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Where There's a Will (Rowland Sinclair WWII Mysteries #10)
Par Sulari Gentill. 2022
Winter is hard in Beauville, where the melting snow can reveal much more than last season's dead leaves. So when…
a wealthy, obnoxious tourist and his ski bunny girlfriend surface in Pru Marlowe's little Berkshire town, she knows she should stay out of their way. The bad-girl animal psychic has to focus on more immediate concerns, including a wild rabbit named Henry, supposedly tamed and illegally living with an eighty-four-year-old lady in her home. Henry, who seems to be acting out and hiding, avoids responding to Pru.Yet when Pru discovers the tourist murdered and his girlfriend's high-maintenance spaniel falls to her care, she gets dragged into a complicated case of crime and punishment that involves some new friends, an old nemesis, and her own shadowed past. A recent museum art heist draws the feds into the investigation along with a courtly gentleman radiating menace, who represents secretive business interests in New York and shows a surprising awareness of Pru. Her on-again, off-again romance with police Detective Creighton doesn't stop him from warning her to steer clear of the inquiry. The spaniel, however, lures her in.Pru lives in a world where only her crotchety tabby Wallis knows the whole truth about her past, her flight from Manhattan, and her unique gift that surfaced abruptly one day. Fearing the worst, Pru now comes dangerously close to being exposed. With everything in motion, Pru, Wallis, and everyone they hold dear will be lucky to escape...by a hare.The Texas Job
Par Reavis Z. Wortham. 2022
"Edwards and Muller have assembled top-notch talent in this entertaining anthology of 20 original short stories... High-quality entries from the…
likes of Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, and Ian Rankin, as well as from lesser-known authors such as Bill Beverly, elevate this above similar volumes."—Publishers WeeklyThe twenty brand new crime stories in this book have been specially commissioned to celebrate the tenth anniversary of CrimeFest, described by the Guardian as "one of the 50 best festivals in the world." Contributors come from around the world and include the legendary Maj Sjöwall who, together with partner Per Wahlöö, was the originator of Nordic noir. The editors are Martin Edwards and Adrian Muller. Martin Edwards is responsible for many award-winning anthologies and Adrian Muller is one of the co-founders of CrimeFest.Contributors to Ten Year Stretch are:Bill Beverly, Simon Brett, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Jeffery Deaver, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Peter Guttridge, Sophie Hannah, John Harvey, Mick Herron, Donna Moore, Caro Ramsay, Ian Rankin, James Sallis, Zoë Sharp, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Maj Sjöwall, Michael Stanley and Andrew Taylor.Shadow Hill (Geneva Chase Crime Reporter Mysteries #4)
Par Thomas Kies. 2021
Lord Chamberlain John spends his days counseling Emperor Justinian and passes the small hours of night in conversation with the…
solemn-eyed little girl depicted in a mosaic on his study wall. He never expected to meet her in a public square or afterwards find her red-dyed corpse in a subterranean cistern. Had the mysterious woman truly been the model for the mosaic years before as she claimed? Why had she sought John out? Who wanted her dead—and why?The answers seem to lie among the denizens of the smoky streets of the quarter of Constantinople known as the Copper Market, where artisans, beggars, prostitutes, pillar saints, and exiled aristocrats struggle to survive within sight of the Great Palace. In his investigations, John encounters a faded actress, a patriotic sausage maker, a sundial maker who fears the sun, a religious visionary, a man who lives in a treasure trove, and a beggar who owes his life to a cartload of melons. But before long he suspects he is attempting to unravel not just a murder but a plot against the empire....Nantucket Red Tickets (Henry Kennis Nantucket Mysteries #4)
Par Steven Axelrod. 2017
"Axelrod and his protagonist bring an amused, judicious, and ultimately tolerant eye to the foibles large and small of a…
