The Tightrope Men / The Enemy


Desmond Bagley - 2009
    But it is only the beginning of a hair-raising adventure in which Denison finds himself trapped with no way to escape. One false move and the whole delicately balanced power structure between East and West will come toppling down…THE ENEMYWealthy, respectable George Ashton flees for his life after an acid attack on his daughter. Who is his enemy? Only Malcolm Jaggard, his future son-in-law, can guess, after seeing Ashton's top secret government file. In a desperate manhunt, Jaggard pits himself against the KGB and stalks Ashton to the silent, wintry forests of Sweden. But his search for the enemy has barely begun…Includes a unique bonus - Desmond Bagley's pen portrait, written for the original publication of The Tightrope Men.

The Iron Horse


James Reasoner - 2021
    Hired to find out who is stirring up the Sioux and sabotaging the Kansas Pacific line as it builds westward, Faraday sends tough young agent Daniel Britten to the railhead, where he finds himself embroiled with surveyors, track layers, buffalo hunters, and a pair of beautiful young women. But there’s a killer stalking the railhead as well, and not only the fate of the railroad but also Britten’s very life depends on him uncovering the truth.An epic Western adventure full of historical sweep and gun-blazing action.

Die a Little


Megan Abbott - 2005
    This ingenious twist on a classic noir tale tells the story of Lora King, a schoolteacher, and her brother Bill, a junior investigator with the district attorney's office. Lora's comfortable, suburban life is jarringly disrupted when Bill falls in love with a mysterious young woman named Alice Steele, a Hollywood wardrobe assistant with a murky past. Made sisters by marriage but not by choice, the bond between Lora and Alice is marred by envy and mistrust. Spurred on by inconsistencies in Alice's personal history and possibly jealous of Alice's hold on her brother, Lora finds herself lured into the dark alleys and mean streets of seamy Los Angeles. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she uncovers a shadowy world of drugs, prostitution, and ultimately, murder. Lora's fascination with Alice's "sins" increases in direct proportion to the escalation of her own relationship with Mike Standish, a charmingly amoral press agent who appears to know more about his old friend Alice than he reveals. The deeper Lora digs to uncover Alice's secrets, the more her own life begins to resemble Alice's sinister past -- and present. Steeped in atmospheric suspense and voyeuristic appeal, Die a Little shines as a dark star among Hollywood lights.

Death at the Black Bull


Frank Hayes - 2014
    Virgil Dalton’s been the sheriff for over a dozen years and has lived there all his life. It’s a place where everybody pretty much knows everybody—but they don’t know each other’s secrets… Buddy Hinton is just a good ole boy. So when he disappears after a night drinking at the Black Bull, his friends just figure he went down to Mexico to find himself a girlfriend and eventually will come back. But this case quickly becomes a homicide after the sheriff discovers the missing man floating in one of his stock tanks. For a man who wasn’t known to have enemies, Buddy clearly upset someone. Figuring out who that was will require Virgil and his deputy, Jimmy, to retrace Buddy’s last steps—and to remain a step ahead of a murderer who may have no qualms about killing again …

A Season of Darkness


Doug Jones - 2010
    But it would take more than thirty years before the case finally came to its shocking, unexpected, and long-awaited concusion.

Diagnosis Dead


Jonathan KellermanDoug Allyn - 1999
    With an introduction by editor Jonathan Kellerman and biographical headnotes for each author.Contents:Dream lawyer by Lia MateraBroken doors by Brendan DuBoisFour views of justice by Jon L. BreenThe bad boyz club by Doug AllynImage by John LutzVerdict by Nancy PickardThe back page by Faye KellermanHero by Jeremiah HealyTherapy by Jonathan KellermanNatural Deathby Inc. by Max Allan CollinsThe oath by Marilyn WallaceBackwater by Michael Z. LewinExpert opinion by Benjamin M. SchutzShow me the bones by Carolyn Wheat

Destined for Trouble


Claudia Lefeve - 2014
    All she wants to do is unwind, forget about her failed relationship, and work on her tan.But when the owner of the local crab shack is murdered at Jules’s welcome-home party, she is forced to scrap her rest-and-relaxation plans. Now her best friend, Abby Lee, is the prime suspect, and her high school sweetheart, Deputy Chief Justin Harper, is working the case. Even though Jules knows she shouldn’t, she just can’t keep herself from getting involved in the investigation—and entangled with handsome Assistant District Attorney Hartley Crawford. While an old flame threatens to rekindle and a new one sparks, Jules must find a killer and prove her friend’s innocence. But will she put two and two together before trouble catches up with her?Revised edition: This edition of Destined for Trouble includes editorial revisions.

Giordano Bruno Series Books 1-3: Heresy, Prophecy, Sacrilege


S.J. Parris - 2013
    Sansom and The Name of the Rose, three Sunday Times bestselling historical thrillers featuring Giordano Bruno, heretic, philosopher and spy.HERESY: Oxford, 1583. A place of learning, and of murderous schemes. The Queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, recruits Giordano Bruno, a radical thinker fleeing the Inquisition, to expose a Catholic conspiracy at Oxford University. When a series of brutal murders ruptures close-knit college life, Bruno realizes that the Tudor throne itself is at stake…PROPHECY: London, 1583. As Mary Stuart’s supporters scheme to usurp the rightful monarch, a young maid of honour is murdered in Queen Elizabeth’s court, occult symbols carved into her flesh. When maverick agent Giordano Bruno is instructed to infiltrate the plotters, he must use all his cunning to secure evidence against them before his true identity is exposed…SACRILEGE: Canterbury, 1584. Heretic-turned-spy Giordano Bruno travels to Canterbury to clear the name of the woman he once loved. But when a series of mysterious crimes strike the city, a far bigger puzzle emerges. Bruno’s investigation leads him deep into the shadows of the Cathedral, and to the heart of a sinister and powerful conspiracy…

