Marshall suddenly walking in, causing his gun to go off and shoot over the man's hat. Ever since then, he's had to carry it empty, with only one bullet in his possession at a time.
* RedHerring:
** In book 1, the core trio come to believe that Devin Chavarria's boyfriend "Slice" is Dracula, due to his vampire-like behavior. He's actually just a pawn of the real Dracula.
** In book 3, Captain Bob comes to believe that Oscar Morales, a high school senior who's been revealed as a natural at surgery, is Herr Frankenstein's other form. Turns out he's innocent, and becomes Herr Frankenstein's backup choice as a body for his third Creature.
* RefugeeFromTVLand: A combination of lightning and a holographic projector releases characters from the six films. Each book features, respectively:
** Count Dracula (disguised as a normal human);
** Larry Talbot's wolf man (incarnated through Don Earl Abernathy after he's bitten by another Wolf Man), Bela the gypsy's wolf man (incarnated through [[spoiler:John Winokea and later Deputy Chad Barnes), and his mother Maleva (incarnated through Wilma Winokea)]];
** Herr Frankenstein, Fritz and the Creature they made;
** Imhotep (in his guise as Ardeth Bey) and Anck-Su-Namun;
** The Gill Man [[spoiler:and Dr. Mark Williams]];
** The Bride of Frankenstein [[spoiler:and Dr. Pretorius]].
* RidiculousProcrastinator: Referenced in the epilogue of book 1, as Captain Bob looks on one of his websites for the most absurd headline possible for Current Events. One is "Scientist Discovers Secrets of Procrastination: Will Release Results At A Later Date".
* SadistTeacher: Downplayed in book 5, where Captain Bob runs into one of these who gives him detention for not having a hall pass... despite it being very visible in his shirt pocket the entire time. She even has a slight smile on her face as he's on his way ''to'' detention later.
* SequelHook: Each book has one of the cast finding hints, via news articles, of the next monster they'll face.
** In book 1, Captain Bob finds a news article about a giant wolf attacking people in Wales, Florida.
** In book 2, Nina reads a news story that mentions a missing brain, and figures out it means Dr. Frankenstein is involved.
** In book 3, Nina mentions she has to get up early and help set up an Egyptian exhibit at the San Tomas Inlet Cultural Center. Joe later realizes Egyptian equals mummy.
** Early in book 4, the teens find evidence of the Gill Man lurking in the NASA causeway. The last chapter expands on it, with Captain Bob writing in his journal that a friend of his has contacted he and Joe to confirm the reports.
** In book 5, Captain Bob is wondering what the final monster -- the Bride of Frankenstein -- is going to bring against them, when he gets called by Alvin Brown (the security guard who originally let them take the projector), who leaves a warning message for him on the answering machine that "he is in danger and his friends are in danger too. The hair dryer's gone and he's coming after them--" when he's suddenly cut off, sounding like he's being strangled.
* ShoutOut: In book 4, Captain Bob references ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' by misquoting the film:
-->'''Captain Bob''': "Brother, just what we need -- a jurist's princess."
* SkeletonKeyCard: Subverted in book 5, where the teens have to break into Ben Browning's RV. Captain Bob breaks out his library card to try and get the door open... and breaks the card in the attempt. Then [[AllForNothing it turns out the door wasn't locked]].
* SkepticNoLonger: After not believing the kids about what happened in the first two books, book 3 and his encounter with Herr Frankenstein sees Detective Mike Turner finally believing them about the monsters escaping from the films.
* SkewedPriorities: Late in book 4, Stacy [=McDonald=] has been kidnapped by Imhotep for use in reviving his love Anck-Su-Namun. After she's rescued, she's less worried about the ''living mummy'' and ''being kidnapped'' than by the fact that the mummy stole her weave, and "Now I look stupid".
* {{Skinwalker}}: In book 2, when the trio meet Wilma Winokea, she claims that her son John became one of these in an effort to bring honor and glory back to his people.
* SpannerInTheWorks: Late in book 3, Herr Frankenstein's Creature decides to become one on purpose -- thinking that if it kills the people its creator wants to use for a ''new'' monster, it can stop his plans.
* SpitTake: Late in book 1, Captain Bob says a girl's name while he's dreaming. When Nina taunts him with it later, he almost does one of these, to her amusement.
* SprayingDrinkFromNose: In book 2, while he, Captain Bob and Nina are having lunch early on, Joe accidentally laughs his milkshake up his nose at one of Nina's snarky remarks (aimed at Captain Bob), triggering a case of BrainFreeze.
* StaticStunGun: Joe improvises one in book 5, jabbing the Gill Man with the broken-off end of a power cord that's still plugged into the wall to drive the creature off.
* StealthInsult: Late in book 4, Detective Turner heads off for home, with Captain Bob snarking about the man's plans, and Nina gets one in on Captain Bob as a result:
-->'''Captain Bob''': "Now that's sad. A young man like that, and he goes home to leftover meat loaf, a tattered lounge chair, and a rerun of a race he already knows the winner of. Could there be a more pathetic sight?"
-->'''Nina''' (''gives him a meaningful look''): "Yes."
* StuffBlowingUp: In book 1, when lightning strikes Nina's house and overpowers the electrical systems, it also causes the experimental holographic movie projector to explode.
* SympathyForTheDevil: In the epilogue of book 4, Captain Bob admits that in the end, he felt sorry for Imhotep -- the man was just lonely and wanted his lover back.
* TemptingFate: In book 5, while climbing into the NASA Causeway via an old ladder, Captain Bob starts to say "This thing is old. It's a wonder it hasn't fal--" before it promptly falls, sending him into the water (and he can't swim; fortunately, Joe saves him).
* ThrowDownTheBomblet: In the final battle of book 1, as an effort to weaken Dracula, Captain Bob throws a set of Communion wafers at him. They end up functioning like this, exploding on contact and stunning him.
* TooDumbToLive: Late in book 5, Ben Browning's greed gets the better of him, as he holds up a remote detonator ''in the middle of a lightning storm''. It promptly gets struck by lightning, exploding it and nearly costing him his hand in the process.
* TrashOfTheTitans: In book 5, Skylar Crockett's room is a disaster area, cluttered with trash and dirty clothes. His sister takes one look at it and says "Sky must have cleaned up in here", indicating that it's usually worse.
* VampireVannabe: In book 1, Joe and Captain Bob discover that Devin Chavarria's boyfriend "Slice" owns a book, ''The Legend of the Vampire'', that's essentially a guide for people like this -- it's all about vampire worship, how to become one and similar things. He apparently wants to be one himself, having even filed his teeth down to points.
* VampiresHateGarlic: In book 1, Captain Bob tries to use this against a vampirized Devin Chavarria. Unfortunately, she's able to keep him from hitting her with it. It later helps against Dracula in bat form, but less so when he attacks the Chavarria house; Captain Bob then uses it successfully in the penultimate battle, as it burns him. It's also found that putting garlic and a cross around Devin, while she's unconscious, will start to revert her to human. They have to stay in place or she'll start to turn back though.
* VampiricDraining: In book 4, the trio learn that Imhotep is stealing blood from people, using a needle. In the original film, he never did so, leaving them confused about his motives; it later turns out it was meant to replace Anck-Su-Namun's dried-up blood.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Used a lot in book 1.
** Per his film abilities, Dracula can turn into a wolf at will, which is first seen in the book's opener when he attacks the Gentrys as a wolf. ''Unlike'' the film, he's seen slowly turning back into human form after chasing Todd away. He uses the form again later, attacking Joe and Captain Bob.
** It's also believed to be the case when Captain Bob is attacked by a swarm of giant ticks (which Dracula never turned into in the film, as Joe notes; Bob, however, says that it's the 21st century and he can appear as anything he wants). Initially subverted when Devin Chavarria claims to have sent them... but in the penultimate battle, it turns out they actually ''were'' a transformed Dracula.
** Late in the book, Nina gets attacked by a bat, which turns out to be a transformed Dracula. He uses the form again soon after, attacking Joe and Captain Bob. In the penultimate battle, he turns into a human-bat hybrid form.
** During the same battle, Dracula takes the form of a red mist. He later uses this form in the penultimate battle to escape being strangled by a rope of garlic.
** In the penultimate battle, Dracula initially appears as Dr. Dunn, the disguise he used to blend into humanity, before reverting to his original form from the movie.
* WeaponsThatSuck: In order to trap the monsters back in their movies, the lead trio have to suck them back in via filming them with a modified camcorder, equipped with a disc that's been programmed with a reversed version of the program that fixed the faulty film projector. They have to augment it with other specialty modifications in later books:
** Book 2 has them having to film and capture the original Wolf Man and its servants ([[spoiler:John Winokea and Sheriff Marshall]]) before adding a silver dreamcatcher, with a woven-in pentagram, to the camcorder to capture the true villain -- [[spoiler:Maleva the gypsy]].
** Book 3 has them use the recording disc in Herr Frankenstein's computer, later realizing that since Herr Frankenstein had adapted to using modern technology, they had to use his own equipment against him.
** Subverted in book 4, where the camcorder isn't used at all -- instead, Captain Bob crushes the scarab representing Anck-Su-Namun's heart, and then she embraces Imhotep before both crumble to dust. Captain Bob and Joe later figure out that the scarab and the Scroll of Thoth acted as a conduit to send the pair back to the movie.
** Subverted again in book 5, where the camera isn't used again -- instead, after it kills its tormentor (another film escapee), the Gill Man simply finds true love, is enveloped in a beam of white light from the sky and returns to the movie.
%%** Book 6
* WeightWoe: Captain Bob, being more than a little chubby, takes extreme offense when it's pointed out. He ends up arguing with Joe about it in book 4 while they're under attack by someone in an executioner's costume.
* WhatDidIDoLastNight: In book 2, this is Don Earl Abernathy's reaction when he awakens in the Ocala National Forest after transforming for the first time the night before, and discovers the taste of blood and meat in his mouth.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: In book 5, Ben Browning is so obsessed with capturing the Gill Man that he doesn't care if it dies -- as he says, "No crime in killing a fish."
* WomenAreWiser: Nina, a junior to the boys' freshmen, is by far the most reasonable of the group.
* WoodenStake: Suggested in book 1 as a way to get rid of Dracula. Nina, who isn't entirely convinced he's become real though, objects to doing so. Even after coming to accept that they're dealing with a real vampire, she still objects to using this method at first, though she eventually changes her mind. Joe actually ''does'' try to use one against Dracula in their final battle with him; unfortunately, he's able to fend it off, and a second attempt later reveals that because he's an escapee from a movie, it doesn't work anyway. Fortunately, they figure out an alternative solution to send him back to his film -- in the final battle, after he's been stunned and blown into a wall, Joe pounds a wooden stake through his heart to weaken him long enough to get in close with a modified camcorder and suck him back into his movie.
* XCalledTheyWantTheirYBack: In book 3, when Nina's being annoyed by her classmate Stacy [=McDonald=], she snarks back with "Does Creator/CamrynManheim know you stole her wardrobe?" Stacy recognizes it as the YouAreFat insult that it is.
* YourMom: In book 4, while rescuing Stacy from Ardeth Bey, Nina taunts the villains by yelling "Your mummy wears army boots!"