mixed Santa's bag of characters." —Kirkus ReviewsIt's Christmas Eve on Nantucket and prominent businessman Jackson Blum is about to live out his own version of A Christmas Carol. No visions, no ghosts, just the past, represented by the exhumed skeleton of his old partner Ted Coddington with a bullet from Blum's Ruger pistol in its skull; the present, in the form of a horribly mistreated employee who reveals Blum as the Scrooge he is; and the future, invoked by a family crisis that threatens to ruin the rest of his life. Past, Present and Future, all colliding on the same dark night of the soul.Nantucket Police Chief Henry Kennis is investigating the so-cold Coddington case with Blum as the main suspect while he roots out a plot to rig the traditional five-thousand-dollar Red Tickets raffle and struggles to close down a local opioid dealer who's selling to high school kids from a house on Tuckernuck Island—a bleak vista of wild moors, dirt roads, and unpainted homes a century old. "It's a time machine," says Kennis. With a whaling history.Henry's own son has been accused of cheating, his daughter's been pushed out of the high school a capella singing group, and his girlfriend's Christmas play is careening toward disaster. It looks like a calamitous holiday for everyone.All the scandals, tragedies, and intrigues of the season close in on Blum and Kennis as the two of them face off amid the carolers and colored lights. Finally, there's nothing to save the modern-day Scrooge from his terrifying future but a decades-old secret scribbled on a stolen slip of paper, and the uncertain mercy of the son he's lost. But it's Christmas, and as the snow finally starts to fall on the decorated trees that line Main Street, it's just possible that all sins will be forgiven and all sinners redeemed.God Bless us, every one.The Coaster
Par Erich Wurster. 2016
Bob Patterson considers himself an Everyman—albeit an Everyman with a rich, beautiful wife, two good kids, and a mail-it-in job…
that ignores his law degree. Despite his good fortune, Bob is idling through life, bored at work and at home. In short, he is the proverbial Coaster.Bob's wife, Sarah, is the anointed heir to the empire built by her father, Sam—a kind of Kansas City, Missouri, Warren Buffet. Fine by Bob, the family soccer mom. But early one morning he and Sarah awake to terrible news.Sam's death reveals he appointed Bob to be the trustee of his personal fortune and, as the IRS currently has it, he'll be in charge of his mother-in-law's money. Even more terrifying, Bob realizes he faces the prospect of actually working all day, for stakes that matter.Is the reappearance of Bob's wildest fraternity brother from college and a proposal from a bland businessman with a plan that seems too good to be true mere coincidence? A businessman who refuses to take No for an answer. After a lifetime of choosing the path of least resistance, will Bob finally take a stand when his family needs him most? If so, where?Bob peppers his story with sports and pop culture references and wry commentary on everything from the sex lives of married couples (such as they are) to the enormous cost of being "honored" at a charitable event. Bob knows what the hero should do in the situations he encounters (he's read the books and seen the movies, too). He doesn't have "a very particular set of skills" or a secret past in the Special Forces. He's just a regular guy who handles extreme pressure and threats to his family about like you'd expect (not well). It's going to take all he's got (really, more than he's got) to raise his game. Fortunately he's got an ace-in-the-hole...at home.Darkly comic, The Coaster turns the conventions of the mystery/suspense genre upside down.Nantucket Penny (Henry Kennis Nantucket Mysteries #6)
Par Steven Axelrod. 2021
"Axelrod packs plenty of layers and surprises into this intelligent, twisty tale. Henry's wry humor as well as his affection…
for the residents he serves exude warmth and will appeal to fans of Bill Crider's Sheriff Dan Rhodes." —BooklistDuring a long winter and short, chilly spring, a series of disturbing incidents rock the small resort island of Nantucket. A Land Bank executive dies in a suspicious hunting accident, a prominent local family's historic summer cottage burns down in an arson fire, and a teenage girl lies comatose in the hospital from a drug overdose.When spring turns to summer and the tourists flood the island, the mysterious cycle of violence spins faster. A young Jamaican boy is found dead in the harbor, a sex-for-drugs pornography ring is exposed, and a beloved local hero is murdered in cold blood. Could all of these events be part of the same sinister conspiracy?Poetry-writing Police Chief Henry Kennis, back for his third case in Nantucket Grand by Steven Axelrod, doubts it. But his new girlfriend, Jane Stiles, an author of cozy mysteries, is certain that all these terrible events are connected. In one of her books, they would all be related. Henry scoffs, but as the cords pull tighter, drawing him into a scandal that would change Nantucket forever, he begins to realize that Jane might be right, after all. But is it already too late?Lies Come Easy (Posadas County Mysteries #23)
