SOFTENING FLATBUSH (FRANK, HICKEY;HICKEY, FRANK)
I, Max Royster, fat, broke, divorced, thrown off the NYPD for mental illness. Now in Flatbush, Brooklyn, I find new love, new murder and new career. Can I keep my love? Crack the case? Can I inspire and change private security? And maybe regain my NYPD shield? I, Max Royster, ex-NYPD cop, cashiered "for mental disease or defect", am changing. I want to marry and stay in one place. Cooper, my new love, lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that used to be the borough's jewel. The Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson played ball there. Back then, nobody in Flatbush locked their doors. Sixty years later, street crime plagues the area. As an ex-street cop, I watched robberies and shootings increase and criminals savage the neighborhood. Someone kills a local black comedian. Cooper and her friends want to clean up the neighborhood and improve Flatbush's image. That way, they can 'flip' their homes and triple their profits I call her friends "Flippers," a term that does not amuse them. She challenges me to run a guard agency that suffers from guards
MURDER ON OPENING NIGHT (CRAIG, ELIZABETH SPANN)
When Myrtle Clover and her friend Miles attend a play in their small town, there?s a full house on opening night. It?s clear to Myrtle that one of the actresses is a stage hog who loves stealing the spotlight.? Nandina Marshall certainly does upstage everyone?when her murder forces an unexpected intermission. Can Myrtle and Miles discover who was behind her final curtain call?.before murder makes an encore?
MARTINA MACKENZIE (SMITH, CORI NICOLE)
A strange creature in the forest . . . A septet of mystical amulets . . . A beautiful enchanted carousel . . . Martina, Heath, and London must figure out how they are connected to a greater mystery in time to prevent Sheardland from completely falling under the carousel's spell. The second installment of the Martina Mackenzie series, The Enchanted Carousel, promises more magical mystery as Martina, Heath, and London return to Sheardland for a much-anticipated festival: a celebration of magic and all that is Rhihalven. To help finish the enchanted carousel before the festival, the trio must harvest wood from a special tree, but a wrong turn in the forest leaves them lost and dependant on the sage Amara for guidance. In return for her help, they agree to search for the Bloodstone Amulet-rumored to heal any ailment-which has been lost since ancient times. Assisted by a precocious Rhihalva girl, the crew searches banned texts and discovers a plot to copy the amulet and switch the fake for the real thing. Could the mysterious symbols on beaded necklaces from the festival mean more than well-wishes? Will Martin
HARRINGTON MANOR (JAMES, RONALD M.)
A murderer stalks the orange groves of 1923 Southern California. Detective Sidney Snipes is called to the Harrington Manor when retired Colonel Peter Wescott Harrington is found slumped over his desk by his family. Snipes entrusts the sensational new crime fighting technology?Fingerprint Analysis to find a fierce fiend. Just when he though he had the murderer cornered, a neighbor discovers a shallow grave in the orange groves; an unsolved missing person's cold case files. A case that has haunted the Orange County Sheriff?s Department for three years. The evidence in the missing person's case rumples Snipes proficient sleuthing skills as the leads take him in circles. Then to add to the muddying discord, another Harrington turns up dead, apparently murdered in his sleep. But when a sinister child?s Jack-in-the-box, seemingly from the grim reaper himself, materializes on the Colonel?s desk, the detective is bedeviled more than he cares to admit. Nevertheless, Snipes had enough moxie to send fingerprints to every city where his suspects had ever lived. The leads take Snipes in a direction he never saw coming.
THE MAGICIAN CARD (ATKINSON, BEVAN)
Xana Bard is approached at Enrico?s Cafe by a young man who asks her to read his tarot cards. When she does, the cards are terrifying. ? How is Xana going to avert the dreadful future she sees for Asa Ballantine and his sister Beth? Can her friend Thorne Ardall do the job? How does the work the twins are doing in nanotechnology and human organ reconstruction figure into the threat hanging over them? And what help can Xana possibly provide after she breaks her ankle? ? In this second fast-moving adventure in The Tarot Mysteries series, Xana and Thorne must find a way, in spite of the impediments presented by fractures and furious family members, to dodge the doom she has seen looming over Asa and Beth.
THE GOLDEN DAGGER (PUNSHON, E.R.)
