Résultats lu par "Mark Peckham" dans Toutes les catégories

In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic, its uncertain future contested by the two major political parties of the day: the well-moneyed Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the populist Republicans, led by Aaron Burr. The two finest lawyers in New York, Burr and Hamilton were bitter rivals both in and out of the courtroom, and as the next election approached - with Manhattan likely to be the swing district on which the presidency would hinge - their animosity reached a fever pitch.

You are invited to a murder. That was how the invitations should have read when aged millionaire Hendrik Brass sent out his messages to six oddly assorted men and women who knew neither him nor each other. All arrived at the isolated Brass mansion, lured by the tantalizing promise of fabulous wealth. But from the moment the shining brass doors of the grotesquely constructed house swung shut behind them, they began to realize they had been enticed into playing parts in a monstrous joke - the joke of a twisted, brilliant mind…

Someone is threatening to kill the King, and Ellery must take on the task of saving his hated life. Virtual prisoners, Ellery and his father are whisked away to an island "somewhere in the Atlantic." In a frightening atmosphere of industrial slavery and brute militarism, Ellery comes to grips with a baffling murderer who calmly announces the exact moment of the assassination. The trouble is, Ellery is with the confessed murderer at the time of the crime - so how could he have possibly done it?

Once upon an evil time, there was a wicked old woman with a mammoth shoe company worth many millions of dollars, a henpecked husband, and six miserable children. Then one day death came visiting the vast Potts mansion - and began claiming its inhabitants one by one. It was then that Ellery Queen was invited to sup on this nightmare brew of diabolical murder and baffling mystery - in a case that made the most horrific crimes in his entire career seem like fairy tales. As he endeavors to solve the case, he tries to make sense of this family that defies rationality.

Ellery Queen challenges you to solve these clues to death. A thin envelope - worth a man's life. A shattered display case - whose stolen contents a thief replaced with a strange manuscript. The murder symbol: 3HS wM …the queer cipher found to be an old mark of death. These are but a few of the baffling signs Drury Lane follows down a path of deception and murder to one of the most startling climaxes in mystery fiction.

She was perfect. She smelled of toothpaste, talc, and something sweeter than lilacs. And in that crazy season of autumn, when Cincinnati was ablaze in the blood-red color of fall, Kate Davis made Harry Stoner feel old, and a little in love too. But for Harry Stoner those were only two more reasons that Kate shouldn't have anything more to do with this case. Because what had started with a twisted act of vandalism in the local library had led Kate and Harry, paired together, on a twisting path to a brutal, unsolved murder.

Stoner is a private eye in the classic tradition: A loner with a history of failed relationships with women and all-too-successful relationships with bottles of scotch, he's unable to look away from the world's corruption, and unable to avoid trying futilely to do something about it. His latest hopeless cause is Cindy Ann, a teenage hooker. She's not very pretty or bright or engaging. She doesn’t have much to offer at all, in fact, and somehow that makes her disappearance all the more disturbing for Stoner.

In response to a string of gold thefts in a Mother Lode mine, Quincannon goes undercover as a newly hired miner to identify and capture the men responsible. Meanwhile, Sabina finds herself not only making plans for her and Quincannon’s wedding, but also investigating both an audacious real estate scam and an abusive young man’s villainous secret.

Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services is a fixture in San Francisco at the dawn of a new century. While the future is unclear, Sabina and John know one thing for certain: they will protect their clients from flimflammers, thieves, and murderers, and do whatever it takes to run these dregs of society into the arms of the law. Sometimes, that requires a subtle touch. Professor A. Vargas, self-styled medium extraordinaire, and his partner Annabelle, use guile and trickery to swindle bereaved men and women eager to contact the spirits of deceased loved ones.

A con man always has a bag of tricks, ready to fool the unsuspecting, and almost everyone is unsuspecting until they get taken. When that happens, they turn to Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, to recover their money and what’s left of their dignity, and perhaps even to save their lives.

Old Slater O'Shea, the golden goose, was ruler of a peculiar roost. A gaggle of free-loading O'Sheas were lazing around the mansion, letting Slater foot the bills, while they waited for him to die and leave them his money. But Uncle Slater was in fine health, and someone got tired of waiting. When Slater went upstairs for a little nip before his nap, his bottle of bourbon was labeled "Rest in Peace".

A debutante's missing body, murder most foul, and weird spectrallights in the fog make for a thrilling gas light-era tale of mystery and detection. In 1895 San Francisco young debutantes don't commit suicide at festive parties, particularly not under the eye of Sabina Carpenter. But Virginia St. Ives evidently did, leaping from a foggy parapet in a shimmer of ghostly light.

Detective Harry Stoner has seen better days. It's the middle of January and business is slower than a crawl. Curled up in his office with a paperback mystery, a little classical music on the radio, and a bottle of Scotch, Harry's ready to cut his losses and hibernate until spring. The only problem is that Harry's been living off Visa credit and Christmas cash, and the money faucet is beginning to run dry. Enter Leon Tubin, an odd little man with worn trousers but a pocketful of cash.

Leslie Gibson was a wealthy, beautiful, 17-year-old brat - out for kicks at any price. And Leslie had decided that Reid Rance, adventurer and travel guide extraordinaire, was just the man to show her the hot spots of Mexico. But touring led to trouble with a capital T, and Reid was soon minus one debutante, plus several unwanted corpses, and desperately wanted by Mexican and American police... as well as the Mexican underground.

"Let's face it, Alex: you were the KGB's top assassin, and they paid you off. Just as we might. A cushy lieutenant-colonelcy in Tokyo, riding pour le sport , a yacht, your pick of Eurasian dolls... Like? We can do you better in the USA, Alex--come on over, and bring your secrets with you." That was FACE's pitch to the would-be defector, and it got results. Witness one hell of a nice courier slashed and dumped in a Tokyo alley.

Disc jockey Tutter King has it made. Every time he spins a platter on King's Session, gold comes out: TV earnings, returns on his secret holdings in recording companies - the old payola that some bright young men think only their rightful due. Tutter is a gay young man-around-town who has the world dancing to his tune. He is also involved in some hanky-panky with his pretty blond assistant, Lola Arkwright.

It's 1943, the war is raging, and sleuthing scribe Ellery Queen wants to do his bit. After a tortuous cross-country drive, he takes a job writing scripts for a Hollywood propaganda house - twelve hours a day of hack work that quickly turns his mind to jelly. After a few weeks, he is so worn down that he can type nothing but gibberish, and he decides to drive home. The trouble starts as soon as he reaches the desert.

All police sergeant Burt March wanted was a chance to recover from a recent brush with the Grim Reaper. Sun, fun, and a willing broad - that was all he needed. But the broad had along a sugar daddy with his own private squad of goons with guns. And when the fun began, Burt found himself the gunmen's number one target.

The nice, mild man named Edward Tollman had a problem. His lovely wife was missing, and he wanted her back--fast. So he went to a fellow whose specialty was solving problems like that--a very private detective called Barney Burgess. Burgess' methods were not pleasant, but they got results. Burgess was used to sordid scenes and secrets.

The Syndicate - led by gangster Larry Cutter - is trying to take over Iroquois. They want the town, mayor, and police chief in their pocket. So they kill chief Andy Saxon and one of his top men. Then they move into clean up. But they hadn't reckoned on the chief's son, Lieutenant Ted Saxon.