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The Harlot's Tale: A Midwife Mystery (The Midwife's Tale #2)
By Sam Thomas. 2013
Sam Thomas's The Harlot's Tale takes readers back to Civil War England in this riveting sequel to The Midwife's Tale,…
hailed as an "ingenious, fast-paced mystery" by Kirkus ReviewsIt is August, 1645, one year since York fell into Puritan hands. As the city suffers through a brutal summer heat, Bridget Hodgson and Martha Hawkins are drawn into a murder investigation more frightening than their last. In order to appease God's wrath—and end the heat-wave—the city's overlords have launched a brutal campaign to whip the city's sinners into godliness. But for someone in York, this is not enough. First a prostitute and her client are found stabbed to death, then a pair of adulterers are beaten and strangled. York's sinners have been targeted for execution.Bridget and Martha—assisted once again by Will, Bridget's good-hearted nephew—race to find the killer even as he adds more bodies to his tally. The list of suspects is long: Hezekiah Ward, a fire and brimstone preacher new to York; Ward's son, Praise-God, whose intensity mirrors his father's; John Stubb, one of Ward's fanatic followers, whose taste for blood may not have been sated by his time in Parliament's armies. Or could the killer be closer to home? Will's brother Joseph is no stranger to death, and he shares the Wards' dreams of driving sin from the city.To find the killer, Bridget, Martha, and Will must uncover the city's most secret sins, and hope against hope that the killer does not turn his attention in their direction.Down the Aisle with Murder: An Otter Lake Mystery (The Otter Lake Mysteries #5)
By Auralee Wallace. 2018
First comes love. Then comes. . .murder?Some wedding stories are so bizarre that you can't even make them up. Take…
Erica Bloom's latest case of an Otter Lake bride whose BFF is MIA at the time she's supposed to perform her duties as maid of honor. ..only to be found DOA. Erica and her security team—minus her beloved Grady, who's on vacation, trying to stay out of town business and has a no-nonsense sheriff covering for him—have followed every possible lead to find out what really happened to the young woman. Is her death the result of a bachelorette party gone wildly wrong? Or did someone with cold feet snap—and turn into a cold-blooded killer? These are the questions that must be answered for the nuptials, which at the eleventh hour receive a dramatic makeover, to go off without a hitch…before 'til death do us part.Down the Aisle with Murder is part of the Otter Lake mystery series by Auralee Wallace.File Under Dead: A Tom And Scott Mystery (Tom & Scott Mysteries #10)
By Mark Richard Zubro. 2004
After years of avoiding volunteer organizations, Chicago high school teacher Tom Mason is finally guilted into volunteering a few hours…
a week at a local gay services clinic. Since he finds the bitter in-fighting at the organization to be intolerable, and the head of the clinic to be downright poisonous, Tom does his hours on early Saturday morning before anyone else arrives and avoids most of the office politics. But his quiet Saturday goes quickly awry when two gay teens, in a particularly difficult situation, seek him out for counseling early to avoid being seen by anyone else. After they leave, Tom decides to tidy up the cramped, disordered office and file some of the tettering piles that are practically everywhere. Filing turns out to be a surprisingly gruesome task, however, when in one of the filing cabinet drawers Tom finds the severed head of the director of the clinic. The director, called Snarly Bitch behind his back because of his unpleasant demeanor, had a particularly long enemies' list and Tom himself is not particularly choked up about his untimely demise. But with a long suspect list, a fairly indifferent police force, and the welfare of some of the clinic's youthful charges on the line, Tom himself must sort out the murder before an innocent takes the fall for this very unusual crime.Here Comes the Corpse: A Tom And Scott Mystery (Tom & Scott Mysteries #9)
By Mark Richard Zubro. 2002
Chicago area high school teacher Tom Mason and his lover, professional baseball player Scott Carpenter have had a taxing year.…
After publicly coming out, Scott and Tom have had to deal with a firestorm of publicity, a major loss of privacy, a great outpouring of support and an equal number of cranks. Now, finally, they are going to do something that they've always wanted - get married in a service before their family and close friends. Despite the potential problems of such of an event, the ceremony comes off with nary a hitch. With the reception in full swing - with a guest list ranging from long-time family friends and co-workers to the cream of the social elite - a small problem emerges. Tom happens to stumble over an ex-boyfriend from many years ago in the bathroom. Unfortunately, what he stumbles across is actually the corpse of the murdered ex-boyfriend and in addition to casting something of a pall across the proceedings, it puts Tom in the awkward position of being the prime suspect in the murder. If he's ever going to get to go on his long-planned honeymoon, Tom is going to have to uncover the truth behind the murder of this unwanted guest.Blackburn: A Novel