?Why should anyone want to pinch the dagger?except to do somebody in?? No one answered this question. Item: one anonymous phone call reporting a murder at a historic country house ? but no body is to be found. Item: one ornate antique knife, discovered in a village call-box, blood-stains on the blade. Rather than identifying a corpse, Bobby Owen of the Yard has to find out who, if anyone, has actually been killed. Two persons, one a best-selling author, the other no-one?s cup of tea, are missing but a particular kind of hat keep turning up in the case ? which also involves a haunted wood, a hatchet-wielding secretary, and a curious abundance of writers. The Golden Dagger is the twenty-ninth novel in the Bobby Owen Mystery series, originally published in 1951. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans, and a selection of E.R. Punshon?s prolific Guardian reviews of other golden age mystery fiction. ?What is distinction? ? in the works of Mr. E.R. Punshon we salute it every time.?--Dorothy L. Sayers
THE MAN WITH THE DARK BEARD (HAYNES, ANNIE)
?Nobody would have murdered him,? Miss Lavinia cried. ?Everybody liked John!? ?I?m afraid it is evident that someone did not.? The note left beside Dr. John Bastow's corpse simply read: "It was the man with the dark beard." Dr. Bastow hadn't approved of his daughter Hilary's fianc?. So when Hilary's father is found shot dead inside his own office, the door-key turned from the inside, the fianc? Basil Wilton becomes a chief suspect for Scotland Yard. Yet how could the crime have been engineered? Now an important lacquered box is missing; a former colleague of Bastow's has suddenly shaved his beard; and the doctor's ex-secretary has come mysteriously into money. Before Inspector Stoddart of the Yard can form conclusions, another murder takes place, again credited to the ?Man with The Dark Beard?... The Man With the Dark Beard is the first of Annie Haynes? Inspector Stoddart mysteries, originally published in 1928. It is a sparkling lost classic from the early golden age of crime fiction. ?This is the best detective story she has yet written.? Time and Tide.
RICHARDSON’S FIRST CASE (THOMSON, BASIL)
The D.D.I. recognized him and smiled. ?That was a great case you brought us. You?ll be interested to hear that it is a case of mur-r-der!? For eight years Basil Thomson headed the famous C.I.D., New Scotland Yard. He knew the Yard inside out. Now in this tale of mystery and detection we are taken behind the scenes. We are shown the greatest detection machine in the world in motion, and see how the Yard tracked down its man. Stand, then, with young P.C. Richardson on the misty corner of Baker Street, while the traffic of the city swings by, and fate lays at his feet the beginning of his career. Out of the fog brakes shriek, a big car jolts to a stop, and from beneath the wheels the crowd disentangles a bundle of old clothes, within which is a man quite dead; a man who had said to someone, ?Very well, then; I?ll call a policeman??and was killed. Work with him to the ingenious solution, when he takes from his pocket the clue holding the fate of a human life. Richardson?s First Case was originally published in 1933. This new edition, the first in over seventy years, features an introduction by crime novelist
A HAVEN FOR THE DAMNED (WILSON, DAVID LAURENCE;WHITTINGTON, HARRY)
A HAVEN FOR THE DAMNED ? The Yucca City National Bank has been robbed. A cashier, Matt Bishop, is accidentally shot by one of the guards and taken hostage. The robbers, Fletch and Poole, haven?t been out of prison long, and they?ve got a lot to lose if they?re caught. So they lam it into the hills with the wounded clerk, all the way to Lust, New Mexico, a ghost town near the Mexican border. Here they find Josh Carrdell, a solitary prospector and the only one left in Lust besides his mean-as-sin dog, George. But they are soon joined by Susan Bishop, hot on the trail of her husband; big man Harvey J. Duncan and his fianc?e, Milly, who have taken a wrong turn in the mountains on the way to their new life together?and Reed, who just wants his wife Milly back. ? They all converge on Lust one dry, dusty afternoon. The bank robbers want safe passage to Mexico, and they?ll kill anyone who gets in their way. Susan wants her husband back, and will barter what she has to get him. Duncan is looking for his lost youth, Reed for his lost wife. And Milly, she doesn?t know what she wants, but any new thrill will do. It?