----
!!Trivia:

* {{Blooper}}:
** In book 2, "madman" is accidentally spelled "mad man" the one time it's used. It happens again late in book 4.
** Garmon misspells Frankenstein's name as "Frankenst''ie''n" on multiple occasions in book 3.

----
!!Adult's fiction (1):

[[folder:''Event Group''; by David Lynn Golemon]]

* Literature.EventGroupAdventures
** Anon's note: I own 1-7 and 10.\\\

''Event Group Adventures'', or just ''Event Group'', is a series of thrillers by David Lynn Golemon and revolves around "the most secret organization in the United States", dedicated to studying the hidden truths behind the myths and legends propagated throughout world history, from [=UFO=]s to Noah's ark to various cryptids and mysterious disappearances. As book 1 begins, the organization is joined by Major Jack Collins, recruited as their new leader, and kicks off a new era in the group's existence.\\\

The series consists of:\\\

* #01: ''Event'' (2006)
* #02: ''Legend'' (2007)
* #03: ''Ancients'' (2008)
* #04: ''Leviathan'' (2009)
* #05: ''Primeval'' (2010)
* #06: ''Legacy'' (2011)
* #07: ''Ripper'' (2012)
* #08: ''Carpathian'' (2013)
* #09: ''Overlord'' (2014)
* #10: ''The Mountain'' (2015)
* #11: ''The Traveler'' (2016)
* #12: ''Beyond the Sea'' (2017)
* #13: ''Empire of the Dragon'' (2018)
* #14: ''Season of the Witch'' (2019)

----
!!The series contains examples of:

* BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: Mentioned in book 4, where Jack Collins states that there's no conclusive proof of their existence. One book later, they actually appear, living in Canada, where the local tribe of Tlingit Indians refer to them as the Chulimantan, or "They Who Follow". The creatures have excellent camouflage abilities, tend to send signals by beating on trees with wooden clubs, are attracted to shiny things, and are descended from the prehistoric apes known as Giganticus Pythicus, which followed prehistoric man over the Bering land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.

* DidAnastasiaSurvive: Book 5, ''Primeval'' (released in 2010 -- a year after Anastasia's death was confirmed in real life), states that yes, Anastasia and Alexei did indeed escape, with the aid of Russian soldiers loyal to their father (a pair of body doubles were left in their place), and made it to Canada, along with a whole lot of gold and two enormous diamonds (payment to the lead soldier). Most of the soldiers died in the fall of 1918 after attempting to betray their leader (believing the bad luck that had fallen on them was because of a curse on the Romanovs and wanting to kill the two children in order to save their own lives), and Alexei the following March, but Anastasia and the lead soldier not only survived, they married and lived out the rest of their lives in that area, dying of old age in the mid 1950s; they were survived by their daughter. Anastasia's daughter married at some point, but her own child and their spouse died later (one in childbirth, the other a few years later), and by the end of the book, only Anastasia's great-granddaughter remains, content to live out her life in peace and asking the protagonists to keep her ancestry a secret.

* StockNessMonster:
** Some odd, turtle-shelled plesiosaurs show up in a lagoon in Brazil in book 2.
** According to book 4, the Loch Ness Monster ''used'' to be real, but the species went extinct during World War II.

* StockUnsolvedMysteries: Many are covered, including Roswell (which forms an ongoing plotline that serves as the focus of books 1, 6 and 9, with book 11 dealing with the fallout), the fate of Amelia Earhart, the truth about Atlantis and the truth about the Philadelphia Experiment.

* WholeEpisodeFlashback: Book 10 is this in more ways than one. Its prologue is set just before book 1, then jumps ahead to just ''after'' book 1, and shows main protagonist Jack Collins receiving and starting to read a journal by an ancestor of his that records the very first Event, back before the organization was even founded, in the 1860s. The rest of the book, save for the epilogue, is the events recorded in the journal.

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[[folder:Images (Cozy Mysteries)]]

* ''Bewitching Mysteries''; by Madelyn Alt -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81ijalfugl.jpg]]
* ''Bibliophile Mysteries''; by Kate Carlisle -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91o5vj3kyal.jpg]]
* ''Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries''; by Ali Brandon -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81ghcyulxhl.jpg]]
* ''Bookmobile Cat Mysteries''; by Laurie Cass -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81tu3mk0pjl.jpg]]
* ''Bookstore Café Mysteries''; by Alex Erickson -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91cq04gnqfl.jpg]]
* ''Cat Rescue Mysteries''; by T. C. [=LoTempio=] -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81ya3rqcjhl.jpg]]
* ''Cats and Curios Mysteries''; by Rebecca M. Hale -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/914rpd3fpl.jpg]]
* ''Dead-End Job Mysteries''; by Elaine Viets -- [[quoteright:307:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/41zucua1b7l.jpg]]
* ''Dream Club Mysteries''; by Mary Kennedy -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81fyo3itjtl.jpg]]
* ''Fixer-Upper Mysteries''; by Kate Carlisle -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91bffpsogbl.jpg]]
* ''Haunted Home Renovation Mysteries''; by Juliet Blackwell -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81f09p8dlsl.jpg]]
* ''Key West Food Critic Mysteries''; by Lucy Burdette -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81vima2bel.jpg]]
* ''Knit & Nibble Mysteries''; by Peggy Ehrhart -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81ezbljw3_l.jpg]]
* ''Laura Fleming Mysteries''; by Toni Kelner -- [[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/51qx706z5el.jpg]]
* ''Lighthouse Library Mysteries''; by Vicki Delany as Eva Gates -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/912vxwxaqul.jpg]]
* ''Magical Cats Mysteries''; by Darlene Ryan as Sofie Kelly -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91zfiototjl.jpg]]
* ''Maine Clambake Mysteries''; by Barbara Ross -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/9107bpnr2dl.jpg]]
* ''Nick & Nora Mysteries''; by T. C. [=LoTempio=] -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/910plgmkbwl.jpg]]
* ''Novel Idea Mysteries''; by three authors as Lucy Arlington -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91q1dcb3j_l.jpg]]
* ''Scottish Bookshop Mysteries''; by Paige Shelton -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/910yzqdpkwl.jpg]]
* ''Scumble River Mysteries''; by Denise Swanson -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/71w6n5bluml.jpg]]
* ''Second Chance Cat Mysteries''; by Darlene Ryan as Sofie Ryan -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81_ez1_irll.jpg]]
* ''Sunny & Shadow Mysteries''; by Claire Donally -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91hala4lqil.jpg]]
* ''"Where Are They Now?" Mysteries''; by Toni Kelner -- [[quoteright:309:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/51vp9ompvml.jpg]]
* ''Witchcraft Mysteries''; by Juliet Blackwell -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/919gzmvve4l.jpg]]
* ''Witch's Cat Mysteries''; by Delia James -- [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/91uyg7oszpl_2.jpg]]

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!!Literature.TravisMcGee -- Main section is already on the site. This is for adding tropes to individual books, as I get around to reading them.

[[folder:General]]

* AscendedExtra: Meyer, believe it or not. He's a background character in the first six books, having been mentioned in passing only for the first time in book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying'') and again in book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox''). He has a minor and very brief role in book 5 (''A Deadly Shade of Gold''), then appears in flashbacks in book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''). It's not until book 7 (''Darker Than Amber'') that he has his first major role in aiding Travis with a case, after which he becomes a regular, working with Travis on most of the featured cases throughout the rest of the series (excluding a few books where he only has bit appearances).
* BadassFamily: Not in [=MacDonald=]'s novels, but Creator/PhilipJoseFarmer included Travis as part of his Wold Newton Family.
* BrilliantButLazy: Zig-zagged. [=McGee=] is legitimately an excellent investigator, but he prefers to slack off on his boat. That said, when he ''does'' take a case, he [[{{determinator}} will stop at nothing]] to finish it.
* CartwrightCurse: Travis has this problem, as most of the women he becomes attached to end up dead (as seen in book 1 -- ''The Deep Blue Good-by''), pairing with someone else (as seen in book 6 -- ''Deep Orange For the Shroud'' -- where Barbara Jean "Chookie" [=McCall=] ultimately ends up with Arthur Wilkinson), or just plain leaving him for their own reasons.
* CharacterFilibuster: [=McGee=] usually takes a chapter or two per book to expose on a major societal ill, such as consumerism or environmental destruction.
* ChivalrousPervert: Travis himself. Bitter, but utterly a believer in the healing power of good sex, occasionally waxing highly poetic about it. He admits he sleeps with women to make them feel better; he's quieter about the healing effect it has on him as well, being not inclined to discuss his dark past.
* CoolBoat: ''The Busted Flush'', Travis' luxurious houseboat. So named because Travis won it in a poker game. He also has a neat little runabout, the Munequita, for short trips.
* CoolCar: Travis drives Miss Agnes, the world's only custom-made hybrid of a Rolls Royce and a pickup truck. An unknown previous owner did the custom work. Travis named the car after one of his elementary-school teachers because the blue paint job reminded him of the color of her hair. The problem with it is that it's ''too'' memorable, so he never drives it on a job.
* CriminalProcedural: The series includes several adventures in which [=McGee=] discovers a con game and plots to take it down with a con of his own.
* FirstPersonPerspective: All the novels are told from Travis' perspective. It edges very close to FirstPersonSmartass and PrivateEyeMonologue at times, but the depth that [=MacDonald=]'s talent gives to Travis as a character keeps it from becoming self-parody.
* HardboiledDetective: Though not a licensed private investigator (he self-describes himself as a "salvage consultant"), Travis is a detective as dogged, streetsmart, and heavy-drinking as the best of them.
* HouseboatHero: The titular character lives on a houseboat called ''The Busted Flush'' (he won it in a poker game), parked in Slip F-18, Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The marina is real (although there hasn't been a Slip F-18 since their last renovation), and maintains a plaque dedicated to the hero and his chronicler. Most of his friends also live on boats in the community, including his very best friend, Meyer.
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The novels all include a color in the title.
* InSeriesNickname: Travis goes by the shortened name "Trav" at times.
* IntimatePsychotherapy: Travis almost always ends up providing sexual healing to [[DamselInDistress Damsels in Distress]] as well as sorting out their material problems.
* JustLikeRobinHood: Travis runs his salvage operations on a 50-50 split with the victim: "When a man knows his expectation of recovery is zero, recovering half is very attractive."
* LongRunningBookSeries: 1964 to 1984, with a total of 21 books.

* (checking) MysteriousMiddleInitial: Travis's middle initial of "D." is revealed in book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), but what it stands for isn't ever revealed.

