Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surprised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest. The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty...  more

Spenser earned his degree in the school of hard knocks, so he is ready when a Boston university hires him to recover a rare, stolen manuscript. He is hardly surprised that his only clue is a radical student with four bullets in his chest. The cops are ready to throw the book at the pretty blond coed whose prints are all over the murder weapon but Spenser knows there are no easy answers. He tackles some very heavy homework and knows that if he doesn't finish his assignment soon, he could end up marked "D" -- for dead.

In the detective business, Spenser sometimes has to bend the law. Other times, to break it. But he lives by his own inviolate rules. And he loves just one woman -- even though she is the one woman he's just lost. So when Susan's desperate letter arrives, Spenser doesn't think twice. His best...  more

In the detective business, Spenser sometimes has to bend the law. Other times, to break it. But he lives by his own inviolate rules. And he loves just one woman -- even though she is the one woman he's just lost. So when Susan's desperate letter arrives, Spenser doesn't think twice. His best friend, Hawk, faces a life sentence. And Susan has gotten herself into even bigger trouble. Now Spenser has to free them both ... even if it means breaking his own rules to do it. "If you like tight writing, no wasted words and interesting characters, Parker will be your cup of tea." (USA Today)

For years, Professor Peter Shandy has been badgered by Jemima Ames, Assistant Librarian and Annual Chairperson, to decorate his campus home for the Grand Illumination which is Balaclava Agricultural College's main fund-raising event. Now he can hold out no longer. Goaded to madness, he...  more

For years, Professor Peter Shandy has been badgered by Jemima Ames, Assistant Librarian and Annual Chairperson, to decorate his campus home for the Grand Illumination which is Balaclava Agricultural College's main fund-raising event. Now he can hold out no longer. Goaded to madness, he buries his small brick house under an avalanche of plastic reindeer, flashing lights, and fake Santa Clauses. Hooks up an amplifier blaring "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth," locks the switches at "on," and escapes to sea on a tramp steamer. Shipwrecked and conscience-stricken, he crawls back to face his irate colleagues, and finds Jemima Ames dead on his living room floor. Police and security guards say it's an accident; Shandy says it's murder. President Thorkjeld Svenson says he'd better find out the truth without wrecking the Illumination...or the next corpse will be Shandy's.  

This spirit is willing -- to catch a killer. Young widow Penelope Thornton-McClure and her old Aunt Sadie are making ends meet by managing a mystery bookshop -- a quaint Rhode Island landmark rumored to be haunted. Pen may not believe in ghosts, but she does believe in good publicity -- like...  more

This spirit is willing -- to catch a killer. Young widow Penelope Thornton-McClure and her old Aunt Sadie are making ends meet by managing a mystery bookshop -- a quaint Rhode Island landmark rumored to be haunted. Pen may not believe in ghosts, but she does believe in good publicity -- like nabbing Timothy Brennan for a book signing. But soon after the bestselling thriller writer reveals a secret about the store's link to a 1940s murder, he keels over dead -- and right in the middle of the store's new Community Events space. Who gives Mrs. McClure the first clue that it was murder? The bookstore's full-time ghost -- a PI murdered on the very spot more than fifty years ago. Is he a figment of Pen's overactive imagination? Or is the oddly likable fedora-wearing specter the only hope Pen has to solve the crime? You can bet your everlasting life on it .. .

Stoneham, New Hampshire, was a dying town until community leaders invited booksellers to open up shop. Now, its streets are lined with bookstores -- and paved with murder. When she moved to Stoneham, city slicker Tricia Miles was met with friendly faces. And when she opened her mystery...  more

Stoneham, New Hampshire, was a dying town until community leaders invited booksellers to open up shop. Now, its streets are lined with bookstores -- and paved with murder. When she moved to Stoneham, city slicker Tricia Miles was met with friendly faces. And when she opened her mystery bookstore, she was met with friendly competition. But when she finds Doris Gleason dead in her own cookbook store, killed with a kitchen knife, the atmosphere seems more cutthroat than cordial. Someone wanted to get their hands on the rare cookbook that Doris had recently purchased -- and the locals think that someone is Tricia. To clear her name, Tricia will have to take a page out of one of her own mysteries -- and hunt down someone who isn't killing by the book...

When Meg Corey unexpectedly finds herself out of a job, an apartment, and a relationship, she seizes the opportunity to renovate the Massachusetts colonial house her mother has inherited from distant relations and to sell it quickly for a share of the profits. But Meg gets more than she...  more

When Meg Corey unexpectedly finds herself out of a job, an apartment, and a relationship, she seizes the opportunity to renovate the Massachusetts colonial house her mother has inherited from distant relations and to sell it quickly for a share of the profits. But Meg gets more than she bargained for when she learns that renovating a two-hundred-year-old house is no easy task and that the georgeous fifteen-acre apple orchard on the property is in danger of being paved over by developers. And she definately isn't expecting to run into her ex-boyfriend...floating dead in her new septic tank. The police immediately suspect Meg, whose only ally is the charming local plumber who found the body. Determined to clear her name-while fighting her growing attachment to the troublesome house and orchard-Meg begins to investigate the crime and the townspeople only to find there's one bad apple in this bunch.....

When Janet Mandelbaum is made the first woman professor at Harvard's English Department, the men are not happy. They are unhappier still when her tea is spiked and she is found drunk on the floor of the women's room. With a little time, Janet's dear friend and colleague Kate Fansler...  more

When Janet Mandelbaum is made the first woman professor at Harvard's English Department, the men are not happy. They are unhappier still when her tea is spiked and she is found drunk on the floor of the women's room. With a little time, Janet's dear friend and colleague Kate Fansler could track down the culprit, but time is running out....

Kate Fansler is vacationing in the sweet and harmless Berkshires, sorting through the letters of Henry James. But when her next-door neighbor is murdered, and all her houseguests are prime suspects, her idyll turns prosaic, indeed....

David Small is the new rabbi in the small Massachusetts town of Barnard’s Crossing. Although he’d rather spend his days engaged in Torah study and theological debate, the daily chores of synagogue life are all-consuming—that is, until the day a nanny’s body is found on...  more

David Small is the new rabbi in the small Massachusetts town of Barnard’s Crossing. Although he’d rather spend his days engaged in Torah study and theological debate, the daily chores of synagogue life are all-consuming—that is, until the day a nanny’s body is found on the rain-soaked asphalt of the temple’s parking lot.   When the young woman’s purse is discovered in Rabbi Small’s car, he will have to use his scholarly skills and Talmudic wisdom—and collaborate with the Irish-Catholic police chief—to exonerate himself and find the real killer.  

During his career as a Boston cop, Jeff "J.W." Jackson saw enough of the evil that men do to last a lifetime. So he retired to the serenity of Martha's Vineyard to spend his days fishing for blues and wooing a sexy nurse named Zee. But when a local's boat mysteriously explodes...  more

During his career as a Boston cop, Jeff "J.W." Jackson saw enough of the evil that men do to last a lifetime. So he retired to the serenity of Martha's Vineyard to spend his days fishing for blues and wooing a sexy nurse named Zee. But when a local's boat mysteriously explodes off the coast, killing an amiable young drifter, Jackson finds himself reluctantly drawn back into the investigative trade. For there is a serpent loose in paradise -- and it's contaminating Jackson's lovely, peaceful island with its poisonous venom of drugs and death.

Unknown bones, untold secrets, and unsolved crimes from the distant past cast ominous shadows on the present in the dazzling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural...  more

Unknown bones, untold secrets, and unsolved crimes from the distant past cast ominous shadows on the present in the dazzling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil?human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time. . . . Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local ?resurrectionists??those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect. To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city?from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power?on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected . . . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity. With unflagging suspense and pitch-perfect period detail, The Bone Garden deftly interweaves the thrilling narratives of its nineteenth- and twenty-first century protagonists, tracing the dark mystery at its heart across time and place to a finale as ingeniously conceived as it is shocking. Bold, bloody, and brilliant, this is Tess Gerritsen?s finest achievement to date."An old mystery is crossed with a modern story in the latest from Gerritsen (The Mephisto Club, 2006, etc.).Julia Hamill, newly divorced and still smarting, purchases an old house outside Boston. Determined to dig a garden, she instead finds the bones of a long-dead woman?the apparent victim of murder?which starts her on a journey to ferret out the story behind her death. Julia connects with Henry, a no-nonsense 89-year-old with boxes of documents that once belonged to the now-deceased previous owner of Julia?s home. The two discover a mystery dating back to the 1830s. At the heart of it is a baby named Meggie, born to the beautiful but doomed Irish chambermaid, Aurnia. Married to a man who cares nothing for her, Aurnia lays dying in a maternity ward with her sister, Rose, at her side. Rose, a spirited 17-year-old, takes Meggie to protect her from Aurnia?s husband, but soon finds herself the target of a bizarre manhunt. Someone is after the child?and Rose, as well, because she witnessed a horrifying murder. The body count piles up as Rose struggles to remain free of those who would take Meggie from her. Meanwhile, a young medical student becomes the chief suspect of the West End Reaper killings when he stumbles onto another terrible homicide. Although he fights the prospect, eventually he and Rose join forces to solve the murders and protect the baby at the heart of the mysterious deaths. Readers with delicate stomachs may find Gerritsen?s graphic descriptions of corpse dissection hard to take, but the story, which digs up a dark Boston of times long past, entices readers to keep turning pages long after their bedtimes." - Kirkus Reviews (starred)From the Hardcover edition.

Avery Baker was once a New York designer, but inheriting her aunt's old Maine cottage has led her down a new career path -- home renovation. Now, with help from hunky handyman Derek Ellis, Avery starts learning the ABCs of DIY. But when the designer-turned-renovator finds clues that lead to a...  more

Avery Baker was once a New York designer, but inheriting her aunt's old Maine cottage has led her down a new career path -- home renovation. Now, with help from hunky handyman Derek Ellis, Avery starts learning the ABCs of DIY. But when the designer-turned-renovator finds clues that lead to a missing professor, she wonders if she can finish the house -- without getting finished off in the process.

Victoria Trumbull has lived most of her 92 years on the Island. Like other Islanders, she knows the sound of the sea in calm and stormy weather -- and she knows the sounds that do not belong. One evening while Victoria waits on the dock for her granddaughter to return with the harbormaster, she...  more

Victoria Trumbull has lived most of her 92 years on the Island. Like other Islanders, she knows the sound of the sea in calm and stormy weather -- and she knows the sounds that do not belong. One evening while Victoria waits on the dock for her granddaughter to return with the harbormaster, she hears a chilling scream followed by a splash and the sound of tires skidding on sand. She investigates and discovers a mutilated body floating on the outgoing tide.  With her granddaughter, Domingo the harbormaster, a swarm of Island characters, and a few mysterious visitors, Victoria manages to get in a good bit of detective work. However, she isn't able to prevent further homicide. As the tension mounts, Victoria concocts a scheme to reveal the killer and still has time to prepare her traditional Saturday night supper of Boston baked beans. 

dead cat bounce n. Stock market jargon for a small, temporary rise in a stock's trading price after a sharp drop. Since she bought her rambling old fixer-upper of a house, Jacobia Tiptree has gotten used to finding things broken. But her latest problem isn't so easily repaired. Along...  more

dead cat bounce n. Stock market jargon for a small, temporary rise in a stock's trading price after a sharp drop. Since she bought her rambling old fixer-upper of a house, Jacobia Tiptree has gotten used to finding things broken. But her latest problem isn't so easily repaired. Along with the rotting floor joists and sagging support beams, there's the little matter of the dead man in Jake's storeroom, an ice pick firmly planted in his cranium. Not much happens in her tiny Maine town, but that's about to change. Jake's unknown guest turns out to be a world-famous corporate raider, local boy turned billionaire Threnody McIlwaine. When Jake's best friend, quiet and dependable Ellie White, readily confesses to the murder, cops and journalists swarm into snowbound Eastport. Jake smells a cover-up, and begins poking into past history between McIlwaine and Ellie's family. But someone doesn't like nosy neighbors...and Jake's rustic refuge may become her final resting place.

Boston 1868: The wealthy are enjoying the height of the Gilded Age--but not all are wealthy. As governess to the Hewitt family, Irish immigrant Nell Sweeney is sent to discover the truth behind the rumor that their son--thought to be killed in the Civil War--is still alive and in prison.

When fifty-one-year-old Nathan Smith, a once-confirmed bachelor, is found in his bed with a hole in his head made by a .38-caliber slug, it's hard not to imagine Nathan's young bride as the one with her finger on the trigger. Even her lawyer thinks she's guilty. But given that Mary...  more

When fifty-one-year-old Nathan Smith, a once-confirmed bachelor, is found in his bed with a hole in his head made by a .38-caliber slug, it's hard not to imagine Nathan's young bride as the one with her finger on the trigger. Even her lawyer thinks she's guilty. But given that Mary Smith is entitled to the best defense she can afford-and thanks to Nathan's millions, she can afford plenty-Spenser hires on to investigate Mary's bona fides. Mary's alibi is a bit on the flimsy side: She claims she was watching television in the other room when the murder occurred. But the couple was seen fighting at a high-profile cocktail party earlier that evening, and the prosecution has a witness who says Mary once tried to hire him to kill Nathan. What's more, she's too pretty, too made-up, too blonde, and sleeps around-just the kind of person a jury loves to hate. Spenser's up against a wall; leads go nowhere, no one knows a thing. Then a young woman, recently fired from her position at Smith's bank, turns up dead. Mary's vacant past suddenly starts looking meaner and darker-and Spenser's suddenly got to watch his back. With lean, crackling dialogue, crisp action, and razor-sharp characters, Widow's Walk is another triumph.

"Dying is a wild night and a new road" wrote Emily Dickinson. The sharpness of this poetic vision takes on a new meaning when, during the annual pageant commemorating Paul Revere's ride, a prominent citizen's gruesomely ventilated body (still in Minuteman costume) signals a...  more

"Dying is a wild night and a new road" wrote Emily Dickinson. The sharpness of this poetic vision takes on a new meaning when, during the annual pageant commemorating Paul Revere's ride, a prominent citizen's gruesomely ventilated body (still in Minuteman costume) signals a murderer is on the loose. Homer Kelly, celebrated Emersonian scholar and legendary ex-homicide detective, happens to be in Concord completing his academic opus. When the local constabulary asks him for help, he willingly agrees.

Homer Kelly is back...a distinguished Thoreau scholar and professor of American literature, also an ex-detective for Middlesex County. But for now he's camped out at a small New England church, trying to figure out why so many parishioners are ending up dead so soon. Homer's job is to untangle...  more

Homer Kelly is back...a distinguished Thoreau scholar and professor of American literature, also an ex-detective for Middlesex County. But for now he's camped out at a small New England church, trying to figure out why so many parishioners are ending up dead so soon. Homer's job is to untangle murders from natural death. He finds the flock, so devout on Sundays, capable of breaking most commandments the other six days. "Keeps you on edge from start to finish." (Publisher's Source)

Mr. Myles Witherall, retired New Englander, decides on a whim to take an inexpensive tourist bus to the little town of Skaket, and thereby gets involved in the movements of an escaped killer. Meanwhile, a young married couple of artistic antecedents find that Skaket's inhabitants have turned...  more

Mr. Myles Witherall, retired New Englander, decides on a whim to take an inexpensive tourist bus to the little town of Skaket, and thereby gets involved in the movements of an escaped killer. Meanwhile, a young married couple of artistic antecedents find that Skaket's inhabitants have turned violently against them, just before they find the body of Rosalie Ray, radio personality, dead in her bed, murdered with a whale lance. It takes Asey Mayo's knowledge of Skaket mores, a session of bric-a-brac destruction with willful ing?nue Laurie Lee, and the breaking of a clever alibi before Asey can pinpoint the killer and administer justice personally. First published in 1936.

