Suspense Amateur Detective

As the hotel launches an addition to its overnight amenities on a neighboring property, Delia Sanchez MacBride, the Loring’s principal owner and hospitality manager, is haunted by premonitions of disaster. Delia’s worst fears begin to materialize when the hotel’s most macabre secret is literally unearthed, namely when the bodily remains of The Forgotten Fifty, a group of townspeople who vanished without a trace a century ago, are revealed as being buried in the Loring’s basement.

Between an epic downpour and a King Tide, the historic streets of Charleston are flooded - and dangerous. A late night tragic accident along the Lower Battery leads Liz Talbot straight to her next case. Who's the client? Well, now, therein lies the first puzzle. When the police arrive at the scene of the accident, Poppy Oliver claims she's only trying to help. But the dent on the front of her Subaru and the victim's injuries provoke a certain Charleston police detective's suspicious nature.

Television host and organic gardener Louise Eldridge welcomes old friend Jay McCormick to Washington, D.C. When McCormick is found face down in a fish pond, Louise uncovers a plot that includes Washington's power brokers.

Seven more cases for HC Bailey's eclectic golden age sleuth Mr Reginald Fortune: surgeon, general practitioner, and advisor to Scotland Yard wherever surgery, medicine or kindred sciences can elucidate what is or is not crime. Including: a sudden death at Royal Ascot; a young doctor accused of a diamond theft; a strange country house burglary; an incident at the British Museum leading to a far darker crime; a vanished actress; and a diabolical murder at an orphanage, linked to an apparently accidental death and a near-fatal poisoning.

London zu Beginn der 50er Jahre. Gervase Fen, Literaturprofessor aus Oxford und Gelegenheitsdetektiv, arbeitet als Experte bei der Produktion eines Films über den großen Dichter Alexander Pope, als eine grauenvolle Nachricht das Filmstudio erschüttert: Die junge und aufstrebende Schauspielerin Gloria Scott stürzte sich von der Waterloo Bridge direkt in ihren Tod. Ein tragischer, wenn auch unverständlicher Selbstmord. So scheint es jedenfalls, bis herauskommt, dass Gloria Scott nicht ihr echter Name war.

"Im Grunde bin ich ein Naturwissenschaftler, den es reizt, Abstecher in die trügerische Literaturwissenschaft zu unternehmen. Das erkennen Sie auch an meinem klaren und präzisen Verstand." England Ende der 40er Jahre. Oxford-Professor und Exzentriker Gervase Fen, wie er selbst betont, der einzige Literaturwissenschaftler der Kriminalliteratur, der je Detektiv wurde, hat es sich in den Kopf gesetzt, Lokalpolitiker zu werden. Das Dörfchen Sanford, in das es ihn für seinen Wahlkampf verschlägt, erscheint zunächst ruhig und friedlich. Doch der Schein trügt.

England in den 40er Jahren. Beim Oxforder Opernensemble steht die erste Aufführung von Wagners Meistersingern nach dem 2. Weltkrieg auf dem Plan. Eine der Hauptrollen übernimmt der überaus begabte, aber ebenso unbeliebte Sänger Edwin Shorthouse. Jedenfalls, bis man ihn nach einer Probe erhängt in seiner Garderobe findet. Selbstmord? Wohl kaum. Schon bald danach kommt es zu einem zweiten Mord. Der Tote war ein junger Chorsänger und aufstrebender Opernkomponist. Oxford Professor und Amateurdetektiv Gervase Fen ist ratlos und steht vor einem Rätsel.

Sam Strait lives his life by a set of rules. Unfortunately, they just went out the window. Former Deputy Sam Strait follows some simple guidelines to give him the life he wants. The first rule? Only be where flip-flops can be worn. This principle, along with several others, has helped Sam follow the sun and avoid the brutal winters of the Pacific Northwest. When a former lover calls with a plea for help, Sam’s life turns upside down. She might be the love of his life, but her current boyfriend is in deep trouble with the law.

When decades-old human bones are discovered beneath the old glasshouse behind Foxglove & Hemlock, the local florist, DS Harriet March and DI Ben Taylor find themselves digging into Raven's Edge's murky past. As a frosty wind whips down the cobblestoned lanes of the village, the two detectives feel an ominous chill that has nothing to do with the weather… The discovery coincides with the arrival of enigmatic novelist Iris Evergreen at Raven's Hollow, a gothic monstrosity of a mansion that's been sitting empty for years.

American Alana Eastwood is researching her family tree. Remarkably, Alana traces her Eastwood lineage to an African child, living at Wortley Hall Manor on England's 1801 census. The boy is known as Otobong. Alana believes Otobong to be her earliest traceable ancestor and plans to visit her distant relatives still living in Nottingham. Discovering he was connected to a homicide in 1835 sets Alana on a mission to prove his innocence. Then the body of a man turns up on a beach in Mississippi, eerily close to where Alana's father was born.

