Book picks similar to
Dewey Decimated by Charles A. Goodrum


mystery
fiction
mysteries
books-about-books

Wildfire at Midnight


Mary Stewart - 1956
    She was standing as if frozen, her back to me, her hands up to her throat.Then she screamed, a high, tearing scream."The murderer. Oh my God, the murderer. . . ."She grabbed my arm and pointed to the bed, her lips shaking so much that she couldn't speak coherently.I stared down at the bed, while the slow goose flesh pricked up my spine.Lying on the coverlet was a doll, the kind of frivolous doll I had seen dozens of times.But this one was different.It was lying flat on its back on the bed, with its legs straight out and its hands crossed on its breast. The contents of an ash tray had been scattered over it, and a great red gash gleamed across its neck, where its throat was cut from ear to ear... A young crofter's daughter is cruelly and ritually murdered on the bleak Scottish mountainside. In the deceptively idyllic Camasunary Hotel nearby, the beautiful but troubled, Gianetta Brooke cannot seem to escape her pain or her past -- not even in the remote hotel on the Scottish Isle of Skye. When she discovers that her ex-husband has booked into the same hotel, the peaceful holiday for which she had hoped takes on quite another complexion.Very soon Gianetta finds herself tangled in a web of rising fear and suspicion. One of her fellow guests, however, is also hiding secrets... and a skill and penchant for murder. And now the killer only has eyes for Gianetta....

The Butcher's Boy


Thomas Perry - 1982
    Back in print by popular demand, this spectacular debut, from a writer of “infernal ingenuity” (The New York Times Book Review), includes a new Introduction by bestselling author Michael Connelly.Murder has always been easy for the Butcher’s Boy—it’s what he was raised to do. But when he kills the senior senator from Colorado and arrives in Las Vegas to pick up his fee, he learns that he has become a liability to his shadowy employers. His actions attract the attention of police specialists who watch the world of organized crime, but though everyone knows that something big is going on, only Elizabeth Waring, a bright young analyst in the Justice Department, works her way closer to the truth, and to the frightening man behind it.

In the Bleak Midwinter


Julia Spencer-Fleming - 2002
    Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Millers Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady," she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's Police Chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown. Their search for the baby's mother quickly leads them into the secrets that shadow Millers Kill like the ever-present Adirondacks. What they discover is a world of trouble, an attraction to each other--and murder...

McNally's Secret


Lawrence Sanders - 1992
    Archy McNally is a freewheeling playboy who specializes in "Discreet Inquiries" for the rich and not-so-discreet. Beneath the glaring sun of Palm Beach - and behind the lowest crimes of high society - he is paid to keep family skeletons in the closet. But when it comes to sex and scandal, he has a few secrets of his own.

Site Unseen


Dana Cameron - 2002
    A soon-to-be-tenured professor of archaeology, she has recently unearthed evidence of a 17th century coastal Maine settlement that predates Jamestown, one of the most significant archaeological finds in years. But the dead body that accompanies it--a corpse washed ashore near the site--has embroiled Emma and her students in a different kind of exploration. With her reputation suddenly in jeopardy--due to the ruthless machinations of a disgruntled rival--and a second suspicious death, heartbreakingly close to home, Emma must unearth a killer among the artifacts. But that means digging deep into her past to dark secrets buried in the heart of the archeological community--which, in turn, could bury Emma Fielding.

My Darling Detective


Howard Norman - 2017
    Before a stunned audience, she flings an open jar of black ink at master photographer Robert Capa’s “Death on a Leipzig Balcony.” Jacob’s police detective fiancée, Martha Crauchet, is assigned to the ensuing interrogation. In My Darling Detective, Howard Norman delivers a fond nod to classic noir, as Jacob’s understanding of the man he has always assumed to be his father unravels against the darker truth of Robert Emil, a Halifax police officer suspected but never convicted of murdering two Jewish residents during the shocking upswing of anti-Semitism in 1945. The denouement, involving a dire shootout and an emergency delivery—it’s the second Rigolet to be born in the Halifax Free Library in a span of three decades—is Howard Norman at his “provocative . . . haunting”* and uncannily moving best.- Janet Maslin, New York Times

Devil in a Blue Dress


Walter Mosley - 1990
    Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Monet, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

Laidlaw


William McIlvanney - 1977
    In Glasgow, the city with the worst slums in Europe, a city of hard men, powerful villains, bitter victims and cynical policemen, Laidlaw uses unconventional methods.

Beijing Payback


Daniel Nieh - 2019
    In it, his father admits that he was never just a restaurateur—in fact he was part of a vast international crime syndicate that formed during China’s leanest communist years.Victor travels to Beijing, where he navigates his father’s secret criminal life, confronting decades-old grudges, violent spats, and a shocking new enterprise that the organization wants to undertake. Standing up against it is likely what got his father killed, but Victor remains undeterred. He enlists his growing network of allies and friends to finish what his father started, no matter the costs.

