Eva's husband George is behind tabloid editor Frank Locke’s blackmail of Congressman Harrison Burke. The politician and Eva had been together at a restaurant when there was an attempted robbery. It's not long before George takes a bullet to the heart as he's getting out of his bath. There's a forged will too. It benefits his nephew Carl, who is engaged to the daughter of Mrs. Veitch, the Belters’ secretive housekeeper. Is this complicated or what!At least Eva Belter had brains; she was smart enough to consult Perry Mason.

    The jury had not evidence enough to convict him -- nor enough to comfortably exonerate him. Eustace could not bear the weight of her discovery; he fled to the continent, to live in anonymity. But Valeria knew her husband, and she loved him. She knew he was innocent, too, with the sort of intuition that guides the lucky flawlessly. And she set out to prove it to the world.

    It’s the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse—and concealing the cause of death. It turns out the body belonged to a young woman named Christine Falls. And as Quirke reluctantly presses on toward the true facts behind her death, he comes up against some insidious—and very well-guarded—secrets of Dublin’s high Catholic society, among them members of his own family. Set in Dublin and Boston in the 1950s, the first novel in the Quirke series brings all the vividness and psychological insight of Booker Prize winner John Banville’s fiction to a thrilling, atmospheric crime story. Quirke is a fascinating and subtly drawn hero, Christine Falls is a classic tale of suspense, and Benjamin Black’s debut marks him as a true master of the form.

    Morse is sure the other hitchhiker can tell him much of what he needs to know. But his confidence is shaken by the cool inscrutability of the girl he's certain was Sylvia's companion on that ill-fated September evening. Shrewd as Morse is, he's also distracted by the complex scenarios that the murder set in motion among Sylvia's girlfriends and their Oxford playmates. To grasp the painful truth, and act upon it, requires from Morse the last atom of his professional discipline.

    There are many unresolved questions. Why, for instance, have both victims left their fortunes to an orphanage run by the English Lady Astair? And who is the beautiful "A.B.," whose signed photograph is found in the apparent suicide's apartment? Relying on his keen intuition, the eager sleuth plunges into an investigation that leads him across Europe, landing him at the deadly center of a terrorist conspiracy of worldwide proportions.

    Valentine's Day massacre?On Valentine's Day, four members of the Coverdale family--George, Jacqueline, Melinda and Giles--were murdered in the space of 15 minutes. Their housekeeper, Eunice Parchman, shot them, one by one, in the blue light of a televised performance of Don Giovanni. When Detective Chief Superintendent William Vetch arrests Miss Parchman two weeks later, he discovers a second tragedy: the key to the Valentine's Day massacre hidden within a private humiliation Eunice Parchman has guarded all her life.  A brilliant rendering of character, motive, and the heady discovery of truth, A Judgement in Stone is among Ruth Rendell's finest psychological thrillers.

    She’s an assistant at Triumph Comics, which doesn’t have the creative zeal of Marvel nor the buttoned-up efficiency of DC, but it doesn’t matter. Carmen is tantalizingly close to fulfilling her dream of writing a superhero book.That dream is nearly a reality when one of the Triumph writers enlists her help to create a new character, which they call “The Lethal Lynx,” Triumph's first female hero. But her colleague is acting strangely and asking to keep her involvement a secret. And then he’s found dead, with all of their scripts turned into the publisher without her name. Carmen is desperate to piece together what happened to him, to hang on to her piece of the Lynx, which turns out to be a runaway hit. But that’s complicated by a surprise visitor from her home in Miami, a tenacious cop who is piecing everything together too quickly for Carmen, and the tangled web of secrets and resentments among the passionate eccentrics who write comics for a living.Alex Segura uses his expertise as a comics creator as well as his unabashed love of noir fiction to create a truly one-of-a-kind novel--hard-edged and bright-eyed, gritty and dangerous, and utterly absorbing.

    Armed with a legal education from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's rights. Mistry Law is handling the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen goes through the papers, she notices something strange: all three have signed over their inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forefeit what their husband left them? Perveen is suspicious. The Farid widows live in purdah: strict seclusion, never leaving the women's quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate and realizes her instincts about the will were correct when tensions escalate to murder. It's her responsibility to figure out what really happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that nobody is in further danger.

    Hunger strikes, riots, power cuts, a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for opera, and a young woman's suicide that may yet turn out to be murder: on the surface, the events are unconnected, but then things--and people--aren't always what they seem. Detective Sergeant Duffy is the man tasked with trying to get to the bottom of it all. It's no easy job--especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA but was last seen discussing business with someone from the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force. Add to this the fact that, as a Catholic policeman, it doesn't matter which side he's on, because nobody trusts him, and Sergeant Duffy really is in a no-win situation. Fast-paced, evocative, and brutal, The Cold Cold Ground is a brilliant depiction of Belfast at the height of the Troubles--and of a cop treading a thin, thin line.Audio CD is 10 hours and 3 minutes long.

