A Massachusetts state investigator is called home from Tennessee, where he's completing a course at the National Forensic Academy. His boss, the district attorney - an attractive but hard-charging woman - is intending to run for governor and as a showcase she's planning to use a new crime initiative, At Risk. Its motto: 'Any Crime, Any Time. She's also looking to employ some cutting-edge DNA technology and she thinks she's found a 20-year old murder - in Tennessee. Solving the case would make them all look pretty good - right? Her investigator is not so sure - not sure about anything to do with this woman, really - but before he can say anything, a shocking piece of violence intervenes, an act that shakes everyone's lives and the lives of those around them. It's not a random event - is it personal? Professional? Whatever it is, the implications are very bad indeed - and they're about to get worse.
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At Risk: Patricia Cornwell
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Harry Wethermill has fallen in love at first sight with the beautiful Celia,, a young woman of dubious background who has turned up in Aux-les-Bains as companion to the ostentatious, jewel-flaunting Madame Dauvray - who is found strangled in her sitting room - with no trace of the jewels. Wethermill and his friend Mr. Ricardo enlist the help of French detective Hanaud, in the hope of clearing Celia - but as the investigation progresses, it looks likely to seal her doom.
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Autumn Maze: Jon Cleary
$9.00Scobie Malone No. XI. When the Sydney police minister's son falls twenty floors to his death, the politics of murder ripple the city like a boulder dropped into a pool. Caught in the wash is Detective Inspector Scobie Malone, as he uncovers an elaborate financial scheme, a series of cold-blooded precision killings, and layers of political intrigue. Scobie thinks he is immune to politics, but he is soon engulfed in its consequences: The police minister applies pressure; a millionaire banker becomes less than his public image; a hit man goes about his grisly work; and three of Sydney's most powerful (and libidinous) women give Scobie a glimpse of how life in Sydney really operates. Finally, when he is forced to accept aid from his onetime enemy, top criminal Jack Aldwych, now retired but still ruthless, Malone learns once again that when politics and money are arrayed against him, the odds are never even. -
Autumn Maze: Jon Cleary
$15.00Scobie Malone No. XI. When the Sydney police minister's son falls twenty floors to his death, the politics of murder ripple the city like a boulder dropped into a pool. Caught in the wash is Detective Inspector Scobie Malone, as he uncovers an elaborate financial scheme, a series of cold-blooded precision killings, and layers of political intrigue. Scobie thinks he is immune to politics, but he is soon engulfed in its consequences: The police minister applies pressure; a millionaire banker becomes less than his public image; a hit man goes about his grisly work; and three of Sydney's most powerful (and libidinous) women give Scobie a glimpse of how life in Sydney really operates. Finally, when he is forced to accept aid from his onetime enemy, top criminal Jack Aldwych, now retired but still ruthless, Malone learns once again that when politics and money are arrayed against him, the odds are never even. -
Female: age 32, single, self-employed and wiser than she used to be. For Kinsey Millhome, private investigator, only one thing stays the same - when a client sits down in the chair across the desk, she never knows what's going to happen next. Business was slow and there was nothing about Beverley Danziger to cause Kinsey concern. She was looking for her sister. She paid up front. It seemed like a lot of money for a routine job but Kinsey wasn't going to argue. She kicked herself later for the things she didn't see. But by then she was in danger, and money was the last thing on her mind... -
Gemma Lincoln Book II. Private Investigator Gemma Lincoln is trying to discover who has been raping and murdering street girls from Kings Cross. Parallel cases follow the suspicious death of a high-profile Sydney businessman and philanthropist and an utterly ruthless drug dealer whose hobby is maintaining a small zoo of poisonous snakes. Gemma has to contend with sabotage from within her small organisation and pangs of jealousy over her boyfriend, Steve, whose own undercover work involves getting up close and personal with an extremely beautiful society woman. How much is Steve acting a role and how much is he really involved with the woman? Haunted by the insecurities of her past, Gemma struggles to pull her life together in increasingly sinister circumstances. -
Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff." Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a decidedly fishy scuba "accident" may be just the stiff Jack needs - if only he can figure out what happened. Standing in the way -among others - are an editor who wants Jack to "break her cherry," Stoma's ambitious pop-singer widow, and the soulless, profit-hungry newspaper owner Jack once publicly humiliated. As clues from Stoma's music give Jack Tagger the chance to trade obits for a story that could hit the front page, murder gives his career a new lease on life. Cover art by Jon Rogers. -
Tom Dunleavy has a one-man law firm in the legendary East Hampton, summer home to the rich and shameless who have their own lawyers on the payroll. Tom's clients are the locals, the people he grew up with. Then an old friend of Tom's, a local star athlete, is arrested for a triple murder on the beach near a movie star's mansion. Tom knows that Dante Halleyville is innocent and agrees to represent him. He recruits Manhattan super-lawyer Kate Costello to help him fight the case - a tough hire since Kate is his ex. But she comes back for the case. The two have to discover who executed three locals and why they went to great lengths to set Dante up as the killer. The investigation reveals a world of illegal pleasures, revenge and fear among the super rich. -
Ridley Jones 1. If Ridley Jones had slept ten minutes later or had taken the subway instead of waiting for a cab, she would still be living the beautiful lie she used to call her life. She would still be the privileged daughter of a doting father and a loving mother. Her life would still be perfect - with only the tiny cracks of an angry junkie for a brother and a charming drunk with shady underworld connections for an uncle to mar the otherwise flawless whole. But that’s not what happened. Instead, those inconsequential decisions lead her to perform a good deed that puts her in the right place at the right time to unleash a chain of events that brings a mysterious package to her door - a package which informs her that her entire world is a lie. Suddenly forced to question everything she knows about herself and her family, Ridley wanders into dark territory she never knew existed, where everyone in her life seems like a stranger. She has no idea who’s on her side and who has something to hide - even, and maybe especially, her new lover, Jake, who appears to have secrets of his own. -
Inspector Lynley No. XVII. Lynley is mystified when he's sent undercover to investigate the death of Ian Cresswell at the request of the wealthy and influential Bernard Fairclough, Cresswell's uncle. The death has been ruled an accidental drowning and nothing on the surface indicates otherwise. But when Lynley enlists the help of his friends Simon and Deborah St. James, the trio's digging soon reveals that the Fairclough clan is awash in secrets, lies, and motives. Deborah's investigation of the prime suspect - Bernard's prodigal son Nicholas, a recovering drug addict - leads her to Nicholas's wife, a woman with whom she feels a kinship, a woman as fiercely protective as she is beautiful. Lynley and Simon delve for information from the rest of the family, including the victim's bitter ex-wife and the man he left her for - and Bernard himself. As the investigation escalates, the Fairclough family's veneer cracks, with deception and self-delusion threatening to destroy everyone from the Fairclough patriarch to Tim, the troubled son Ian left behind. -
Beautiful Lisa Ramsey is found brutally stabbed to death in a Los Angeles park. Suspicion falls on the abusive husband - a television star in media-mad L.A. He cannot be treated publicly as a suspect - yet. A 12 year old runaway boy, Billy Straight, witnessed the murder - but having escaped from his mother's sadistic boyfriend, then witnessing a horrific act of butchery - will he come forward? And not only the police are looking for Billy. -
Fantastic country mansion Follymead is hosting a folk music weekend course. Most musos and singers are there to play, sing and listen. But passions and murder are brewing in this sylvan setting. Tossa Barber and her boyfriend Dominic Felse are amongst the students, and when disaster strikes, Dominic engages the aid of his father, D.I. George Felse, to unravel the tangle of events. -