Boston, 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dante's Inferno. Only an elite group of America's first Dante scholars -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fields -- can solve the mystery. With the police baffled, more...  more

Boston, 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dante's Inferno. Only an elite group of America's first Dante scholars -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fields -- can solve the mystery. With the police baffled, more lives endangered, and Dante's literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find the killer.

WATCH YOUR BACK. TRUST NO ONE. Nobody in this perfect seaside resort town ever imagined that the body of a missing heiress might be found deep in a tunnel beneath her family's crumbling Newport estate. Nobody, that is, but the last person to see her alive. Now, as a KEY News crew...  more

WATCH YOUR BACK. TRUST NO ONE. Nobody in this perfect seaside resort town ever imagined that the body of a missing heiress might be found deep in a tunnel beneath her family's crumbling Newport estate. Nobody, that is, but the last person to see her alive. Now, as a KEY News crew investigates the murder, a cold-blooded killer lives in fear of discovery. Too many reporters are closer than they realize to the truth behind a chilling secret... AND WHEN A KILLER CLOSES IN... For thirty-two-year-old KEY News intern Grace Callahan, the Newport assignment is the chance of a lifetime. The single mom is determined to win a coveted staff position, but that means outshining equally ambitious-and far younger-rivals. HIDE YOURSELF AWAY When the killer begins to target those closest to Grace, she must face the real danger that lurks in an otherwise idyllic town. In a race against time, Grace must find the courage to delve into Newport's secrets, protect her daughter, and stop a ruthless killer who's determined to win this deadly game of hide and seek...

A beautiful, grief-stricken woman has vanished without a trace. So has the detective hired to find her. And a lot of money. Enter savvy, tough-nosed private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. Rooted in the no-nonsense streets of Boston's blue-collar Dorchester, they've seen...  more

A beautiful, grief-stricken woman has vanished without a trace. So has the detective hired to find her. And a lot of money. Enter savvy, tough-nosed private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. Rooted in the no-nonsense streets of Boston's blue-collar Dorchester, they've seen it all -- and survived. But this case leads them into unexpected territory where nothing is sacred -- a land of lies and corruption where trusting anyone could get them killed ... where taking any step could be their last.

Cassie Burdette already has her hands full playing a tournament at legendary Pinehurst, North Carolina, with her formerly estranged father and grumpy boyfriend. When her friend's father vanishes, she starts poking around the fairway for answers--hoping whoever made the man disappear...  more

Cassie Burdette already has her hands full playing a tournament at legendary Pinehurst, North Carolina, with her formerly estranged father and grumpy boyfriend. When her friend's father vanishes, she starts poking around the fairway for answers--hoping whoever made the man disappear won't do the same with her.

It was the shot that shook the town of Brattleboro, Vermont. Jamie Phillips had dropped in on Thelma Reitz, only to have that staid old lady blow his head off with a shotgun. Jamie's atomized neck was enough to make even the most hardened cop wince. Obviously a setup, thinks Detective Joe...  more

It was the shot that shook the town of Brattleboro, Vermont. Jamie Phillips had dropped in on Thelma Reitz, only to have that staid old lady blow his head off with a shotgun. Jamie's atomized neck was enough to make even the most hardened cop wince. Obviously a setup, thinks Detective Joe Gunther, but the crime soon takes on even more shocking dimensions. First, Gunther discovers that murderess and victim were co-jurors on the sensational Harris murder trial three years earlier. Then, several vicious assaults lead Gunther to suspect that whoever planned Jamie's diabolical death won't quit till the Harris affair is reopened, even if it means killing every juror...and the cop on the case.

Honoring a request to conduct a minor Internal Affairs investigation for a small-town police department, Joe Gunther travels upriver to the town of Bellows Falls. But there's more to this case than a young officer's embarrassment. Soon rumors of police corruption, spousal abuse, drug...  more

Honoring a request to conduct a minor Internal Affairs investigation for a small-town police department, Joe Gunther travels upriver to the town of Bellows Falls. But there's more to this case than a young officer's embarrassment. Soon rumors of police corruption, spousal abuse, drug deals and murder begin to engulf the little river town and Joe is the one responsible for separating fact from fiction, which is becoming a dangerous task...

With Joe Gunther and his Vermont Bureau of Investigation team spread thin on assignment everywhere, from the remote dairy county of Northwest Vermont to the slums of Newark, NJ, they're pushed to their absolute limit when a string of serial arsons across the Green Mountain State evolve into...  more

With Joe Gunther and his Vermont Bureau of Investigation team spread thin on assignment everywhere, from the remote dairy county of Northwest Vermont to the slums of Newark, NJ, they're pushed to their absolute limit when a string of serial arsons across the Green Mountain State evolve into the most shocking series of murders the bucolic region has ever known.

The Belle of Amherst is losing her fans one by one... The guests at the Emily Dickinson Memorial symposium are all passionately devoted to the poet. Professor Peter Wiggins is eager to revitalize her image (and his own career) by exposing a very controversial photograph. Winifred Gaw, ...  more

The Belle of Amherst is losing her fans one by one... The guests at the Emily Dickinson Memorial symposium are all passionately devoted to the poet. Professor Peter Wiggins is eager to revitalize her image (and his own career) by exposing a very controversial photograph. Winifred Gaw,  an obese graduate student, feels compelled to make public the special bond she shares with Emily Dickinson -- the awful pain of unrequited love. And even Professor Tom Perry's New girlfriend, pretty Alison Groves, finds that her indifference to poetry undergoes a subtle change when she's selected to wear Dickinson's famous white dress. Soon academic and romantic rivalries begin to  intrude on the cultured atmosphere, and the ardent tributes to Dickinson's memory are rudely interrupted by arson, forgery...and murder. Emily Dickinson noted "death's tremendous nearness" in one of her poems. Of course, she'd been dead 100 years when her admirers came to Amherst to celebrate her at a memorial symposium. Among them was Homer Kelly, distinguished Thoreau scholar and ex-detective, who had himself dealt with murder -- a form of death -- in the past. To his amazement he finds himself once again embroiled in sudden death when murder stalks the symposium.

Once again, Sarah Kelling and her husband, Max Bittersohn, are drawn into a tangle of murderous events, courtesy of Sarah's eccentric family. Uncle Jeremy Kelling's friends Bill and Abigail Billingsgate are holding their annual Renaissance Revel at their sumptuous Romanesque abode in...  more

Once again, Sarah Kelling and her husband, Max Bittersohn, are drawn into a tangle of murderous events, courtesy of Sarah's eccentric family. Uncle Jeremy Kelling's friends Bill and Abigail Billingsgate are holding their annual Renaissance Revel at their sumptuous Romanesque abode in suburban Boston. But before the festivities begin, the Billingsgates' vintage 1927 New Phantom Rolls Royce disappears. Sarah and Max are asked to do some sleuthing during the affair and also to keep an eye on the remainder of the Billingsgate collection of vintage Rollses. But while morris dancers leap and ersatz peacock pie is consumed, the gatekeeper (appropriately attired in period costume, complete with Totschlager) is killed and left hanging from an oak tree. In addition, a priceless Silver Ghost auto has vanished, and Aunt Bodicea Kelling with it. Who's to blame? The gate was locked, the extensive security system was in operation, and the gravel driveway was left undisturbed. It seems an unsolvable riddle, but count on Max and Sarah to ferret out the astonishing facts.

The good news: You've got tenure. The bad news: You're dead. Faculty squabbling at a large state university turns deadly when professor of education Susan Lombardi joins a committee to make a tenure decision about Abby Gillette, a controversial faculty member. After one colleague is...  more

The good news: You've got tenure. The bad news: You're dead. Faculty squabbling at a large state university turns deadly when professor of education Susan Lombardi joins a committee to make a tenure decision about Abby Gillette, a controversial faculty member. After one colleague is hospitalized following a suspicious fire and another is found dead in Abby's office, Susan must try to figure out who is doing what to whom...without becoming the next victim. At the same time, she must deal with her husband's highly dysfunctional family and help a friend handle a questionable romance. The second volume in the Susan Lombardi series, this charming, witty mystery is in a class by itself.

In the seaside village of Cape Willington, Maine, Candy Holliday has an idyllic life tending to the Blueberry Acres farm she runs with her father and occasionally stepping in to solve a murder or two ... Candy is just as shocked as the rest of the locals when two murders occur back-to-back....  more

In the seaside village of Cape Willington, Maine, Candy Holliday has an idyllic life tending to the Blueberry Acres farm she runs with her father and occasionally stepping in to solve a murder or two ... Candy is just as shocked as the rest of the locals when two murders occur back-to-back. First, an aging playboy takes a midnight nosedive off a seaside cliff. Then, gossip columnist -- and recently crowned town Blueberry Queen -- Sapphire Vine stops the business end of a hammer with her head, right in her own home. When her friend, a local handyman, is accused of the murder, Candy investigates to clear his name. Was the gossip columnist moonlighting as a blackmailer? Was the playboy playing around with the wrong person? But as Candy sorts through the town's juicy secrets, things start to get very sticky indeed ...

A Good Foundation ... For Murder Pix Miller, Faith Fairchild's next-door neighbor, expects to find more than a hole in the ground when she goes to check on the progress of the summer cottage the Fairchilds are having built on Maine's Sanpere Island. She expects a concrete foundation....  more

A Good Foundation ... For Murder Pix Miller, Faith Fairchild's next-door neighbor, expects to find more than a hole in the ground when she goes to check on the progress of the summer cottage the Fairchilds are having built on Maine's Sanpere Island. She expects a concrete foundation. What she doesn't expect is a very dead body wrapped in a very valuable antique quilt! The deceased is a local handyman with a suspiciously lucrative sideline in antiques. Sharing her friend Faith's inquisitive nature, Pix resolves to restore Sanpere's shattered peace. But by digging too deeply the determined Ms. Miller just might be arranging another burial -- her own!

During her years spent in New York City. Faith Fairchild was convinced she had seen pretty much everything. But the transplanted caterer/minister's wife was unprepared for the surprises awaiting her in the sleepy Massachusetts village of Aleford. And she is especially taken aback by the dead...  more

During her years spent in New York City. Faith Fairchild was convinced she had seen pretty much everything. But the transplanted caterer/minister's wife was unprepared for the surprises awaiting her in the sleepy Massachusetts village of Aleford. And she is especially taken aback by the dead body of a pretty young thing she discovers stashed in the church's belfry. The victim, Cindy Shepherd. was well-known locally for her acid tongue and her jilted beaux, which created a lot of bad blood and more than a few possible perpetrators -- including her luckless fiance, who had neither an alibi nor a better way to break off the engagement. Faith thinks it's terribly unfair that the police have zeroed in on the hapless boyfriend, and so she sets out to uncover the truth. But digging too deeply into the sordid secrets of a small New England village tends to make the natives nervous. And an overly curious big city lady can become just another small town death statistic in very short order.

This brand-new mystery series spins a yarn about knitters and murder in a quaint seaside village. Not long after Isabel aIzzya Chambers opens up a knitting shop in the sleepy fishing town of Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, a diverse group of women begins congregating each week to form the Seaside...  more

This brand-new mystery series spins a yarn about knitters and murder in a quaint seaside village. Not long after Isabel aIzzya Chambers opens up a knitting shop in the sleepy fishing town of Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, a diverse group of women begins congregating each week to form the Seaside Knitters. Izzy raises some eyebrows when she rents the apartment above her shop to Angie Archer, whose reputation for loose behavior and a quick temper has made her unpopular with many locals. But could any of them have wanted her dead? Angieas body is discovered drowned in the harbor, her long red hair tangled like seaweed in a lobster trap. An official investigation rules the death an accident. There are speculations of too many whiskey sours, a slippery wharf, a dark nighta] But Izzy and the Seaside Knitters smell something fishy. When several strange incidents occur above the shop, the women decide to take matters into their own hands. But before long, their small-town sense of security is frayed, and the threat of more violence hangs over this tightly knit community.

Trading Texas heat for Maine's tangy salt air, Natalie Barnes risked it all to buy the Gray Whale Inn, a quaint bed and breakfast on Cranberry Island. She adores whipping up her signature blueberry coffee cake and killer cranberry scones for her guests. But when her guests start turning up...  more

Trading Texas heat for Maine's tangy salt air, Natalie Barnes risked it all to buy the Gray Whale Inn, a quaint bed and breakfast on Cranberry Island. She adores whipping up her signature blueberry coffee cake and killer cranberry scones for her guests. But when her guests start turning up dead, the police and most of the townspeople think Natalie has added murder to the mix. Now, Natalie must get cooking to solve the mystery and find the true killer before she loses the Gray Whale Inn. Or her life...

Theda Krakow is in a funk. Her sometime boyfriend's gone for good. The death of her beloved cat opened a bigger void. And the career leap she's made from copy editor to freelance writer has left her financesand her spiritflat. She desperately needs a headline to get her life back on track.One...  more

Theda Krakow is in a funk. Her sometime boyfriend's gone for good. The death of her beloved cat opened a bigger void. And the career leap she's made from copy editor to freelance writer has left her financesand her spiritflat. She desperately needs a headline to get her life back on track.One day, out for a stroll in her Cambridge neighborhood, Theda spies an adorable stray kitten. This charmer leads Theda to an old woman holed up in a decrepit house full of cats. Is this one of those "crazy cat ladies," a classic hoarder, or is the old woman a neighborhood do-gooder More important, is this the story to catapult Theda out of the dumps But when she returns to interview Lillian Helmhold, Theda finds her fascinating subject dead of an apparent accident. The neighbors are celebrating, the police aren't interested, and the cats are removed to a shelter. End of story Not for Theda--one or two things don't compute. So Theda marshals her investigative journalism skills to turn gumshoe.

"A bonanza for dog lovers... a likeable heroine in a smoothly paced mystery." -- Publishers Weekly The apparent heart attack that killed kennel owner Max Turnbull has left seven pups in mourning, and his wife Peg suspecting foul play. But the only evidence is their missing prize...  more

"A bonanza for dog lovers... a likeable heroine in a smoothly paced mystery." -- Publishers Weekly The apparent heart attack that killed kennel owner Max Turnbull has left seven pups in mourning, and his wife Peg suspecting foul play. But the only evidence is their missing prize pooch -- a pedigreed poodle named Beau. Enter Melanie Travis. With her young son happily ensconced in day camp, the thirty-something teacher and single mother is talked into investigating her uncle's death -- unofficially, of course. Posing as a poodle breeder in search of the perfect stud, Melanie hounds Connecticut's elite canine competitions, and finds an ally in fellow breeder Sam Driver. But her affection cools when she's put on the scent of Sam's questionable past... and hot on the trail of a poodle-hating neighbor and one elusive murderer who isn't ready to come to heel. For, as Melanie soon discovers, in a championship dog-eat-dog world, the instinct for survival, and winning, can prove fatal.