* TheNondescript: Travis takes full advantage of his own generally unremarkable appearance in his investigations; his height -- 6'5" -- is literally the only thing most people remember about him. He occasionally puts lifts in his shoes to make it even harder for them to remember anything else.
* NoodleIncident: Travis's narration is occasionally sprinkled with references to people and events from his past, but almost never in detail.
* OnlyOneName: Meyer's real full name is never given; in fact, it's never specified if Meyer is his first, last, middle, or nickname.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: [=McGee=] goes after the worst of the worst, and, though he's only supposed to get back stolen/defrauded property, he often ends up killing his targets. He is quite aware of this trope and works hard to [[AvertedTrope avert it whenever possible]]; in almost every case, he kills strictly in self-defense and his narration usually remarks that ItNeverGetsAnyEasier.
* PunchClockHero: Travis takes on new cases when he needs the money, and spends the rest of his time taking his retirement "in installments". If you do harm to or take from, or both, one of Travis' friends, though, he will apply his skills and talents to getting payback, and salvage some coin, too, if possible.
* RansackedRoom: Travis does this to some of the people he's investigating. He also carefully arranges things in his own quarters to alert him if they've been searched.
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Frequently combined with SophisticatedAsHell in the dialogue between Travis and Meyer.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: Travis and his BestFriend, the [[GoodWithNumbers brilliant economist]] Meyer, often enjoy a game aboard ''The Busted Flush'' or on Meyer's equally comfortable boat. Meyer usually wins.
* TitleDrop: Nearly every book references its title in dialogue or narration; one exception is book 2 (''Nightmare in Pink'').
* WeHelpTheHelpless: Travis himself. He usually gives his profession as 'salvage consultant'. His normal fee is half of the value of whatever he is hired to recover; if the client objects he's quick to remind them that [[CatchPhrase half of the lost property/money is considerably more than none of it]]. Will occasionally waive the fee entirely ForGreatJustice.
* YankTheDogsChain: Pretty much the B-plot of every novel, with the exception of the books where it's the A-plot.

[[folder:#01: ''The Deep Blue Good-by'' (1964) (10+ tropes)]]

* AlliterativeName: Book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by'') involves Travis hunting down '''A'''mbrose '''A'''. '''A'''llen. His nickname of "Junior" subverts it though.
* AnkleDrag: In book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by''), this is ''possibly'' how Junior Allen dies -- it's not clear if the chain attached to the anchor on his boat wrapped around his ankle and dragged him down, or if it just wrapped around him in general, but he ''is'' caught in it and dragged to his drowning death.
* AttemptedRape: In book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by''), Junior Allen tries this on Patty Devlan. Thanks to Travis's timely interruption, he winds up tossing her aside and off the boat instead.
* BlindWithoutEm: In book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by''), Patty Devlan is this trope, which Allen takes advantage of by snatching her glasses off her face and throwing them overboard before trying to force himself on her.
* TheCasanova: In book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by''), Junior Allen has a habit of seducing, using and abandoning women, usually younger ones.
* InterruptedIntimacy: In book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by''), while exploring George Brell's house, Travis goes in what he thinks is an unoccupied room and unwittingly interrupts a makeout session between Brell's daughter Angie and her boyfriend, the latter of whom tries to fight Travis until the rest of the household shows up and hears what happened, prompting Lew to take off so as to avoid getting shot by an angry George.
* IntimidatingRevenueService: In book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by''), it's explained that Dave Berry and George Brell picked up some extra cash doing work on the side during World War II, and smuggled it back into the U.S. afterward in the form of gemstones. However, they never reported this extra income, so the government (which suspects they did what they did) has been keeping an eye on Brell to make sure he can't use (or at least profit) off it without having to spend even more money to keep out of trouble; he mentions he sold some of the gemstones, getting forty thousand dollars, and it cost him one ''hundred'' thousand to avoid getting convicted for it (and they're still after him every year, to his great distress).
* LivingEmotionalCrutch: In book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by''), Travis becomes one for Lois Atkinson after he finds her and helps her to slowly recover from being used and abandoned by Junior Allen. [[spoiler:He remains as such until her death late in the book.]]
* ReplacedWithReplica: Discussed but subverted in book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by'') -- Travis borrows a fake blue gemstone to fool Junior Allen with, and his source thinks he's planning to use it to carry out this trope, but Travis assures him he has other plans in mind (namely, to set things up so Allen thinks he was robbed and check the place where he keeps his valuables, allowing Travis to ''actually'' rob him).
* WaterTorture: In book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by''), after asking normally doesn't work, Travis traps George Brell in the shower and scalds him with the hot water to get him to talk about the money he and Dave Berry earned illegally during World War II.
* WickedStepmother: In book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by''), Angie Brell thinks of her stepmother as one after having caught her having an unplanned affair.

[[folder:#02: ''Nightmare in Pink'' (1964) (8 tropes)]]

* ChemicallyInducedInsanity: In book 2 ( ''Nightmare in Pink''), [=McGee=] has a hallucinatory drug slipped into his drink. When he loses control, he's taken into custody by the bad guys and sent to a mental hospital so he can be interrogated and lobotomized.
* {{Lobotomy}}: In book 2 (''Nightmare in Pink''), [=McGee=] is falsely committed to a corrupt mental hospital where the villains plan to lobotomize him to eliminate him as a threat.
* ManBitesMan: Early on in book 2 (''Nightmare in Pink''), Nina Gibson ''tries'', at least, to bite [=McGee=]'s hand when he's restraining her. She fails.
* NotMeThisTime: In book 2 (''Nightmare in Pink''), the lead villain admits to [=McGee=] that Howard Plummer, who worked for his organization and was going to report them for tax evasion, was killed in a random mugging before they could have him captured and brought in to be dealt with.
* PipePain: In book 2 (''Nightmare in Pink''), during his escape from the mental hospital where he's being held, [=McGee=] swipes a pipe to use as an improvised weapon in case he needs it (and does, a few times).
* PragmaticVillainy: In book 2 (''Nightmare in Pink''), the lead villain justifies his method of dealing with threats (having them lobotomized rather than killed) by explaining that they don't want to have to cover up a trail of dead bodies, which would be more suspicious.
* SelfDisposingVillain: In book 2 (''Nightmare in Pink''), a lower-ranked member of the organization is Dr. Varn, who would have carried out the lobotomy on [=McGee=]. When he's talking to the police after exposing them, it's revealed Varn committed suicide to escape being prosecuted for his part in his employers' schemes.
* WhiteCollarCrime: The villains of book 2 (''Nightmare in Pink'') use ''some'' more violent means on a target, having had him lobotomized and thus easier to manipulate, but it's so they can commit one of these -- stealing millions from him, then smuggling it out of the country and into Swiss bank accounts.

[[folder:#03: ''A Purple Place for Dying'' (1964) (10+ tropes)]]

* EntitledToHaveYou: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), according to Mona Yeoman, her husband Jasper "Jass" Yeoman feels this way about her; she claims he's abused her every possible way except physically or sexually to ensure that she can't leave him. He's also outright said that if she runs away, he'll have her hunted down and dragged back, and that the ones who did it would beat up her desired partner for wife-stealing. Jass himself denies any wrongdoing though.
* FakingTheDead: Early in book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), after Mona Fox Yeoman is murdered via sniper rifle, the police and Mona's abusive husband Jasper "Jass" Yeoman try to convince [=McGee=] that she's just doing this so she can run off with her lover. Travis isn't buying it, and sets out to investigate her death, which turns out to have been caused by someone with a grudge against Jass.
* TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether: Late in book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), [[spoiler:it comes out that Dolores Canerio Estebar recruited her half-brothers to help her by murdering her father's wife and lover, while she kills her father.]]
* FinancialAbuse: Book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying'') starts with [=McGee=] coming to Arizona and being hired by Mona Fox Yeoman, who claims she's suffering from this; her husband has essentially stolen her father's estate and has since cut off her allowance until she "comes to her senses" (meaning she gives up any attempt at leaving him), while doing his best to block any investigation into the estate's actual worth and fate. Jass himself claims, however, that she spends every cent she gets almost as soon as she gets it, and he's had her on an allowance so she won't burn through the entire estate.
* InheritanceMurder: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), [[spoiler:Travis eventually learns that Dolores Canerio Estebar is Jasper "Jass" Yeoman's illegitimate daughter, and arranged for the deaths of Mona Yeoman, her lover John Webb, and Mona's husband Jass so she'd inherit Jass's estate, as recompense for Jass raping her.]]
* InterruptedSuicide: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), Isobel Webb attempts an overdose on tranquilizers after getting word of her brother's death. Fortunately, [=McGee=]'s quick thinking saves her life.
* ItWasHereISwear: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), after calling the police about Mona Yeoman's murder, Travis leads them back to the site, only to find that all the evidence is gone. The sheriff figures she just faked her own death and set him up, and tells him to leave it alone, but Travis isn't convinced and eventually brings him enough evidence to prove that something strange is going on.
* JustOneLittleMistake: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), while investigating the missing John Webb (Mona Yeoman's lover), Travis learns he was diabetic and needed insulin shots every morning. However, he didn't take his supplies when he disappeared, which turns out to be key to confirming his disappearance was not his idea.
* LysistrataGambit: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), Mona claims to have threatened her husband with this unless he does what she wants (namely, let her have her money and a divorce), but that he just laughed it off, and she's certain that's because he's got a lover on the side.
* ParentalIncest: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), [[spoiler:it comes out near the end that a drunken Jass got his illegitimate daughter drunk and raped her, which is why she murdered him.]]
* {{Patricide}}: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), [[spoiler:Dolores Canerio Estebar is Jasper "Jass" Yeoman's illegitimate daughter, and murders him via strychnine poisoning in revenge for his drunken rape of her.]]
* RebuffTheAmateur: Book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying'') has a less amateur and more "out-of-state, non-licensed investigator" example when Sheriff Buckelberry keeps telling Travis to leave the investigation to him. Travis doesn't listen, and after Jass dies, the sheriff winds up subverting the trope and making him a temporary deputy.
* RevealingCoverup: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), after Travis witnesses Mona Yeoman's death, he brings the police back, but finds that all the evidence has disappeared; furthermore, witness statements have Mona and her lover boarding a plane and running off together. However, enough evidence (traces of flesh from her body at the crime scene, descriptions of the man and woman's appearance and behavior that don't line up with how they really looked and acted, and the timing of when they boarded) turns up to prove that someone's trying to cover up their deaths.
* TheRunaway: Invoked in book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying'') -- according to the police, Mona Yeoman and her lover boarded a plane and ran off together, but Travis quickly discovers that this happened ''before'' Mona picked up Travis at the airport (and was subsequently murdered), and witness accounts of the couple don't match their normal appearance ''or'' behavior. Travis rightly sees this as further proof that something suspicious is going on, and eventually proves that they were indeed murdered, with the "runaways" being impostors hired by the real killers.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: In book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), according to his wife Mona, Jasper "Jass" Yeoman has threatened that if she runs away, he'll use his connections to have her dragged back and the man she's in love with beaten, and that if she ever successfully gets a divorce, he'll use his influence to have that man fired from his job. Jass himself denies this, saying she's just trying to get attention.
* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: Later on in book 3 (''A Purple Place for Dying''), Jass Yeoman dies when someone slips strychnine into his coffee.