By Bradley Denton. 1993
Jimmy Blackburn grows up in the Midwest believing the things that adults tell him. He questions his teachers and they…
lie to him. He questions his parents and his father beats him. He questions the world and it hurts him.And so Jimmy Blackburn becomes a killer.In this novel we meet many of Blackburn's twenty-one victims. They include law enforcers, writers, adulterers, auto mechanics, and other liars.This is an exceptional novel, at once riotously funny and searingly potent: a vision of America through the eyes of the central bogeyman of our culture.Risk: A Novel
By Colin Harrison. 2009
An honest lawyer, a Czech hand model, and a box of mysterious Christmas ornaments--each plays a part in Colin Harrison's…
compelling new intrigueGeorge Young never thought of himself as a detective, but that's pretty much his vocation--an attorney at a top insurance firm, it's his job to pin down suspicious claims. But Mrs. Corbett, the rich, eccentric wife of the firm's founder, has it in mind to put George's skills to a peculiar assignment. With only a few months left to live, her one desire is to know the true circumstance of her son Roger's violent death. George's investigation leads him to Roger's mistress, a cagey Czech hand model named Eliska, who can cast a seductive spell simply by removing her gloves. Did Eliska's motives for latching on to Roger get him killed? Or did some of her shadowy and dangerous little friends take care of the job? And why were there boxes and boxes of Christmas ornaments in the dead man's apartment? George will have to take a few chances of his own if he wants to get to the bottom of Roger's death for Mrs. Corbett. Set against a volatile and vividly drawn Manhattan, Risk is prime Colin Harrison.Hard Knocks: A Novel (Jack Reilly #1)
By Howie Carr. 2011
Following the lead of Boston crime-thriller writers, New York Times bestselling author and radio sensation Howie Carr delivers Hard Knocks-a…
hard-hitting tale of survival, betrayal, deceit, and murder...in other words, a fictional odyssey through the last thirty years of crime in Boston.Jack Reilly, a dodgy ex-Boston cop, is trying to make ends meet as a private investigator. When a client is killed, execution style, Reilly finds himself in a whole world of pain. Someone wants him dead-but why? To find out, Reilly must weed through thirty years of duplicity, corruption, and killing...a web of politicians dirtier than mobsters and criminals nobler than senators. He needs to uncover the dangerous truth behind the bribery, blood, and backdoor deals that define the highest levels of both organized crime and State House politics-before it's too late.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.Gin and Panic: A Mystery (Discreet Retrieval Agency Mysteries #3)
By Maia Chance. 2017
“Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets—and has a high old time doing it! So will you.”—Ann B. Ross, New York Times…
bestselling author of the Miss Julia seriesFormer socialite Lola Woodby is now struggling to make ends meet as a not-so-discreet private eye in Prohibtion-era New York City, along with her stern Swedish sidekick, Berta. When they’re offered a piece-of-cake job—retrieving a rhinoceros trophy from the Connecticut mansion of big game hunter Rudy Montgomery—it seems like a no-brainer. After all, their client, Lord Sudley, promises them a handsome paycheck, and the gin and tonics will be plentiful and free. But no sooner do they arrive at Montgomery Hall than Rudy is shot dead. When the police arrive to examine the scene, they conclude that Rudy had actually committed suicide. But Lord Sudley can’t believe his friend would have done that, and there’s a houseful of suspicious characters standing by. So Lord Sudley ups the ante for Lola and Berta, and suddenly, their easy retrieval job has turned into a murder investigation. Armed with handbags stuffed with emergency chocolate, gin flasks, and a Colt .25, Lola and Berta are swiftly embroiled in a madcap puzzle of stolen diamonds, family secrets, a clutch of gangsters, and plenty of suspects who know their way around a safari rifle.Gin and Panic is the next jaunty, compelling Discreet Retrieval Agency mystery from beloved crime writer Maia Chance.Expiration Date: A Novel
By Duane Swierczynski. 2010
If you thought Duane Swierczynski's The Blonde and Severance Package were page turners, hold on to your seat. Expiration Date…