Par Steven F. Havill. 2018
Next book in the Posadas County Mystery Series"If you haven't yet discovered these wonderful mysteries, you are in for a…
treat!"—Anne Hillerman, New York Times bestselling authorOne blizzardy New Mexico night, Posadas County Deputy Pasquale picks up a toddler abandoned along the shoulder of State 56… And as more disturbing cases pile up, the Sheriff's Department find themselves caught in a dangerous web of deceitDeputy Pasquale is horrified, but it seems like a cut and dry case: the father is arrested, and that should be that. But when the man is later found murdered, it's clear something is afoot. Meanwhile, Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman's search for a missing US Forest service range tech results in the discovery of a corpse on the county line.With one person still missing and two dead, it's clear there are dark powers at play. And the irony of so much wickedness at the holidays is not lost on anyone. The Sheriff's Department is stretched to its limits as its dedicated personnel juggle working cases and wrangling their own relationships and families.In this addition to the Posadas County Mysteries, family dynamics heighten the tension of a dangerous criminal case as Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman and the whole department work to pull the right threads out of a tangle of seemingly small lies. And as harrowing details come to light, it becomes apparent that justice for all will prove elusive.Steven F. Havill's acclaimed series is:Perfect for fans of C.J. Box and Michael McGarrityFor readers who enjoy police procedurals and Southwest desert mysteriesA House Divided (Rowland Sinclair WWII Mysteries #1)
Par Sulari Gentill. 2020
"Donis Casey's voice flows like tea syrup, transporting you effortlessly to the Oklahoma frontier....A welcome invite to your great-grandmother's front…
porch swing." —JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING, New York Times bestselling authorIt's spring 1913, and love is in bloom for Alice Tucker. Walter Kelley is handsome, popular, and wealthy. But Alice's mother, Alafair, sees that Walter has a weakness for the ladies—and they for him. Only a few months earlier, Walter's late wife Louise had been stabbed in the heart and her body disposed of in Cane Creek. The murderer was never caught.The sheriff cleared Walter of the deed—he had an alibi—but Alafair is not so sure that he wasn't involved in some way. Something literally doesn't smell right.With the help of her feisty mother-in-law, Sally McBride, Alafair sets out to prove to the headstrong Alice that Walter is not the paragon she thinks he is. Alafair soon uncovers such a tangle of lies, misdirection, and deceit that she begins to think that the whole town has been downright hornswoggled!Wrecked (Faye Longchamp Archaeological Mysteries #13)
Par Mary Anna Evans. 2020
Next title in the Faye Longchamp Archaeological Mysteries. When tragedy strikes and everything she loves is threatened, Faye Longchamp, an…
expert in American archaeology, will resort to desperate measures. Because some losses cut to the bone…A murder mystery with an archaeological twist, Wrecked is:Florida-based mysteryPerfect for fans of James Lee Burke and Nevada BarrFor readers of archaeological mysteriesThe suspicious drowning death of Captain Edward Eubank breaks archaeologist Faye Longchamp's heart. It also confuses her, because he was found in scuba gear and she's never heard him even mention scuba diving. During their last conversation, he told her that he believed he'd found a storied shipwreck, but when Faye checks it out, she finds nothing there—not a plank, not a single gold coin, nothing. If there's no treasure, then why is her friend dead?But the situation quickly escalates beyond a murder mystery. Surrounded by a community struggling in the aftermath of a major hurricane that has changed the very landscape, Faye grapples not only with the loss of her friend, but with her fears for her daughter, who is being romanced by a man who may be very dangerous.As a professional with her own consulting firm, Faye had long ago given up her "anything goes" attitude when the law stood between her and an interesting dig. Now that recklessness is back. There's nothing she won't do to protect her daughter.In this riveting addition to an archaeological mystery and thriller series perfect for fans of Nevada Barr, Faye must save her most precious cargo—her daughter.Deal to Die For (John Deal Series #0)
Par Les Standiford. 1996
This suspenseful third John Deal crime thriller from Standiford finds the Miami building contractor tangling with Chinese gangsters who are…