[[folder:#04: ''The Quick Red Fox'' (1964) (10+ tropes)]]

* AlliterativeName: Book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox'') features two characters with names like this -- '''A'''lexander '''A'''rmitage '''A'''bbott, and his son '''A'''lex '''A'''bbott.
* TheBeard: In book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox''), while investigating the other people involved in the incident that Lysa Dean is being blackmailed over, Travis learns that two others present -- Vance and Patty M'Gruder -- had another of the group, Nancy Abbott, as a guest, and that it's believed (and later indicated to be accurate) that Patty married Vance under false pretenses, using him as a Beard (unbeknownst to Vance himself until later) while actually sleeping with Nancy. Confirming this prompted Vance to have their marriage annulled.
* {{Blackmail}}: The plot of book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox'') revolves around Lee Schontz / [[StageNames Lysa Dean]] hiring Travis to identify the person blackmailing her over some sexually explicit photos of her and other people, when she'd already paid them off once before. Travis finds that the first blackmailer was [[spoiler:Vance M'Gruder, who was also present at the time the photos were taken]], and the second was an associate of the photographer who found backups of the photos, made poor copies of them and used them to try and blackmail her ''again''.
* BlackmailBackfire: Happens to both blackmailers in book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox'').
** [[spoiler:D. C. Ives took photos on behalf of Vance M'Gruder for blackmail purposes (turns out Vance is the one who'd first blackmailed Travis's client Lysa), but later tries to blackmail M'Gruder with some of those same photos, which would ruin his chances of getting remarried. Ulka Atlund, Vance M'Gruder's new wife, turns out to be crazy and proceeds to murder Ives, along with M'Gruder's ex-wife (who also knew what he was up to), and then M'Gruder himself after he figures out what she'd done.]]
** The book ends shortly after the second blackmailer is caught in a sting operation, with all his photos and negatives taken and destroyed before he's handed over to the police for his crimes.
* DisinheritedChild: It's mentioned in passing in book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox'') that Nancy Abbott is getting nothing from her father's estate because of her mental issues.
* EthicalSlut: In book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox''), according to her personal assistant, Lysa Dean is this -- promiscuous, but with standards, and a bisexual orgy (which she's being blackmailed over) is ''not'' her style.
* HatesBeingNicknamed: In book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox''), Ulka Atlund reacts poorly to those who call her "Ullie".
* LostHimInACardGame: Travis mentions in narration early on in book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox'') that after he won his houseboat in a card game, the man who lost it tried to wager his Brazilian mistress in order to win back the boat. Luckily, his friends persuaded him to leave the game instead.
* MightyRoar: Subverted in book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox'') -- while joking around (as part of their cover), Dana claims that Travis snores so loud that the neighbors heard it and ''mistook'' it for one of these, running out of their home while screaming "Lion! Lion!".
* MistakenForMurderer: In book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox''), Dana Holtzer admits to Travis, when they start working together, that she has a husband who's comatose in the hospital after an off-duty cop mistook one of his epileptic seizures for a murderous attack on her and shot him in the head.
* OneDegreeOfSeparation: In book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox''), it's a little more remote (closer to the "six degrees" version), but the trope is discussed and used by Travis and Dana to establish a connection with the people Vance and Ulka M'Gruder are staying with, to give them an excuse to get close to Vance and question him [[spoiler:relating to the blackmail he was involved in]].
* SelfDisposingVillain: In book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox''), [[spoiler:Ulka Atlund, Vance M'Gruder's new wife (and his killer, who also killed his blackmailer and his ex-wife, who could have exposed as being behind the original blackmail effort)]] runs off in her car, tries to drive around a roadblock at speed and skids off the road, crashing down the side of a hill to her death.
* TrustPassword: Book 4 (''The Quick Red Fox'') reveals that Travis has an "identification tag" that his old friend Walter Lowery is supposed to give to people whom he sends Travis's way, as proof that he indeed sent them -- that "he misses playing chess with you". When he hears this from Dana Holtzer, it's what convinces him to hear her out.

[[folder:#05: ''A Deadly Shade of Gold'' (1965) (7 tropes)]]

* EvilStoleMyFaith: In book 5 (''A Deadly Shade of Gold''), Nora admits that she lost most of her faith because her prayers, for her brother's pain to end (by death or otherwise from the cancer he was suffering from), were not answered.
* ImpromptuTracheotomy: In book 5 (''A Deadly Shade of Gold''), not long before she and Travis intend to leave Mexico, Nora Garcia dies when a boat explodes and sends a shard of railing through her throat.
* ManBitesMan: In book 5 (''A Deadly Shade of Gold''), while in Mexico, Travis meets a woman, Felicia, and goes to her room to question her about Sam Taggert. She promptly (and out of instinct, thinking he's like the men who tried to question her before) attacks him like a madman, including biting him on the forearm, badly enough that he has to actually medicate and bandage it afterward while she's unconscious. When she wakes up again, she promptly tries to bite him a ''second'' time, until he proves he's one of the good guys.
* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: ''Not'' played for laughs in Almah Hichin's story in book 5 (''A Deadly Shade of Gold''), where she says she thought she heard a woman scream, only to find it was her host Carlos Menterez, who'd just had a stroke.
* SecularHero: In book 5 (''A Deadly Shade of Gold''), when the topic is discussed, Travis notes that he does believe that there's a divine order to the universe, but isn't one for organized religion himself.
-->"But to me, organized religion, the formalities and routines, it's like being marched in formation to look at a sunset. I don't knock it for other people. Maybe they need routines, rules, examples, taboos, object lessons, sermonizing. I don't."
* SlashedThroat: In book 5 (''A Deadly Shade of Gold''), Almah Hichin dies when someone cuts her throat from behind shortly before the boat explosion that kills Nora Garcia.
* VerbalTic: In book 5 (''A Deadly Shade of Gold''), when Travis is dealing with a travel agent on Los Angeles, the man speaks with a random, very loud emphasis on some words.

[[folder:#06: ''Bright Orange for the Shroud'' (1965) (10+ tropes)]]

* AssholeVictim: In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), Wilma Ferner tricked Arthur Wilkinson (and ten others before him) into marriage as part of a con, and is later suspected and ultimately confirmed to have died at the hands of her fellow con artist Boo Waxwell, after which he claimed her share of the money they conned out of Arthur.
* TheCon: In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), Arthur Wilkinson gets targeted and caught up in one involving a phony land deal (on real land) that's arranged for the sole purpose of cheating he and some others out of their savings.
* DomesticAbuse: In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), Arthur Wilkinson's wife married him as part of an elaborate scam to defraud him of all his money; she helped her partners in the scam by verbal abuse combined with the LysistrataGambit in order to push him into the investments they wanted him to make.
* DrivenToSuicide: Book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud'') reveals that Travis had a brother who committed suicide after being scammed out of his savings by a woman and her male accomplice, and that he'd killed both.
* FramingTheGuiltyParty: In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), Travis frames [[spoiler:Boo Waxwell for the murder-suicide of Crane Watts and his wife -- which Boo had initiated by ''raping'' her.]]
* GilliganCut: Chapter 2 of book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud'') ends with Travis asking Chookie [=McCall=] to come back to his houseboat and looking in on Arthur Wilkinson and Chookie saying "Trav, I wouldn't go anywhere near Arthur." The next chapter starts with the line "When I got back to the ''Busted Flush'' with Chook,".
* GivenNameReveal: In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), while she and Travis are meeting with Calvin Stebber, Chookie reveals her actual name is Barbara Jean [=McCall=].
* TheHeavy: Book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud'') features a syndicate of con artists who use a phony land deal to cheat their targets out of their savings. However, the active villain throughout most of the book is the syndicate's muscle and most physically dangerous of the group, Boone "little ol' Boo" Waxwell -- a Florida local who's also a murderer and [[spoiler:rapist]] who hides his sadism with a façade of GoodOldBoy charm.
* HiddenWeapons: In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), Boo Waxwell has a concealed knife in his belt, with the buckle as its hilt, which he tries to use on [=McGee=] the first time they meet. [=McGee=] outwits him and avoids being hit by it though.
* ImpairmentShot: In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), Travis suffers from double vision after Boo shoots him [[spoiler:while trying to catch Boo at the Watts' home]] and injures the side of his head.
* MarryingTheMark: In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), Arthur Wilkinson's wife, Wilma Ferner, is revealed to have married him as part of a con to defraud him of all of his money. And it's not the first time she and her associates have pulled this.
* MurderSuicide: Late in book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), [[spoiler:Vivian Watts, unable to cope with what's happened to her, shoots her drunken husband in the head and herself in the heart after she's raped by Boo Waxwell.]]
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: At one point in book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), [=McGee=] questions a woman, Mildred Mooney, and learns she had three children who all died in infancy.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: [[spoiler:In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), Travis -- who deals with worst of humanity as part of his livelihood -- experiences the deepest possible repulsion listening to Boone Waxwell raping Vivian Watts.]]
* SelfDisposingVillain: In the climax of book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), [[spoiler:Boo Waxwell has been trying to kill Travis, Chook and Arthur, but decides to try and escape them after they fight back and he realizes they're too much for him... and dies when he jumps in the water and accidentally impales himself on a dead mangrove root.]]
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: In book 6 (''Bright Orange for the Shroud''), it's shown that Chookie gets jumpy around thunderstorms.