Shallow Water


Amanda J. Clay - 2018
    Redwood on California’s rural Mendocino coast. She swore she’d never go back. Not after what happened graduation night. When her estranged mother suffers a stroke, Clara has no choice but to return, coming face-to face with her traumatic past—including her best friend’s unsolved murder and Sean, the love she abandoned. When another young girl is found dead—her death identical to that of the eight-year-old cold case—Clara and Sean find themselves at the center of the investigation and wading through the trenches of their own psychological damage.★★★★★ “A brilliant mystery that had me at the edge of my seat!”★★★★★ "Fans of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects will love Shallow Water." ★★★★★ “Nail-biting and steamy. Clara and Sean are complex characters you really route for.” ★★★★★ "You will fall in love with Clara. She's raw, both tough and tender, and unapologetically bad ass."

The Four Great Novels: Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key


Dashiell Hammett - 1930
    He took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley. He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before - Raymond ChandlerNot just the first of a tough school of crime-writing but the best... Hammett had seen the rotten underbelly of his country and wanted others to see it - The TimesHammett's is the America of Prohibition days and over all is the stink of corruption and cordite and hard liquor - Oxford TimesNobody else ever did it quite like this, and no one has ever done it since - The Times Literary SupplementCover illustration by Nancy Slomins

The C.J. Sansom CD Box Set: Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation


C.J. Sansom - 2003
    J. Sansom. Matthew Shardlake, lawyer and reformist in London during the reign of Henry VIII. His investigation skills are tested in four cases where both his life and the lives of others are threatened. In "Dissolution" he travels to Scarnsea Monastery where one of Thomas Cromwell's Commissioner has been brutally murdered. Shardlake must expose the killer but his inquiries soon force him to question everything he hears, and everything that he intrinsically believes. In "Dark Fire" Shardlake returns to London and a new assignment from Cromwell. The formula for Greek Fire, a legendary Byzantine weapon, is discovered by an official of the Court of Augmentations. Shardlake is sent to retrieve the formula but instead finds the official and his alchemist brother murdered and the formula missing. "Sovereign" takes Shardlake to York, following Henry VIII and his Progress to the North. The murder of a local glazier involves Shardlake in a mystery connected not only to a prisoner in York Castle but to the royal family itself. And in "Revelation" when an old friend is horrifically murdered Shardlake promises his widow to bring the killer to justice. His search leads him to connections with the dark prophecies of the Book of Revelation. Shardlake follows the trail of a series of horrific murders that shakes him to the core, and which are already bringing frenzied talk of witchcraft and a demonic possession - for what else would the Tudor mind make of a serial killer...? Praise for the series: 'Dissolution is a remarkable, imaginative feat. It is a first-rate murder mystery and one of the most atmospheric historical novels I've read in years' - "Mail on Sunday". 'One of the author's greatest gifts is the immediacy of his descriptions, for he writes about the past as if it were the living present' - Colin Dexter.

East Wind


Jack Winnick - 2015
    The president moves fast to prevent panic across the nation. The government receives an ominous threat from an anonymous Middle Eastern source: similar attacks will be launched upon other American cities unless all aid to Israel is terminated, virtually isolating the Jewish State and allowing its Arab neighbors to overrun it. The FBI, CIA and other federal organizations are called to action. A crack U. S. Israeli team is given the daunting assignment of uncovering the source of the threat and the identity of the next targeted city against a five day deadline. The team: Lara, a young female FBI computer whiz and Uri, a charismatic male Mossad field agent. Theirs is a breakneck chase across the country in a race against time and the unknown Islamist terrorists.

Rage of Angels


Michael Tinker Pearce - 2014
    Who are they, and why have they come? The survivors soon discover the aliens are here for the one resource they cannot find elsewhere in the solar system- surface biomass. Life itself. The survivors are left to fight a guerrilla war against their technologically superior adversaries in the vain hope of driving them off before they can strip the world of life. But they may be doomed to fail unless they can find a way to strike directly against the aliens, unassailable in their fortress-mothership orbiting high above the earth. With memorable characters, packed with action and bleeding-edge technology ‘Rage of Angels’ is a fresh, up to date and frighteningly plausible addition to the alien invasion genre.

Warwolf


T.R. Pearson - 2011
    Wry, laconic, and more than a little world-weary, Tatum pursues a savage killer through the rural Virginia uplands with the hot-headed assistance of Special Agent Kate LeComte. Warwolf is by turns hilarious and deeply unsettling, and T.R. Pearson’s gift for capturing the true voice of the new south is on conspicuous display. The mountains of Virginia have never seemed so dangerously alive, and there remains no better company in the southern highlands than Deputy Ray Tatum.Ray Tatum also appears in Cry Me A River, Blue Ridge, and Polar -- written to be read in no particular order.

Zombies in the Delta


M.L. Hamilton - 2014
    With new jobs demanding their attention, they struggle to find an equilibrium between their professional and personal lives. Added to that difficulty is Marco’s inability to accept his own physical limitations and his fear that Peyton stays with him only through guilt. Peyton sees his growing distance and worries about it, but she’s afraid to confront him and add to his stress. Faced with her own challenges, Peyton tries to balance both halves of her life, but when a zombie killer strikes in the Delta, Peyton will have to focus her attention on catching a murderer as elusive as smoke, leaving Marco to fend for himself.