trying to move in on a scheme hatched by two Hollywood porno magnates to create X-rated films for the huge mainland Chinese market. Deal already has troubles enough?his wife, Janice, has sunk into a deep depression over the serious burns she suffered in last year's Raw Deal, and a close friend has apparently committed suicide, shortly after she has told her film-star sister, Paige Nobleman, that Paige was adopted. Deal and his tenant/pal, ex-cop Vernon Driscoll, begin investigating Paige's birth and, eventually, the friend's death, following leads that take them directly into the porno scheme and the path of some deadly Chinese gang members. Standiford, an unusually fine thriller writer who has won the Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and who directs the creative writing program at Florida International University, is at the top of his game here, displaying excellent pacing and a particular affinity for action scenes. The ongoing saga of John Deal remains especially intriguing above all, however, because its author drenches each volume in the ambiguities?sometimes rewarding, sometimes nightmarish?of real life.The Frozen Shroud (Lake District Mysteries #6)
Par Martin Edwards. 2013
"Edwards does an impressive job of linking the three murders across the long years." —Kirkus ReviewsOn Halloween, just before the…
First World War, a young woman's corpse was found with a makeshift shroud frozen to her battered face. Her ghost—the Faceless Woman—is said to walk through Ravenbank each Halloween. Just five years ago, Katya Moss was killed, her face also covered to hide her injuries. The seemingly related cases fascinate Daniel Kind, a specialist in the history of murder. Then, while he is attending a Halloween party in Ravenbank, a third murder occurs. Once again, the corpse's face is shrouded from view. This can't be a coincidence.It all presents DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of the Cold Case Review Team, with the toughest challenge of her career. Hannah and Daniel team up professionally. But before they can solve this shocking puzzle, both of them must confront ghosts from their own past, as well as the ghosts of lonely, lovely, and mysterious Ravenbank.Murders of a Feather (Dr. Kate Vet Mysteries #3)
Par Eileen Brady. 2023
"Filled with clever repartee, memorable characters, and an ending as satisfying as it is unexpected."—BooklistWhat holy terror spiked the sacraments…
with strychnine?When a teenage girl disappears from a north London suburb a few days before Christmas, Detective Sergeant Effie Strongitharm puts would-be cult leader and reputed exorcist Nigel Tapster on her list of people to be questioned.But when Effie witnesses Tapster's agonizing death during a church service, she needs to ask a different question: What holy terror spiked the sacraments with strychnine?With her mentor Detective Superintendent Mallard battling forced retirement, Effie turns to children's book writer Oliver Swithin to help her in a double quest—to bring the girl home and the murderer to justice in time for Christmas.But is there a connection between the cases? And what does any of this have to do with a Scotland Yard Commissioner's personal hygiene, a six-year-old Hell's Angel, a guide to beastly behavior featuring Finsbury the Ferret, a touch of Shakespeare, and the return of the mysterious, virtually invisible Underwood Tooth?Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries (British Library Crime Classics #0)
Par Martin Edwards. 2015
Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder"Like an assortment of presents under a Christmas tree, there's something…
for everyone in this Yule-themed reprint anthology in the British Library Crime Classics series from Edwards." —Publishers WeeklyChristmas is a mysterious, as well as magical, time of year. Strange things can happen, and this helps to explain the hallowed tradition of telling ghost stories around the fireside as the year draws to a close. Christmas tales of crime and detection have a similar appeal. When television becomes tiresome, and party games pall, the prospect of curling up in the warm with a good mystery is enticing—and much better for the digestion than yet another helping of plum pudding.Crime writers are just as susceptible as readers to the countless attractions of Christmas. Over the years, many distinguished practitioners of the genre have given one or more of their stories a Yuletide setting. The most memorable Christmas mysteries blend a lively storyline with an atmospheric evocation of the season. Getting the mixture right is much harder than it looks.This book introduces of readers to some of the finest Christmas detective stories of the past. Martin Edwards' selection blends festive pieces from much-loved authors with one or two stories which are likely to be unfamiliar even to diehard mystery fans. The result is a collection of crime fiction to savor, whatever the season.Cold Tuscan Stone (Rick Montoya Italian Mysteries #1)