[[folder:#07: ''Darker than Amber'' (1966) (10+ tropes)]]

* AccidentalMurder: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), while he shoots Griff with intent to injure only, Travis's aim is off, and as a result he severs an artery in the man's lung, killing him.
* CarFu: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), fter the first attempt to kill Evangeline "Vangie" Bellemer fails, the culprits succeed in doing so a second time via a hit-and-run job.
* CementShoes: The plot of book 7 (''Darker than Amber'') kicks off when Travis and Meyer see a woman being thrown off a bridge, having been tied to a cement block with heavy wire, and Travis leaps in to save her. It's later revealed that this was the gang's preferred method of disposing of the victims of their cons.
* CranialEruption: Downplayed in book 7 (''Darker than Amber'') -- at one point, Travis ends up with a knot on his head (that he can feel, but not see) from standing up too fast and slamming into the roof of Meyer's boat.
* CriminalProcedural: Book 7 (''Darker than Amber'') has [=McGee=] discover a con game and plot to take it down with a con of his own; the book shows, in particularly impressive and plausible detail, both how the innocent victims got taken and how Travis and his best friend and accomplice Meyer work the big con on the con men.
* DeadPersonImpersonation: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), as part of the con to bring down Vangie's killers, Travis finds a woman who can serve as a body double and make it look like Vangie is still alive, causing the man who sees her to go berserk and make a scene that gets him taken into custody.
* DomesticAbuse: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), immediately prior to the opening of the story, [=McGee=] had been helping a woman -- an old friend of his named Virginia, or Vidge for short -- get back on her feet after escaping from an emotionally (though not physically) abusive marriage.
* GoodbyeCruelWorld: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), during his con, Travis has Adele "Del" Whitney (real name Jane Adele Stussland) write a fake suicide note (to be mailed to the police) that makes it look like she chose to kill herself rather than stay involved in her colleagues' plans, along with confessing everything she knew (which is part of Travis's planned setup to get her arrested along with the rest of the gang).
* HeKnowsTooMuch: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), Evangeline "Vangie" Bellemer is dumped in the river in an attempt to kill her when her colleagues find she'd gotten cold feet and tried to warn off one of their intended victims. When they find she survived, they go after her again, and this time succeed.
* MidSuicideRegret: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), after having sent a letter to the police claiming (falsely) that she was going to kill herself after confessing to all their crimes, Del Whitney contacts them again and says she changed her mind, and was willing to talk. She doesn't realize they're planning to arrest her for her part in the gang's crimes.
* NeverSuicide: Attempted in book 7 (''Darker than Amber'') -- after Travis retrieves Vangie's hidden stash of money, he's confronted by her former colleague Walter "Griff" Griffin, who forces Travis to drive to a beach and then plans to shoot him and make it look like a suicide. Travis thwarts this when, after laying down on the ground like he was told, he promptly whips out his own hidden gun and shoots Griff.
* PantsPositiveSafety: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), Travis mentions that he has a pair of pants with a spring-release holster hidden in the right front pocket, designed by a Cuban woman for him.
* RevealingCoverUp: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), Evangeline "Vangie" Bellemer is dumped in the river when her colleagues discover she tried to warn one of the victims of their con game; this attempt to silence her gets Travis and Meyers involved when they witness the attempted murder.
* SherlockScan: In book 7 (''Darker than Amber''), Meyer demonstrates his use of the technique to identify Evangeline "Vangie" Bellemer's heritage and, after revisiting the spot, to determine the direction that the car that dumped her was coming from.
* TilMurderDoUsPart: One incident mentioned in book 7 (''Darker than Amber'') is a case where Travis was hired to protect a woman whose husband, a Seattle cop, tried to have her killed before his power of attorney over her ran out.

[[folder:#08: ''One Fearful Yellow Eye'' (1966) (10+ tropes)]]

* AccentRelapse: Inverted in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye'') -- [[spoiler:Anna Ottlo has worked hard for years to be able to shed her thick German accent, as revealed during the final confrontation, when she starts speaking perfect English]].
* AttemptedRape: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), when Travis is finally able to get Susan Kemmer to talk, she admits (among other things) that after her mother took off (and is later confirmed to have been killed), her stepfather tried to force himself on her, to make her take Gretchen's place, but she fought him off, resulting in him beating her badly instead.
* {{Blackmail}}: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), according to the lawyer, there was a clumsy attempt at blackmailing Fortner Geis three years before the present day, around the time he and Glory married. Glory explains later that in a weak moment during the time his first wife was dying, he had an affair with the daughter of his housekeeper and got her pregnant, after which he agreed to pay her a sum every year to help her out. Years later, she tried to blackmail him into increasing her settlement, and he responded by instead speaking to their daughter, arranging for her to call him for help if they ''really'' needed it.
* TheCon: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), this is what the villains were up to -- they tricked Dr. Geis so they could steal his money.
* ContinuityNod: The incident where Travis was drugged with LSD in book 2 (''Nightmare In Pink'') gets referenced in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), and Travis still shudders at the memory.
* DontSplitUsUp: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), part of the reason Susan was reluctant to go to the authorities for help after her near-rape was because she was afraid she'd lose her siblings as a result.
* DramaticShattering: PlayedForLaughs in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), where as a way of helping Heidi Geis Trumbill and her business partner, Travis sneakily causes a client at their gallery to fall on and break the hollow sculpture of two dogs mating that he's trying to have them display. The client is ''most'' distressed afterward and leaves sadly; however, the others all laugh so hard that they cry after he goes.
* GiveMeBackMyWallet: A variant in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), where Travis is at a hotel and stops "Cinny Lee" from swiping a ''different'' man's wallet after she knocked him out via [[SlippingAMickey slipping chloral hydrate into his drink]].
* HappilyFailedSuicide: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), in Gloria's backstory, shortly after her husband murdered their children and then killed himself, Gloria wandered about, emotionally lost. After eventually finding a place to stay and then getting kicked out when she couldn't pay up, she went down to the beach, trying to build up the energy to walk out to sea and drown, where Travis found her and helped her put her life back together, eventually seeing her married to another man.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: In the last chapter of book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), after seeing Gloria force Travis to take a share of the money he recovered, lawyer John Andrus doesn't use the phrase outright... but announces that at this point, he's going to just take the rest of the money to the bank, and then go sit in a bar.
* KickTheDog: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), during a conversation with Fort's former lover and college Janice Stanyard, Travis learns that she once came home to find one of her cats murdered. It later turns out that [[spoiler:Saul Gorba did it, on Anna Ottlo's orders]], for no real reason other than to torment her.
* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Discussed a few times in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye'').
** It's explained at one point that Travis became one for Gloria "Glory" Doyle after he found her and saved her from suicide. Eventually though, he detached himself from her by finding her help.
** In the last chapter, Heidi Geis Trumbill recognizes that Travis is becoming this for her, and so she needs to leave and get back on her feet so she can live her own life.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: In the climax of book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), this is how the villains plan to kill Travis and Heidi, drowning them in a basin of salt water and then leaving the bodies in a place where it looks like they washed ashore.
* MayDecemberRomance: According to Gloria's backstory in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), she married Fortner Geis, her second husband, when he was fifty and she was twenty-nine, and with the full knowledge that he only had a few years left.
* MurderSuicide: In Gloria's backstory in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), after she left her first husband Karl Doyle and told him to see a psychiatrist for his possessiveness and other issues, he responded by tracking down the friend she and their kids were staying with; having found Gloria wasn't there (she was out buying groceries), he proceeded to murder both their children and the owner of the house before shooting himself.
* NonProtagonistResolver: In the climax of book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), [[spoiler:after Travis kills Anna Ottlo, he's confronted by her partner Perry (an alias of Wilhelm Vogel), who's promptly shot in the back of the head by a couple of investigators who were searching for the pair to bring them to justice for their crimes in Nazi Germany]].
* OffingTheOffspring: In Gloria's backstory in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), her first husband Karl Doyle always resented their two children for taking any of her attention away from him. Eventually, when she took the kids and left, telling him that she'd only come back if he got counseling, he tracked them down at the place where they were staying and shot both children, their host, and himself.
* ParalyzingFearOfSexuality: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), Heidi eventually realizes, with Travis's help, that she lost her ability to be interested in sex after seeing her father in bed with Gretchen. She's still attracted to men, just not physically, and in the last chapter it's revealed she's getting counseling for the trauma she's been put through that resulted in this condition (and more recently as well).
* RansackedRoom: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), when Travis goes by the farm where Saul Gorba and his family have been hiding out, he finds their car torn apart, the kitchen ransacked, and Saul's dead body strapped to the wall of a nearby shed.
* SecretIdentity: The climax of book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye'') reveals that the villain of the book, [[spoiler:Anna Ottlo, is actually a Nazi war criminal -- Fredrika Gronwald. Along with her associate Wilhelm Vogel, they arranged for Fredrika to pose as the ''real'' Anna Ottlo, then took her daughter Gretchen, who fell for the impersonation, and came to America with her.]]
* SlippingAMickey: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), Travis is at a hotel and realizes one "Cinny Lee", a woman with a fake accent, [[SlippingAMickey had slipped chloral hydrate into her target's drink]], then tried to sneak off with his wallet (and Travis figures she planned to just plain rob him and then, when he woke up, pretend someone else robbed them both while they were asleep). He thwarts this plan, much to her irritation.
* SuicideBySea: Attempted in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye'') -- Travis first meets Gloria when she's on the beach, trying to build up the energy to walk out to sea and drown. He ends up saving her from doing so.
* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: A few times in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye'').
** When Travis questions Heidi's ex-husband, he learns about an incident where her box of chocolate-covered cherries was tampered with so one of them had Tabasco sauce inside instead of a cherry. [[spoiler:Anna Ottlo later admits to having done it, for no real reason.]]
** At one point, Gloria overdoses on LSD-25, and Travis has to fight her down and restrain her because it's driven her to madness. She lives, fortunately, and Travis later finds that [[spoiler:Anna Ottlo]] slipped it into her orange juice, for the sole purpose of watching her reaction while on it.
* TheUnsmile: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), on his way back to his hotel room after meeting with Janice Stanyard, Travis tries to smile and cheer himself up, but it just ends up a disturbing one that scares another woman who's waiting for the elevator.
* UseYourHead: During the final confrontation in book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), Travis manages to headbutt his captor in the stomach while still tied to a chair. [[spoiler:It sends Anna falling backwards and to her death, as her collision with the wall leads to a plate-glass window falling out and striking her on the neck, killing her.]]
* WickedStepmother: In book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye''), Fortner Geis's lawyer tells Travis that Heidi Geis Trumbill was rather convinced that her stepmother Gloria was this, trying to claim she was responsible for the murder of her first family and had used hypnosis to manipulate Fort into marrying her, then converting all his holdings into cash and hiding it away, all so she'd get everything and his kids would get nothing. It's a load of nonsense, of course.

[[folder:#09: ''Pale Gray for Guilt'' (1968) (10+ tropes)]]

