Double Life: The Shattering Affair between Chief Judge Sol Wachtler and Socialite Joy Silverman


Linda Wolfe - 1994
    He was the top justice of New York’s highest court. She was a stunning socialite and his wife’s step-cousin. In 1993 Sol Wachtler was convicted of blackmail and extortion against Joy Silverman, his former mistress. How did a respected jurist and one of the most prominent men in America end up serving time in prison? Linda Wolfe starts at the beginning—from Wachtler’s modest Brooklyn upbringing through his courtship and marriage to Joan Wolosoff, the only child of a wealthy real estate developer.   Joy Fererh was three and a half when her father walked out. When she and Sol met, he was fifty-five and nearing the pinnacle of his legal career. She was a thirtysomething stay-at-home mother who, with Sol’s help, made a career for herself as a Republican Party fundraiser. They kept their affair a secret—until an explosive mix of sex, power, betrayal, and prescription-drug abuse set the stage for the tabloid headlines of the decade.

A Beautiful Poison


Lydia Kang - 2017
    But with so many victims in her close circle, young socialite Allene questions if the flu is really to blame. All appear to have been poisoned—and every death was accompanied by a mysterious note.Desperate for answers and dreading her own engagement to a wealthy gentleman, Allene returns to her passion for scientific discovery and recruits her long-lost friends, Jasper and Birdie, for help. The investigation brings her closer to Jasper, an apprentice medical examiner at Bellevue Hospital who still holds her heart, and offers the delicate Birdie a last-ditch chance to find a safe haven before her fragile health fails.As more of their friends and family die, alliances shift, lives become entangled, and the three begin to suspect everyone—even each other. As they race to find the culprit, Allene, Birdie, and Jasper must once again trust each other, before one of them becomes the next victim.

Killen


P.H. Figur - 2020
    Anyone wanting to know what it was like to live there, only had to read a small wooden sign on the outskirts of town: “Welcome to Killen…a little piece of Heaven.” Those words rang true for most of Killen’s first 200 years. But there was one exception. It was the time that Killen lived up to its name and a little piece of heaven...became...a little piece of hell. When Thomas Dalton was 13-years-old, a string of murders in a North Georgia received unwanted national attention. With the passing of time, facts got distorted, turning Killen into a macabre tourist destination. But for Thomas, it became personal when his own parents, suddenly disappeared and were subsequently declared dead. He goes to school to become an investigative reporter and gets a job at a national cable television station. Thomas then is assigned to a national case tracking down a serial killer. What Thomas doesn’t realize is the serial killer he is looking for, will not only solve a national mystery it will also solve his own mystery. Throughout Thomas’s journey he is driven to find out who killed his parents. But he also desperately wants to restore the reputation of Killen and rebuild the family business.The only question that remains is…can he make Killen a little piece of heaven once again?

Crawlspace


Dan Padavona - 2015
    After Jerry stumbles delirious from a bloody accident, a beautiful girl rescues the boy and brings him home to her decrepit apartment complex.Soon Jerry discovers a hidden entrance into the attic, a crawlspace through which he can secretly enter any apartment.But he isn't the only person aware of the secret entrance.Crawlspace is a terrifying journey into urban legend, darkness, and murder.

The Final Solution


Michael Chabon - 2004
    Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot.What is the meaning of the mysterious string of German numbers the bird spews out - a top secret SS code? The keys to a series of Swiss bank accounts perhaps? Or something more sinister? Is the solution to this last case - the real explanation of the mysterious boy and his parrot - beyond even the reach of the once-famed sleuth?A short, suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that reimagines the classic nineteenth-century detective story.

Outerborough Blues: A Brooklyn Mystery


Andrew Cotto - 2012
    In a moment of weakness, the bartender—a lone wolf named Caesar Stiles with a chip on his shoulder and a Sicilian family curse hanging over him—agrees. What follows is a stylish literary mystery set in Brooklyn on the dawn of gentrification.While Caesar is initially trying to earn an honest living at the neighborhood watering hole, his world quickly unravels. In addition to being haunted by his past, including a brother who is intent on settling an old family score, Caesar is being hunted down by a mysterious nemesis known as The Orange Man. Adding to this combustible mix, Caesar is a white man living in a deep-rooted African American community with decidedly mixed feelings about his presence. In the course of his search for the French girl's missing brother, Caesar tumbles headlong into the shadowy depths of his newly adopted neighborhood, where he ultimately uncovers some of its most sinister secrets.Taking place over the course of a single week, Outerborough Blues is a tightly paced and gritty urban noir saturated with the rough and tumble atmosphere of early 1990s Brooklyn.Andrew Cotto has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Men's Journal, Salon.com, Teachers & Writers magazine and The Good Men Project. He has an MFA in creative writing from The New School. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

The Mangle Street Murders


M.R.C. Kasasian - 2013
    He drains his fifth pot of morning tea, and glances outside, where a young, plain woman picks her way between the piles of horse-dung towards his front door.March Middleton is Sidney Grice's ward, and she is determined to help him on his next case. Her guardian thinks women are too feeble for detective work, but when a grisly murder in the slums proves too puzzling for even Sidney Grice's encyclopaedic brain, March Middleton turns out to be rather useful after all...Set in a London still haunted by the spectre of the infamous Spring-heeled Jack, THE MANGLE STREET MURDERS is for those who like their crime original, atmospheric, and very, very funny.