Par David P. Wagner. 2018
The first Tuscan book in David P. Wagner's Italian mysteries introduces us to Rick Montoya, an American translator who agrees…
to help catch art smugglers—and soon finds himself in over his head."Perfect for readers who enjoy a complex puzzle, a bit of humor, and a fairly gentle procedural. Don't miss this one."—Library Journal, STARRED reviewWhen Rick Montoya moves to Italy to work as a translator, he doesn't expect to get involved in an investigation. But with one favor spiraling out of control, he soon finds himself fighting for his life.Rick Montoya has moved from New Mexico to Rome, embracing the life of a translator. He's settling in to la dolce vita when a school friend who is now senior in the Italian Art Squad recruits Rick for an unofficial undercover role. Armed with a list of galleries, suspects, and an expense account, Rick arrives in Tuscany posing as a buyer for a gallery, ready to spend his days sipping wine and examining Roman artifacts to flush out burial urn traffickers.But before sunset on Rick's first day in Volterra, a gallery employee dies in a brutal fall from a high cliff.The local Commissario and his team consider Rick an amateur, and worse, a foreigner. And now they suspect him in the dead man's murder. While the Volterra squad pursues its leads, Rick continues to meeting his own suspects: a museum director, a top gallery owner, a low-profile import/export businessman and his enterprising color-coordinated assistant, and a sensuous heiress with a private art specialty and clientele.As the murder mystery and the art trafficking heat up, has Rick's role made him the target of both cops and criminals?This special first-in-series edition includes an introduction by the author, discussion guide, author interview, and excerpt from the second book in the series.Praise for Cold Tuscan Stone:"This is a wonderful start to a series, which should have immediate legs, and surely will thrill everyone who has lived in Italy, been to Italy, or would like to visit. As a boy I lived in both Firenze and Napoli, and reading Wagner takes me back deeply and instantly."—Joseph Heywood, author of The Woods Cop Mysteries, The Snowfly, and The Berkut"If you are interested in Italian art and artifacts, Italian history and culture, Italian food and wine, or even just good storytelling, then Cold Tuscan Stone will be right up your cobblestone alleyway… Simply put, this exciting, intriguing, well-written mystery extends an offer no reader should refuse."—Amanda Matetsky, author of The Paige Turner Mysteries"The intriguing art milieu, mouthwatering cuisine, and the team of the ironic Conti and the bemused but agile Montoya are bound to attract fans." —Publishers WeeklyOther books in the Rick Montoya Italian Mysteries:Death in the DolomitesMurder Most UnfortunateReturn to UmbriaA Funeral in MantovaRoman Count DownTo Die In TuscanyStatute of Limitations: A Posadas County Mystery (Posadas County Mysteries #0)
Par Steven F. Havill. 2011
"In close-knit Posadas County, where everyone knows everyone's business, it turns out that some people can bury secrets, and some…
secrets are murderous."—Kirkus ReviewsIt's Christmas in Posadas County. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman is settling down to a quiet evening with her family, until her doctor husband gets a call from the retired chief-of-police: he's at a nearby motel, having pains. Then Estelle gets a call herself. She and ex-Sheriff Bill Gastner, who was visiting the Guzman home at the time, arrive at the motel parking lot. It appears that Eduardo had an exchange with two men and then collapsed, the men taking off in his car. An out-of-town couple, the woman on the verge of giving birth, were the only ones to witness the encounter, but something seems off in their story. This is the fourteenth in Havill's Posadas County mysteries.A Very Pukka Murder: The First Maharaja Mystery (The Maharaja Mysteries #1)
Par Arjun Raj Gaind. 2016
"Set in the tiny princely state of Rajpore, Indian comic book writer Gaind's first novel is both a satisfying locked-room…