    Even American businessman Leon Bauer has been drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs for the Allied war effort. Now as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of post-war life, he is given one more assignment, a routine job that goes fatally wrong, plunging him into a tangle of intrigue and moral confusion.Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Leon's attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt and a maze of shifting loyalties that threatens his own. How do you do the right thing when there are only bad choices to make? Istanbul Passage is the story of a man swept up in the aftermath of war, an unexpected love affair, and a city as deceptive as the calm surface waters of the Bosphorus that divides it.Rich with atmosphere and period detail, Joseph Kanon's latest novel flawlessly blends fact and fiction into a haunting thriller about the dawn of the Cold War, once again proving why Kanon has been hailed as the "heir apparent to Graham Greene" (The Boston Globe).

    The woman, he gradually comes to realise, was his family's beloved servant many years ago, in his native town of Ruffano. He returns to his birthplace, and once there, finds it is haunted by the phantom of his brother, Aldo, shot down in flames in '43.Over five hundred years before, the sinister Duke Claudio, known as The Falcon, lived his twisted, brutal life, preying on the people of Ruffano. But now it is the twentieth century, and the town seems to have forgotten its violent history. But have things really changed? The parallels between the past and present become ever more evident.

    This portrait of a beguiling Southern city was a best-seller (though a flop as a movie). ~ Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt interweaves a first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.The story is peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproarious black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.

    I remember all about that scene and that moment as freshly now as if the affair had happened last night. The dead man lying in the crushed grass--his arms thrown out helplessly on either side of him--

    Not unusual for a proper bath, but highly irregular for murder -- especially with a pair of gold pince-nez deliberately perched before the sightless eyes. What's more, the face appeared to have been shaved after death. The police assumed that the victim was a prominent financier, but Lord Peter Wimsey, who dabbled in mystery detection as a hobby, knew better. In this, his first murder case, Lord Peter untangles the ghastly mystery of the corpse in the bath.

    Click here to find out more: http://tiny.cc/8oz71x (just copy and paste into your browser) *** The first two mysteries in the acclaimed Dewey Webb series: Web of Deceit and Murder in Fashion. Meet Dewey Webb, a hard-boiled 1940s detective, a man of contradictions who gets down-and-dirty to get the job done. For a limited time, you can grab the first two full-length thrillers in this highly acclaimed historical mystery series, almost 600 pages, for just a little more than the price of one. Web of Deceit It's 1949. World War II is over, but it has a way of haunting people for years to come. Gordon Sandalwood suspects his wife Edith is hiding something from him, and he asks Denver private investigator Dewey Webb to find out what. Dewey, toughened by his own war experiences, reluctantly takes the case, certain it will lead to nothing. But when he sees Edith rendezvous with a mysterious man, Dewey realizes his assumptions might be wrong. As he digs deeper to identify the stranger, he turns up secrets that reach back into the war, and as he unravels a web of deceit, he discovers who has the most to gain, and the most to lose. Murder in Fashion In post-World War II Denver, the world of fashion can be murder. Herb Washburn has already been convicted of murdering his boss, Mel Templeton, owner of Templeton Fashion. And in a few days, Herb is headed to the Colorado state prison for a long stay in a decidedly unfashionable suit of clothes. Herb still claims he didn’t commit the crime and, as a last resort, his wife hires Denver private investigator Dewey Webb to find the real killer. During Dewey’s investigation into the personalities and workings of the world of design, he discovers clues that may exonerate Herb. At the same time, Dewey senses secrets and lies that cast serious doubt on Herb’s version of the events. And when Dewey realizes that someone is on his trail who doesn’t want the murder solved, he must act fast before he becomes fashion's next victim. These novels are hard-boiled, historical mysteries that are great for fans who love Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Dewey Webb first appeared in the Reed Ferguson mystery, Back Story. Pick up a copy of Back Story to find out more about this classic hard-boiled detective. The Dewey Webb historical mystery series: • Book 1: Web of Deceit • Book 2: Murder In Fashion • Book 3: Secrets and Lies • Book 4: Honor Among Thieves • Book 5: Trouble Finds Her • Short Story: Second Chance • Short Story: Double Cross ★★★★★ 'The world of Mr. Webb - lacking the Internet, relying on pay phones, demanding brain power instead of computers - is straight out of a black and white Bogie film. Dames in trouble, shady characters, the carefully researched clothing and scenes, Ms. Pawlish has the era down flat.' ★★★★★ 'Great mysteries with twists and turns almost around every corner.' ★★★★★ 'I will definitely read more from this author.' ★★★★★ 'Renee Pawlish is a first rate author! Well crafted stories, good character descriptions, good pacing. Difficult to put down.