RUN DOG RUN (KASKA, KATHLEEN)
After five years in Africa, researching the decline of elephant populations, Kate Caraway?s project comes to a screeching halt when she shoots a poacher and is forced to leave the country. Kate and her husband travel to a friend?s ranch in Texas for a much-needed rest. But before Kate even has a chance to unpack, her friend?s daughter pleads for Kate?s assistance. The young woman has become entangled in the ugly world of greyhound abuse and believes Kate is the only one with the experience and tenacity to expose the crime and find out who is responsible. On the case for only a few hours, Kate discovers a body, complicating the investigation by adding murder to the puzzle. Now, she?s in a race against time to find the killer before she becomes the next victim??
LA VIDA OCULTA DE JOHN (SHAHAB, F.)
Todo sucede por una razón... ¿estás listo? Si alguna vez os encontrarais con una estrella solitaria, ¿qué haríais? ¿Os apegaríais a ella o la dejaríais libre? Una mujer encontró una estrella brillante y libre, y la quiso coger, pero esta llevaba tanto tiempo sola que le costaba brillar en compañía. El astro llevaba muchos asteroides en su cola, que interrumpían su camino o lo dañaban, si alguien se acercaba. Por ello, un día decidió liberarse de todos estos asteroides para poder brillar junto a su amada. Sin darse cuenta, esa estrella se había convertido en un satélite y la mujer tomó su forma. Así debería de ser la vida real entre un hombre y una mujer.
MURDER IN THE LANGUAGE LAB (ESCAJA, TINA;WARREN, JOHN W.)
Augusto Javier Mart?nez, Spanish literature professor at a nondescript Midwest university, has been murdered. His body was found in the language lab, his throat slashed and his body mutilated. The local police, incompetent or uninterested, are clueless. Alma, an ex-private detective turned academic hired to investigate the murder by the sensationalist religion publisher that had sporadically employed professor Mart?nez, soon finds herself embroiled in the sordid side of the Midwestern town and the university?s back-stabbing politics. This is a dual English and Spanish edition. Translation by John W. Warren.
KINGDOM LOST (WENTWORTH, PATRICIA)
When she had let down her case, she locked her bedroom door. And then she put out the light and climbed out of the window. Marooned as a baby, Valentine Ryven has been on a deserted South Sea island for twenty years, before she is rescued and returned to civilization?as heiress to a great fortune. However, since she was given up for dead, her inheritance had passed to cousin Eustace. Now that Valentine is back, Eustace stands to lose it all. Pressed by an intimidating villainess, the unworldly Valentine finds a way to let Eustace keep the money. But when she finds an old letter from her late mentor Edward Bowden?to be opened only when things were ?so bad that they couldn?t possibly be any worse??she?ll uncover a shattering truth, transforming everything she has been taught to believe about herself. Kingdom Lost was originally published in 1930. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. ?When I pick up a book by Patricia Wentworth I think, now to enjoy myself?and I always do.? Mary Dell, Daily Mirror
COMPLICIDAD (NEVILLE, STUART)
ANTES MUEREN LOS QUE NO AMAN (PLANA GINÉ, INÉS)
En las Navidades de 2009, con un país aplastado por la crisis, una funcionaria de la Seguridad Social muere al ser empujada violentamente contra una cristalera. Quien lo hace es una joven que huye del lugar sin dejar rastro. Este es el caso que investiga Julián Tresser, teniente de la Policía Judicial de la Guardia Civil, cuando surge la primera pista fiable sobre el paradero de Luba, una chiquilla de doce años que desapareció misteriosamente dos años atrás. Desde entonces, Tresser ha buscado desesperadamente a esa niña que no es su hija pero que debería serlo. No imagina que la pequeña ha escapado del sórdido mundo de la prostitución en la que la habían confinado. El azar la lleva a esconderse en una casa en un pueblo perdido donde dos mujeres parecen ocultar un secreto inconfesable que podría arruinarles la vida. Luba debería pedirles ayuda, puesto llega herida hasta allí, pero los abusos que ha sufrido le impiden confiar en nadie. Esas circunstancias, caprichosas y crueles, no se lo van a poner fácil al teniente, pues, a la vez que busca a la niña, deberá elegir entre la responsabilidad que conlleva su oficio y la fuerza de los vínculos de sangre. Tras el éxito de Morir no es lo que más duele, Inés Plana sumerge al lector en una trama vertiginosa por la que transitan personajes atormentados y complejos y en donde el teniente Tresser se someterá a un dilema moral que pondrá a prueba sus convicciones.