Carlotta Carlyle, ex-cop, struggling private eye, and 6'1" of long tall redhead, takes any case that walks through the door. This time the door opens twice. First in is her old partner, Lieutenant Mooney of the Boston police, unfairly charged with brutality, suspended, and desperate. The witness...  more

Carlotta Carlyle, ex-cop, struggling private eye, and 6'1" of long tall redhead, takes any case that walks through the door. This time the door opens twice. First in is her old partner, Lieutenant Mooney of the Boston police, unfairly charged with brutality, suspended, and desperate. The witness who can clear him is a hooker with a snake tattoo... and she's vanished. The second client is a teenager with a missing wallet and a split lip. He's been roughed up on the Boston streets while searching for his runaway girlfriend. He's too young to be a client, and Carlotta should have turned him down. Shoulda, woulda, coulda... didn't. Both investigation send Carlotta into Boston's Combat Zone and the dark alleys of the human heart. Hookers don't disappear and kids don't take off with good reason. Now Carlotta is coming face to face with the evil that men do, and what is she going to do about it? Tackle it head on....

Nero Blanc's crossword mysteries have been creating a buzz up, down, and across the aisles of bookstores-and now, the series debut is available in mass market paperback for the first time. Join P.I. Rosco Polycrates as he fills in the blanks of an investigation into a flamboyant crossword...  more

Nero Blanc's crossword mysteries have been creating a buzz up, down, and across the aisles of bookstores-and now, the series debut is available in mass market paperback for the first time. Join P.I. Rosco Polycrates as he fills in the blanks of an investigation into a flamboyant crossword editor's death....

Canadian doctor and amateur genealogist Anne McPhail finds a murdered woman on the floor of the library in Culver's Mill's, a small town in Vermont. Jennifer Smith, the dead librarian was a gifted genealogical researcher who had been collecting information about her clients, and using it to...  more

Canadian doctor and amateur genealogist Anne McPhail finds a murdered woman on the floor of the library in Culver's Mill's, a small town in Vermont. Jennifer Smith, the dead librarian was a gifted genealogical researcher who had been collecting information about her clients, and using it to blackmail them. She had extorted money from all kinds of people: local wealthy families; Russian criminals, and quiet, unassuming grandmothers. Anne takes a dangerous journey, retracing Jennifer's steps through the small-town family histories find the murderer amongst her victims.

Propelled by fine writing and full-blooded characters, Cold Comfort is an intricate tale of murder and passion set in a deceptively peaceful, rural American locale. Hector Bellevance has returned to his hometown in northern Vermont after a bruising tenure as a Boston cop destroyed his marriage....  more

Propelled by fine writing and full-blooded characters, Cold Comfort is an intricate tale of murder and passion set in a deceptively peaceful, rural American locale. Hector Bellevance has returned to his hometown in northern Vermont after a bruising tenure as a Boston cop destroyed his marriage. Once there, he reluctantly accepts the mostly honorary title of town constable, a job that has him enforcing dog ordinances and other local nuisance laws, until a violent double-murder sets a destructive series of events in motion.A wealthy and attractive couple from Canada, recent newcomers to the town, are found shot execution-style in their fashionable home. Hector's half-brother Spud — a down-to-earth dairy farmer and neighbor of the two — finds the bodies shortly before the police discover that Spud and the wife were having an affair. With his brother tagged as suspect number one, Hector is forced to begin his own investigation into who wanted these people dead and why.The search finds him keeping company with Wilma Strong-Parkhurst, a smart, sexy, outspoken reporter for the local paper, who knows more than she's telling. Together they uncover the unexpectedly dark underbelly of the town and its environs, which involves locally produced porn films, high-stakes real estate development, and drugs. Critically acclaimed author Don Bredes spins a captivating story of lust, greed, and old-fashioned, time-honored American ingenuity.

Mrs. Bundle was looking for more excitement in “her little world” of North Pillson Corners, Vermont. Before she can say “Fantastical!”, her fledgling B and C Detective Agency becomes entangled in two mysteries that mix family, trust, power, and betrayal into a very...  more

Mrs. Bundle was looking for more excitement in “her little world” of North Pillson Corners, Vermont. Before she can say “Fantastical!”, her fledgling B and C Detective Agency becomes entangled in two mysteries that mix family, trust, power, and betrayal into a very hazardous cocktail. Little knowing what danger she faces, she puts her deductive skills to the test (with the help of her teenage neighbor, Angie Andersen, and her favorite sidekick, Cracker) and lets her thirst for Adventure lead her to more intrigue and risk than she ever bargained for.

For the first time ever, Lady Margaret Priam and Betty Trenka join forces -- to solve a high-tech Manhattan murder among the very rich. To her delighted surprise, suburban sleuth Betty Trenka finds herself ensconced in a luxurious New York City hotel -- preparing to investigate the wealthy,...  more

For the first time ever, Lady Margaret Priam and Betty Trenka join forces -- to solve a high-tech Manhattan murder among the very rich. To her delighted surprise, suburban sleuth Betty Trenka finds herself ensconced in a luxurious New York City hotel -- preparing to investigate the wealthy, ruthless computer entrepreneur Gerald Toth for her country neighbor, Ted Kelso. An expert tester of software programs, Ted has been offered a suspiciously large sum to approve Toth's top secret new brainchild. But a murder on a foggy Connecticut beach ups the ante especially when an unmarked computer disk is found at the crime scene. Suddenly Betty and her newfound friend, the elegant Lady Margaret Priam, are surfing the social scene for a cunning killer--and playing real-life computer games where death is only a mouse click away. . . .

Small-town gossip can be murderespecially when a ruthless blackmailer is involved. As the annual Autumn Festival gets under way, Old Main Street is in an uproar over a proposed nonsmoking ban throughout the historic district. Then a vicious murderer strikes. Its truly a case of speak no evil as...  more

Small-town gossip can be murderespecially when a ruthless blackmailer is involved. As the annual Autumn Festival gets under way, Old Main Street is in an uproar over a proposed nonsmoking ban throughout the historic district. Then a vicious murderer strikes. Its truly a case of speak no evil as amateur sleuths Kate Lawrence and Margo Farnsworth race to discover the truth before a local business owner is unjustly convicted of murder, or even more unthinkably, Kates daughter Emma falls under suspicion. In the background, Kates longtime romance hits the rocky shoals of culture shock, Margo is caught up in an unlikely romance of her own, and Emma is intrigued by a man in uniform. When Kate is forced off the road by a sinister Trans Am, she knows that she has been warned. Can she identify the murderer in time, or will someones slip of the tongue make her the next victim?

Park Square. Mass Ave. The Combat Zone. All home to Boston's sex trade. Home also to runaways and lost souls, home to high rollers and politicians looking for action they can't find anywhere else. It is home, too, for Father Clancy Donovan, who spends his time here trying to get young girls off...  more

Park Square. Mass Ave. The Combat Zone. All home to Boston's sex trade. Home also to runaways and lost souls, home to high rollers and politicians looking for action they can't find anywhere else. It is home, too, for Father Clancy Donovan, who spends his time here trying to get young girls off the street. Bone weary and frustrated, he has lost the joy in his life and has no idea how to get it back. Divorced three times and not yet thirty-five, Sarah Connolly is trying hard to make a new start when life throws her a curve. Kit, her fifteen-year-old niece, has run away from home, and Sarah will need every ounce of her stubbornness and determination to track her down. Suspecting Kit has disappeared into the Combat Zone, and with no one else to turn to, Sarah appeals to Clancy for help. The unlikely pair team up to find Kit, but in the process find something else -- something powerful, something unexpected and something that will shake them to their core.

In his critically acclaimed novel, Longing, J. D. Landis explored the volatile nature of passion as he brought to life the extraordinary marriage of Robert and Clara Schumann. It was a fervent love story that unfolded against the lavish backdrop of the Romantic Age. Now Landis tells a haunting...  more

In his critically acclaimed novel, Longing, J. D. Landis explored the volatile nature of passion as he brought to life the extraordinary marriage of Robert and Clara Schumann. It was a fervent love story that unfolded against the lavish backdrop of the Romantic Age. Now Landis tells a haunting story set amid a sylvan cluster of towns, villages, and graveyards in New England— nestled in a valley that would be purposely flooded in the late 1930s to create the Quabbin Reservoir. Communities would be destroyed, lives uprooted, connections to places of birth severed, and the dead would be exhumed and reburied.The fate of Swift River Valley holds a strange fascination for seventeen-year-old Sarianna Renway, a wayward student obsessed with the life and work of poet Emily Dickinson. Sarianna finds herself drawn to this little world whose end is predetermined and whose time is drawing near. In the small hamlet of Greenwich Village—abandoned, beautiful, doomed—Sarianna takes a job tutoring a minister’s son.A man of deep faith, Jeremy Treat strives to instill hope into a town destined to be taken and lost forever. He vows to be the last one in the valley to ensure his remaining flock leaves safely. Eleven-year-old Jimmy, “the perfect representation of God on earth,” is a curious and compassionate child prodigy. The matriarch of the household is twenty-six-year-old Una, a voluptuous eccentric who embraces scandal—and pines for the one true love who disappeared almost twelve years ago on the day she became Jeremy’s wife. When the mysterious Ethan Vear resurfaces, none will emerge unchanged—especially Sarianna, who finds herself ensnared in a triangle of shifting identities and warring passions. In lush, evocative prose, J. D. Landis takes these vivid characters—their secrets, their temptations, their desires—and creates a stunning New England gothic novel of sexual awakening, profound loss, and thwarted love.

New York television news writer/reporter Michael Carpo escapes a Manhattan heat wave for a getaway at the rustic Connecticut home of fellow writer Jack Crawford.  Carpo's vacation plans sour when he arrives to discover his friend dead in a spreading pool of blood, an apparent...  more

New York television news writer/reporter Michael Carpo escapes a Manhattan heat wave for a getaway at the rustic Connecticut home of fellow writer Jack Crawford.  Carpo's vacation plans sour when he arrives to discover his friend dead in a spreading pool of blood, an apparent suicide. Too many unanswered questions lead Carpo to the grim conclusion that Jack was murdered, despite the open-and-shut attitude of town officials.  When he uncovers information on several other suspicious deaths in the past few years, he searches for the common thread.  Another "accident" occurs, the victim a woman he spoke with only hours before she was found floating in a lake.  When Carpo uncovers the decades-old secret at the heart of the mystery, he comes to the chilling realization that someone in this idyllic community is getting away with murder....

P.I. Rosco Polycrates and crossword editor Belle Graham are back for more puzzle and crime solving. This time they discover the ups and downs of married life-and death.

After his girlfriend dumps him to marry another man, Bernie follows the couple to a New England Inn with his sights set on an autographed first edition copy of Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep," located in the Inn's library. But when a dead body appears and all the guests remain snowbound, it's...  more

After his girlfriend dumps him to marry another man, Bernie follows the couple to a New England Inn with his sights set on an autographed first edition copy of Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep," located in the Inn's library. But when a dead body appears and all the guests remain snowbound, it's up to Bernie to solve the case!

This first book in a new series is set in and around the Portland, Maine, waterfront. It introduces Brandon Blake, a loner who lives on his old wooden cruiser. Raised by his alcoholic grandmother after his mother was lost at sea, Blake learned to depend on himself. During an assignment for a...  more

This first book in a new series is set in and around the Portland, Maine, waterfront. It introduces Brandon Blake, a loner who lives on his old wooden cruiser. Raised by his alcoholic grandmother after his mother was lost at sea, Blake learned to depend on himself. During an assignment for a law-enforcement class, Blake gets involved in a fight and is marked for payback by a soon-to-be-released convict. Meanwhile, questions surface about his mother's disappearance.

In the small New England town of Morse Point, Brenna Miller glosses over her painful past by watching her decoupage students create eye-catching projects out of cutouts, glue, and varnish. But when the mayor's body is found stuffed in a trunk at Morse Point Lake, it's up to Brenna to clear her...  more

In the small New England town of Morse Point, Brenna Miller glosses over her painful past by watching her decoupage students create eye-catching projects out of cutouts, glue, and varnish. But when the mayor's body is found stuffed in a trunk at Morse Point Lake, it's up to Brenna to clear her enigmatic landlord's name of murder-before his fate is signed, sealed and delivered.

Before leaving for a black-tie affair in New York City, Margaret and Steve Frawley celebrate the third birthday of their twin girls, Kathy and Kelly, with a party at their new home in Ridgefield, Conn. Later that night, when Margaret can't reach the babysitter, she contacts the Ridgefield...  more

Before leaving for a black-tie affair in New York City, Margaret and Steve Frawley celebrate the third birthday of their twin girls, Kathy and Kelly, with a party at their new home in Ridgefield, Conn. Later that night, when Margaret can't reach the babysitter, she contacts the Ridgefield police. The frantic couple return home to find the children missing and a ransom note demanding $8 million. Though the Frawleys meet all the conditions, only Kelly turns up in a car along with a dead driver and a suicide note saying that Kathy has died. But Kelly's telepathic messages from her sister keep telling her differently, and Margaret won't give up hope. Even the most skeptical law enforcement officers and the FBI, who pursue suspects from New York to Cape Cod, begin to believe Kelly is on to something. Clues from ordinary people lead to a riveting conclusion.

It's been twenty years since Western State Hospital was closed down and the last of its inmates reintegrated into society. Francis Petrel was barely out of his teens when his family committed him to the asylum, after his erratic behavior culminated in a terrifying outburst. Now middle-aged,...  more

It's been twenty years since Western State Hospital was closed down and the last of its inmates reintegrated into society. Francis Petrel was barely out of his teens when his family committed him to the asylum, after his erratic behavior culminated in a terrifying outburst. Now middle-aged, he leads an aimless, solitary life housed in a cheap apartment, periodically tended to by his sisters, and perpetually medicated to quiet the chorus of voices in his head. But a reunion on the grounds of the shuttered institution stirs something deep in Francis's troubled mind: dark memories he thought he had laid to rest, about the grisly events that led to Western State Hospital's demise. It begins in 1979, when twenty-one-year-old Petrel descends into the state-run purgatory of an overcrowded, understaffed Massachusetts mental hospital. Surrounded by inmates roaming the halls like drugged zombies and raving behind locked doors, well-meaning orderlies, jaded nurses, and patronizing doctors, Francis finds friendship with a motley assortment of fellow patients: a would-be Napoleon, a wise ex-firefighter, and a man obsessed with battling imagined devils. But there's nothing imaginary about the young nurse found sexually assaulted and brutally murdered late one night after lights-out. The police suspect an inmate, while patients whisper about visions of a white-shrouded "angel." But the striking and mysterious prosecuting attorney who arrives to investigate has her own chilling theory--about the grim, telltale "signature" left on the victim's body, a string of unsolved sex killings, and a very real devil who, by chance or design, has come to turn a madhouse into a slaughterhouse. Now, with the past creeping back to haunt his thoughts, and nothing but a pencil and the bare walls of his bleak apartment, Francis surrenders to the overwhelming need to tell the story of those nightmarish days. But because the crime was never solved, it's a story doomed to remain unfinished. Until, like Francis's long-buried recollections, the killer resurfaces...with a vengeance. A tour de force narrative journey through the eerily unpredictable mind of an utterly unusual hero, The Madman's Tale will keep even the most astute thriller reader uncertain, unnerved, and unable to resist the tantalizing twists and turns of this fiendishly suspenseful shadow show.