* AccidentalMurder: Two in book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt'').
** During his final confrontation with Travis, Deputy Hazzard admits to hitting a woman he was trying to arrest a little harder than he planned, and she died when she fell forward onto the tines of a poorly positioned rake.
** During the same talk, he admits that Tush Bannon's death was also an accident, as he mistakenly hit him in the face in the wrong spot and drove a couple of bones in his nose back into his brain, with fatal results.
* BurialAtSea: In the last chapter or two of book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), after Deputy Hazzard's death, Travis and Janine wrap his body up and dump him out at sea.
* CareerEndingInjury: As noted in book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), Tush Bannon used to play football professionally, until a pinched nerve in his neck forced him to retire.
* ClearMyName: Part of book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt'') involves Travis having to clear his name when he's arrested by the Shawana County sheriff, Hadley "Bunny" Burgoon, as a suspect in Tush Bannon's murder. It turns out the witness gave an accurate description of the murder, but identified Travis as the killer rather than the real culprit, and then followed it up with some falsehoods about the last time he'd visited the area, on orders from the actual killer.
* TheCon: In book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), Travis and Meyer pull this off masterfully, ''twice''. First on the smaller but more directly involved villain, whom they convince that Meyer is [[spoiler:a CorruptCorporateExecutive who will take a bribe to make a deal for his company's business]]; then, on the bigger but more distant villain, who they entice with an apparent [[spoiler:can't miss insider trading deal.]]
* CriminalProcedural: Book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt'') has [=McGee=] discover a con game and plot to take it down with a con of his own; the book shows, in particularly impressive and plausible detail, both how the innocent victims got taken and how Travis and his best friend and accomplice Meyer work the big con on the con men.
* CrusadingWidow: In book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), Deputy Hazzard pays the ultimate price for his crimes -- not at Travis' hands, but those of [[spoiler:Janine Bannon, widow of the murdered Tush, when he comes after she and Travis on Travis's houseboat to try and use it to flee the country]].
* DearJohnLetter: At the end of book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), Puss Killian sends one to Travis explaining her background and why she chose to leave him.
* DrivenToSuicide: Subverted in book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt'') -- Travis is told that Tush Bannon killed himself after he went broke and was evicted from his property. He's suspicious though, and soon proves it was actually murder.
* GoshDangItToHeck: InUniverse in book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), where Travis notes that Tush Bannon doesn't like to swear when remembering how he got his nickname -- he was upset and yelled "Oh ... TUSH!" after he was tackled during a football game.
* ImpromptuTracheotomy: Late in book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), Deputy Hazzard admits that when he was trying to arrest a woman and she resisted, he hit her a little harder than planned... and she fell forward and died when her neck was impaled on the tines of a poorly positioned rake, causing her to bleed out before he could do anything to help her.
* ImprovisedWeapon: In book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), [[spoiler:Janine Bannon avenges her husband's murder when she bashes his killer, Deputy Freddy Hazzard, over the head with a fire extinguisher]].
* InSeriesNickname:
** In book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), Brantley Breckenridge Brannon started going by "Tush" after an improvised swear he let out during a football game.
** In the same book, it's revealed that Preston [=LaFrance=] goes by "Press", as he admits.
* JustLikeRobinHood: Averted for once in book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt'') -- it's only his friend Meyer's intervention that saves [=McGee=] from ruining his "professional standing" with an "unadulterated, unselfish, unrewarded effort in behalf of [[spoiler:even the grieving widow of an old and true friend]]."
* LawmanGoneBad: Book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt'') features Freddy Hazzard, former deputy of the Shawana County Sheriff's Department, who was a straight arrow cop but just a little too handy with a blackjack. The latter trait cost [[spoiler:Tush Bannon]] his life, which brought Travis [=McGee=] into said county with a thirst for justice, and things go very much more wrong from there for the deputy.
* NeverSuicide: In book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), Tush Bannon is beaten to death, and the killer set things up to make it look like he committed suicide via dropping a boat's engine block on his own head (though the coroner rules it an accident, since there was no suicide note and no witnesses). Travis's mission is subsequently to identify Tush's killer and prove it was murder.
* WentToTheGreatXInTheSky: In book 9 (''Pale Gray for Guilt''), when Travis is upset over Tush Bannon's death, Puss Killian says it's understandable -- "You really took it hard. Your dear old buddy has gone to the big marina in the sky."

[[folder:#10: ''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper'' (1968) (10+ tropes)]]

* {{Blackmail}}: The villains of book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper'') are both guilty of this, one having blackmailed a local doctor over the man's murder of his shrewish wife, the other blackmailing another doctor who's been having a homosexual affair with his tennis partner to keep him from going to the cops if he found anything that could prove a crime had been committed. And then he tries to blackmail his partner, which [[BlackmailBackfire backfires fatally]].
* BlackmailBackfire: In the climax of book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), [[spoiler:Tom Pike tries to blackmail Dave Broon to keep him quiet about their scheme. End result, Broon snaps and murders Pike.]]
* ContinuityNod: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), during a flashback to the time Travis was with Helena Pearson, he references Lois Atkinson and her death in book 1 (''The Deep Blue Good-by'').
* DeadManWriting: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), on September 28, Helena Pearson writes a letter to Travis. By the time he gets it in October, she's already dead from a failed cancer surgery.
* DestinationDefenestration: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), while at his motel and shortly after learning that Maureen Pike has disappeared and her husband and sister are out searching for her, Travis briefly considers that she might try to throw herself out a window, since it's about the only suicide method she hasn't gone for yet. [[spoiler:Later, shortly after Travis finds evidence that someone was giving Maureen Pike injections that messed with her memory, he discovers her body, having been thrown out a twelfth-story window to her death.]]
* DirtyCop: Book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper'') features Dave Broon, whose name keeps coming up in the investigation, up to his threatening one of Dr. Sherman's assistants not to talk to anyone about thinking he was murdered instead of killing himself, and taking some piece of evidence away from the office. He's also a blackmailer and a willing participant in Tom Pike's scheme to get his hands on his dying mother-in-law's money.
* TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), during her final letter to Travis, Helena Pearson (by then Helena Trescott) refers to her illness (which is clearly cancer, based on the context, and outright confirmed as bowel cancer late in the book) as "the big C".
* DomesticAbuse: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), the local doctor, Stewart Sherman, suffered terrible verbal abuse from his wife Joan for many years, and was being {{blackmail}}ed by Tom Broon because he figured out that Stewart had finally had enough and murdered her three years before the story starts.
* DrivenToSuicide: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), it's widely believed that Dr. Stewart Sherman killed himself, and Officer Stanger theorizes that he did it out of guilt after his wife's death (which he believes, correctly, that the doctor was responsible for) three years before. It's actually murder to cover up his part in another crime he was made to commit on behalf of the killer.
* FilchingFoodForFun: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), when Travis is coming back to his motel room, he finds that one of the maids had found and helped herself to a bottle of gin he'd left in the closet -- it backfires on her because she didn't know the doctored bottle that Penny Woertz had used to try and drug Travis with a few days before, and she passes out from drinking it as a result. Travis then has to get another maid to help sneak the first one out so she can sleep it off without getting in trouble.
* IWarnedYou: A rather rude variant in book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper'') -- Helena Pearson's family never approved of her marriage to her husband Michael, thinking he was too old for her and wasn't suitable for settling down with... and when he was killed in a robbery after twenty-one years of marriage and two daughters with her, one of them had the gall to tell her "I told you so".
* ImpromptuTracheotomy: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), Penny Woertz is killed in the way via a pair of garden shears stabbed into her throat.
* InsecureLoveInterest: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), Richard Hilton's wife tells Travis that she thinks her husband feels unworthy of being loved by ''anyone'', and can't believe that anyone would really love him, so he sabotages his own relationships.
* InterruptedSuicide: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), when Helena Pearson writes to Travis, part of the reason is because her daughter Maureen has tried to kill herself but been stopped at least three times already (via an overdose, cutting her wrists, and a noose she set up but didn't get to try and use before being caught) since her second miscarriage, and wants Travis to try and keep her from doing so again. The trope is later subverted with the reveal that they were only ''made'' to look like suicide attempts, setting things up so her eventual murder would look like a suicide attempt that finally succeeded.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), on a hunch, Travis talks to a doctor he knows and learns about a chemical, puromycin, that can wipe out recently-gained memories in humans and animals. Soon after, he finds evidence that Maureen Pike was being injected with it, explaining why her mind's been going.
* MassiveNumberedSiblings: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), according to Penny during her conversation with Travis, she has six brothers and no sisters; she also notes that because of this, "I've never been able to really be a girl-girl, luncheons and girl talk and all that."
* OffingTheOffspring: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), [[spoiler:it's revealed that Tom Pike arranges the abortion of his own child so they wouldn't get in the way of his claiming his mother-in-law's money when she died.]]
* MedicationTampering: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), Lieutenant Stanger thinks (though it's never confirmed) that if Dr. Sherman killed his wife, this is how he did it -- by switching out her insulin for distilled water, so she didn't get her medicine on schedule.
* NeverSuicide: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), part of the reason Rick and Penny got involved in investigating the death of Penny's boss -- a local doctor, Stewart Sherman -- is because it was dismissed as a suicide, when the evidence didn't fit. They turn out to be right.
* RebuffTheAmateur: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), after Rick and Penny explain everything about why they tried to drug and then investigate Travis, he tells them how stupid they were and that if they'd tried it on someone who was ''really'' up to no good, they'd probably be dead by now.
* SayingTooMuch: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), while thinking about his meeting with Janice Holton, Travis realizes that she knew he was from Fort Lauderdale without him mentioning it, and gets suspicious as a result. He eventually figures out who must have told her about him -- [[spoiler:her lover, Tom Pike (the husband of Maureen Pike, whom Travis is in town to help)]], which ultimately helps Travis figure out that said person is one of the killers he's after.
* SimilarItemConfusion: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), Lieutenant Stanger theorizes that Dr. Sherman killed his wife by switching out her insulin for distilled water, which looks just the same, so she wouldn't notice the swap until it was too late. It's never confirmed though.
* SlippingAMickey: In book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper''), while at the motel cocktail lounge, Travis meets and has a couple of drinks with a woman named Penny Woertz. After they leave for another room though, he quickly determines that the next drink she offers him was tampered with and takes steps to neutralize it, then fakes passing out anyway. When her accomplice Rick Holton arrives and they start going through his pockets, Travis "revives" and fights back.
* UndercoverCopReveal: Book 10 (''The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper'') features an "Honorary sheriff" reveal when Travis fights back against Rick and Penny, the latter of whom tried to drug him. It comes out in the process that Rick is actually an Attorney at Large and honorary sheriff in their county, and they tried to drug Travis because they know a tall man was apparently involved in a murder and some related activities; when they saw Travis, who is also tall, visiting the same man that their suspect had been seen with, they mistook him ''for'' that suspect and tried to waylay him in such a way that they could find proof.

[[folder:#11: ''Dress Her in Indigo'' (1969) (10+ tropes)]]

