Dead Simple


Peter James - 2005
    While out celebrating with a group of friends a few nights before the wedding, Michael suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself enclosed in a coffin equipped only with a flashlight, a dirty magazine, a walkie-talkie, and a tiny breathing tube. It's all in good fun — payback for the grief his mates suffered due to his own penchant for tomfoolery — that is until the four are killed in a drunk driving accident just moments after leaving Michael completely alone and buried alive.Detective Superintendent Grace—himself dealing with the pain of losing his wife—is brought on to the case when Ashley reports Michael missing. Suspicions are raised when Michael's only friend not at the bachelor party refuses to cooperate, and Ashley's faithfulness—not to mention her increasingly mysterious past—are suddenly thrown in to question. As Superintendent Grace soon discovers, one man's disaster is another man's fortune.

The Red House Mystery


A.A. Milne - 1922
    A. Milne was also the author of numerous dramas, essays, and novels for adults — among them, this droll and finely crafted whodunit.In it, Milne takes readers to the Red House, a comfortable residence in the placid English countryside that is the bachelor home of Mr. Mark Ablett. While visiting this cozy retreat, amateur detective Anthony Gillingham and his chum, Bill Beverley, investigate their genial host's disappearance and its connection with a mysterious shooting. Was the victim, whose body was found after a heated exchange with the host, shot in an act of self-defense? If so, why did the host flee, and if not, what drove him to murder?Between games of billiards and bowls, the taking of tea, and other genteel pursuits, Gillingham and Beverley explore the possibilities in a light-hearted series of capers involving secret passageways, underwater evidence, and other atmospheric devices.Sparkling with witty dialogue, deft plotting, and an intriguing cast of characters, this rare gem will charm mystery lovers, Anglophiles, and general readers alike.

The Black Echo


Michael Connelly - 1992
    This one is personal...because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war. Now Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit. Pitted against enemies inside his own department and forced to make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, Bosch goes on the hunt for a killer whose true face will shock him.

The Lodger


Marie Belloc Lowndes - 1913
    And then one night there came a knock at the door of a quiet lodging house in the Marylebone Road. . . . This novel, based on the Jack the Ripper murders, was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock.

The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes


Adrian Conan Doyle - 1954
    The plots are all new, with painstaking attention to the mood, tone, and detail of the original stories. Here is a fascinating volume of mysteries for new Sherlock fans, as well as for those who have read all the classics and crave more!The Adventure of the Seven Clocks The Adventure of the Gold Hunter The Adventure of the Wax Gamblers The Adventure of the Highgate Miracle The Adventure of the Black Baronet The Adventure of the Sealed Room The Adventure of the Foulkes Rath The Adventure of the Abbas Ruby The Adventure of the Dark Angles The Adventure of the Two Women The Adventure of the Depthford Horror The Adventure of the Red Widow

Let Me Call You Sweetheart


Mary Higgins Clark - 1995
    When her daughter's face is cut in a car accident, Kerry is relieved that the plastic surgeon who treats her is the eminent Dr. Charles Smith. Then Kerry notices something bizarre. Two of Smith's patients bear an uncanny resemblance to Suzanne Reardon, a young woman killed eleven years earlier. Why would Dr. Smith create look-alikes of a murder victim? A chilling tale of obsession by America's reigning queen of suspense.

The 7th Month


Lisa Gardner - 2012
    should be taking it easy. Instead, she accepts a small consulting role on the set of a serial killer film shooting in Boston. D.D. figures she’ll be useful to someone for at least one night, serving as a police expert and making a little extra money in the bargain.It seems like a simple task—until the previous film consultant, a former Boston cop, is found beaten to death. Suddenly D.D.’s date with Hollywood gets serious. Extremely pregnant, on the trail of a killer, and surrounded by a hundred and four murder suspects in the middle of a graveyard, D.D. must quickly unravel a tangled web of lies. As another cast member is attacked, D.D. realizes that like it or not, her priorities have changed—and her last desperate hope is that she can catch a killer before she and her unborn baby face mortal danger.

The Sculptress


Minette Walters - 1993
    Sullen and menacing, Olive Martin is burned-out journalist Rosalind Leigh's only hope of getting a new book published.But as she interviews Olive, in her cell, Roz finds flaws in the Sculptress's confession. Is she really guilty as she insists? Drawn into Olive's world of obsessional lies and love, nothing can stop Roz's pursuit of the chilling, convoluted truth. Not the tidy suburbanites who'd rather forget the murders, not a volatile ex-policeman and her own erotic response to him, not an attack on her life.Not even the thought of what might happen if the Sculptress went free...