After more than three decades eluding justice, the man who murdered Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree's mother is finally about to stand trial -- until he vanishes into thin air. Jake has a terrible foreboding of where Ozzie Campbell will turn up next. And while the local police chief is sure...  more

After more than three decades eluding justice, the man who murdered Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree's mother is finally about to stand trial -- until he vanishes into thin air. Jake has a terrible foreboding of where Ozzie Campbell will turn up next. And while the local police chief is sure she's overreacting, the truth is far worse than even Jake's worst fears.

Avery Baker was once a New York textile designer, but inheriting her aunt's old Maine cottage has led her down a new career path -- home renovation. Finding a property's hidden potential has rewards and challenges -- especially when a mystery surfaces from behind the walls of a...  more

Avery Baker was once a New York textile designer, but inheriting her aunt's old Maine cottage has led her down a new career path -- home renovation. Finding a property's hidden potential has rewards and challenges -- especially when a mystery surfaces from behind the walls of a centuries-old house on an island that has more than its share of deadly secrets.

Cassie battles her way through the sectional Qualifying School in pursuit of her life's dream -- a position on the Ladies' Professional Golf Association Tour. Along the way, she stumbles across illegal equipment and repressed memories, and learns that competition can be murder. First in...  more

Cassie battles her way through the sectional Qualifying School in pursuit of her life's dream -- a position on the Ladies' Professional Golf Association Tour. Along the way, she stumbles across illegal equipment and repressed memories, and learns that competition can be murder. First in the Cassie Burdette Golf Lover's mystery series.

Angela Matelli, a good Italian-American girl from East Boston, leaves the Marines to return to the bosom of her family and begin a new career as a private investigator. Her first client (a referral from her Uncle "No-Legs" Charlie) is retired policeman Tom Grady, who hires Angela to check up on...  more

Angela Matelli, a good Italian-American girl from East Boston, leaves the Marines to return to the bosom of her family and begin a new career as a private investigator. Her first client (a referral from her Uncle "No-Legs" Charlie) is retired policeman Tom Grady, who hires Angela to check up on Brian Scanlon, his daughter's new boyfriend. This simple background check, however, soon becomes a confusing tangle of murder, cover-up, and intrigue when Grady is found dead outside his favorite bar and Scanlon is seen keeping company with the suspected leader of a terrorist group. With a dead client and a bag full of loose ends, Angela starts to investigate Tom Grady's suspicious death and continues to dig into Brian Scanlon's checkered past, inquiries that lead her to an organization whose seemingly idealistic waters run deceptively deep, a daughter who is torn between her father and her lover, and someone who is out to kill Angela before she is able to find out the truth.

In this delightful new "tale of dark secrets, mysterious men, and heiresses in distress,"* Louisa May Alcott, the beloved author of Little Women, is cast in the role of amateur sleuth-investigating crimes more heinous than anything she can imagine in her "blood and thunder" romances.

Being young, gifted, and black at Harvard has never been easy. For Ella Fisher, outspoken and controversial Dean of Students at Harvard Law School, it was murder. After Nikki Chase -- a smart, ambitious, attractive black economics professor -- stumbles over her friend Ella's body during...  more

Being young, gifted, and black at Harvard has never been easy. For Ella Fisher, outspoken and controversial Dean of Students at Harvard Law School, it was murder. After Nikki Chase -- a smart, ambitious, attractive black economics professor -- stumbles over her friend Ella's body during a blackout in a classroom building, she finds herself plunged into the investigation of her death. In the process she uncovers some of Harvard's most deeply buried secrets. Nikki learns that plenty of people could have wanted Ella dead. There's the debonair -- and married -- new Harvard president Leo Barrett. Many thought Leo and Ella were lovers, and now he's looking awfully guilty. The Chairman of the Economics Department suddenly, suspiciously, has a lot of money. And Ella's radical, Afrocentric ex-husband had apparently been blackmailing her. With the help of Ella's two true friends, Nikki sets out to unravel the mystery -- and the complications of her own love life. Proving that love can be murder, she drives toward the shocking conclusion that will turn all of Harvard on its ear.

Her name is Sunny Randall, a Boston P.I. and former cop, a college graduate, an aspiring painter, a divorcee, and the owner of a miniature bull terrier named Rosie. Hired by a wealthy family to locate their teenage daughter, Sunny is tested by the parents' preconceived notion of what a...  more

Her name is Sunny Randall, a Boston P.I. and former cop, a college graduate, an aspiring painter, a divorcee, and the owner of a miniature bull terrier named Rosie. Hired by a wealthy family to locate their teenage daughter, Sunny is tested by the parents' preconceived notion of what a detective should be. With the help of underworld contacts she tracks down the runaway Millicent, who has turned to prostitution, rescues her from her pimp, and finds herself, at thirty-four, the unlikely custodian of a difficult teenager when the girl refuses to return to her family. But Millicent's problems are rooted in much larger crimes than running away, and Sunny, now playing the role of bodyguard, is caught in a shooting war with some very serious mobsters. She turns for help to her ex-husband, Richie, himself the son of a mob family, and to her dearest friend, Spike, a flamboyant and dangerous gay man. Heading this unlikely alliance, Sunny must solve at least one murder, resolve a criminal conspiracy that reaches to the top of state government, and bring Millicent back into functional young womanhood.

Fans often feel uneasy when the creator of a popular character ventures into new turf, and sometimes their trepidation is justified. But readers of Robert B. Parker's immensely popular Spenser series can breathe a sigh of relief: while Night Passage doesn't feature Spenser, his usual gang of...  more

Fans often feel uneasy when the creator of a popular character ventures into new turf, and sometimes their trepidation is justified. But readers of Robert B. Parker's immensely popular Spenser series can breathe a sigh of relief: while Night Passage doesn't feature Spenser, his usual gang of associates, or a Boston setting, it's vintage Parker--fast, witty, suspenseful, and engaging. Told in short, crisp chapters, it's the story of Jesse Stone, a 34-year-old ex-cop who just lost his L.A. policeman's job and his marriage due to a drinking problem. The book opens as Stone leaves California for his new job as chief of police in the picturesque town of Paradise, Massachusetts. But Paradise isn't as placid as it seems--in fact, it's a festering mass of petty corruption, right-wing militia, sexual scandal, and bad guys who favor strong-arm tactics. Night Passage boasts a delicious, classic setup: the lone lawman, new in town, must make his stand to clean the place up. Stone has been picked for the job because the town fathers figured he'd be weak and malleable; as he gradually pulls himself together, it turns out they have a surprise in store. Stone's qualities may remind you of Spenser's--he's taciturn, fearless, good-looking, and compassionate--and in the end the plot's pleasing complexities get resolved a bit simply. But Robert B. Parker is in fine form in Night Passage, with his smart-aleck wit under control and his prose at its economical best. Spenser fans and Parker neophytes alike will find plenty to enjoy here.

Behind the curtained windows of Victorian Boston is a world of passion, scandal ... and murder. In life, he was the most despised man in Boston, publisher of the town's scurrilous gossip sheet -- and buyer and seller of people's most scandalous indiscretions. Now Colonel William...  more

Behind the curtained windows of Victorian Boston is a world of passion, scandal ... and murder. In life, he was the most despised man in Boston, publisher of the town's scurrilous gossip sheet -- and buyer and seller of people's most scandalous indiscretions. Now Colonel William d'Arcy Mann lies on the floor of his fashionable hotel suite, the victim of a single gunshot wound to the heart. Addington Ames came to recover a packet of love letters written by his young cousin, Val, that had fallen into the blackmailing colonel's possession. But when he discovers Mann's corpse instead, Ames suddenly finds himself at the center of a murder inquiry, his name splashed across the town newspapers. With Val facing public disgrace -- on the eve of marriage to an impeccable member of Brahmin society -- Ames's only hope is to find the damning missives, which he believes vanished with the killer. With the help of his sister, Caroline, and their boarder, Dr. John MacKenzie, he moves through Boston's most prominent social circles in search of a well-concealed murderer whose final act of violence will leave no life -- highborn or low -- untouched...

It's the Depression, and young widow Belle Appleman is grateful for her new job tacking belt loops on men's pants in a Boston factory. Then she discovers a co-worker's body in the Charles River and, feeling personally involved, begins trading theories with the detective in charge of...  more

It's the Depression, and young widow Belle Appleman is grateful for her new job tacking belt loops on men's pants in a Boston factory. Then she discovers a co-worker's body in the Charles River and, feeling personally involved, begins trading theories with the detective in charge of the case. In the midst of her sleuthing, she's elected shop steward and becomes involved with union politics, as well as with a dashing union leader on whom she tries out her Bette Davis voice and Garbo look. But when one of the factory owners is also murdered and a friend is accused, Belle must make serious efforts to find the killer, for her heart's sake as well as for her friend's.

The faculty and students at Balaclava Agricultural College thought that whoever turned the horseshoes upside-down in the stables didn't really mean to bring bad luck -- until the college's prize sow Belinda is pignapped and gentle Martha Flackley, the college farrier, is found murdered...  more

The faculty and students at Balaclava Agricultural College thought that whoever turned the horseshoes upside-down in the stables didn't really mean to bring bad luck -- until the college's prize sow Belinda is pignapped and gentle Martha Flackley, the college farrier, is found murdered in Belinda's mash feeder. Professor Peter Shandy and his bride Helen are plunged into the puzzling mystery where there are too many clues, too many suspects and too little evidence.

A sexy witch who writes romances and a police detective who sees more than mortal man team up to battle an ancient Aztec god! Dallas Police Detective Mark Valdez isn't just any cop, he's a psychic who knows that the cattle mutilations and torture murders he's been investigating are somehow...  more

A sexy witch who writes romances and a police detective who sees more than mortal man team up to battle an ancient Aztec god! Dallas Police Detective Mark Valdez isn't just any cop, he's a psychic who knows that the cattle mutilations and torture murders he's been investigating are somehow tied together. He also knows that his meager psychic abilities aren't enough to identify the killers, much less stop them. Luckily, Mark has an ace up his sleeve: an attractive young romance novelist who happens to be a practicing witch. And not just any witch, either-Diana Tregarde is a Guardian, charged with protecting the Earth and all its creatures. Using modern science and ancient magics, Diana and Mark discover that they are tailing no ordinary serial killer but the awakened avatar of an Aztec god. Tezcatlipoca and his four beautiful handmaidens are preparing for a great sacrifice that will transform North America into a new Aztec realm. Diana isn't sure her powers are strong enough to take on those of a risen Aztec god, but she has no choice. As a Guardian, she is sworn to protect mankind, even at the cost of her own life. Luckily, she does not stand alone. Mark Valdez is more than just a cop. And Tezcatlipoca is not the only Aztec god walking in the world.

Even without the mud, Ruth Willmarth has got her hands full. Her husband recently defected to New York City with another woman and left Ruth to manage the farm and the family. Then spring in this Vermont farming town takes a slippery and sinister turn when Ruth's elderly neighbor Lucien Larocque...  more

Even without the mud, Ruth Willmarth has got her hands full. Her husband recently defected to New York City with another woman and left Ruth to manage the farm and the family. Then spring in this Vermont farming town takes a slippery and sinister turn when Ruth's elderly neighbor Lucien Larocque answers a knock at his door in the middle of the night. He opens it to a brutal attack. Larocque and his part-Indian wife, Belle, are beaten, and the smelly "barn" money that he kept hidden in his pockets and rafter holes rather than trust to a bank is stolen. Early the next morning, Ruth finds her neighbor lying in the mud by the side of the road and his wife, Belle, barely conscious on the kitchen floor. In spite of Ruth's best efforts, Belle dies from her wounds. Soon a string of barn burnings serves to put the grieving town further on edge. There is no telling when the mud will settle, but Ruth is determined to see that it does. With would-be lover Colm Hanna, a pun-loving Irish Realtor who doubles as the town mortician, Ruth slogs through the mud, the barn burnings, even the disappearance of her own son, as she tracks the murderer's muddy trail and puts an end to this mad season.

Working on the Godding Museum's annual local artist show is the perfect way for English teacher Sarah Deane to earn a few dollars, relax in the sun and sea air of coastal Maine, and spend the summer with her boyfriend, Dr. Alex McKenzie. But when Sarah and Alex discover the body of Nate...  more

Working on the Godding Museum's annual local artist show is the perfect way for English teacher Sarah Deane to earn a few dollars, relax in the sun and sea air of coastal Maine, and spend the summer with her boyfriend, Dr. Alex McKenzie. But when Sarah and Alex discover the body of Nate Harwood, a cranky local artist, caught in an offshore fish trap, they know they'll have no vacation from amateur detecting until they catch his killer. Could his death be related to the "accidental" drowning of two elderly tourists shortly after they had brought a painting from Prior's Gallery? Is one of the contestants in the museum show willing to go to any lengths to win? Or does someone have strong feelings against seascapes? Sarah and Alex canvass Weymouth Island trying to draw a clearer picture of the killer lurking among them -- before they find the next victim.

The first of fourteen Brady Coyne mysteries; the fifteenth, Cutter's Run, publishes July 1998 from St. Martin's Press. Charity won the 1984 Scribner Crime Novel Award. A legal thriller without a courtroom? A lawyer who's actually a nice guy? Here's the brief . . . The Lawyer . . . Boston's...  more

The first of fourteen Brady Coyne mysteries; the fifteenth, Cutter's Run, publishes July 1998 from St. Martin's Press. Charity won the 1984 Scribner Crime Novel Award. A legal thriller without a courtroom? A lawyer who's actually a nice guy? Here's the brief . . . The Lawyer . . . Boston's Brady Coyne is keyed way down. He'd rather fish than fight. When he's full of beans, they're from a can, washed down with beer. He's not partnership material-legal or matrimonial. Barrister to the Brahmins through a quirk of Fate, Brady finds his clients usually demand his personal, discreet attention. The Client . . . Elderly Florence Gresham is wealthy and whipcord tough. A realist, she's accepted the loss of her elder son to the jungles of Vietnam and the suicide of her husband. But when her scholarly, reclusive younger son steps off a cliff, Florence won't buy the coroner's obvious conclusion. The Case . . . What happened to George? His mother wants Brady to uncover the truth. She offers an incentive: a hefty percentage of the double indemnity life insurance policy payoff-assuming, of course, that Brady overturns the suicide verdict. And low key or not, barrister Brady likes to win . . .

As a young widow, midwife Hannah Trevor is regarded by the law as unable to support her daughter, Jennet, and at any minute, the eight-year-old may be taken away from her and sold as an indentured servant. When she becomes the suspect in a murder, Hannah must save not only her own life, but that...  more

As a young widow, midwife Hannah Trevor is regarded by the law as unable to support her daughter, Jennet, and at any minute, the eight-year-old may be taken away from her and sold as an indentured servant. When she becomes the suspect in a murder, Hannah must save not only her own life, but that of her daughter's as well.

A riveting mystery, set on a island in Maine, that begins with five teenagers jumping off a dock to go scuba diving. One of them doesn't come back.