* AddictionDisplacement: ''Not'' portrayed positively at all in book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''). During the climax, Eva Vitrier explains that she'd done this with [[spoiler:Bix Bowie]], getting her off the heroin and other drugs she was on and substituting them with a drug called charas (similar to marijuana), which she smokes three times a day.
* ClosetGay: In book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), Travis is told that Eva Vitrier has had many affairs with younger girls. Eva herself, however, denies this, claiming that she just rehabilitates and trains disadvantaged young girls. Travis isn't buying it, and later catches her in bed with a girl -- [[spoiler:the very same girl whose death he's been investigating]].
* CranialEruption: In book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), Meyer gets a nasty one courtesy of [[spoiler:Wally [=McLeen=]]] when he and Travis confront the man over his part in the deaths of a number of people.
* DeathFakedForYou: Book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo'') has this happen to [[spoiler:Beatrice "Bix" Bowie, who was reported dead, when it was in fact her friend Minda [=McLeen=] who was murdered and made to look like Bix. Travis ultimately exposes this and returns Bix to her father.]]
* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: In book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), after clearing up a kidnapping job in which nobody -- the kidnapper, the kidnappee, the kidnappee's family -- walked away happy with what they got, Travis grouses that they all would have been happier had he never done anything. Meyer responds with the following lines:
-->"A grown-up man must make a lousy decision from time to time, knowing it is lousy, because the only other choice is lousy in another dimension, and no matter which way he jumps, he will not like it. So he accepts the fact that the fates dealt him two low cards, and he goes on from there."
* InTheBack: In book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), while Travis is investigating, he's led to a crime scene already being investigated by the police, with three dead bodies, all killed via a blow to the head. Only one of them fits the trope though -- Della Davis, who was struck and killed from behind.
* KarmicDeath: In book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), [[spoiler:Wally [=McLeen=]]] is revealed to have been responsible for a handful of deaths, but dies himself via a StaircaseTumble while trying to chase after and kill Travis and Meyer after he learns they've figured out about his crimes.
* KarmaHoudini: Ultimately, in book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), the book's villain is last seen BoundAndGagged, but never arrested for her crimes.
* LanguageBarrier: It's downplayed in book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), but still enough to cause a bit of trouble for Travis in one scene, when he's talking to a twelve-year-old Mexican boy who has to speak slowly, loudly and repeatedly until Travis is able to understand it. He still doesn't understand what the kid is saying when the boy tells him about some people who drove away in a "heap-di-row", until a few days later when, after hearing something similar, he realizes the boy meant "Jeep de color rojo", or "a red Jeep" (since in Spanish, "J" is pronounced as "H"). This provides him with an important clue and leads him to someone else who can provide him with information.
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: The plot of book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo'') kicks off when T. Harlan "Harl" Bowie has hired Travis and Meyer to go to Mexico and learn what his daughter, Beatrice "Trix" Tracy Bowie was involved in during her last days, before her death. [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out she's FakingTheDead, but played straight in that it was Minda [=McLean=] who died in her place, and was survived by her father for a short while until his own death during the book.]]
* RelationshipSabotage: In the climax of book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), Eva Vitrier admits that one of the girls who was staying with her discovered Eva was having a lesbian relationship with the other girl, and tried to break them up via contacting her friend's father and having him come down to get her. It's justified in her case, as the relationship was ''very'' unhealthy (though if Eva is to be believed, the girl who tried to break them up only did so because they were the same gender). [[spoiler:Eva, unwilling to give up her lover, pays a man to kill Minda in retaliation.]]
* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: During the climax of book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), Eva tries to bribe Travis with two hundred thousand dollars to go away and not tell anyone what she's been up to. Travis, who has standards, responds with a [[TapOnTheHead chop to the neck]] that knocks her out.
* StaircaseTumble: In book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), [[spoiler:Wally [=McLeen=]]] dies when he tries to run away from Travis and Meyer and trips on the stairs, falling down and hitting his head hard enough to kill him.
* TapOnTheHead: In the climax of book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), Travis uses the "chop to the neck" version to knock out Eva Vitrier after she tries to bribe him to go away and never tell anyone about her crimes.
* TraumaCongaLine: Happens to T. Harlan Bowie in the lead-up to the beginning of book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), as first his wife Liz develops a brain tumor that kills her five months later, with her badly deteriorating the whole time. Then he suffers an accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down, and finally, while recovering from that, he gets a call saying that his daughter has died in a car accident in Mexico. Sure, he discovers that some of his stock options have come through and will now pay out enough for him to live on the rest of his life... but compared to losing his wife, his daughter and his mobility, that's ''nowhere'' near worth enough to make up for it. [[spoiler:He ultimately gets Bix back in body, but not the Bix he knew, as she's still in rough shape and just wants to go back to Eva.]]
* UnequalPairing: In book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), Travis is told, and eventually confirms, that the older woman (though her exact age isn't said) Eva Vitrier has had many affairs with teenage or college-age girls. [[spoiler:While it's uncertain how unequal her past lovers were, the relationship with Bix Bowie is ''very'' unequal, as the girl had gotten hooked on drugs; Eva helped her via AddictionDisplacement and seduced her, ultimately treating her more like a pet than a person -- caring for her, but not helping her completely break her addiction or willing to let her reconnect with her old life, as she feels it'll just bring Bix back to her old badly worn-out self.]]
* WouldHitAGirl: Travis certainly would, if he needed to defend himself. This includes in the climax of book 11 (''Dress Her in Indigo''), when he gets in a fight with Eva Vitrier [[spoiler:after he catches her in bed with the supposedly dead Bix Bowie]].

[[folder:#12: ''The Long Lavender Look'' (1970) (10+ tropes)]]

* AccidentalMurder: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), it's mentioned that Travis's lawyer once got an acquittal for a man who did this, having unwittingly shot his insomniac wife when he mistook her for a prowler.
* {{Blackmail}}: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), while investigating Lew Arnstead's actions, Travis learns that he did this to Dori Severiss -- she has sex with him, and in return he won't turn her in for robbing her employer (out of desperation for money to pay bills she couldn't afford). Then he talks her into sleeping with a friend of his, threatening to send photos and a copy of her confession to her husband if she doesn't cooperate, and keeps pulling the same thing for months afterward.
* BoundAndGagged:
** Late in book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), Travis leaves Lilo Perris in this state after he figures out she's luring him into a trap.
** Later, when Travis is talking to Sheriff Hyzer and Deputy Billy Cable, Cable keeps interrupting him until Hyzer threatens to use this trope on him if he doesn't shut up. Cable obeys.
* TheBusCameBack: In the last few pages of book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), Travis finds Heidi Geis Trumbill from book 8 (''One Fearful Yellow Eye'') in his home just as he's returning after some time away.
* ClearMyName: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), following an incident in which Travis saw a woman (later revealed as Lilo Perris) running across the street, which led him to swerve off the road and into a swamp, Travis reports the incident to the police -- and he and Meyer are subsequently taken into custody for their supposed part in the murder of a Frank Baither, whom neither has even ''heard'' of before. Travis has to work to clear their names as a result.
* DisposingOfABody: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), after discovering Lew Arnstead's body in the back of his loner car, Travis and Betsy (whom he'd been spending the night with) dump it in a deep hole some distance away so as to cover up the attempted frame job they think was happening. [[spoiler:Later, King Sturnevan kills Betsy Kapp and, after Travis sees the body and goes off to deal with Lilo and Henry Perris, Sturnevan takes her and buries her in his garden.]]
* EyeScream: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), while thinking about Cora Arnstead's cataracts, Travis recalls a rather disturbing con he's heard of in India where someone pretends to cure a cataract patient via injuring the eye in such a way that they regain their sight... for a short time, before they go completely blind within ninety days.
* FrameUp: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), while Travis is spending the night with Betsy Kapp, Lew Arnstead's ex, someone dumps Lew's dead body in the back of his loner car, which Travis believes is an attempt to set him up.
* IHaveNoSon: Or daughter, in this case. In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), when Travis talks with Johnny Hatch and mentions his daughter Lillian (though not by name), Hatch turns cold and tells Travis, in no uncertain terms, that she is nothing to him, her mother is nothing to him, and everyone in the area knows that nobody mentions either of them to him. Then he tells Travis to leave, which Travis does. [[spoiler:It later turns out that he's angry because he's long since figured out that she literally ''wasn't'' his daughter, but Sheriff Norman Hyzer's.]]
* JustInTime: An accidental version is revealed in the final chapter of book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), where it's explained that Travis and the book's villain, both badly injured, were found in the nick of time by a couple of teenagers who wanted to break into the house that Travis was guarding. Instead, their sudden arrival saved Travis's life [[spoiler:and for a time, the villain's]].
* TheKillerBecomesTheKilled: In the climax of book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), Travis -- who's been deputized and is keeping watch over one of the crime scenes in the book, in order to catch the book's last remaining killer -- winds up shooting said final villain, [[spoiler:King Sturnevan]], in self-defense. [[spoiler:In something of a subversion, Sturnevan actually survives the night, but the final chapter -- a few months later -- has Meyer informing Travis that he'd died in the hospital that morning of a massive coronary occlusion.]]
* LecherousStepparent: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), while investigating Lew Arnstead's things, Travis finds a letter urging Lew to stay away from Lillian "Lilo" Perris for multiple reasons, including how she was witnessed sleeping with her stepfather while her ailing mother (who was basically confined to bed and unable to speak much, all due to a stroke) was in the next room over. Unlike most examples, it's all but confirmed that this was entirely consensual between them.
* MirandaRights: Brought up early in book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look'') when Travis has been speaking to an officer about his car accident, and the officer, after speaking to a local sheriff, has Travis and Meyer detained so the sheriff can speak with them once he arrives, while claiming that since he's ''just'' detaining them and isn't the actual arresting officer, he doesn't ''have'' to read them their rights (though he does accurately say that he'd be reading them off a card). When the arresting officer actually arrives soon after, he does ''recite'' the Miranda Warning to them, but is not specifically shown as using the card to do so.
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), prior to the events of the story, Sheriff Norman Hyzer lost his wife and infant son in a car accident. [[spoiler:Later, Travis finds out that it applies to him twice over -- Lillian "Lilo" Perris, who's just been murdered, is actually Hyzer's daughter.]]
* PapaWolf: Discussed in one scene in book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look'') where Deputy Sturnevan tells Travis about a man from Peru who found out about an immigration officer who'd messed with his daughter, flew up to Miami and stabbed the man about forty times. Sturnevan also describes one Dale Featherman as this type, claiming that anyone who messed with his daughter would get skinned alive.
* PoliceBrutality: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), Meyer is on the receiving end of this, which Travis discovers while on his way to being questioned. The officer claims he just fell and hit his head on a bench, but Travis soon finds he was actually struck by a then off-duty officer, Lew Arnstead, who's subsequently been "dismissed with prejudice, booked for aggravated assault, and released on bond pending trial."
* RazorFloss: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), Travis eventually discovers Betsy Kapp was murdered via being strangled by wire and bound to a tree near the tarpaper shack that Lew Arnstead had been using for his dirty deeds. He subsequently goes after Lilo Perris, whom he's certain was involved in her death.
* SmallTownTyrant:
** Lew Arnstead, a deputy sheriff for Cypress County, Florida, in book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''). He beats up Meyer for no good reason (which gets him fired), and during Travis's subsequent investigation, is revealed to have neglected his ailing mother (who's losing her eyesight) and the family horse, had affairs with various women (some of whom he was physically abusive to) and was on drugs. It's indicated that he wasn't always this way though.
** [[spoiler:In the same book, Lew's fellow deputy King Sturnevan turns out to be one too, as he worked with Lew on his blackmail sideline, killed him and tried to frame Travis and Betsy for it, killed Betsy Kapp to cover up when she caught him destroying evidence and retrieving the money he and Lew got via blackmail, and drowned Lilo Perris while Travis was off talking to the sheriff.]]
* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: Downplayed; late in book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), during his clash with Henry Perris, Travis resorts to throwing a couple of oyster knives (small knives designed more for prying than cutting) at him, one of which finally kills the man when it catches him in the chest at the right angle to damage the arteries above his heart.
* TrappedInASinkingCar: The plot of book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look'') kicks off when Travis swerves his truck to avoid a woman running across the street in front of him and nearly falls off the road, then ''does'' fall off it when a rear tire blows out, and ends up underwater before Meyer rescues him.
* WaterTorture: In book 12 (''The Long Lavender Look''), after Travis captures the villainess Lilo Perris, ties her up and (after killing her associate) leaves her unattended, another of her associates finds her, interrogates her for information offscreen (by putting her head in a bucket of water), and then drowns her after she gives up the desired information.