When Time in a Bottle, St. Louis's premiere craft store, is slated for demolition, Kiki is forced to confront her deep-rooted aversion to change. But before she can move, the new building must be made ADA compliant. When a long-sealed wall is breached during renovations, a grim secret is revealed. Determined to uncover the truth and provide closure for the innocent life lost, Kiki becomes entangled in a whirlwind investigation that spans decades. With her unyielding spirit and tenacious curiosity, she unravels a web of secrets, deceit, and heartbreak that has haunted this house for years.

The neighborhood of Oleander Court is the poster child for suburban bliss. The residents compare lawns beautified by hired help. They monitor home values. They toss perfect furniture because they wanted tapioca, not beige. But when a string of murders rips through the neighborhood, suspicions abound as new secrets come to light. And as more and more bodies are taken away, it becomes clear that the killer is strategically selecting each and every victim, picking off the shallowest, most wasteful of the lot in spectacular fashion and leaving everyone in the neighborhood to wonder Who’s next?

Suzanne Cavanaugh has just about had it with her office rival at Prestige Properties. It's bad enough that Liza Devereaux is constantly needling her at work, but when she shows up at one of Suzanne’s open houses to poach potential buyers, it’s the last straw. No one in the office fails to hear the two snarling at each other. When Liza is later found dead in her office cubicle - poisoned by a diet shake - Suzanne becomes the prime suspect.

December 1940. With the Blitz devastating Britain’s cities, Lizzie Hayes and the women pilots of the Air Transport Authority are more crucial to the war effort than ever before. But when the relative peace of the village of Scotney is shattered by the disappearance of the Chief Inspector’s niece, it’s Lizzie’s training as a psychologist that draws her into another disturbing police case alongside DI Jonathan Kember.

"Only in Bologna" reads the headline in the Carlino after a professor of music is apparently murdered leaving the opera. But what looks like an open-and-shut case begins to fall apart when English detective Daniel Leicester is tasked with getting the accused man off, and a trail that begins among Bologna's close-knit classical music community leads him to suspect there may be a serial killer at large in the oldest university in the world. And as Bologna trembles with aftershocks following a recent earthquake, the city begins to give up her secrets.

England's prestigious Plumtree Press is about to release a shocking book that exposes coded messages in a famous novel - codes alleged to be printer's errors. The messages are so treacherous, that if discovered at the original time of publication, the author would have been hung for treason. Now, with someone ruthlessly trying to keep this revealing exposé out of stores, Alex Plumtree must protect his star author and family's legacy before the phrase "publish or perish" becomes all too real!

There has never been a woman as beautiful as top model Delora Deanne. But Delora Deanne doesn’t really exist. Unknown to the panting public, Delora is a composite of many women. Her face is played by Gertrude Bragg. Torso and legs by Eula Stolz. Hands, Eva Lou Strauss. Brains, Hazel Swackhammer. But now, Delora is coming apart. Hazel Swackhammer receives the first in what is to be a series of beautifully wrapped presents. Inside, she is surprised to find a pair of pale lavender gloves...containing the hands of Delora Deanne.

Press agent Jake Justus doesn’t care if all of Chicago drops dead. He’s just tied the knot with debutante Helene Brand, and a Bermuda honeymoon is only three in-flight martinis away. But the shooting death of a man in broad daylight, on the busiest shopping day of the year, with plenty of witnesses, is particularly ill-timed. Jake’s pal, attorney John J. Malone, agrees. Only a day before, wedding guest Mona McClane, notorious jet-setter and tipsy big-game hunter, bet the two men she could bag an innocent stranger and they’d never be able to prove a thing.

Following a long but successful book tour, Joe Biden has one more stop before he can return home: Chicago. His old pal Barack Obama has invited him to meet a wealthy benefactor whose endorsement could turn the tide for Joe if he decides to run for president. The two friends barely have time to catch up before another mystery lands in their laps: Obama’s prized Blackberry is stolen. When their number one suspect winds up full of lead on the South Side, the police are content to write it off as just another gangland shooting. But Joe and Obama smell a rat....

Jonathan Knox was an auctioneer of somewhat dubious repute with a photographic memory. So when a frightened woman offered him a discount on eleven of the rarest stamps in existence, worth something like $500,000, he became suspicious. He figured also that if the stamps had been stolen he might net a pretty reward by returning them to their rightful owner. But he couldn't find a single collector willing to admit to owning them. And when the girl who had originally offered them was murdered, Knox knew that he'd be the next one canceled unless he could find the person who would pay.