Land of Shadows


Rachel Howzell Hall - 2014
    Homicide detective Elouise “Lou” Norton’s new partner Colin Taggert, fresh from the Colorado Springs police department, assumes it’s a teenage suicide. Lou isn’t buying the easy explanation. For one thing, the condo site is owned by Napoleon Crase, a self-made millionaire… and the man who may have murdered Lou’s missing sister thirty years ago. As Lou investigates the death of Monique Darson, she uncovers undeniable links between the two cases. She is convinced that when she solves Monique’s case she will finally bring her lost sister home. But as she gets closer to the truth, she also gets closer to a violent killer. After all this time, can he be brought to justice… before Lou becomes his next victim?

In a Lonely Place


Dorothy B. Hughes - 1947
    The suggestively named Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder about the opposite sex, is the LAPD's top suspect. Dix knows enough to watch his step, especially since his best friend is on the force, but when he meets the luscious Laurel Gray—a femme fatale with brains—something begins to crack. The basis for extraordinary performances by Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame in the 1950 film version of the book, In a Lonely Place tightens the suspense with taut, hard-boiled prose and stunningly undoes the conventional noir plot.

The Hiding Place


C.J. Tudor - 2019
     Joe never wanted to come back to Arnhill. After the way things ended with his old gang—the betrayal, the suicide—and what happened when his sister went missing, the last thing he wanted to do was return to his hometown. But Joe doesn’t have a choice, not after a chilling email surfaces in his inbox: I know what happened to your sister. It’s happening again . . . Lying his way into a teaching job at his former high school is the easy part. Facing off with onetime friends who aren’t too happy to have him back in town—while avoiding the enemies he’s made in the years since—is tougher. But the hardest part of all will be returning to the abandoned mine where his life changed forever, and finally confronting the horrifying truth about Arnhill, his sister, and himself. Because for Joe, the worst moment of his life wasn’t the day his sister went missing. It was the day she came back.

The Plumley Inheritance


Christopher Bush - 1926
    What is it?” “Plumley’s dead, sir. Henry Plumley. We just got the news over the ’phone. Suicide they say it was. Anything else you want, sir?” Out-of-print for over nine decades and one of the rarest classic crime novels from the Golden Age of detective fiction, The Plumley Inheritance, first of the Ludovic Travers mysteries, is now available in a new edition by Dean Street Press.When the eccentric magnate Henry Plumley shockingly collapses and dies, a great adventure begins for Ludovic Travers, the dead man’s secretary, and his comrade Geoffrey Wrentham – a romp with not only mystery and mischief in the offing but murder too.The Plumley Inheritance was originally published in 1926. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

Suspect


Michael Robotham - 2004
    But Joe's snug, happy world is crumbling. Recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, he's dreading the inevitable and all too palpable deterioration of his body and mind. Then, when the police ask for his help in solving the brutal murder of a woman they assume is a prostitute, he's horrified to recognize the victim as a nurse he once worked with, and with whom he had a bit of a past. As Joe begins to suspect that one of his patients may be responsible, the police zero in on him.Michael Robotham possesses the rare ability to create fully believable characters, fashion terrific dialogue, and generate nonstop suspense. Suspect is a powerhouse first novel, intricately crafted and chillingly authentic.

The Red Thumb Mark


R. Austin Freeman - 1907
    He invented the inverted detective story and used some of his early experiences as a colonial surgeon in his novels. A large proportion of the Dr Thorndyke stories involve genuine, but often quite arcane, points of scientific knowledge, from areas such as tropical medicine, metallurgy and toxicology. His first stories were written in collaboration with Dr John James Pitcairn (1860-1936), medical officer at Holloway Prison and published under the nom de plume "Clifford Ashdown." His first Thorndyke story, The Red Thumb Mark, was published in 1907 and shortly afterwards he pioneered the inverted detective story, in which the identity of the criminal is shown from the beginning: some short stories with this feature were collected in The Singing Bone in 1912. His other works include John Thorndyke's Cases (1909), The Eye of Osiris (1911), The Vanishing Man (1911), The Mystery of 31 New Inn (1912), The Uttermost Farthing: A Savant's Vendetta (1913) and The Cat's Eye (1923).

Double Indemnity


James M. Cain - 1936
    First published in 1935, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.