mystery and a keenly observed comedy of manners." —Publishers WeeklyFrom the borders of icy Kashmir to the shark-infested shores of the Malabar Coast, Major William Russell, the English Resident of the small, princely state of Rajpore, is renowned as a straitlaced man of rigorous habit. When his valet knocks on his bedroom door the morning after the 1909 New Year's Ball and receives no response, he and the Resident's elderly secretary eventually task the English Commandant of Cavalry with breaking it down. The Resident is dead in his bed.His Highness Farzand-i-Khas-i-Daulat-i-Inglishia Mansur-i-Zaman Maharaja Sikander Singh, Light of Heaven, Sword of Justice, Shield of the Faithful, sole ruler of Rajpore, is slow to rise after the night of revelry. But news of the murder galvanizes him. The fabulously wealthy Maharaja, who perforce has surrendered much of his authority to the British, is a man of indolent habit although he keeps himself thoroughly fit. A lover of luxury cars and beautiful women, his deepest passion is for mysteries. He cannot resist an enigma, relishing a riddle and the rush of resolving it. Like August Dupin and Sherlock Holmes, Sikander wields careful and deliberate logic to crack puzzles that leave less intelligent men confounded. Here is such an opportunity, and well timed—for the Maharaja, resigned to another year of indolence, is almost fatally bored.Abandoning the lavish comforts of his ornate palace, Sikander orders his massive manservant Charan Singh into his Silver Ghost and speeds to the insular English settlement. Despite the objections of the local Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police, he works the crime scene and deduces that Resident was poisoned by a massive dose of strychnine.As a clock starts ticking—the British authorities dispatch their own investigator from Simla—Sikander overcomes obstacles, false trails, and the growing hostility of the English Establishment, while learning that Major Russell was not as pukka, as proper, as he liked to pretend. Will the Maharaja work through a surplus of suspects and motives before the British shut him down and cover up the truth about the Major's death?Arjun Gaind's clever, fascinating debut introduces an elegant new detective in the tradition of Lord Peter Wimsey, while painting a scathing portrait of the British Raj.Red, Green, or Murder (Posadas County Mysteries #10)
Par Steven F. Havill. 2009
Former Posadas County Sheriff Bill Gastner, now a New Mexico Livestock Inspector, is enjoying a day on Herb Torrance's ranch…
- soaking in the sun, counting a small herd of cattle, and thinking about meeting an old friend back in town for lunch. But suddenly a light breeze stirs the dust, a horse spooks, and Bill finds himself ferrying a broken cowpuncher in the back of his SUV, headed out to meet an ambulance.Moments later, Bill's day goes from bad to worse. He is summoned by undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman to investigate an unattended death. Too impatient to wait for Bill, his friend George Payton decided to eat lunch on his own. A couple of bites later, he collapsed - dead of an apparent heart attack. But something isn't right.Then the small herd of cattle Bill had just counted is found wandering down a county highway. But there's no sign of cowpuncher Pat Gabaldon or his boss' $40,000 truck and livestock trailer. Forced into two tangled investigations, Bill faces one of the most complex cases in his 35-year career.The RagTime Traveler (Ragtime Mysteries #4)
Par Larry Karp, Casey Karp. 2017
"The fourth Ragtime Mystery is filled with warmth and wonder and interesting music trivia, buoyed by the relationship between the…
two sleuths, which may well echo that between the late Larry Karp and his son, who finished this final installment after his death." —Kirkus ReviewsIt takes one moment in 2016 for ragtime music expert Alan Chandler to go from sitting in his hotel room in Sedalia, Missouri, to standing beside the King of Ragtime—Scott Joplin—at his upright piano in 1899. Chandler suddenly finds himself more than one hundred years earlier inside the famous Maple Leaf Club with its gas chandeliers, massive walnut bar, gaming tables, and pals surrounding the noted pianist and composer."What in the hell is going on? Am I dreaming?"Clearly something unexpected is going on for Chandler in the fourth and final Ragtime Mystery by father and son Larry Karp and Casey Karp. A longtime friend Mickey Potash phones Chandler, top ragtime performer and national expert on Joplin, to say that a duffel filled with Joplin's handwritten music has surfaced. Chandler and his grandson, Tom, race from Seattle to Sedalia to evaluate what may be the most important find in popular American music. Potash shows them initial pages which look authentic, but before they can get the duffel hidden in a padlocked closet, he is tortured and murdered. The duffel is stolen.Disappointment encourages a resurgence of symptoms in Chandler's Stage 4 cancer. He's determined to validate the music before time runs out. Tom, and later his wife, Miriam, help him. Another murder complicates their investigation. The trail to the duffel is crowded: Jackson and Saramae, two young people with journalism in their blood, want to solve the crime, as do homicide detectives and antique shopkeepers. Not surprisingly, the roots of the lost music lie in past emotional conflict, now tangled in genealogical warfare.Frag Box (Herman Jackson Series #0)