----
!!I have yet to read the following books in the series (or in one case need to re-read it and add more tropes); the tropes come from the main trope page or from what I've read elsewhere. This is my main focus at the moment.

[[folder:Tropes from the main page or elsewhere without books listed]]

* NoDoubtTheYearsHaveChangedMe: In book ? (''()''), a woman fails to recognize a man as someone she had known years earlier (and who had a reason to want to kill her) because he had contracted cancer since she had last seen him. This resulted in him losing vast amounts of weight and shaving his head.

[[folder:#13: ''A Tan and Sandy Silence'' (1971)]]

* ShootHimHeHasAWallet: Narrowly averted in book 13 (''A Tan and Sandy Silence'') when Meyer starts to say "I happen to have here a-" and is cut off by the cop, very evidently thinking he's armed, telling him "Easy. Bring it out real slow." When Meyer continues his sentence, he explains that he has, and wants to show them, a note with information about the vehicle he and Travis were just looking at (belonging to Mary Broll) when the cops arrived on the scene.

* SkinnyDipping: In book 13 (''A Tan and Sandy Silence''), while looking for Mary Broll, Travis consults with her friend Holly Dressner (who was in her backyard pool when she heard him at the front door and answered in her robe) and accidentally discovers, when her robe slips, that she hadn't just been swimming -- she'd been skinny dipping. She confesses that it's just something she likes to do when she's alone.

[[folder:#14: ''The Scarlet Ruse'' (1972)]]

*

* In book 14 (''The Scarlet Ruse'')

[[folder:#15: ''The Turquoise Lament'' (1973)]]

* InheritanceMurder: Variant in book 15 (''The Turquoise Lament''), where Linda "Pidge" Lewellen, the daughter of an old friend, wants Travis's help to prove that her husband is trying to kill her for ''her'' inheritance.

* In book 15 (''The Turquoise Lament'')

[[folder:#16: ''The Dreadful Lemon Sky'' (1974)]]

* In book 16 (''The Dreadful Lemon Sky'')

[[folder:#17: ''The Empty Copper Sea'' (1978)]]

* AuditThreat: In book 17 (''The Empty Copper Sea''), [=McGee=] pulls this on a a bar owner -- knowing that health and fire codes are contradictory and therefore he is almost guaranteed to be breaking one of them. This scene was kept in the 1980 MadeForTVMovie adaptation ''Travis [=McGee=]'' (a FailedPilotEpisode starring Creator/RodTaylor).

* ClearTheirName: The plot of book 17 (''The Empty Copper Sea'') kicks off when [=McGee=] is hired to prove that Van Harder did ''not'' kill his boss, Hub Lawless.

* (checking) FakingTheDead: Book 17 (''The Empty Copper Sea'') has Travis hired to prove that Hub Lawless did this to set up his pilot, Van Harder.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:#18: ''The Green Ripper'' (1979)]]

* TheFightingNarcissist: In book 18 (''The Green Ripper''), Travis mentions one of his opponents always seems to be a bit too much "posing for the non-existent camera". It's just about [[{{Pride}} this guy's only flaw]], as he is a really good combat fighter.

* IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten: In book 18 (''The Green Ripper''), Travis tries to join the Church of the Apocrypha, a terrorist religious cult. As part of his Kitten Eating Test he is ordered to shoot someone.

* {{Mondegreen}}: A real-life example. According to Creator/StephenKing's nonfiction work ''Danse Macabre'', series author [=MacDonald=] named book 18 (''The Green Ripper'') after one.
-->John D. [=MacDonald=] tells the story of how for weeks his son was terrified of something he called "the green ripper." [=MacDonald=] and his wife finally figured it out -- at a dinner party, a friend had mentioned the Grim Reaper. What their son had heard was ''green ripper'', and later it became the title of one of [=MacDonald=]'s Travis [=McGee=] stories.

* PayEvilUntoEvil: Book 18 (''The Green Ripper''?) shows the dark side of this -- [=McGee=] has to kill several people who are part of a terrorist group who would kill him in a second if he didn't agree to help them. He eliminates them all and then suffers a HeroicBSOD immediately afterward.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:#19: ''Free Fall in Crimson'' (1981)]]

* HeroicBSOD: Travis has had his share throughout the series, but Meyer suffers one in the climax of book 19 (''Free Fall in Crimson'') so bad that it carries over into the next book. The villain holds him at gunpoint and takes him hostage; Meyer has gotten hurt before, but this is the closest he ever comes to actually dying in one of these adventures, and his self-image is shaken badly by his own lack of fortitude in this situation.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:#20: ''Cinnamon Skin'' (1982)]]

*

* In book 20 (''Cinnamon Skin'')

[[/folder]]

''Goblins on the Prowl'' (2015) continues the story from the point of view of William's friend Fauna, and reveals both their origins, as well as that of the enormous stone toad that gave the castle its name.\\\

The series is part of the same multiverse as Coville's ''The Foolish Giant'', ''Literature/TheDragonslayers'', ''Literature/TheUnicornChronicles'' series, the ''Literature/MagicShop'' series, and the short story ''Wizard's Boy'' (1996)[[note]]Collected in ''[[Literature/BruceCovillesBookOf Bruce Coville's Book of Magic: Tales to Cast a Spell on You]]'' (1996) and ''The One Right Thing'' (2008)[[/note]].\\\

* AccidentalMisnaming: The Baron can never remember William's name. William finds it ''very'' annoying that he can't be bothered to do so, but keeps quiet whenever it happens.

* AmphibianAtLarge: Toad-in-a-Cage Castle is named for a giant stone toad in a cage in the Grand Hall. In ''Goblins on the Prowl'', it gets brought to life, abducts William and takes off across the countryside with him.

** ''Goblins on the Prowl'' elaborates on this, explicitly mentioning Bellenmore and the departure of the dragons, along with mentioning the events of ''The Dragonslayers'' (that book's Princess Wilhelmina is noted as now being Queen) and ''The Foolish Giant'' as having happened in the past.

* CreepyHousekeeper: Downplayed with Hulda. She always yells (because of her bad hearing), and uses her mutilated finger (which is missing its last joint) to scare William into behaving, claiming that Granny Pinchbottom will bite off the end of ''his'' finger too if he doesn't keep out of the sweet jar. She's also not the best at keeping the castle clean, as evidenced by her letting the laundry sit for months and not bothering to dust the castle for even longer (William notes that he likes to write his name in the dust, and the only signatures that are gone are those that have been covered with new dust). But she's really harmless, and a good cook.

* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: The goblins, while definitely weird (no two look exactly alike -- some are big, some are small, some have varying-size limbs, some don't have limbs at all, and some have or don't have tails), are mostly snarky and pragmatic, and tend to be a lot more decent than many human characters. They also have a sort of emotional hive-mind; their King's emotions affect all the others. Meaning that when he's happy, they're happy, and when he's in an angry and deranged mood, so are the rest of them. In ''Goblins on the Prowl'', it's also noted that a group of goblins is called a mischief.
* ThePrankster: The goblins have a tendency to pull off harmless pranks, such as switching salt for sugar, tying laundry in knots, and leading children to play in the mud. But they can also do some more dangerous ones, such as putting soap on the stairs, which could cause someone to slip and break their neck (which nearly happens to Karl when he slips on a soap-coated step and falls on his rear, sliding the rest of the way down them).

* BackFromTheDead: While not shown on-screen, Igor says of dying that "Igor done that before" and that the experience was "not fun".

** Never touch Igor's hump. Even a friendly pat on it from someone he likes is enough to make him furious.

* RealAfterAll: When William was younger, the castle housekeeper terrified him with stories of "Granny Pinchbottom", who punishes naughty children ad whom she claims bit off part of one of her fingers. William was terrified of the same thing happening to him, until the castle librarian Karl saw his nervous behavior and told William that his father had long ago told ''him'' that Granny Pinchbottom was just a story the old ladies in the area used to terrify kids into behaving. After he lets the goblins out though, William learns from Igor that Granny Pinchbottom is very much real, and soon meets her himself.

* ScreamingWoman: Subverted with Hulda -- the morning after the goblins are freed, William and Karl have come out of William's room when they hear her scream and hurry to her aid. The next time she screams though, they realize it isn't in fright, but anger, which turns out to be because all the laundry, newly cleaned by the goblins, has also been completely tied into knots.
* SealedGoodInACan: The goblins had their spirits sucked out and imprisoned in the North Tower of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle, and their bodies locked in the dungeons, all because the old Baron and his sorcerer ally thought they were evil, rather than just mischievous.

* SimilarItemConfusion: Done deliberately by the goblins, who filled the sugar bowl with salt during their mischievous rampage.

* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: One of the goblins' pranks, the night they're freed, involves this -- they filled the sugar bowl on the dining room table with salt. William doesn't discover it until he's spooned some into his coffee.

* TheAgeless: [[spoiler: Fauna. It's revealed that ]] The sorceress Sophronia has also been visiting the Baron for years, but never looks any older.

* AstralProjection: While visiting Granny Pinchbottom, Fauna receives a potion called Sleep Walk, with enough for four or five uses. It grants the user the ability to project out of their body, and is ''mostly'' safe, but has a time limit of two hours before the drinker is shut out of their body. Also, they aren't completely invisible -- some people can see them out of the corner of their eye, and others will think they've seen a ghost. William ends up using it to keep in contact with Fauna and the others who are following after him to rescue him when he's abducted by the giant toad.

* BackFromTheDead: Discussed briefly when Fauna is visiting Granny Pinchbottom, with the latter voicing the opinion that reviving the dead is generally a bad idea.

* ClingyMcGuffin: Once it's put on, Solomon's Collar (which lets the user [[SpeaksFluentAnimal understand and be understood by animals]]) won't come off.

* ElmuhFuddSyndwome: Bwoonhiwda speaks in this manner. She's ''very'' frustrated when people have a hard time understanding her as a result.

* ForcedSleep: Shortly after the stone toad comes to life, the Baron is forced into an enchanted sleep. Bwoonhiwda later tells the cast that they need to break the spell or he'll die of starvation.

* ForcedTransformation: The giant toad of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle turns out to be (), who was forcibly turned into a giant toad and then [[TakenForGranite turned to stone]], with the stone toad placed in the castle for safekeeping.

* GlassShatteringSound: Bwoonhiwda is introduced this way, as Herky suddenly brings her into the castle and she proceeds to let out a shriek that shatters the glass pitcher Igor had brought a little earlier. It's also loud enough to wake Hulda out of a sound sleep, which is quite the achievement considering the latter is mostly ''deaf''.

* HornyVikings: Subverted by Bwoonhiwda -- she matches the appearance, up to and including a horned helmet, but she's really a nice person and a loyal servant of Queen Wilhelmina.

* LoveAtFirstSight: Igor is smitten with Bwoonhiwda from the moment he lays eyes on her, though it takes him some time to admit it.