Mysteries with a strong sense of place tend to be popular among readers who live in that place, and sometimes transcend a local audience because distant readers want to know more about the setting. David Crossman, a Maine resident writing for a Maine publisher, portrays the state as lovingly as...  more

Mysteries with a strong sense of place tend to be popular among readers who live in that place, and sometimes transcend a local audience because distant readers want to know more about the setting. David Crossman, a Maine resident writing for a Maine publisher, portrays the state as lovingly as he does his characters. Anybody who knows Maine will recognized the authenticity of Crossman's locales and local characters. Crossman's mystery-novel gimmick, a seeming requisite these days, is an octogenarian protagonist. He is Winston Crisp, a retired code-breaker who spent 50 years at the top-secret National Security Agency near Washington, DC. Crisp had no intention of solving murders when he retired to Penobscot Island. In fact, it never occurred to him there would be murders at all. Then the body of a young woman is discovered underneath the ice. She had been seen on the island the past autumn, as the guest of a US senator's son. At first, it appears the death was an accidental drowning. However, as Crisp - and local law enforcement - learns more details, homicide seems to be likely. Crisp conquers his age, complicated by frail health, to barely survive attempts on his life as he labors to solve the puzzle of the death. -- From Independent Publisher

Strong, sexy, smart, and stealthy! The ladies at the Black Widow Agency aim to bring justice to wronged women like themselves, using a lethal blend of computer forensics, surveillance technology, and women's intuition. The owner is ex-cop Katie Mahoney, a natural at undercover work. Her...  more

Strong, sexy, smart, and stealthy! The ladies at the Black Widow Agency aim to bring justice to wronged women like themselves, using a lethal blend of computer forensics, surveillance technology, and women's intuition. The owner is ex-cop Katie Mahoney, a natural at undercover work. Her competent staff includes Alexandria, the mysterious, black-clad cybergoddess who keeps a pet tarantula; Margot, the crafty office manager, who's not afraid to don a leather bustier for the cause; and Jane, who crunches numbers amid hot flashes. The four Black Widows form a tight sisterhood?depending on each other for emotional support, laughter, and frequent doses of chocolate. When the Black Widows hear Amber Gordon's heartbreaking story of sexual harassment, ending in a ruined career and lost custody of her daughter, they vow to spin a trap for the sexist automotive company run by Amber's former father-in-law.

   From Publishers Weekly Diane Woods, sole detective in the police department of Tyler, N.H., privately welcomes the unofficial assistance of magazine writer Lewis Cole during what amounts to a crime wave in the coastal town. Soon after an unidentified corpse, buried decades ago,...  more

   From Publishers Weekly Diane Woods, sole detective in the police department of Tyler, N.H., privately welcomes the unofficial assistance of magazine writer Lewis Cole during what amounts to a crime wave in the coastal town. Soon after an unidentified corpse, buried decades ago, is unearthed by a developer's backhoe, Lynn Germano, a waitress at the local diner, is found strangled in the "prime beachfront cottage" she rented. Felix Tinios, an acquaintance of Cole's who works freelance for organized crime, dismisses the Germano murder as amateurish. But when Cole just misses being on a boat that explodes, killing the fisherman who said he had info about the strangling, and then finds a molotov cocktail on his property, he doubts his source's veracity. First-novelist DuBois, an Edgar nominee for short fiction, spreads references to Cole's earlier departure from the Department of Defense in Nevada, which left the agency uneasy and him permanently wary, throughout the story. The narrative scraps of Cole's past mix with secret histories of current players in the coastal mysteries to yield a somewhat overstuffed tale. But DuBois continues to show promise; maybe Cole's next appearance will deliver on it.  Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The lovely coastal village of Mellingham is set on edge with the unexpected arrival of Beth O'Donnell. Dependent on her generous brother but uneasy with life outside New York City, Beth casts a jaundiced eye on everyone and anyone. At a cocktail party on her first night, she throws barbs...  more

The lovely coastal village of Mellingham is set on edge with the unexpected arrival of Beth O'Donnell. Dependent on her generous brother but uneasy with life outside New York City, Beth casts a jaundiced eye on everyone and anyone. At a cocktail party on her first night, she throws barbs at the other guests, singling out the most vulnerable, and eyes with interest anyone who seems able to stand up to her. When she is found dead the next day, Chief of Police Joe Silva finds himself investigating a well-loved family in a town where nothing untoward ever seems to happen. An outsider until he joined the police force a few years earlier, Chief Silva discovers much about his own place in this idyllic town, and several painful secrets among the townspeople. Murder in Mellingham introduces a new series exploring life in a New England village outside the orbit of a metropolitan area, a world defined by its eccentrics, philanthropists, and never ordinary citizens. With an insightful but humorous eye, author Susan Oleksiw reveals a world all but destroyed by suburban developments and shopping malls, a world as refreshing as a cool ocean breeze.  

During an especially cold, rainy May, three families move to the recently opened Ocean Tide community on the coast of Maine. Not long after their arrival, a decaying corpse is found lying in the rough of their beautifully manicured golf course-disrupting the idyllic community. When a second...  more

During an especially cold, rainy May, three families move to the recently opened Ocean Tide community on the coast of Maine. Not long after their arrival, a decaying corpse is found lying in the rough of their beautifully manicured golf course-disrupting the idyllic community. When a second body is discovered in a fertilizer shed, just yards away from the seventeenth green, the local authorities are puzzled over the sudden rash of dead bodies and their link to Ocean Tide's newest arrivals. Despite her own misgivings and her husband Alex's warnings, Sarah Deane, an English professor and sometime amateur sleuth, becomes entangled in the investigation. What she uncovers promises to rock the very foundation of the Ocean Tide community.

A simple life ... a deadly interruption. Widow Elizabeth Elliot leads a modest life. As Clerk of the local Quaker meeting, she not only handles the congregation's daily activities, but also is their moral and inspirational leader. So when murder strikes this nonviolent community,...  more

A simple life ... a deadly interruption. Widow Elizabeth Elliot leads a modest life. As Clerk of the local Quaker meeting, she not only handles the congregation's daily activities, but also is their moral and inspirational leader. So when murder strikes this nonviolent community, suddenly Elizabeth's life gets very complicated. Facing certain IRS eviction for refusal to pay war taxes, pacifist Quakers Sheldon and Hope Laughton had no idea their lives were in danger. Elizabeth finds herself in a real-life nightmare when she discovers Hope murdered ... lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of her own blood. Shocked and horrified, Elizabeth has no time to mourn -- the police think she's the killer. Suspicion swirls in Cambridge, Massachusetts -- pitting Quaker against Quaker -- and only Elizabeth's quiet wisdom can find the murderer.

Meet Elizabeth Elliot. A Quaker whose quiet wisdom and determined will are powerful tools of detection. In the world of paleontology, the name of the game is research. Some would even kill for credentials. So it comes as no surprise--and as quiet satisfaction for many--when an eminent...  more

Meet Elizabeth Elliot. A Quaker whose quiet wisdom and determined will are powerful tools of detection. In the world of paleontology, the name of the game is research. Some would even kill for credentials. So it comes as no surprise--and as quiet satisfaction for many--when an eminent scientist is found murdered in his Harvard lab. The prime suspect is a beautiful graduate student, the professor's only female advisee, who has just filed sexual harassment charges against him. Harvard is determined to close the case and convict the student--when Elizabeth Elliot, lifelong Quaker and Clerk of the Meetinghouse in Cambridge, steps into the fray at the student's request. Elizabeth is convinced of her innocence. Her only hope to clear the young woman is to penetrate Harvard's sanctum sanctorum to find the devious killer--knowing full well that brilliant minds are often the most dangerous...

It's springtime on Cranberry Island — and love is in the air. It seems like every woman has the hots for buff trainer Dirk De Leon. He and his equally-gorgeous business partner, Vanessa Black, are leading a weight-loss retreat at the Gray Whale Inn — forcing innkeeper Natalie...  more

It's springtime on Cranberry Island — and love is in the air. It seems like every woman has the hots for buff trainer Dirk De Leon. He and his equally-gorgeous business partner, Vanessa Black, are leading a weight-loss retreat at the Gray Whale Inn — forcing innkeeper Natalie Barnes to lighten up her butter-laden breakfast menu. The mood on the island darkens when two grisly discoveries are made. The first is a skeleton walled up at the island's lighthouse. The second is a corpse of the fresh variety — the handsome Dirk! Could the spirit that once embodied the skeletal remains — perhaps the lighthouse keeper who disappeared a century ago — be responsible for Dirk's death? The police pin the blame on Natalie's boyfriend who — to her dismay — had a long-ago fling with Vanessa. To find the true killer and ease her own aching heart, Natalie must untangle the knot of jealous girlfriends and spurned admirers that once surrounded the hunky trainer.

The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this remote and barren island,...  more

The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this remote and barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades -- with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems. But then neither is Teddy Daniels.

While visiting Martha's Vineyard to help a client write her will, Brady Coyne visit's an old friend J.W. Jackson. Brady quickly discovers that more than a few people are after the estate of his client. The two eventually join forces, and solve both cases in this captivating first book.

Jack McMorrow is looking into a scandal that's shaking the reputation of an elite Boston couple. Angel Moretti, a family friend, has an angle no one else has. But when her secrets are buried--along with her body--in an isolated stretch of woods, Jack's story becomes a front-page headline. And...  more

Jack McMorrow is looking into a scandal that's shaking the reputation of an elite Boston couple. Angel Moretti, a family friend, has an angle no one else has. But when her secrets are buried--along with her body--in an isolated stretch of woods, Jack's story becomes a front-page headline. And it's leading him to places far darker than Angel's shallow grave.

Things start to boil over at the annual Lobster Stew Cook-Off when an award-winning recipe is stolen and a seven-time contest champion mysteriously disappears-leaving Candy no choice but to find out who in Cape Willington, Maine, would get steamed enough to break the law.

Home renovation and design tips included! Ex-New York designer Avery Baker left the bustle of the big city to start her own home renovation business in Maine. But as she renovates an old carriage house on behalf of a soon-to-be wed friend, she stumbles across a lifeless body-a person known...  more

Home renovation and design tips included! Ex-New York designer Avery Baker left the bustle of the big city to start her own home renovation business in Maine. But as she renovates an old carriage house on behalf of a soon-to-be wed friend, she stumbles across a lifeless body-a person known all too well by the blushing bride. The small town is abuzz with big suspicions, and Avery realizes she must unravel a matrimonial murder.  

The Black Sheep Knitters -- Maggie, Lucy, Dana, Suzanne, and Phoebe -- meet once a week without fail, sharing the varied and colorful skeins of their lives as much as knitting tips, recipes, and small-town gossip, and creating an intricate, durable pattern of friendship. Now a shocking murder...  more

The Black Sheep Knitters -- Maggie, Lucy, Dana, Suzanne, and Phoebe -- meet once a week without fail, sharing the varied and colorful skeins of their lives as much as knitting tips, recipes, and small-town gossip, and creating an intricate, durable pattern of friendship. Now a shocking murder has peaceful Plum Harbor, Massachusetts, in knots -- and the Black Sheep women must herd together to protect one of their own from a scandalous frame-up. Maggie Messina, beloved owner of the Black Sheep Knitting Shop, is thrilled to be hosting a workshop for one of her former students, now a celebrity in the knitting world. But the celebration is upstaged when Amanda Goran, the owner of the rival Knitting Nest, is found dead in her shop on the other side of town. Maggie had reasons to dislike Amanda, a thorn in her side ever since Maggie's shop surpassed Amanda's in popularity. Then again, it wasn't hard to dislike Amanda -- the contentious woman, whose marriage was on the rocks, seemed to specialize in causing misery all over town. But the pointed evidence has a detective casting a suspicious eye on Maggie. She may be a whiz at knitting, but can she keep the police from needling her before her shop, her reputation, and her circle of friends become unraveled?

At the start of Canadeo's delightful second Black Sheep knitting mystery (after 2009's While My Pretty One Knits), twice-widowed Gloria Sterling, an unofficial member of the local knitting circle, has returned from Florida to Plum Harbor, Mass., with a new husband, Jamie Barnett. A...  more

At the start of Canadeo's delightful second Black Sheep knitting mystery (after 2009's While My Pretty One Knits), twice-widowed Gloria Sterling, an unofficial member of the local knitting circle, has returned from Florida to Plum Harbor, Mass., with a new husband, Jamie Barnett. A struggling artist, Jamie is much, much younger than his wealthy and glamorous bride. The five official members of the knitters group, led by Maggie Messina, owner of the Black Sheep Knitting Shop, at first suspect Jamie is after Gloria's fortune, but after seeing the pair together, they're reassured the couple are happy. When Gloria is found dead in her swimming pool, her fellow knitters, dissatisfied with a police verdict of accidental death, begin their own search for answers.

Preparations for a ballet school recital in Tinker's Cove, Mass., provide the setting for this second, determinedly domestic, Lucy Stone adventure, after Mail-Order Murder. Lucy, in her sixth month of pregnancy, is fully enmeshed in family life with her husband and three youngsters when her...  more

Preparations for a ballet school recital in Tinker's Cove, Mass., provide the setting for this second, determinedly domestic, Lucy Stone adventure, after Mail-Order Murder. Lucy, in her sixth month of pregnancy, is fully enmeshed in family life with her husband and three youngsters when her neighbor Caroline Hutton, mentor to ballet instructor Tatiana, disappears. The police say the 70-year-old former dancer has simply gone on vacation without telling anyone. Lucy and Tatiana aren't so sure, but Tatiana's recital preparations and Lucy's domestic demands preclude further investigation. Lucy lends her video camera to her friend Franny, who has been falsely accused of stealing from the hardware store where she works. The owner finds the recorder, confiscates it and sacks Franny, but when Lucy goes to the store to demand its return, she finds that the owner has been bludgeoned to death with the camera. When Franny is arrested for murder, Lucy resolves to save her. Meier links the missing neighbor and the murdered hardware store owner in this quirky, low-key puzzle, which is packed with the details of small-town, family life.

When Meg Corey's mother arrives unannounced in Granford, Masschusetts, Meg's sure it's not just to pay a surprise visit to the apple of her eye.  The timing is terrible -- it's harvest season and Meg is understaffed in the orchard.  Plus Elizabeth Corey is clearly...  more

When Meg Corey's mother arrives unannounced in Granford, Masschusetts, Meg's sure it's not just to pay a surprise visit to the apple of her eye.  The timing is terrible -- it's harvest season and Meg is understaffed in the orchard.  Plus Elizabeth Corey is clearly hiding the real purpose of her trip from her daughter After an English professor from Amherst -- who is an old friend of her mother -- is found dead on the floor of a cider house, Elizabeth is interrogated by the police, and then grilled by her daughter.  She is indeed keeping a secret -- but could Meg's own mother really have committed murder?  One thing is clear, someone decided to teach the professor a lesson.  And the key to unlocking the mystery may lie with a poet who could not stop for death.  

In this homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, Faith Fairchild is asked to cater a very small, very private college reunion on an isolated New England island -- an event that could be her dream job. But when she discovers the true reason for the get-together, not even the...  more

In this homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, Faith Fairchild is asked to cater a very small, very private college reunion on an isolated New England island -- an event that could be her dream job. But when she discovers the true reason for the get-together, not even the spectacular ocean views can keep it from turning into a nightmare. Thirty years ago, bestselling suspense writer Barbara Bailey Bishop lost her twin sister in a tower fall deemed a suicide. But Barbara is convinced that Helene did not die by her own hand, and she's trapped Helene's former classmates -- her prime suspects -- at her home with no phone lines, no cell reception, and no means of escape. One by one, the alumnae fall prey to a madwoman. A disturbed sister's revenge... or a former coed's cover-up? Faith must quickly unlock the secrets of Helene's last night if she wants to leave the island alive.

