Detective Inspector Luke Thanet may be a family man with a soft heart and bad back, but he also has a bloodhound’s nose for murder. With Sgt. Mike Lineham at his side, no mystery is too tough.  The Night She Died: Beautiful Julie Holmes lies dead in her front hall with a kitchen knife through her heart. The perpetrator could have been a burglar, a jealous husband, or a spurned lover, but the real answer may lie in a death that happened twenty years ago.  Six Feet Under: Middle-aged cleaning woman Carrie Birch doesn’t strike Thanet as a likely candidate for murder. But when he digs up the dirt on her, he discovers a surprisingly long list of suspects.  Puppet for a Corpse: Dr. Arnold Pettifer is dead from an apparent overdose, but Thanet isn’t so certain it’s suicide. After he discovers the doctor’s pregnant wife had a lover, he begins to suspect her—but then again, nothing about this case is what it seems.

    district attorney’s office finds a second home at Swanson’s Bar and Grille. Since his resignation from the D.A’s office, he’d done his best with small-time criminal cases. So, finding a place to drown his sorrows seemed appropriate. Lead dancer, Sally Sutton, kept the Mustang Club ahead of its competition. Fully packed until the lights went out, the Mustang Club was popular amongst business men and general party-animals. But ‘Mustang Sally’ hadn’t always lived her life in the limelight. Coming from a small Nebraska farm, her career aspirations had taken her along several small-time roles, before she was noticed. Sally was tight with some of the local police. Particularly Jim Rowinski, a SWAT team specialist who was gearing himself to becoming a homicide detective. Hot-headed and rash, he would do anything to get his way. When Joe Richards, a fifteen-year veteran is shot dead outside the Mustang Club, in Sally’s presence, Juan Javahn Thomas, notorious for his gang-banging lifestyle, is arrested. Homicide Lieutenant Tom Gallagher, Rowinski and Mary Delgado, the only female member of the arrest team, are present at the time of the arrest. To Solomon’s surprise, Judge Burton Lawler and D.A. Simon Lasker appoint him as the public defender in the case of Richards’s murder. Worse still, he was to go up against the prosecutor, Howard Ainsworth, the man who had taken his place as chief deputy, his arch-nemesis! In a bid to redeem himself, Solomon takes on the case. Ignoring all the insecurities that engulf him, he launches himself into the electrifying thrill of the courtroom. Working with his ally, Jimmy Johnson and going up against his former lover, Mary, Solomon’s task is taken up a notch. In the courtroom, as the trial unfolds, Solomon races against his opponent. Determination driving him, the details that unfold point to Sally knowing more than she originally let on. Bringing Sally back in under the heat of scrutiny, she breaks. It is all Solomon needs, yet the outcome is one no one was expecting…Prejudicial Error is a legal thriller filled with suspense that will keep you gripped until the very end. Bill Blum is an experienced attorney. Familiar with the ins and outs, and the pitfalls of criminal procedures, he presents a riveting, hard-hitting and authentic legal thriller, one that offers a fascinating insider’s look at the shifting political dynamics within the criminal justice system. Bill Blum has also written for a wide array of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, ABA Journal, The Nation and California Lawyer , hosted a radio talk show, and lectured widely. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family.

    The airline CEO calls in a favor from a newly appointed Supreme Court clerk -- a former stripper he put through law school and took as a mistress. To what lengths will she go to secure the swing vote and keep her past a secret?