Kay Scarpetta No. X. A cargo ship arriving at Richmond, Virginia's Deep Water Terminal from Belgium is discovered to be transporting a locked, sealed container holding the decomposed remains of a stowaway. The post mortem performed by the Chief Medical Examiner, Kay Scarpetta, initially reveals neither a cause of death nor an identification. But the victim's personal effects and an odd tattoo take Scarpetta on a hunt for information that leads to Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, where she receives critical instructions: go to the Paris morgue to receive secret evidence and then return to Virginia to carry out a mission. It is a mission that could ruin her career. -
Michael Bennett XII. Detective Michael Bennett and the mayor of New York have always had a tense relationship, but now the mayor sees in Bennett a discreet investigator with family worries of his own. The mayor's daughter is missing and in danger. Bennett has a son who's in prison. The two strike a deal. Just one father helping another. The detective is led to a homicide in the Bronx. The victim has ties to a sophisticated hacking operation - and to the mayor's missing daughter, Natalie, a twenty-one-year-old computer prodigy. The murder is part of a serial killing spree, one with national security implications. And suddenly Bennett is at the center of a dangerous triangle anchored by NYPD, FBI, and a transnational criminal organization. Bennett has always been an honorable man, but sometimes - when the lives of innocents are at stake - honor has to take a back seat. Survival comes first. -
The Hawaii of 1930 was a colonial paradise of soft winds and smooth seas that lured the white man. The availability of cheap labour was also encouraging. Five families now control the wealth of the islands, the U.S. Navy patrols the Pacific from Pearl Harbour. The last Hawaiian family princess, Luahine, lives in exile on a distant island, stripped of her powers. Then the facade of genteel civilisation is shattered when Hester Murdoch, the young society wife of a Navy lieutenant, is found battered and bleeding on a lonely road. She unjustly accuses four local boys of rape and assault. The boys are brought to trial amidst unprecedented media attention, their only defence a scared young local lawyer. The verdict sets in motion a whirlwind of emotions, violence and passion. Based on the true story of the famous Massie murder and rape case that shook Hawaii in the 1930s. -
Gordon Reeve is going to the funeral of his brother, a journalist, found dead in his car - a presumed suicide. When he gets there, no-one wants to answer his questions - like why the car in which his brother was found was locked on the outside - and why does the local cop shadow him and stop him talking to the friend who saw Jim last? And he feels that it wasn't a ghost he saw parked outside the crematorium...Ex-SAS, a professional killer with an anger management problem, it's not in Reeve's nature to let such questions go unanswered - particular when the killers come knocking on his front door.
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Sydney Bryant No. III. When P.I Sydney Bryant takes on a routine 'lover's profile' for smitten mate Victor, she has no idea it would lead to murder. But the mysterious blonde beauty was not quite what she appeared - and now she's dead. Someone has brutally stabbed Martina Saxon and left her lifeless body floating in the pool of her family mansion - leaving a whole lot of questions unanswered. At the top of the list is why the heiress to the mega rich Saxon family had taken a lowly reporters job on the local paper? While Sydney puzzles out what led Martina to give up bloodlines for headlines, she finds herself confronted by an entire family tree of suspects: from the besotted uncle to the conniving fiancee, from the jealous sibling to the Machiavellian matriarch. And now an anonymous source has put Sydney herself under a deadline: either find the killer or be his next victim.
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Ben Cooper & Diane Fry, No. III. The unidentified body of a dead man has turned up on a frosty roadside. An abused woman is found curled in the snow on nearby Irontongue Hill, an apparent suicide. And there's the lingering puzzle of a Royal Air Force bomber that crashed into Irontongue back in 1945, killing everyone on board except for the pilot, who reportedly walked away from the wreckage... and was never heard from again. With leave and sickness decimating the ranks of the Edendale police force, all hands are needed to solve the modern deaths. But Constable Cooper finds himself distracted by the World War II tragedy -mostly because of the beguiling young Canadian granddaughter of that missing pilot, who's come to Edendale determined to clear her ancestor's name.