One summer day, Boston forensic psychiatrist Paul Lucas gets a call from his social worker wife, Abby: A nine-year-old girl has gone missing. Paul, an expert interrogator, is called in to help evaluate the testimony of the only witness: a homeless woman who happens to be a paranoid...  more

One summer day, Boston forensic psychiatrist Paul Lucas gets a call from his social worker wife, Abby: A nine-year-old girl has gone missing. Paul, an expert interrogator, is called in to help evaluate the testimony of the only witness: a homeless woman who happens to be a paranoid schizophrenic. Further interviews with other possible witnesses go nowhere, frustrating detectives and calling into doubt Paul's role in the case. Believing the girl is alive but soon to die, Paul is pushed to the brink of a professional abyss -- harangued by local media, distrusted by police, and pressured to save the day by Abby, whose stake in the search becomes deeply personal. With time running out, Paul has to make a choice: to uphold the central oath of his profession or to do whatever it takes to find the girl -- even if he must crack the mind of a vulnerable patient, and risk everything he has in the process.

Mystery bookstore owner Tricia Miles has been spending more time solving whodunits than reading them. Now a nearby gas explosion has injured Tricia's sister's boyfriend, Bob Kelly, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and killed the owner of the town's history bookstore. Tricia's...  more

Mystery bookstore owner Tricia Miles has been spending more time solving whodunits than reading them. Now a nearby gas explosion has injured Tricia's sister's boyfriend, Bob Kelly, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and killed the owner of the town's history bookstore. Tricia's never been a fan of Bob, but when she reads that he's being tight-lipped about the "accident", it's time to take action.

When a mutilated corpse is found in a cranberry bog on the Dimola estate, Penelope Spring is summoned to the Cape by Zeb Grange, an old flame. But by the time she arrives, an attempt on Zeb's life has been made, leaving him in a coma. As Penny's suspicions gradually point to the wealthy Dimola...  more

When a mutilated corpse is found in a cranberry bog on the Dimola estate, Penelope Spring is summoned to the Cape by Zeb Grange, an old flame. But by the time she arrives, an attempt on Zeb's life has been made, leaving him in a coma. As Penny's suspicions gradually point to the wealthy Dimola clan, her colleague Toby Glendower begins to probe into the family's past in Italy. There is another murder, and Penny resolves to set a trap for her prime suspect, using herself as bait. But what Toby uncovers sends him racing back, fearful that Penny is making a disastrous mistake--maybe her last.

It's the kind of case that has "NO!" written all over it. But ex-cop Carlotta Carlyle has a p.i. license getting moldy from disuse, so she takes on the search for a little old lady's missing brother. After all, how much trouble could an aging cabbie get into? Plenty,...  more

It's the kind of case that has "NO!" written all over it. But ex-cop Carlotta Carlyle has a p.i. license getting moldy from disuse, so she takes on the search for a little old lady's missing brother. After all, how much trouble could an aging cabbie get into? Plenty, Carlotta learns, as she uncovers a scam of laundered money and drug running, all mixed together in that dangerously powerful brew known as Boston-Irish politics.

Great-uncle Frederick has passed away, and the Kelling clan of Boston has made plans to put the old gentleman's remains in the family vault on Beacon Hill. When the vault is opened, however, there's someone already there that no one could have ever expected -- the skeleton of a burlesque queen...  more

Great-uncle Frederick has passed away, and the Kelling clan of Boston has made plans to put the old gentleman's remains in the family vault on Beacon Hill. When the vault is opened, however, there's someone already there that no one could have ever expected -- the skeleton of a burlesque queen who disappeared thirty years ago! With the help of private detective Max Bittersohn, it's up to Sarah Kelling to hold the shocked family together, and try to find out what happened. What they unravel is a complex murder plot that not only stretches into the past, but also has Sarah marked as a victim!

Savvy art expert Fred Taylor, factotum for a wealthy Beacon Hill collector too refined -- and too paranoid -- to do his own legwork, enjoys an odd but well paid life acting on Clayton Reed's whims.Reed suspects that there may be a Vermeer worth millions concealed under a boring landscape coming...  more

Savvy art expert Fred Taylor, factotum for a wealthy Beacon Hill collector too refined -- and too paranoid -- to do his own legwork, enjoys an odd but well paid life acting on Clayton Reed's whims.Reed suspects that there may be a Vermeer worth millions concealed under a boring landscape coming up for auction. Fred, more interested in chasing an independent Cambridge librarian than pursuing Old Masters, finds his mission to get the Vermeer derailed by Reed's purchase of an unsigned nude from a down-and-out photographer of pornography who is subsequently rubbed out in his sleazy studio. With various vultures circling -- including the Boston PD -- Fred is thrust into detection in order to score the painting, if it exists, and escape jail. His biggest obstacle is to pry the truth out of his own employer....Fred's cases continue in Man with a Squirrel, O Sacred Head, and Dirty Linen. Kilmer is at work on a fifth Fred Taylor, Lazarus Arise.

Tish McWhinny reluctantly gets involved in restoring an old painting for a dog show promotion ― harmless enough, but then the painting is stolen and someone is murdered. Is the crime connected to the rather shady new couple now running the local store? What about the retired Royal Navy...  more

Tish McWhinny reluctantly gets involved in restoring an old painting for a dog show promotion ― harmless enough, but then the painting is stolen and someone is murdered. Is the crime connected to the rather shady new couple now running the local store? What about the retired Royal Navy man, now much interested in art, who unexpectedly turns up? Or niece Sophie's secretive new boyfriend? It takes all Tish's ingenuity, as well as the help of her courtly friend Hilary Oats and free-spirit Sophie, to find out what's going on and catch a cold criminal.

It's Christmastime in Bethlehem. Vermont, but there's no deep and dreamless sleep for this little town. Instead, everyone's getting ready to stage the annual Nativity play, the town's one tourist attraction and economic mainstay. Everyone except outsider Tisha Verek, who's...  more

It's Christmastime in Bethlehem. Vermont, but there's no deep and dreamless sleep for this little town. Instead, everyone's getting ready to stage the annual Nativity play, the town's one tourist attraction and economic mainstay. Everyone except outsider Tisha Verek, who's getting ready to meet with the ACLU to stop the religious pageant. But before Tisha even leaves her isolated rural home, someone stops her, with a .22 rifle. The local cops and state police are happy to call it a hunting accident. But formaer FBI man Gregor Demarkian, one of Bethlehem's many tourists seeking a room at the inn, isn't so sure. If Tisha's death was an accident, why hasn't the shooter come forward? And how did an identical mishap befall a harmless old woman on the same morning?

A client from a decades-old case reaches out to Boston PI Spenser-but can he rescue troubled April Kyle once more? Longtime Spenser fans will remember that once upon a time, though not so long ago, there was a girl named April Kyle-a beautiful teenage runaway who turned to prostitution to escape...  more

A client from a decades-old case reaches out to Boston PI Spenser-but can he rescue troubled April Kyle once more? Longtime Spenser fans will remember that once upon a time, though not so long ago, there was a girl named April Kyle-a beautiful teenage runaway who turned to prostitution to escape her terrible family life. The book was 1982's Ceremony, and, thanks to Spenser, April escaped Boston's "Combat Zone" for the relative safety of a high-class New York City bordello. April resurfaced in Taming a Sea-Horse, again in dire need of Spenser's rescue-this time from the clutches of a controlling lover. But April Kyle's return in Hundred-Dollar Baby is nothing short of shocking. When a mature, beautiful, and composed April strides into Spenser's office, the Boston PI barely hesitates before recognizing his once and future client. Now a well-established madam herself, April oversees an upscale call-girl operation in Boston's Back Bay. Still looking for Spenser's approval, it takes her a moment before she can ask him, again, for his assistance. Her business is a success; what's more, it's an all-female enterprise. Now that some men are trying to take it away from her, she needs Spenser. April claims to be in the dark about who it is that's trying to shake her down, but with a bit of legwork and a bit more muscle, Spenser and Hawk find ties to organized crime and local kingpin Tony Marcus, as well as a scheme to franchise the operation across the country. As Spenser again plays the gallant knight, it becomes clear that April's not as innocent as she seems. In fact, she may be her own worst enemy. About the Author: Robert B. Parker is the author of more than fifty books. He lives in Boston. Million Dollar Baby is AKA DREAM GIRL!

Crime novelist Pay McKenna has known from the start that her wedding day is going to be difficult. Between her controlling, patrician mother and the band of wealthy and wacky relatives who have filled the house for the event, fireworks are inevitable. Arriving at her ancestral home in Waverly,...  more

Crime novelist Pay McKenna has known from the start that her wedding day is going to be difficult. Between her controlling, patrician mother and the band of wealthy and wacky relatives who have filled the house for the event, fireworks are inevitable. Arriving at her ancestral home in Waverly, Connecticut -- a staid and steady bastion of old money and established codes of dress and manners -- Pay finds her uneasiness about her eccentric relatives turning to horror when she discovers recently deceased Great-Uncle Ephram Aurelius ensconced in a mahogany casket in the living room. Poor Ephram finds the gate to the exclusive section of eternity blocked bu ornery Great-Aunt Felicia, a formidable harridan. During the argument over Ephram's remains, Aunt Cordie goes into a rambunctious trance and Felicia suffers a fatal stroke, bringing the discussion to an abrupt end. But that's just the beginning ...

Karen Pelletier abandoned her life in New York for a professorship at Massachusetts's elite Enfield College. But she quickly learns that New England is not the peaceful enclave she had imagined -- and that not even the privileged world of academia is immune to murder.... Professor Karen...  more

Karen Pelletier abandoned her life in New York for a professorship at Massachusetts's elite Enfield College. But she quickly learns that New England is not the peaceful enclave she had imagined -- and that not even the privileged world of academia is immune to murder.... Professor Karen Pelletier's prime literary passion is poet Emily Dickinson -- a passion she shares with her hotshot colleague Randy Astin-Berger. Heir apparent to the head of Enfield's English department, the pompous Randy is the campus Casanova. That is, he was -- until he was found strangled with his own flashy necktie. The last person to see Randy alive -- and the first to find him dead -- Karen knows she must solve the case before she becomes the prime suspect. But to do that, she must first discover the truth behind Randy's final Dickinsonian discovery -- a literary bombshell that may well have been to die for....

Teaching American women's literature at New England's prestigious Enfield College has shown Karen Pelletier just how cutthroat the world of academe can be. But nothing in her tenure has prepared her for the perils to come, as this bastion of higher learning throws open its doors to a...  more

Teaching American women's literature at New England's prestigious Enfield College has shown Karen Pelletier just how cutthroat the world of academe can be. But nothing in her tenure has prepared her for the perils to come, as this bastion of higher learning throws open its doors to a cleverly calculating killer. A battered copy of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre leads Professor Karen Pelletier to the long-forgotten novels of an obscure writer named Serena Northbury. When she decides to pen the author's biography, she sets off a raging controversy. Everyone, from her esteemed colleagues to her tyrannical department head, regards Northbury's nineteenth-century writings as trash. But when the intrepid researcher stumbles upon a treasure trove of Northbury's papers -- including what looks very much like an unpublished novel -- Karen knows she cannot quit, for what could be more thrilling? Unfortunately, someone takes exception to Karen's penchant for digging up the past. Before long, she is the unlikely suspect in a homicide -- and the target of an erudite killer who is poised to kill again.

An unexpected bequest sends waves of violence through the placid groves of academe in Joanne Dobson's third mystery to feature Professor Karen Pelletier. Still untenured, and therefore on shaky academic ground, feisty young Enfield College professor Pelletier finds herself going...  more

An unexpected bequest sends waves of violence through the placid groves of academe in Joanne Dobson's third mystery to feature Professor Karen Pelletier. Still untenured, and therefore on shaky academic ground, feisty young Enfield College professor Pelletier finds herself going head-to-head with the resident Edgar Allan Poe expert, Elliot Corbin, an academic windbag of monumental proportions who is lobbying to be appointed to the much-coveted and recently vacated Palaver Chair. So when Karen receives a serendipitous bonanza in the form of never-before-seen manuscripts and journals by the nineteenth-century poet Emmeline Foster, who is rumored to have killed herself for the love of Poe, Corbin is predictably put out. Subsequently, the corrosive Corbin is stabbed to death in his home on Thanksgiving Day. Karen has an airtight alibi, but other suspects abound--from the head of the women's studies program, who also pines for the Palaver Chair, to Visiting Poet Jane Birdwort, whose history with Corbin turns out to be far longer (and closer) than anyone had known, to the perpetually disgruntled department secretary, to a young female adjunct professor whose unbridled ambition will not be denied. Then Karen's office is ransacked, and a number of the Emmeline Foster journals and poems are stolen, so it looks more and more as if Corbin's death may be inextricably entwined with the muse of his life--poet of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. The undeniably attractive Lieutenant Piotrowski is called in, and, as in the past, he solicits Karen's help, involving her once more in the thankless task of investigating her not-always-so-collegial colleagues.  

Professor Karen Pelletier has made a name for herself as one of the leading scholars of literature at exclusive Enfield College. But when an offhand comment sets off a firestorm of controversy, she finds herself embroiled in a scandal that began with a notorious novel from the 1950s -- and ends...  more

Professor Karen Pelletier has made a name for herself as one of the leading scholars of literature at exclusive Enfield College. But when an offhand comment sets off a firestorm of controversy, she finds herself embroiled in a scandal that began with a notorious novel from the 1950s -- and ends with a very real murder.... When a New York Times reporter ends an interview with Karen by asking her to name the best novel of the twentieth century, she glibly picks the steamy potboiler Oblivion Falls, a long-forgotten tome that caused a sensation forty years ago. After Karen’s comment renews interest in Oblivion Falls, the book quickly climbs onto the bestseller charts -- and now everyone wants to know what became of the book’s long-vanished author, Mildred Deakin. The reporter who broke the story finally tracks her down -- and is rewarded for his efforts by being shot dead in the writer’s driveway. When Mildred is arrested for murder, Karen feels obligated to investigate further. And what she discovers, as she probes the long-forgotten publishing drama surrounding Oblivion Falls, is almost as shocking as the book itself -- and far more deadly.

The exciting debut of a snappy, spirited, and irresistible mystery series from beloved and bestselling author Linda Greenlaw. In her bestselling nonfiction book All Fishermen Are Liars, Linda Greenlaw confessed a desire to write fiction -- and readers responded with an enthusiastic "Please...  more

The exciting debut of a snappy, spirited, and irresistible mystery series from beloved and bestselling author Linda Greenlaw. In her bestselling nonfiction book All Fishermen Are Liars, Linda Greenlaw confessed a desire to write fiction -- and readers responded with an enthusiastic "Please do!" At last, she satisfies their hunger with this sharp-witted, compulsively readable mystery, the first in a series featuring marine investigator Jane Bunker. When Jane moves back to the sleepy Maine fishing community where she was born, it's to escape the seamy crime scenes and unsavory characters that crossed her path in Miami. Surely whatever crimes are committed in touristy, idyllic Green Haven won't involve anything as nasty as what she saw in Florida. It's a bit of a shock, then, when Nick Dow, the town drunk, turns up dead, and it's not the simple accident that everyone assumes it to be. Jane soon discovers that Dow wasn't even a drunk -- it was all an act. But why? And what does it have to do with a heated town hall meeting about fishing rights and paternity suits? The more Jane digs, the more confused she gets. Only two things are certain: Nothing is what it seems; and the whole town is in each other's business. But it's not until Jane impulsively hops on a boat with the killer -- a boat that suddenly heads out to sea -- that things become downright dangerous . . .As she proved in The Hungry Ocean, no one knows the sea like Linda Greenlaw. And as she proved in The Lobster Chronicles, no one has a better way with the telling details of Maine village life. This new mystery series features everything readers want: a great setting, wonderful characters, an authentic and original detective -- and a story that will keep them on the edge of their seats.