    The five novels that Hammett published between 1929 and 1934, collected here in one volume, have become part of modern American culture, creating archetypal characters and establishing the ground rules and characteristic tone for a whole tradition of hardboiled writing. Drawing on his own experiences as a Pinkerton detective, Hammett gave a harshly realistic edge to novels that were at the same time infused with a spirit of romantic adventure. Each novel is distinct in mood and structure. Red Harvest (1929) epitomizes the violence and momentum of his Black Mask stories about the anonymous detective the Continental Op, in a raucous and nightmarish evocation of political corruption and gang warfare in a western mining town. In The Dain Curse (1929) the Op returns in a more melodramatic tale involving jewel theft, drugs, and a religious cult. With The Maltese Falcon (1930) and its protagonist Sam Spade, Hammett achieved his most enduring popular success, a tightly constructed quest story shot through with a sense of disillusionment and the arbitrariness of personal destiny. The Glass Key (1931) is a further exploration of city politics at their most scurrilous. His last novel was The Thin Man (1934), a ruefully comic tale paying homage to the traditional mystery form and featuring Nick and Nora Charles, the sophisticated inebriates who would enjoy a long afterlife in the movies.

    Keller goes in, does the job, gets out: usually at a few hours’ notice . . . Often Keller’s work takes him out of New York to other cities, to pretty provincial towns that almost tempt him into moving to the woods and the lakeshores. Almost but not quite. But then one job goes wrong in a way Keller has never imagined and it leaves him with a big problem. Finding himself with an orphan on his hands, Keller's job begins to interfere with his carefully guarded life. And once you let someone in to your life, they tend to want to know what you do when you're away. And killing for a living, lucrative though it is, just doesn't find favour with some folks.

    He needs money. Fast.Desperate, he approaches his wiseguy cousin Jackie with an insurance scheme--a way for the Mob to collect from guys who owe but can't pay, and a chance for Robert to use his law degree to make a few quick bucks when he needs it most.Robert thinks it will be a one-time thing. It isn't. The scheme works well--too well. The money flows, the violence escalates, and Robert soon learns that getting out of a deal with the Mafia isn't exactly easy...especially when the FBI is onto you.

    But Mrs. Hathaway is too preoccupied to notice her daughter has slipped away. Moments later, a frantic Mrs. Hathaway runs up and down the aisles, desperately searching for her missing daughter. But little Olivia is already in the arms of a stranger. Will PI Sloane Monroe find Olivia before it's too late? ... BED OF BONES (Sloane Monroe Series #5) Sometimes even the deepest, darkest secrets find their way to the surface… Summer 1956 Thirteen-year-old Willie Compton and his younger brother Leonard stumble upon a mine shaft while hiking the hills of Park City, Utah. The shaft is unsealed, abandoned. While Leonard stares at the hole in wonderment, a Slinky he’s been flipping back and forth between his hands slithers through his fingers, tumbling toward the mouth of the shaft. Leonard bolts forward, reaches out to grab it, but he slips, then he falls. Present Day Up-and-coming filmmaker Melody Sinclair stirs in her chair, nervously awaiting the debut of her film at the Sundance Film Festival. Based on a true story, Bed of Bones tells a tale of murder, shining a big, bold light on Park City’s tragic past. A past that’s about to revisit the present.

    Recently, there had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn, constant companion to old Mrs Inglethorp, had stormed out of the house muttering something about 'a lot of sharks'. And with her, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security; now the air seemed rife with suspicion and impending evil. A shattered coffee cup, a splash of candle grease, a bed of begonias are all Poirot requires to display his now legendary powers of detection. TEN LITTLE NIGGERS (later renamed to And Then There Were None and/or Ten Little Indians): Agatha Christie's world-famous mystery thriller. Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon by the mysterious U.N.Owen. Over dinner, a record begins to play, and the voice of an unseen host accuses each person of hiding a guilty secret. That evening, former reckless driver Tony Marston is found murdered by a deadly dose of cyanide. The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but is preparing to strike again! and again! DUMB WITNESS: Everyone blamed Miss Emily's accident on a rubber ball left on the stairs by her frisky terrier. But the more she thought about her fall, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her. On April 17th she wrote her suspicions in a letter to Hercule Poirot. Mysteriously he didn't receive the letter until June 28th ... by which time Miss Emily was dead ...

