Best of
Mystery-Thriller

1986

Past Caring


Robert Goddard - 1986
    Martin is shown the leather-bound journal of another ruined man, former British cabinet minister Edwin Strafford.Martin is offered a job - to return to England and investigate the rise and fall of Strafford, an ambitious young politician whose downfall, in 1910, is as mysterious as the strange deaths that still haunt his family.Martin is intrigued. Strafford resigned at the height of his career, disappearing from the public eye. The woman he loved, for whom he was willing to sacrifice everything, suddenly and coldly rejected him. All the reasons for his fall from grace are shrouded in darkness.Martin's investigations trigger a violent series of events, throwing him straight into the path of those who believed they had escaped punishment for crimes long past but never paid for ... And Martin himself may find that he must risk his life to discover the truth.

Anne Tyler: Four Complete Novels: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant / Morgan's Passing / The Tin Can Tree / If Morning Ever Comes


Anne Tyler - 1986
    Includes her highly acclaimed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Morgan's Passing, The Tin Can Tree, and If Morning Ever Comes.

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Volume 1


Bert Coules - 1986
    These four stories, written by the main dramatist on the complete BBC Radio 4 Sherlock Holmes canon, imaginatively flesh out the cases behind those references to wonderful effect. As in the complete dramatised canon, Clive Merrison plays the great sleuth. Andrew Sachs plays the role of Doctor Watson, while the star cast includes Tom Baker, Eleanor Bron, Jane Asher, Tim West and Toyah Willcox. The stories are: 'The Madness of Colonel Warburton'; ‘The Star of the Adelphi'; 'The Saviour of Cripplegate Square' and 'The Singular Inheritance of Miss Gloria Watson'.4 CDs. 2 hrs 55 mins.

A Matter of Honor


Jeffrey Archer - 1986
    A disgraced British colonel bequeaths a mysterious letter to his only son. But the moment Adam Scott opens the yellowing envelope, he sets into motion a deadly chain of events that threatens to shake the very foundations of the free world.Within days, Adam's lover is brutally murdered and he's running for his life through the great cities of Europe, pursued not only by the KGB, but by the CIA and his own countrymen as well. Their common intent is to kill him before the truth comes out. While powerful men in smoke-filled rooms plot ever more ingenious means of destroying him, Adam finds himself betrayed and abandoned even by those he holds most dear.When at last he comes to understand what he is in possession of, he's even more determined to protect it, for it's more than a matter of life and death-it's a matter of honor.

The Ritual Bath


Faye Kellerman - 1986
    Someone has shattered the sanctuary of a remote yeshiva community in the California hills with an unimaginable crime. One of the women was brutally raped as she returned from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed.The crime was called in by Rina Lazarus, and Decker is relieved to discover that she is a calm and intelligent witness. She is also the only one in the sheltered community willing to speak of this unspeakable violation. As Rina tries to steer Decker through the maze of religious laws, the two grow closer. But before they get to the bottom of the horrendous crime, revelations come to light that are so shocking that they threaten to come between the hard-nosed cop and the deeply religious woman with whom he has become irrevocably linked.

A Dark-Adapted Eye


Barbara Vine - 1986
    Her aunt Vera Hillyard, a rigidly respectable woman, was convicted and hanged for the crime, but the reason for her desperate deed died with her. Thirty years later, a probing journalist pushes Faith to look back to the day when her aunt took knife in hand and walked into a child's nursery. Through the eyes of a woman trying to understand an unspeakable, inexplicable family tragedy, Barbara Vine leads us through a shadow land of illicit lust, intimate sins, and unspoken passions—to a shattering and illuminating climax, as inevitable as it is unexpected. In this enthralling masterpiece, a great crime writer has achieved both a flawlessly crafted novel of psychological suspense and a deeply probing work of literary art.

The Little Death


Michael Nava - 1986
    A burnt-out public defender battling alcoholism, Rios has reached a crossroads in his life. While interviewing Paris in jail, Rios goes through the motions, but notices that Paris is far more polished and well-off than the usual drug suspects. Paris is mysteriously bailed out—but a few weeks later, he turns up on Rios’s doorstep. Skittish and paranoid, he admits to using heroin and says he’s afraid that his wealthy grandfather wants to murder him.Rios tries to help Paris get clean, but when Paris is found dead of an apparent heroin overdose, Rios is the only one who considers foul play. Determined to find Paris’s killer, Rios knocks on San Francisco’s most gilded doors, where he discovers a family tainted by jealousy, greed, and hate. They’ve been warped by a fortune someone’s willing to kill—and kill again—to possess.At once an atmospheric noir mystery and a scathing indictment of a legal system caught in the maws of escalating corruption, The Little Death chronicles one man’s struggle to achieve true justice for all.

Seeds Of Treason


Ted Allbeury - 1986
    Until he meets Anna, and the Russians find out... To Arthur Johnson,the least successful of British soldiers, his job is a degrading necessity - but he dreams of money and power. The law-abiding civil servant Eric Mayhew has found love, a love that drives him to cold-blooded betrayal when an unfair act of authority exposes his insecurity and he feels it threatens the adoration of his young bride. Jimbo Vick, the American mathematician, believes he too has found love, with a beautiful girl he can help as he has never before helped another human being. And Kuznetsov, the Russian spy, loves his country...They are all traitors. All play their parts in an intricate dance of betrayal and subterfuge, each convinced he acts alone, and for the best of reasons. Until the day of reckoning and truth, when some will escape, and some will survive - and some will die.

The Back-Door Man


Rob Kantner - 1986