is a detective novel with a time-travel twist that will leave readers gasping.In this neighborhood, make a wrong turn… and you're history. Mickey Wade is a recently-unemployed journalist who lucked into a rent-free apartment—his sick grandfather's place. The only problem: it's in a lousy neighborhood—the one where Mickey grew up, in fact. The one he was so desperate to escape. But now he's back. Dead broke. And just when he thinks he's reached rock bottom, Mickey wakes up in the past. Literally. At first he thinks it's a dream. All of the stores he remembered from his childhood, the cars, the rumble of the elevated train. But as he digs deeper into the past, searching for answers about the grandfather he hardly knows, Mickey meets the twelve-year-old kid who lives in the apartment below. The kid who will grow up to someday murder Mickey's father.The Villa of Death: A Mystery Featuring Daphne Du Maurier (Daphne du Maurier Mysteries #3)
By Joanna Challis. 2011
Young Daphne du Maurier must defend a friend who has been accused of murder in the next installment in the…
beguiling mystery series that readers of Rebecca will love.It's the summer of 1927 and aspiring novelist Daphne du Maurier is headed to Cornwall for the wedding of her dear friend Ellen Hamilton to American millionaire Teddy Grimshaw. Having met during the chaos of the Great War, the lovers were cruelly separated for nearly a decade by circumstance and family interference. Now the wedding ceremony—held at Thornleigh Manor, a grand estate that has been in the Hamilton family for five centuries—marks a renewed hope for the future.But joy quickly turns to devastation when Teddy is found murdered right after the wedding. Wealth, jealousy, and buried secrets provide no shortage of suspects—or danger to everyone at Thornleigh, including Daphne herself. When Ellen is suspected of being the murderess, the independent-minded Daphne, along with the dashing Major Browning, is inspired to uncover the truth, and to write her next novel.Dead Red: A Raymond Donne Mystery (The Raymond Donne Mysteries #3)
By Tim O'Mara. 2014
Filled with the kinds of unexpected twists that make for the best crime fiction and with secrets that run far…
deeper than loyalties, Dead Red is the most thrilling mystery yet in Tim O'Mara's widely acclaimed series.New York City school teacher Raymond Donne had no idea how bad his night was going to get when he picked up the phone. Ricky Torres, his old friend from his days as a cop, needs Ray's help, and he needs it right now in the middle of the night. Ricky picks Ray up in the taxi he has been driving since returning from serving as a Marine in Iraq, but before Ricky can tell Ray what's going on the windows of the taxi explode under a hail of bullets, killing Ricky and knocking Ray unconscious as he dives to pull Ricky out of harm's way.Ray would've done anything to help Ricky out while he was alive. Now that he's dead, he'll go to the same lengths to find out who did it and why. All he has to go on is that Ricky was working with Jack Knight, another ex-cop turned PI. They were investigating the disappearance of a PR giant's daughter who had ties to the same Brooklyn streets that all three of them used to work. Is that what got Ricky killed or was he into something even more dangerous? Was there anything that Ray could've done for him while he was alive? Is there anything he can do for him now?Murder Off Mike: A Talk Radio Mystery (Talk-Radio Mysteries #1)
By Joyce Krieg. 2003
Murder Off Mike by Joyce Krieg introduces Shauna J. Bogart, a small and sassy radio talk show host/amateur sleuth. Shauna…
J. is used to dealing with the controversial, the contentious, the cranky, and the just plain crazed as the host of the afternoon gab fest on the top-rated station in California's state capital. But nothing prepares her for the day a fellow shock jock turns up with a bullet in his head. The cops say it's suicide, but Shauna J. isn't buying it. She launches her own investigation, putting herself at peril.Her investigation, aided and abetted by her loyal callers, leads her to a shattering secret that could derail the campaign of the leading candidate for governor. Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes shenanigans threaten the very existence of the radio station Shauna J. calls home. The action climaxes in a down-to-the-second pursuit through the streets of historic Old Sacramento during the city's world-famous Jazz Jubilee. Armed with only a roll of copper wire, a pirate radio transmitter, and her ingenuity, can Shauna J. get the station back on the air in time to reveal the truth to her listeners?A House by the Side of the Road
By Jan Gleiter. 1998
Someone in a peaceful Pennsylvania town has a brutal murder on his conscience......but who and why remain a mystery-- until…
