Suspense Amateur Detective

Louise Lloyd is finally living the quiet life she’d longed for, working in a parfumerie by day and spending time with her new friends every night at the Aquarius club in Paris. When a desperate mother asks for help locating her artist daughter, Louise initially refuses to keep her hard-won but fragile peace intact. But the woman comes with a letter of introduction from an old friend in Harlem, and Louise realizes she has no choice but to do what she can to find the missing young woman.

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!

June wedding bells are ringing! Cameron Cripps Hayman is the matron of honor, and her five furry good boys are all ushers, so what could go wrong? The day before the wedding, the new pastor is found hanging from the choir loft. It's ruled a suicide by the police, but Cam and her Action Agency suspect foul play. Cam's police-officer husband warns her to not stir up trouble where none exists, but when the pastor's home is ransacked, it's clear to Cam that she was murdered.

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.

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.

The last thing 11-year-old Robin wants to hear is that his mother and her new husband are extending their honeymoon indefinitely. The members of the school gang are insisting that he complete a dare before they let him join the group. They want Robin to kidnap Mrs. Nordling’s prize-winning cat when no one is home. Getting into the Nordling’s house is easy, and Robin manages to find the cat and put him in his bag. As Robin is leaving, however, he stumbles upon a terrifying scene - Mr. Nordling leaving the master bedroom with blood all over his body.

Marc et Manon sont de nouveau réunis ; Manon reprend doucement des forces après son enlèvement et sa séquestration à La Vayssière, mais le mystère continue de planer sur le petit village aveyronnais qui les abrite. Monsieur Thomas est en prison, Célestin interrogé par les gendarmes. Qui a bien pu assassiner Tatoué ? Privés du meilleur d'entre eux, les joueurs de quilles de huit ont perdu leur entrain. Quant à Marc, inquiet pour Manon, il préfère rester auprès d'elle.

Manon a disparu. Que lui est-il arrivé ? L'a-t-on enlevée ou tuée ? Sa voiture de location a été retrouvée vide à deux kilomètres du village. Abandonnée sur une route en cul-de-sac. Les gendarmes enquêtent, mais personne ne sait ce qui s'est passé. Marc se lance à son tour dans des recherches. Son flair d'ancien journaliste va-t-il lui permettre de la retrouver rapidement ? Entre le Puech-bas et la Vayssière, entre Paris et l'Aveyron, il reconstruit le fil de ce qu'il s'est réellement passé.

La cinquantaine passée, Marc vient de quitter son job de journaliste. Il est un peu désœuvré dans son appartement parisien quand son ancienne collègue, la jeune Manon, vient le solliciter pour tenter d'élucider un meurtre vieux de dix ans qui s'est produit dans un petit village de l'Aveyron. Marc quitte alors Paris sans regret pour découvrir un autre univers qui tourne essentiellement autour d'un sport inconnu pour lui : les quilles de huit. Il apprend à connaître les figures locales.

The first story featuring Ben, the lovable, humorous ex-sailor and down-at-heels rascal who can't help running into trouble. Ben is back home from the Merchant Navy, penniless as usual and looking for digs in fog-bound London. Taking shelter in an abandoned old house, he stumbles across a dead body - and scarpers. Running into a detective, Gilbert Fordyce, the reluctant Ben is persuaded to return to the house and investigate the mystery of the corpse - which promptly disappears!

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.

In Strawberry Yellow, he returns to the strawberry farms of his youth and encounters family intrigue, danger, and murder. The series' most compelling and evocative mystery yet is set in the strawberry fields of Watsonville, California, where young Mas first arrived as a Hiroshima survivor in the 1940s. He returns for the funeral of a cousin and quickly gets entangled in the murder of a young woman. Was his cousin murdered, too?

The girl is found beside the East River, strangled. She's in her late 20s - so why was she carrying a fake ID? The case should have nothing to do with Reuben Frost, retired Wall Street lawyer, but Frost has never been known to mind his own business. Not to mention, his wife, Cynthia, has been slowed down by arthritis, and his social calendar is barren for the first time in decades. It's the perfect time to find a murderer.

This rare volume is a collection of some of Queen's best, containing three novelettes and two short stories. The stories include "The Death of Don Juan", "The Wrightsville Heirs", "The Case Against Carroll", "E = Murder", and "Diamonds in Paradise". Ellery Queen stars in all of them, making this collection a must-listen for mystery fans.

La prima esperienza con "Miss Marple" non partì sotto i migliori auspici. Avevo la febbre e, quando mia madre era uscita, le avevo chiesto di portarmi un Asterix; quindi mi aspettavo un fumetto. Appena lo vidi, con sospetto, chiesi che libro fosse. "Un giallo di Agatha Christie" rispose lei "di quelli che piacciono tanto a tuo fratello". Di bene in meglio. "Sai, il protagonista non è un poliziotto, e nemmeno un investigatore privato. È una vecchietta che risolve i casi mentre lavora a maglia". E mi lasciò il libro sul comodino. Dalla prefazione di Marco Malvaldi.

Joseph Timar soll für eine Handelsgesellschaft in Gabun arbeiten. In Libreville angekommen, erfährt er, dass es keine Aufgabe für ihn gibt. Der junge Mann fällt in eine quälende Lethargie, er trinkt, vertreibt sich die Zeit beim Billardspiel - und beginnt eine Affäre mit Adèle, der verheirateten Wirtin seines Hotels. Sie ist die Einzige, zu der er eine Beziehung an diesem fremden Ort entwickelt. Dann wird der Hotelboy ermordet, und bald stirbt auch Adèles Mann. Obwohl er einen schrecklichen Verdacht hat, reist Joseph mit Adèle ins Landesinnere.

Anna Marie St. Clair was a normal Wisconsin-farm-girl-turned-mistress when she was framed for the murder of her racketeer boyfriend, one of Chicago’s sleaziest politicians. Sentenced to death, and only hours from getting fried, a lucky hitch sets Anna Marie free, but she blackmails the corrupt warden into informing the tabloids that she took her volts like a real trouper. What better payback than to haunt the lives of those who tried to steal hers? As the shapeliest ghost in the Windy City, she’s going to prove that dying well is the best revenge.