Par Richard A. Thompson. 2009
2018 Colorado Book Award finalist"Featuring a crime spree and a murderer, both as cold as the Midwestern winter setting, this…
whodunit will burn like frostbite." —Library JournalIt's the Garden of Eden. And the weather is absolutely freezing!The discovery of the body of a young man inside the mausoleum of the Civil War veteran who commissioned this bizarre sculpture park makes the blood of Undersheriff Lottie Albright and her husband's Aunt Dorothy run cold. Dorothy Mercer, paying a visit to Western Kansas from Manhattan, may be a bestselling mystery novelist, but she is truly shocked confronting murder firsthand.But the real bone-chiller is yet to come.With snow coming on, Lottie and Dorothy act quickly to preserve the crime scene while awaiting the arrival of Sheriff Sam Adams. Eyes, and boots, on the ground, they measure and photograph underneath the park's bizarre parade of tree-high sculptures. Why would they look up?Reaching Woman stands some forty feet in the air, trapped in stone. And in her arms—a ghastly bundle. It takes the sharp eyes of the old sheriff to spot her burden. It breaks all hearts when it's brought to earth, a second body, so fresh, so frozen, so forlorn.Lottie, transitioning from local historian to the politicking necessary to organize a regional crime center, is made the lead investigator. It's a test of the concept and of her role as its director. She needs investigators, forensics, technology, manpower—and a psychologist to pit wits with a clearly deranged killer. Her twin, Kansas City's Dr. Josie Albright, is the perfect choice.Frank Dimon at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, a reluctant champion of the regional concept, believes too many members of Lottie's family—her veterinarian/deputy husband Keith, Josie, even Dorothy—are on Lottie's team. But Frank's insertion of a forensic psychologist of his own choosing sets off a ferocious conflict between Josie and his appointee, Dr. Evan Ferguson, as a hastily assembled crew from the region's counties pits rural wisdom against the KBI's sophisticated methods. Frustration mounts and urgency grows as more statues of women cradling victims are found, the vicious winter weather aiding the psychopath's work.No matter how cutting edge the technology, you can't beat luck. In a break from the stress, Lottie begins to read a Commonplace Book deposited at the Historical Society. As she follows the heartbreaking words penned by a desperate, shunned child of stunning inner beauty and strength, his observations provide the key—at a terrible cost.Bitter Recoil (Posadas County Mysteries #2)
Par Steven F. Havill. 1992
Second book in the Posadas County Mystery Series"Havill delivers an evocative tale of hard lives on the edge of society.…
His portly detective is a genuine low-key pleasure."—Publishers WeeklyWhen Undersheriff Bill Gastner heads to New Mexico's mountains for some respite, the last thing he expects to find is a dead body. But he's a cop through-and-through, and he can't let a criminal walk…Aging Posadas County Undersheriff Bill Gastner has weathered his quadruple bypass and is taking a rare vacation up in New Mexico's northern mountains. He's escaping meddlesome medical providers and small town gossip, but he's looking forward to reconnecting with his former detective Estelle Reyes who is working in San Estevan County. Arriving a day early at the Steamboat Rock Campground, his camping plans are interrupted by sirens. Suddenly, Gastner, Reyes, and her new doctor husband reunite over the body of a pregnant young woman.At first the detectives assume she was a hit-and-run victim. Then the medical exam reveals she was instead thrown from a moving vehicle after a rape attempt. Gastner's curiosity is piqued but he's on vacation—he should leave the case up to local law enforcement. Then four more deaths follow and the still-to-be-reckoned-with lawman steps in to stop the rash of murders....He's not in Posadas County, but Undersheriff Bill Gastner can't ignore an unsolved case when a body turns up in the New Mexico mountains. Steven F. Havill's next police procedural finds the aging undersheriff taking on a disturbing case far from home.Check out the acclaimed series:Perfect for fans of C.J. Box and Michael McGarrityFor readers who enjoy police procedurals and Southwest desert mysteries