    International espionage, backstabbing, and secret agents. Listen to what has helped make Lawrence Sanders a household name and "mr. Bestseller".

    Federal Reserve Board, finds himself in jail - suddenly, inexplicably, imprisoned by the Swiss police. He is accused of committing massive frauds in the financial markets, allegedly netting him over $450 millon. The case against him seems ironclad - almost too perfect. It is nearly certain that he will be convicted and will spend thirty years doing hard labor in a Swiss prison. He has been framed - set up. Charlie's wife, Sally, in her efforts to find diplomatic support and effective legal defense for him, is frustrated at every turn. No one in Switzerland or the United States seems able - or even willing - to help. But neither Charlie nor Sally will give up; they will not agree to a proposal of a lesser prison term in exchange for his pleading guilty. Then, one evening, a mysterious stranger offers Sally a deal. Gradually, and in colorful detail, we learn why and how Charlie was framed and what he and Sally must do to uncover and expose the financial conspiracy that has set him up. And what they learn launches them, at virtually a moment's notice, on an exciting but dangerous journey, one they hope will lead to Charlie's freedom and clear his name.

    Here, in Stout’s third and fourth complete Wolfe mysteries, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth and his trusty man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, solve two of their most baffling cases. The Rubber Band What do a Wild West lynching and a respected English nobleman have in common? On the surface, absolutely nothing. But when a young woman hires his services, it becomes Nero Wolfe’s job to look deeper and find the connection. A forty-year-old pact, a five-thousand-mile search, and a million-dollar murder are all linked to an international scandal that could rebound on the great detective and his partner, Archie, with fatal abruptness. The Red Box Murder by chocolate? That’s the premise Nero Wolfe must operate from when a beautiful woman is poisoned after indulging in a box of candy. It’s a case that the great detective—no stranger himself to overindulgence—is loath to take for a variety of reasons, including that it may require that he leave his comfortable brownstone. But he and Archie are compelled by a mystery that mixes high fashion and low motives…and a killer who may have made the deadliest mistake.

    Gossip columnist Ethel Lambston knew everything about everybody who was somebody---so there were more than enough suspects in her murder. But for Neeve Kearny, owner of an expensive Madison Avenue boutique, the killing of one of her best customers had eerie echoes of another death that occurred many years earlier---the murder of her own mother. Suddenly, Neeve is plunged into the mystery of Ethel Lambston's murder, following a trail that leads from the glittering pleasure palaces of New York's rich and beautiful to the Mafia underworld. In the tradition of Mary Higgins Clark's staggering bestsellers, Neeve Kearny is a woman determined to find the truth, caught in a swirl of money and romance---and stalked by a killer who's closer than she could ever dream...

    Unfortunately, depravity and violence are not unique to large cities. His new home, the quaint little village of Eastdale, seems to have more than its fair share of malefactors.In this collection of Inspector Banks's first three cases in Yorkshire, CWA Dagger in the Library and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson introduces a detective as brilliant as he is complex. These intricately plotted, gritty novels of suspense lay the foundation for a remarkably acclaimed detective series.'The Banks novels are the best series on the market. Try one and tell me I'm wrong.' STEPHEN KING

    Their case is rushed before the grand jury.Susan Linwood and David Clark are strangers before being asked to serve in the name of justice. Yet as prosecutor Dan Mahoney presents the drug-conspiracy case, they soon become completely absorbed with the proceedings–and increasingly with each other.As Mahoney struggles with facts that refuse to fit the crimes his superiors have told him to pursue, Linwood and Clark are launched onto a treacherous path to Hong Kong and China, to the edge of disaster *uncovering an ultimate truth with chilling, worldwide implications.

    In a staggering turn of events, Judge Murray finds himself trapped by his love for his new wife and his dedication to the law. His decision, no matter how it turns out, will change the course of his life with everything on the line: his honor, his reputation, his marriage, even his own skin. First as a man, then as a judge, he must confront what is at the heart of justice.