Meg Kessinger moves in. The house she's inherited from an aunt is dilapidated, but she adores it-- and sets about restoring it with the help of a hunky, laid-back lawyer; a handsome, witty artist; and the secretive husband of her new girlfriend down the road. But soon Meg's rustic rhapsody is blighted by telltale traces of an unseen intruder's search for...what? Her determination to piece together rumors about the sexpot who lived there before her, and the convenient death of an old lady with a twitchy heart, will drag her into a perilous undertow of greed, cunning, and desperation that could turn her dream house into a waking nightmare...Chasing the Dragon: A Novel (The North Beach Mysteries #1)
By Domenic Stansberry. 2004
With Chasing the Dragon, Domenic Stansberry--the acclaimed writer of modern noir--introduces a new hardboiled series set in San Francisco. In…
this, the series opener, Stansberry tells a story written in clear homage to the masters of the genre, yet with an original, breathtaking voice all his own.A complicated, shadowy man in disgrace, Dante Mancuso leads a double life. Lately, though, the line he walks has become razor thin. Dante works for The Company, a nebulous security organization operating just this side of the law. Dante wants out, but it's a hard life to leave behind-rich with its own seductions, its own dark attractions. His latest assignment sends him back to his old North Beach neighborhood in San Francisco. First rendezvous? His estranged father's funeral in the dying heart of Little Italy. Here Dante picks up the strands of his old life and soon finds himself playing an even more elaborate game, a game that involves not just his duplicitous family, but also his ex-fiancée and his former colleagues in the San Francisco Police Department. Adept as he is, Dante can not play this game forever, pursued by the laconic Frank Ying, a Chinese detective anxious to know the secrets Dante hides. Caught between the sinister imperatives of The Company and the ghosts of his own past, Dante treads a harrowing path to a confrontation more lethal-and more surprising-than he could have imagined.Death on Telegraph Hill: A Sarah Woolson Mystery (Sarah Woolson Mysteries #5)
By Shirley Tallman. 2012
"Bringing Victorian San Francisco to colorful life, Tallman offers an entertaining mystery…that will appeal to fans of Anne Perry and…
Rhys Bowen." —Library Journal San Francisco, 1882. After enjoying an evening listening to the young Oscar Wilde, crusading young lawyer Sarah Woolson and her brother, Samuel, are making their way home when a gunshot sounds and a bullet pierces the fog, striking Samuel. Who could want to hurt Samuel? Was he even the intended target? Determined to find answers, Sarah discovers more murder and mayhem on Telegraph Hill.With Death on Telegraph Hill, Shirley Tallman delivers an exciting whodunit with a trailblazing heroine in a time and place when a nice young woman was supposed to be found in the drawing room instead of the courtroom.A Drop of Chinese Blood: A Mystery (The Inspector O Novels #5)
By James Church. 2012
James Church's Inspector O novels have been hailed as "crackling good" (The Washington Post) and "tremendously clever" (Tampa Tribune), while…
Church himself has been embraced by critics as "the equal of le Carré" (Publishers Weekly, starred). Now Church—a former Western intelligence officer who pulls back the curtain on the hidden world of North Korea in a way that no one else can—comes roaring back with a new novel introducing Inspector O's nephew, Major Bing, the long-suffering chief of the Chinese Ministry of State Security operations on the border with North Korea. The last place Bing expected to find the stunningly beautiful Madame Fang—a woman Headquarters wants closely watched—was on his front doorstep. Then, as suddenly as she shows up, Madame Fang mysteriously disappears across the river into North Korea, leaving in her wake both consternation and a highly sensitive assignment for Bing to bring back from the North a long missing Chinese security official. Concerned for his nephew's safety, O reluctantly helps him navigate an increasingly complex and deadly maze, one that leads down the twisted byways of O's homeland. In the tradition of Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy, and the Inspector Arkady Renko novels, A Drop of Chinese Blood presents an unfamiliar world, a perplexing universe where the rules are an enigma to the reader and even, sometimes, to Inspector O. Once again, James Church has crafted a story with beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a country and a people he knows by heart.Zero at the Bone: A Mystery
By Mary Willis Walker. 1991
WINNER OF THE AGATHA AND MACAVITY AWARDS FOR BEST FIRST NOVELNominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery In…