Fatal Fixer-Upper


Jennie Bentley - 2008
    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.

Field of Blood


Denise Mina - 2005
    The vicious murder of a young child provides rookie journalist Paddy Meehan with her first big break when the suspect turns out to be her fiance's 11-year old cousin. Launching her own investigation into the horrific crime, Paddy uncovers lines of deception deep in Glasgow's past, with more horrific crimes in the future if she fails to solve the mystery. Infused with Mina's unique blend of dark humor, personal insights and social injustice, the story grips the reader while challenging our perceptions of childhood innocence, crime and punishment, and right or wrong.

Jade Dragon Mountain


Elsa Hart - 2015
    Now he is an exile. In 1780, three years of wandering have brought him to Dayan, the last Chinese town before the Tibetan border. He expects a quiet outpost barely conscious of its place within the empire, but Dayan is teeming with travelers, soldiers, and merchants. The crowds have been drawn by the promise of an unmatched spectacle; an eclipse of the sun, commanded by the Emperor himself. Amid the frenzy, Li Du befriends an elderly Jesuit astronomer. Hours later, the man is murdered in the home of the local magistrate, and Li Du suspects it was no random killing. Everyone has secrets: the ambitious magistrate, the powerful consort, the bitter servant, the irreproachable secretary, the East India Company merchant, the nervous missionary, and the traveling storyteller who can't keep his own story straight. Beyond the sloping roofs and festival banners, Li Du can see the pass over Jade Dragon Mountain that will take him out of China forever. But he cannot ignore the murder that the town is all too eager to forget. As Li Du investigates, he begins to suspect that the murderer intends to kill again. The eclipse is coming. Li Du must solve the murder before the sun disappears. If he does not, then someone, perhaps Li Du himself, will never again see its light.

Silent Joe


T. Jefferson Parker - 2001
    Rescued from an orphanage by Will Trona, a charismatic Orange County politician who sensed his dark potential, Joe is swept into the maelstrom of power and intimidation that surrounds his adoptive father's illustrious career. Serving as Will's right hand man, Joe is trained to protect and defend his father's territory - but he can't save the powerful man from his enemies. Will Trona is murdered, and Joe will stop at nothing to find out who did it.Looking for clues as he sifts through the remains of his father's life - his girlfriends, acquaintances, deals, and enemies - Joe comes to realize how many secrets Will Trona possessed, and how many people he had the power to harm. But two leads keep rising to the surface: a little girl who was kidnapped by her mentally disturbed brother, and two rival gangs who seem to have joined forces. As Joe deepens his investigation - and as he is forced to confront painful events of his troubled childhood - these two seemingly disconnected threads will intersect. Just how and why form the crux of this intricate, intelligent mystery that satisfies the mind as well as the heart - and reveals yet again the impeccable detail, vivid characterization, and emotional complexity that make a T. Jefferson Parker novel impossible to resist.

Mallory's Oracle


Carol O'Connell - 1994
    Adopted off the streets as a little girl by a police inspector and his wife, she is still not altogether civilized now that she is a sergeant in the Special Crimes section. With her ferocious intelligence and green gunslinger eyes, Mallory (never Kathleen, never Kathy) operates by her own inner compass of right and wrong, a sense of justice that drives her in unpredictable ways. She is a thing apart.And today, she is a thing possessed. Although more at home in the company of computers than in the company of men, Mallory is propelled onto the street when the body of her adoptive father, Louis Markowitz, is found stabbed in a tenement next to the body of a wealthy Gramercy Park woman. The murders are clearly linked to two other Gramercy Park homicides Markowitz had been investigating, and now his cases become Mallory's, his death her cause. Prowling the streets, sifting through his clues, drawing on his circle of friends and colleagues, she plunges into a netherworld of light and shadow, where people are not what they seem and truth shifts without warning. And a murderer waits who is every bit as wild and unpredictable as she....Filled with deep, seductive atmosphere and razor-sharp prose, Mallory's Oracle is gripping, resonant suspense of tantalizing complexity—a genuinely unforgettable novel.

A Cold Day in Paradise


Steve Hamilton - 1998
    After all, the man convicted of the crimes has been locked away for years. But in the small town of Paradise, Michigan, where McKnight has traded his badge for a cabin in the woods, a murderer with the same unmistakable trademarks appears to be back. McKnight can’t understand who else would know the intimate details of the old murders. And it seems like it’ll be a frozen day in Hell before McKnight can unravel truth from deception in a town that’s anything but Paradise.