When Jane moves back to the sleepy Maine fishing community where she was born, it's to escape the seamy crime scenes and unsavory characters that crossed her path in Miami. Surely whatever crimes are committed in touristy, idyllic Green Haven won't involve anything as nasty as what she saw in...  more

When Jane moves back to the sleepy Maine fishing community where she was born, it's to escape the seamy crime scenes and unsavory characters that crossed her path in Miami. Surely whatever crimes are committed in touristy, idyllic Green Haven won't involve anything as nasty as what she saw in Florida. It's a bit of a shock, then, when Nick Dow, the town drunk, turns up dead, and it's not the simple accident that everyone assumes it to be. Jane soon discovers that Dow wasn't even a drunk -- it was all an act. But why? And what does it have to do with a heated town hall meeting about fishing rights and paternity suits? The more Jane digs, the more confused she gets. Only two things are certain: Nothing is what it seems; and the whole town is in each other's business. But it's not until Jane impulsively hops on a boat with the killer -- a boat that suddenly heads out to sea -- that things become downright dangerous...

Children's book illustrator Calista Jacobs (last seen in Trace Elements ) and her teenage son Charley are back in a new mystery featuring fundamentalist extremists, archeology and computer-enhanced genetic research. Calista and two of her colleagues are verbally attacked--called "immoral"...  more

Children's book illustrator Calista Jacobs (last seen in Trace Elements ) and her teenage son Charley are back in a new mystery featuring fundamentalist extremists, archeology and computer-enhanced genetic research. Calista and two of her colleagues are verbally attacked--called "immoral" influences--at a children's literature conference in Boston. Then one of them is murdered, and both Calista and the other author receive threats. Charley's computer internship at an MIT research lab inadvertently dovetails into the murder, and when the police prove unhelpful, mother and son launch their own investigation, including a covert visit to the Bible college of a popular creationist preacher. As the scientific elements of the case become too complex for even brainy Charley to unravel, archeologist Archie Baldwin is brought in to help.

Jesse Stone has a problem. Tony and Brianna Lincoln just moved into Paradise, but friendly they aren't.  Actually, several, with bodies turning up and no clues. Investigating a serial killer in an affluent suburban town is difficult, and dangerous, and with the added pressures from the...  more

Jesse Stone has a problem. Tony and Brianna Lincoln just moved into Paradise, but friendly they aren't.  Actually, several, with bodies turning up and no clues. Investigating a serial killer in an affluent suburban town is difficult, and dangerous, and with the added pressures from the town selectmen and the media, Jesse's really feeling the heat. 

What is the only word in the English language that ends in -mt? Answering tricky reference questions like this one is more than enough excitement for recently single librarian Lindsey Norris.  That is, until someone in her cozy new hometown of Briar Creek, Connecticut, commits murder,...  more

What is the only word in the English language that ends in -mt? Answering tricky reference questions like this one is more than enough excitement for recently single librarian Lindsey Norris.  That is, until someone in her cozy new hometown of Briar Creek, Connecticut, commits murder, and the most pressing question is whodunit... Lindsey is just getting into her groove as the director of the Briar Creek Public Library when a vacationing New York editor brings a little buzz to the small town.  It's the perfect chance for her friend Beth to sell the children's book she's written.  Unfortunately, Beth's boyfriend, Rick, a famous author and local celebrity, tries to stop her.  When Lindsey and Beth meet the editor, they uncover the real reason for Rick's bad attitude... They go to confront Rick at his house on the storied and mysterious Thumb Islands, only to find him murdered.  The local chief of police likes Beth for the murder and isn't interested in looking elsewhere.  Now Lindsey has to act fast before they throw the book at the wrong person...

When the grim reaper strikes the math department at Columbia University, everyone's just happy to get out of their homework for the week.  But P.C. and Mackenzie do some homework of their own and discover that almost everyone -- parents and students alike -- had a motive to get this...  more

When the grim reaper strikes the math department at Columbia University, everyone's just happy to get out of their homework for the week.  But P.C. and Mackenzie do some homework of their own and discover that almost everyone -- parents and students alike -- had a motive to get this nutty professor out of the way.

The Paradise Men's Softball League has wrapped up another game, and Jesse Stone is lingering in the parking lot with his teammates, drinking beer, swapping stories of double plays and beautiful women in the late-summer twilight. But then a frightened voice calls out to him from the edge of a...  more

The Paradise Men's Softball League has wrapped up another game, and Jesse Stone is lingering in the parking lot with his teammates, drinking beer, swapping stories of double plays and beautiful women in the late-summer twilight. But then a frightened voice calls out to him from the edge of a nearby lake. There, two men squat at the water's edge. In front of them, face down, was something that used to be a girl. The local cops haven't seen anything like this, but Jesse's L. A. past has made him all too familiar with floaters. This girl hadn't committed suicide; she hadn't been drowned: she'd been shot and dumped, discarded like trash. Before long it becomes clear that she had a taste for the wild life; and her own parents can't be bothered to report her missing, or even admit that she once was a child of theirs. All Jesse has to go on is a young man's school ring on a gold chain, and a hunch or two.

First a fire consumes both the sexton and the pipe organ at a Boston church; then a 14-month-old baby appears at the door. Alan Starr, master organist, teams up with Homer Kelly to find the boy's mother -- only to discover that competition for the job of chief organist is reaching deadly...  more

First a fire consumes both the sexton and the pipe organ at a Boston church; then a 14-month-old baby appears at the door. Alan Starr, master organist, teams up with Homer Kelly to find the boy's mother -- only to discover that competition for the job of chief organist is reaching deadly proportions. Spiced with ecclesiastical mayhem and musical mischief, accented with Bach's musical puzzles, church politics and pipe organs, DIVINE INSPIRATION is vintage Langton -- with all the stops pulled out! "Happily, Langton, as well as the new organ, is equipped with a unique stop knob button marked 'DIV INSP.'" (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)

Double Homicide: Boston, In the Land of Giants After a basketball match leads to a fatal shooting, Detectives Dorothy Breton and Michael McCain are looking to make an open-and-shut case.  For Dorothy, who knows the victim's mother, the crime hits close to home.  And for Micky,...  more

Double Homicide: Boston, In the Land of Giants After a basketball match leads to a fatal shooting, Detectives Dorothy Breton and Michael McCain are looking to make an open-and-shut case.  For Dorothy, who knows the victim's mother, the crime hits close to home.  And for Micky, the investigation is pool consolation for being alone this holiday season.  Then startling evidence comes to light.  Now two experienced cops can either keep it simple...or do what's right. Double Homicide: Santa Fe, Still Life It's Christmastime, and police officers Darrel Two Moons and Steve Katz investigate the killing of an art gallery owner.  When he was in the NYPD, Katz saw more homicides weekly than he's seen in Santa Fe in three years.  Two Moons, an ex-Marine, is discovering his roots among local Indian potters.  But everything personal goes by the wayside as they enter a dangerous world where murder has been perfected to an art form.

One of today’s most electrifying suspense novelists, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner returns with a shattering thriller that dares to play on our deepest vulnerabilities. In this masterful new novel, the killer may very well be the one you sympathize with the most....THE...  more

One of today’s most electrifying suspense novelists, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner returns with a shattering thriller that dares to play on our deepest vulnerabilities. In this masterful new novel, the killer may very well be the one you sympathize with the most....THE FIRST RULE IS NEVER BLAME THE VICTIM.They survived what no woman should ever have to endure. Now these three women have the means, the opportunity, and the perfect motive. Are they trying to get away with murder--or is someone trying to make sure that this time they don’t get away at all? The Survivors Club. . .that’s what Jillian Hayes, Carol Rosen, and Meg Pesaturo call it. They won’t consider themselves victims. They are survivors. They faced the blazing headlines and helped lead the investigation that caught the man who changed their lives forever. And now that Eddie Como, the College Hill rapist, has been murdered, shot down outside a packed courthouse moments before his trial was about to begin, all three women are openly ecstatic that he’s dead. They are also the prime suspects in his murder. Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin knows all too well what can drive even the best people to cross the line. But he has never seen a case quite like this one. No one doubts that the murder of Eddie Como was a professional job, especially when the gunman is killed only blocks away from the shooting. But questions taunt Griffin: Who ordered the deaths of Eddie Como and his killer? Could three ordinary women have been driven to do he unthinkable? Had someone in the Survivors Club become a killer? Griffin seeks the truth--and finds himself confronted with the leader of the Survivors Club. Jillian Hayes is beautiful, successful, cool as ice, and she harbors a pain that mirrors Griffin’s own. Did the horror of what happened to her push her over the thin and desperate line that separates survival and revenge? And if it did, could he blame her--or anyone in the Survivors Club? Then another woman is brutally attacked. Suddenly, with the city on the ragged edge of panic, gripped in a media and political firestorm of controversy, cover-up, and conspiracy, the hunt is on for a ruthless and cunning killer. For Griffin, this may well be the case that shatters his career. For Jillian, the harrowing nightmare is beginning all over again. Someone is out there. Someone who wants to finish what was started. Someone who wants to make sure that no one survives the Survivors Club.From the Hardcover edition.

Joanne McMullen's fears for her sister's sanity have brought her to remote King's Island, Maine. Mary's grief over the loss of her child is threatening to send her over the edge -- and her insistence that she has heard an eerie, childlike wailing in the woods fuels Joanne's anxiety. And now...  more

Joanne McMullen's fears for her sister's sanity have brought her to remote King's Island, Maine. Mary's grief over the loss of her child is threatening to send her over the edge -- and her insistence that she has heard an eerie, childlike wailing in the woods fuels Joanne's anxiety. And now Mary's taken to disappearing at midnight in search of the source of the heartrending moans. But it's not just her sister's encroaching madness that is chilling Joanne's blood -- it's her own. Because suddenly, impossibly, she also hears the crying child.

Detective Ty Hauck plunges into what seems like a vicious case of retribution and follows the trail to a sinister gambling scheme at an upstate casino. Until Annie Fletcher, a young restaurateur in the midst of rebuilding her life, witnesses something she shouldn't have -- and...  more

Detective Ty Hauck plunges into what seems like a vicious case of retribution and follows the trail to a sinister gambling scheme at an upstate casino. Until Annie Fletcher, a young restaurateur in the midst of rebuilding her life, witnesses something she shouldn't have -- and immediately runs to him with what she knows. Suddenly, Hauck is pulled into a rising storm far greater than it first appeared -- a storm wide enough to encompass corruption inside Greenwich's circle of wealthy and powerful citizens. And punishing enough to consume Hauck's own family, and tear brothers apart forever . . . if it doesn't kill them first. Don't Look Twice is a gripping story of profiteering on an international scale and an emotionally resonant domestic thriller from one of the hottest new talents in suspense fiction.

In Shooting Star, ninety-two-year-old poet Victoria Trumbull becomes embroiled in controversy at the community theater on Martha's Vineyard. The new artistic director has announced plans to replace local amateur talent with off-Island professionals, and the cast and crew react...  more

In Shooting Star, ninety-two-year-old poet Victoria Trumbull becomes embroiled in controversy at the community theater on Martha's Vineyard. The new artistic director has announced plans to replace local amateur talent with off-Island professionals, and the cast and crew react murderously. Victoria intended the theater's current production, her adaptation of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, to debunk the common farcical movie-monster interpretation by returning to Shelley's original serious commentary on the Industrial Revolution. However, after the night of the dress rehearsal, Victoria loses control over the production, and her drama begins to take a strange course. On that night, the eight-year-old boy playing the part of Frankenstein's young brother disappears, and before a search can begin, a killer strikes. The Vineyard's police forces mobilize for an Island-wide search. In the original story of Frankenstein, the boy is the first victim of the monster, and Victoria fears that a copycat killer is following her playscript. She determines to find the missing boy and track down the killer before more deaths occur. Along with familiar Island characters from her previous books, the author introduces a cast of new and often eccentric players. Shooting Star, the seventh book in the Martha's Vineyard mystery series, explores the rich setting of the Island that author Cynthia Riggs knows well, from the rose-covered Dukes County jail on Edgartown's Main Street to the quaint ferry terminal in Oak Bluffs. It's a delightful read that both fans and newcomers to the series will be sure to enjoy.

The master of the new noir, Dennis Lehane magnificently evokes the dignity and savagery of working-class Boston in this terrifying tale of darkness and redemption. Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's latest client is a prominent Boston psychiatrist running scared from a vengeful Irish...  more

The master of the new noir, Dennis Lehane magnificently evokes the dignity and savagery of working-class Boston in this terrifying tale of darkness and redemption. Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's latest client is a prominent Boston psychiatrist running scared from a vengeful Irish mob. The private investigators know something about cold-blooded retribution. Born and bred on the mean streets of blue-collar Dorchester, they've seen the darkness that lives in the hearts of the unfortunate. But an evil for which even they are unprepared is about to strike as secrets long-dormant erupt, setting off a chain of violent murders that will stain everything -- including the truth.

Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex-wife who’s moved in with a man whose moody son spends more time online than he should. Tim’s girlfriend is turning out to be a bit of a flake. It’s not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare him for the nightmare...  more

Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex-wife who’s moved in with a man whose moody son spends more time online than he should. Tim’s girlfriend is turning out to be a bit of a flake. It’s not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare him for the nightmare that’s about to begin. His daughter, Sydney, has vanished into thin air. At the hotel where she supposedly worked, no one has ever heard of her. Even her closest friends seem to be at a loss. Now, as the days pass without word, Tim must face the fact that not only is Sydney missing, but that he may not have known his daughter as well as he thought. As he retraces Sydney’s steps, Tim discovers that the suburban Connecticut town he always thought of as idyllic is anything but. What he doesn’t know is that his every move is being watched. There are others who want to find Sydney as much as Tim does. But they’re not planning a welcome-home party. The closer Tim comes to the truth, the closer he comes to every parent’s worst nightmare – and the kind of evil only a parent’s love has a chance in hell of stopping. Read by Buck Schirner.  11 sound discs (12 hr., 36 min.)

Historian Jean Sheridan returns to Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, excited about her twenty-year high-school reunion at Stonecroft Academy. But a dear friend of hers soon becomes the fifth woman in the class to meet a sudden, mysterious end. Then Jean receives a taunting fax about a child she gave...  more

Historian Jean Sheridan returns to Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, excited about her twenty-year high-school reunion at Stonecroft Academy. But a dear friend of hers soon becomes the fifth woman in the class to meet a sudden, mysterious end. Then Jean receives a taunting fax about a child she gave up for adoption, whose existence she had kept a secret but whose life may now be in danger. For present at the reunion is The Owl, a murderer on a mission of vengeance against women who once humiliated him...and Jean is his final intended victim.