Something Wicked


Elizabeth Ferrars - 1983
    Nor did he expect to find himself cut off from all mains services as the result of a blizzard. And he certainly did not expect to discover in his cold, dark living-room the body of the village's second murder victim. "A psychological thriller you will want to finish!

The Shivering Sands


Victoria Holt - 1969
    Caroline Verlaine, a young widow, comes to work at the estate hoping to discover the cause of the mysterious disappearance of her sister, who had been studying the nearby Roman ruins. Caroline found her employers a strange family, haunted by tragedies of the past, scarred by distrust. Yet she found herself irresistibly attracted to them - especially to the family's dark, moody young scion. But not until she had retraced her sister's fatal last steps could she answer the crucial questions about the family's past - and her own future.

The Farm


Tom Rob Smith - 2014
    They had sold their home and business in London, and said "farewell to England" with a cheerful party where all their friends had gathered to wish them well on their great adventure: setting off to begin life anew on a remote, bucolic farm in rural Sweden.But with that phone call, everything changes. Your mother's not well, his father tells him. She's been imagining things--terrible, terrible things. She's had a psychotic breakdown, and has been committed to a mental hospital.Daniel prepares to rush to Sweden, on the first available flight the next day. Before he can board the plane, his father contacts him again with even more frightening news: his mother has been released from the hospital, and he doesn't know where she is.Then, he hears from his mother:I'm sure your father has spoken to you. Everything that man has told you is a lie. I'm not mad. I don't need a doctor. I need the police. I'm about to board a flight to London. Meet me at Heathrow.Caught between his parents, and unsure of who to believe or trust, Daniel becomes his mother's unwilling judge and jury as she tells him an urgent tale of secrets, of lies, of a horrible crime and a conspiracy that implicates his own father.

Human Remains


Elizabeth Haynes - 2013
    As she’s drawn deeper into the mystery and becomes convinced she’s on the trail of a killer, she also must face her own demons and her own mortality. Would anyone notice if she just disappeared?

Quiet Neighbors


Catriona McPherson - 2016
    Jude found one of the treasures when she visited last summer, the high point of a miserable vacation. Now, in the depths of winter, when she has to run away, Lowell’s chaotic bookshop in that backwater of a town is the safe place she runs to.Jude needs a bolt-hole; Lowell needs an assistant and, when an affordable rental is thrown in too, life begins to look up. The gravedigger’s cottage isn’t perfect for a woman alone but at least she has quiet neighbors.Quiet, but not silent. The long dead and the books they left behind both have tales to tell and the dusty rooms of the bookshop are not the haven they seem to be. Lowell’s past and Jude’s present are a dangerous cocktail of secrets and lies and someone is coming to light the taper that could destroy everything.

The Bellwether Revivals


Benjamin Wood - 2012
    He has come to love the quiet routine of his job as a care assistant at a nursing home, where he has forged a close relationship with its most ill-tempered resident, Dr Paulsen. But when Oscar is lured into the chapel at King’s College by the ethereal sound of an organ, he meets and falls in love with Iris Bellwether, a beautiful and enigmatic medical student. He follows her into a world of scholarship, wealth, and privilege, and soon becomes embroiled in the machinations of her older brother, Eden. A charismatic but troubled musical prodigy, Eden persuades his sister and their close-knit circle of friends into a series of disturbing experiments. He believes that music — with his unique talent to guide it — has the power to cure, and will stop at nothing to prove himself right. As the line between genius and madness blurs, Oscar fears the danger that could await them all.

The Cater Street Hangman


Anne Perry - 1979
    Reissue.

Dying in the Wool


Frances Brody - 2009
    Pretty and remote, nothing exceptional happens.Add a measure of mystery ...Until the day that Master of the Mill Joshua Braithwaite goes missing in dramatic circumstances, never to be heard of again.A sprinkling of scandal ...Now Joshua's daughter is getting married and wants one last attempt at finding her father. Has he run off with his mistress, or was he murdered for his mounting coffers?And Kate Shackleton, amateur sleuth extraordinaire!Kate Shackleton has always loved solving puzzles. So who better to get to the bottom of Joshua's mysterious disappearance? But as Kate taps into the lives of the Bridgestead dwellers, she opens cracks that some would kill to keep closed.