Here Comes the Night


Linda McDonald - 2013
    But that was long ago. Now the only tomorrows he considers worth living are those that include his lover, the wife of his boss. Hard as he finds it to do, once Buck kills the mean-spirited bank president, his path to happiness seems clear . . .for mere moments. How could Buck have known henchmen would grab him only minutes later to roust him for gambling debts? And who would have guessed a dangerous parolee would--as daylight turns to dusk--impulsively take Buck’s custom Mustang on a bloody joyride?There’s no way to know who’ll survive until dawn, and of those that do, who’ll be charged with which crime. Hang on tight, Here Comes the Night. A dark, steamy thriller in the tradition of film noir.Written by the winner of Oklahoma’s 2013 Book of the Year in Fiction.

The Way of All Flesh


Ambrose Parry - 2018
    City of Medicine, Money, Murder.Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson.Simpson's patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia. It is here that Raven meets housemaid Sarah Fisher, who recognises trouble when she sees it and takes an immediate dislike to him. She has all of his intelligence but none of his privileges, in particular his medical education.With each having their own motive to look deeper into these deaths, Raven and Sarah find themselves propelled headlong into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh's underworld, where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to make it out alive.

A Person of Interest


Ardelle Holden - 2022
    The door stood ajar, which was curious. Siobhan should have been at work. When Samantha peered in, she could just see the outline of two ominous figures skulking in the gloom. She gasped and slammed the door shut. Their muffled shouts were lost in her screams as she flew down the stairs into the howling rain. Suppressing her feelings of vulnerability, she accepts the proffered hand of a handsome stranger, Ben, and they disappear into the bitter night. Can Ben be trusted? He’s charming, personable and persuasive, but then again, so was Ted Bundy. Samantha has escaped with her life, Or has she? The victim of a brutal murder has been discovered!

The Night My Husband Killed Me


Kathleen Hewtson - 2012
    All of the women were beautiful, and were either famous at the time of their deaths, or became famous for being the victims of the charismatic, disturbed, men who ended their lives.Being dead doesn’t end a woman’s feelings, or her anger. There is Natalie, the international and revered movie star who died the death she had most feared all of her life. There is the beautiful, life-loving Nicole, who might just have gone back to the stunning athlete she loved, if only he hadn’t killed her first. Then there is Sunny, heiress to one of America's greatest fortunes, sent into an irreversible coma for paying too much for all the wrong things. And finally, there is Colette, the high school sweetheart who married the golden boy and endured a marriage of increasing lies and disappointment, culminating in her death and that of her little girls shortly after Valentine’s Day.These four amazing women’s lives were cut short, but each has a story to tell … and now they have.

Mr. Mercedes


Stephen King - 2014
    They are tired and cold and desperate. Emerging from the fog, invisible until it is too late, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging again. Eight people are killed; fifteen are wounded. The killer escapes.Months later, an ex-cop named bill Hodges, still haunted by the unsolved crime, contemplates suicide. When he gets a crazed letter from "the perk," claiming credit for the murders, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, fearing another even more diabolical attack and hell-bent on preventing it.Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. He loved the feel of death under the wheels of the Mercedes, and he wants that rush again. Only Bill Hodges, with a couple of eccentric and mismatched allies, can apprehend the killer before he strikes again. And they have no time to lose, because Brady's next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim thousands.Mr. Mercedes is a war between good and evil from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.--front flap

The Drumbeater


Clive Allan - 2013
    The task of unravelling the mystery falls to history graduate Neil Strachan, now a career cop, fast tracked into a new role on Northern Scotlands Major Enquiry Unit. When Neil calls upon German naval historian, Matthias Fuchs, to help identify the remains, a name soon emerges, that of a dashing young U-boat ace who mysteriously disappeared in 1941: Korvettenkapitän Max Friedmann. Neil seeks the assistance of Glendaig’s elderly residents, but encounters an impenetrable wall of silence, causing him to suspect that they know far more about the young submariner than they are willing to impart. With more questions than answers, and under mounting pressure from his cynical boss to wrap up the enquiry, Neil embarks on a race against time to discover the truth. He begins to unravel a tale of subterfuge, escape and astounding loyalty. A tale that will ultimately reveal a secret that could have changed the course of World War Two...

The Revenge of the Betrayed Duke


Bridget Barton - 2018
    His only company being his love's medallion, he found himself trapped in a long adventure filled with betrayal and deceit. Lost and exiled, Edward can think of nothing but Emily and her enduring faithfulness to get him through. Will he ever find his way back to his home and to the heart of the woman he left behind? Emily Daventry watched her friends and her love of her life march for war with a heavy heart. The only thing she could cling to was that one day Edward would come back for her. She had to wait, no matter what. When dreadful news comes that Edward was killed during the war, Emily vows to seal her heart and never love again. But with her love gone and her family in need of saving, will Emily stay true to her promise? With Edward seeking revenge, feeling that all his life was a lie, and Emily unwillingly settling in an arrangement she would never expect, will love give them a second chance? Life has been unfair to them, but will they find the courage to face the hard truth and start over?"The Revenge of the Betrayed Duke" is a historical romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

The Lake House


Kate Morton - 2015
    But by the time midnight strikes and fireworks light up the night skies, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great that they leave Loeanneth forever.A missing child...Seventy years later, after a particularly troubling case, Detective Sadie Sparrow retreats to her beloved grandfather's cottage in Cornwall. Once there, she stumbles upon an abandoned house, and learns the story of a baby boy who disappeared without a trace.An unsolved mystery...Meanwhile, in her elegant Hampstead home, the formidable Alice Edevane, now an old lady, leads a life as neatly plotted as the bestselling detective novels she writes. Until a young police detective starts asking questions about her family's past, seeking to resurrect the complex tangle of secrets Alice has spent her life trying to escape...