Mary Walker's Zero at the Bone, Katherine Driscoll is just three weeks away from disaster: foreclosure on her home and dog training business, even the sale of her beloved golden retriever, Ra. She has no hope of raising the $91,000 she so desperately needs--until the father she hasn't seen for thirty years writes to her, offering her enough money to solve her problems...if she will do one thing in return.But Katherine may never learn what that is. When she arrives in Austin, she is hours too late: her father has died in a bizarre accident at the zoo where he worked. As she sifts through the cryptic notes he left behind, she finds herself caught up in terrible family secrets--and a deadly illicit trade. The more she learns, the more determined she becomes to prove her father's death was no accident. In doing so, Katherine will make a bitter enemy--one desperate enough to kill...and perhaps, kill again.A Curtain Falls: A Novel (Detective Simon Ziele #2)
By Stefanie Pintoff. 2010
Following on the heels of Stefanie Pintoff's acclaimed and award-winning debut, A Curtain Falls is a moody and evocative tale…
that follows Ziele and his partners as they scour the dark streets of early-twentieth-century New York in search of a true fiend.The careers of New York City detective Simon Ziele and his former partner Captain Declan Mulvaney went in remarkably different directions after the tragic death of Ziele's fiancée in the 1904 General Slocum ferry disaster. Although both men were earmarked for much bigger things, Ziele moved to Dobson, a small town north of the city, to escape the violence, and Mulvaney buried himself even deeper, agreeing to head up the precinct in the most crime-ridden area in the city.Yet with all of the detectives and resources at Mulvaney's disposal, a particularly puzzling crime compels him to look for someone he can trust absolutely. When a chorus girl is found dead on a Broadway stage dressed in the leading lady's costume, there are no signs of violence, no cuts, no bruises—no marks at all. If pressed, the coroner would call it a suicide, but then that would make her the second girl to turn up dead in such a manner in the last few weeks. And the news of a possible serial killer would be potentially disastrous to the burgeoning theater world, not to mention the citizens of New York.The Skelly Man: An Alex Rasmussen Mystery (Alex Rasmussen Mysteries #2)
By David Daniel. 1995
Amiable, wisecracking Alex Rasmussen was first introduced--to great acclaim--in The Heaven Stone, which won the PWA/St. Martin's Best First Private…
Eye Novel Contest, and was also named one of the best mysteries of the year by the Providence Journal-Bulletin. Now ghosts from the past and a murderous Halloween haunt his second case. A former cop gone private, Rasmussen makes a living in the decaying New England mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts. Lowell is also the hometown of Good Night Show host Jerry Corbin, whose career has started to slump in recent years. Corbin and his entourage have come to town to film the pilot episode for a new series designed to boost his sagging star quotient and rescue his ratings. Unfortunately, someone's been sending Corbin hate mail, and an off-the-record investigation is in order. Enter Rasmussen, whose familiarity with TV consists of whatever's on the set in his local bar between sporting events. He's game for the job, though, and soon finds himself one of the insiders in Corbin's camp. Digging into Corbin's life to find out who wants to destroy him, Rasmussen learns that there are old secrets someone wants kept and old grudges someone wants satisfied. Corbin may have been on the fringes of these events, but now he has become the prime target.Hell's Gate: A Novel (Tom Braddock Series #3)
By Richard E. Crabbe. 2008
A riveting tale of river piracy, gang wars, and the worst catastrophe to hit New York City before September 11,…
2001In 1904 the Hudson and East Rivers were vital to the people of Manhattan. They offered families an escape from the squalor of the tenements, politicians a means of catering to their constituents, and criminals a means to make a fortune in black-market goods.When Detective Mike Braddock foils a midnight heist led by the gangland thug Smiling Jack, the city honors him as a hero. But Mike can't forget Jack's final revelation: the identity of a new mobster jockeying for position in the cutthroat world of New York's gangs.Mike is committed to bringing down this new criminal powerhouse before he takes power, no matter where his investigation takes him. He finds out quickly that he's not the only one who wants to take down this new gangster. A host of other mob heavies have their eyes on the same target, and they're more than willing to knock Mike out of the way to get there first.Full of action, double-crossing, and high-stakes mob warfare, Richard E. Crabbe's Hell's Gate brings readers to the rough-and-tumble streets of historic Manhattan, all set against the vivid backdrop of the greatest tragedy to strike New York until 9/11: the General Slocum disaster.