For Kate Klein, a semi-accidental mother of three, suburbia's been full of unpleasant surprises.  Her once-loving husband is hardly ever home.  The supermommies on the playground routinely snub her.  Her days are spent carpooling and enduring endless games of Candy Land, and...  more

For Kate Klein, a semi-accidental mother of three, suburbia's been full of unpleasant surprises.  Her once-loving husband is hardly ever home.  The supermommies on the playground routinely snub her.  Her days are spent carpooling and enduring endless games of Candy Land, and at night, most of her orgasms are of the do-it-yourself variety. When a fellow mother is murdered, Kate finds that the unsolved mystery is one of the most interesting things to happen in Upchurch since her neighbors broke ground for a guesthouse and cracked their septic tank.  Even though Kate's husband and the police chief warn her that crime-fighting's a job best left to professionals, she can't let it go. So Kate launches an unofficial investigation -- from 8:45 to 11:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, when her kids are in nursery school -- with the help of her hilarious best friend, carpet heiress Janie Segal, and Evan McKenna, a former flame she thought she'd left behind in New York City. As the search for the killer progresses, Kate is drawn deeper into the murdered woman's double life.  She discovers the secrets and lies behind Upchurch's placid picket-fence facade -- and the choices and compromises all modern women make as they navigate between independence and obligation, small towns and big cities, being a mother and having a life of one's own. Engrossing, suspenseful, and laugh-out-loud funny, GOODNIGHT NOBODY is another unputdownable, timely tale; an insightful mystery with a great heart and a narrator you'll never forget.

A Case of Need is Michael Crichton's award-winning debut novel, written shortly after he completed his medical internship. Set against the ever-building pressure and pace of a large Boston medical center, the tensions flare-and explode-when a surgical operation tragically ends in death, raising...  more

A Case of Need is Michael Crichton's award-winning debut novel, written shortly after he completed his medical internship. Set against the ever-building pressure and pace of a large Boston medical center, the tensions flare-and explode-when a surgical operation tragically ends in death, raising countless questions. Was it accidental malpractice? A violation of the Hippocratic oath? Or cold-blooded murder?

You have good reason to be afraid.. It was a case that haunts Bobby Dodge to this day - the case that nearly killed him and changed his life forever. Now, in an underground chamber on the grounds of an abandoned Massachusetts mental hospital, the gruesome discovery of six mummified corpses...  more

You have good reason to be afraid.. It was a case that haunts Bobby Dodge to this day - the case that nearly killed him and changed his life forever. Now, in an underground chamber on the grounds of an abandoned Massachusetts mental hospital, the gruesome discovery of six mummified corpses resurrects his worst nightmare: the return of a killer he thought dead and buried. There's no place to run.. Bobby's only lead is wrapped around a dead woman's neck. Annabelle Granger has been in hiding for as long as she can remember. Her childhood was a blur of new cities and assumed identities. But what - or who - her family was running from, she never knew. Now, a body is unearthed from a grave, wearing a necklace bearing Annabelle's name, and the danger is too close to escape. This time, she's not going to run. You know he will find you.. The new threat could be the dead psychopath's copycat, his protege - or something far more terrifying. Dodge knows the only way to find him is to solve the mystery of Annabelle Granger, and to do that he must team up with his former lover, partner, and friend D. D. Warren from the Boston P.D. But the trail leads back to a woman from Bobby's past who may be every bit as dangerous as the new killer - a beautiful survivor-turned-avenger with an eerie link to Annabelle. From its tense opening pages to its shocking climax, HIDE is a thriller that delves into our deepest, darkest fears. Where there is no one to trust. Where there is no place left to hide.

While blithely trespassing in a Massachusetts wetland, a plant thief stumbles across a corpse: Sandra Nichols, who had been missing for months, was found bludgeoned to death. Time had provided the suspects - especially Peter Wade, Sandra's super-rich ex - with easy alibis. Murder One? The...  more

While blithely trespassing in a Massachusetts wetland, a plant thief stumbles across a corpse: Sandra Nichols, who had been missing for months, was found bludgeoned to death. Time had provided the suspects - especially Peter Wade, Sandra's super-rich ex - with easy alibis. Murder One? The D.A. knows better: prosecutors do not seek unwinnable cases. Wrongful Death - a civil action that requires proof of motive, means, access to a weapon, and only 51 percent certainty - is the route unflappable Judge Henry Lawler pursues. And the judge has his reasons for appointing classmate Jerry Kennedy to try what becomes Estate of Sandra Nichols v. Peter Wade. Kennedy is known for defending scoundrels accused of murder, armed robbery, MV manslaughter, and tax evasion. So, as Jerry Kennedy himself asks, "Why did I take the mixed breed Wade-Nichols case, the hardest case I never tried? Which looked like it was civil but was really criminal? And, when you came right down to it, de facto made me into what I'd never been before in my whole life, a ... prosecutor?" The fun begins when Jerry starts poking around, talking to the right people (including Sandra's orphaned kids), and reviewing the files gathered by Detective Royce Whitlock. Once he becomes aware of a missing clue, things begin to fall in place, and savvy readers will recognize that they're in the hands of a master.

Great-uncle Frederick could be counted on to be difficult to the end, and beyond. Sarah Kelling is therefore not surprised when her relative's burial has to be switched at the last minute to a long-abandoned family vault in an historic Beacon Hill cemetery. She is, however, as appalled as the...  more

Great-uncle Frederick could be counted on to be difficult to the end, and beyond. Sarah Kelling is therefore not surprised when her relative's burial has to be switched at the last minute to a long-abandoned family vault in an historic Beacon Hill cemetery. She is, however, as appalled as the rest of her blue-blood clan when the ruby-studded skeleton of a flamboyant burlesque queen, who had vanished some thirty years before, turns up in Uncle Fred's chosen resting place. The Kellings have barely gotten former Fred decently interred before Sarah begins to realize that she and her family are somehow at the vortex of a complex murder plot that stretches far into the past and is moving, inexorably and horrifyingly, into the present. Charlotte MacLeod has written short stories and articles for both adults and children, several teen-age mystery novels, and ASTROLOGY FOR SKEPTICS, which has been published both in the United States and abroad.

Sarah Kelling's Aunt Emma is a woman who throws herself into good works, such as leaping from a burning building into a net to raise money for a fireman's widow. Now old friend Adelaide Sabine needs a hostess for her isolated summer place on Pocapuk Island and Emma leaps again. She'll enjoy...  more

Sarah Kelling's Aunt Emma is a woman who throws herself into good works, such as leaping from a burning building into a net to raise money for a fireman's widow. Now old friend Adelaide Sabine needs a hostess for her isolated summer place on Pocapuk Island and Emma leaps again. She'll enjoy a quiet summer of rest, relaxation, and repairing the stage jewelry belonging to her pet Gilbert and Sullivan troupe while she keeps a benevolent eye on the artists and writers who'll be occupying Adelaide's six guest cottages. She packs up the baubles in her old Gladstone bag and heads for the coast of Maine. On the ferry, Emma is drugged and her bag temporarily stolen... could someone have mistaken the paste jewels for real diamonds? On the island she's barely settled in when her Gladstone bag is heisted again, a trespassing scuba diver is found dead, and a mysterious stranger is off on a rampage of attempted murders. Emma won't stand for such a shocking breach of island etiquette. She enlists niece Sarah and nephew-in-law Max Bittersohn for a spot of long-distance detecting, and sets about digging a trap for a ruthless villain.

Your daughter doesn't come home one night from her summer job. You go there looking for her. No one's seen here. But it's worse than that. No one's ever seen her. So where has she been going every day? And where is she now? Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an...  more

Your daughter doesn't come home one night from her summer job. You go there looking for her. No one's seen here. But it's worse than that. No one's ever seen her. So where has she been going every day? And where is she now? Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex-wife. She's moved in with a man whose moody son spends more time online than he should. His girlfriend is turning out to be a bit of a flake. It's not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare Tim for the nightmare that's about to begin. Sydney vanishes into thin air. At the hotel where she supposedly worked, no one has ever heard of her. Even her closest friends seem to be at a loss. Now, as the days pass without word, Tim must face the fact that not only is Sydney missing, but that the daughter he's loved and thought he knew is a virtual stranger. As he retraces Sydney's steps, Tim discovers that the suburban Connecticut town he always thought of as idyllic is anything but. What he doesn't know is that his every move is being watched. There are others who want to find Syd as much as Tim does. But they're not planning a Welcome Home party. The closer Tim comes to the truth, the closer he comes to every parent's worst nightmare and the kind of evil only a parent's love has a chance in hell of stopping.

Four days after Abigail Browning's wedding, her life changed unimaginably: her husband was shot, meeting his death along the rocky Mount Desert Island coast. Was it a random act of violence, or could someone have wanted Christopher dead? That's the question that has haunted Abigail,...  more

Four days after Abigail Browning's wedding, her life changed unimaginably: her husband was shot, meeting his death along the rocky Mount Desert Island coast. Was it a random act of violence, or could someone have wanted Christopher dead? That's the question that has haunted Abigail, now a homicide detective, for the past seven years. Determined to find her husband's killer, she returns to the foggy Maine island after receiving an anonymous tip. Is it just another false lead, or can she finally prove that Chris was murdered? As the search-and-rescue worker who located Chris too late to save him, Owen Garrison still carries guilt from that fateful night. Right from the start, Abigail's presence on Mount Desert Island ruffles feathers, but Owen sees she's not the same woman she was seven years ago. As he helps her unravel the mystery, they learn that the layers of deceit and lies are even thicker than they could have imagined. Now it's up to Abigail and Owen to keep pushing for the truth -- and stop a killer from striking again.

Sunny Coolidge left her New York City newspaper job to go back to Maine and take care of her ailing father. But there’s not much excitement -- or interesting work -- in Kittery Harbor. So when Ada Spruance, the town’s elderly cat lady, asks for help finding her supposedly-winning...  more

Sunny Coolidge left her New York City newspaper job to go back to Maine and take care of her ailing father. But there’s not much excitement -- or interesting work -- in Kittery Harbor. So when Ada Spruance, the town’s elderly cat lady, asks for help finding her supposedly-winning lottery ticket, Sunny agrees. But when she arrives at Ada’s, with a stray tomcat named Shadow tagging along, they discover the poor woman dead at the bottom of her stairs. Was it an accident -- or did Ada’s death have to do with that missing lottery ticket, which turns out to be worth six million dollars? Town Constable Will Price suspects the worst. And Sunny’s reporter instincts soon drive her to do some investigating of her own. Even Shadow seems to have a nose for detective work. Following the trail of the purrloined ticket, Sunny and Shadow try to shed some light on a killer’s dark motives -- before their own numbers are up... 

As editor of a popular magazine that spotlights offbeat New England attractions, Amanda Vickers is intrigued by a call from an old college professor about a haunted New Hampshire inn. When she later hears that the woman has died under mysterious circumstances in the basement of this mysterious...  more

As editor of a popular magazine that spotlights offbeat New England attractions, Amanda Vickers is intrigued by a call from an old college professor about a haunted New Hampshire inn. When she later hears that the woman has died under mysterious circumstances in the basement of this mysterious Shadsborough Inn, Amanda and her associate Marcie decide to investigate. It seems the inn recently acquired a resident ghost—a crying girl, whose sobs can be heard late at night. Getting to know the locals, Amanda suspects there's a connection between this supposed apparition and a missing teenager. She's not sure if the teen is dead or alive, but Amanda is convinced there's something very dark and dangerous happening in this picturesque White Mountain town. But as she gets closer to exposing the truth about the old inn and its secrets, she fears she's walked straight into a killer's trap…without a ghost of a chance for escape.

Emily Gray returns to the tiny lakeside town of Baxter, Maine, to prepare her mother's island cottage for sale. She doesn't expect to find a murder victim on Grand Cat Island - or to find love when she walks into the Baxter Marina. Is it Nate Holman or the fascinating mysteries that draw...  more

Emily Gray returns to the tiny lakeside town of Baxter, Maine, to prepare her mother's island cottage for sale. She doesn't expect to find a murder victim on Grand Cat Island - or to find love when she walks into the Baxter Marina. Is it Nate Holman or the fascinating mysteries that draw her back to the shores of Blue Heron Lake? Homicide at Blue Heron Lake/Treasure at Blue Heron Lake/Impostors at Blue Heron Lake

As a professional Scottish dancer, Liss MacCrimmon has performed strathsprays and reels, jigs and Highland flings until a knee injury cuts her career short. Returning to her hometown of Moosetookalook, Maine, she decides to help her aunt run her Scottish emporium. Liss hasn't been in...  more

As a professional Scottish dancer, Liss MacCrimmon has performed strathsprays and reels, jigs and Highland flings until a knee injury cuts her career short. Returning to her hometown of Moosetookalook, Maine, she decides to help her aunt run her Scottish emporium. Liss hasn't been in Moosetookalook in over ten years, but the quaint little town, nestled in the hilly terrain of western Maine, looks exactly as she remembers it. But then her bliss soon turns to dread when she finds the dead body of her aunt's nosy neighbor, Amanda Norris, under a bolt of Flower of Scotland fabric in the stock room. And if things weren't bad enough, the state police hone in on Liss as the prime suspect. Now Liss will have to do some fancy footwork to prove she's innocent while avoiding becoming the killer's next victim...

Recently widowed, Jo McAllister is setting up shop in Abbotsville, Maryland. She hopes Jo’s Craft Corner will take her mind off her troubles. But no town is too small for secrets, scandal—even murder...  It’s opening day at Jo’s Craft Corner, and Jo is more tightly...  more

Recently widowed, Jo McAllister is setting up shop in Abbotsville, Maryland. She hopes Jo’s Craft Corner will take her mind off her troubles. But no town is too small for secrets, scandal—even murder...  It’s opening day at Jo’s Craft Corner, and Jo is more tightly wired than the wreath on her store’s front door. The entertainment she’s hired, Cuddles the Clown, won’t stop complaining, and Jo is about to strangle the grumbler in grease paint. But then, to her horror, she finds someone else has silenced him— for good. With a dead clown in her storeroom, Jo is the prime suspect. So she sets out to clear her name, only to find that a crafty killer wants to stamp her out of existence... Includes directions for a craft project and a recipe!

Newly divorced Alison Kerby wants a second chance for herself and her nine-year-old daughter. She's returned to her hometown on the Jersey Shore to transform a Victorian fixer-upper into a charming-and profitable - guest house. One small problem: the house is haunted, and the two ghosts...  more

Newly divorced Alison Kerby wants a second chance for herself and her nine-year-old daughter. She's returned to her hometown on the Jersey Shore to transform a Victorian fixer-upper into a charming-and profitable - guest house. One small problem: the house is haunted, and the two ghosts insist Alison must find out who killed them.

"A WALK ON THE WILDERS SIDE -- Other people die of mumps, Or general decay. Of fevers, chills or other ills; But Wilders walk away. That's the little ditty they all sing in the quaintly picturesque New England village of Wilder's Lane. That's part of the mystery too, of course. You see, from...  more

"A WALK ON THE WILDERS SIDE -- Other people die of mumps, Or general decay. Of fevers, chills or other ills; But Wilders walk away. That's the little ditty they all sing in the quaintly picturesque New England village of Wilder's Lane. That's part of the mystery too, of course. You see, from pre-Revolutionary War times on, members of the Wilder family never die; they walk away -- disappear into thin air -- forever. Footprints on a deserted beach may simply stop. A man who enters an office building is never seen again. Teen-aged Ellen Wilder is waiting for a bus when she walks away. Well, not quite. Reynold Frame, a photojouranlist on assignment from Life, finds a fresh grave with the murdered girl in it. Frame begins an investigation. And then he too disappears! One thing is certain. Wilders may wander off as they please, but readers will be riveted by this marvelous tour-de-force."