Naked Came the Manatee


Carl HiaasenTananarive Due - 1997
    A story of suspense written serially by thirteen Florida writers--including Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, and Elmore Leonard--features such strange occurances as a riot in Coconut Grove and an appearance by Fidel Castro.

No Rest for the Dead


Andrew Gulli - 2011
    Long suffering under Christopher's unfaithful ways, Rosemary is tried, convicted and executed. Ten years later, Jon Nunn, the detective who cracked the case, becomes convinced that the wrong person was put to death. Along with financier Tony Olsen, he plans to gather everyone who was there the night Christopher died and finally uncover the truth about what happened that fateful evening. Could it have been the ne'er do well brother Peter Hausen, interested in his sister's trust fund having got through his own; the curatorial assistant Justine Olengard, used and betrayed by Christopher; the artist Belle who turned down his advances only to see her career suffer a setback; or someone else all together? No Rest for the Dead is a thrilling, page-turning accomplishment that only the very best thriller writers could achieve.

The Collected Short Stories


Dana Stabenow - 2013
    This genre-spanning collection of 16 short stories features familiar characters like Kate and Jim, Liam and Wy, and Bill and Moses, but also ranges farther afield than many readers will expect, leaping from modern-day Anchorage to 22nd-century Mars to the fantasy kingdom of Mnemosynea. Remarkably disparate, but indisputably Stabenow, whose fertile imagination is anything but predictable.Titles in this collection: "Nooses Give," "Conspiracy," "Under the Influence," "Wreck Rights," "Cherchez la Femme," "Siren Song," "The Eyak Interpreter," "Any Taint of Vice," "On the Evidence," "Missing, Presumed…," "The Perfect Gift," "Gold Fever," "Cheechako," "No Place Like Home," "Justice is a Two-edged Sword," and "A Woman’s Work."

Whispers


Dean Koontz - 1980
    And even though she died five years ago, the whispers still haunt him in the dark…enough to make him kill—and kill again…Hilary Thomas is one of his intended victims. And she’s about to learn that even death can’t keep a bad man down…

The Man Who Killed His Brother


Stephen R. Donaldson - 1980
    That was before he accidentally shot and killed a cop-worse, a cop who happened to be his own brother. Now he only works off and on, as muscle for his old partner, Ginny Fistoulari. It's a living. And it provides an occasional opportunity for him to dry out.But their latest case demands more than muscle. Brew's dead brother's daughter has disap-peared. His brother's widow wants him and Ginny to investigate. And both of them seem to expect him to sober up. Because the darkness they're find-ing under the surface of Sunbelt city Puerto del Sol goes beyond one missing teenager. Axbrewder will need all his talents to con-front that darkness. Most of all, he'll need to con-front his own worst enemy-himself.More than two decades ago, bestselling author Stephen R. Donaldson published three novels about Mick Axbrewder and Ginny Fistoulari as paperback originals under the pseudonym Reed Stephens. More recently, under his own name, Donaldson published a new novel in the se-quence, The Man Who Fought Alone. Now, for Donaldson's millions of readers worldwide, the first of the original books, The Man Who Killed His Brother, appears under Donaldson's own name, in revised and expanded form.

The £199 Adventure


Mike Stott - 2010
    However, he very soon gets caught up in a terrifying murder.

Death Is a Lonely Business


Ray Bradbury - 1985
    Trying not to miss his girlfriend (away studying in Mexico), the nameless writer steadily crafts his literary effort--until strange things begin happening around him.Starting with a series of peculiar phone calls, the writer then finds clumps of seaweed on his doorstep. But as the incidents escalate, his friends fall victim to a series of mysterious "accidents"--some of them fatal. Aided by Elmo Crumley, a savvy, street-smart detective, and a reclusive actress of yesteryear with an intense hunger for life, the wordsmith sets out to find the connection between the bizarre events, and in doing so, uncovers the truth about his own creative abilities.

The Deepest Secret


Carla Buckley - 2013
    . . about our marriages, our children, and ourselves. Eve Lattimore’s family is like every other on their suburban street, with one exception. Her son Tyler has a rare medical condition that makes him fatally sensitive to light, which means heavy curtains and deadlocked doors protect him during the day and he can never leave the house except at night. For Eve, only constant vigilance stands between an increasingly restless teenage son and the dangers of the outside world.   Until the night the unthinkable happens. When tragedy strikes, it becomes clear that this family is not the only one on the quiet cul-de-sac that is more complicated than it appears. And as Eve is forced to shield her family from harm, there are some crises she cannot control—and some secrets that not even love can conceal.   Deeply moving and stunningly suspenseful, The Deepest Secret is a novel of rare power—a story about hope and forgiveness, about the terrifying ways our lives can spin out of control and the unexpected sacrifices that may save us.

The Earth Hums in B Flat


Mari Strachan - 2009
    She leaves the bed she shares with her sister and soars into the night sky, listening to the nighttime sounds of her small Welsh village below. Irrepressible Gwenni -- a dreamer full of unanswerable questions and unbounded curiosity -- is childlike yet touchingly adult. Reluctantly facing a modern world, she prefers her nightly flights to school and her chores. Blessed with the uncommon insight of a young girl, Gwenni's view of the world is unparalleled.Quaint, odd, touched, funny in the head: Gwenni is all too familiar with the taunts of her peers and fields them with equanimity beyond her years. She knows she can no more change her nature than stop the sun from rising. And when a neighbour goes missing, Gwenni turns amateur sleuth, determined to solve the mystery of his disappearance. Little does she realize that the trail she's pursuing will bring her uncomfortably close to home, and a dark secret.

The Flight of the Falcon


Daphne du Maurier - 1965
    The woman, he gradually comes to realise, was his family's beloved servant many years ago, in his native town of Ruffano. He returns to his birthplace, and once there, finds it is haunted by the phantom of his brother, Aldo, shot down in flames in '43.Over five hundred years before, the sinister Duke Claudio, known as The Falcon, lived his twisted, brutal life, preying on the people of Ruffano. But now it is the twentieth century, and the town seems to have forgotten its violent history. But have things really changed? The parallels between the past and present become ever more evident.

Heads You Lose


Christianna Brand - 1941
    The murder is made even more unusual by the fact that Grace was wearing her friend Francesca's hat, the same hat that only the day before she'd claimed she wouldn't be caught dead wearing. Inspector Cockrill has known most of the friends since they were children. They are all from good families and very close to one another; how, then, could one of them be a cold-blooded killer? And if one of them had murdered Grace which one was it and why had they done it? First published in 1941, Heads You Lose is a classic country house mystery that proves that in every friendship there are secrets, some of which are best left buried.

Watchlist


Jeffery DeaverJames Grady - 2009
    Rozan, Lisa Scottoline, and Jeffery Deaver, who conceived the characters and set the plot in motion. In turn, the other authors each wrote a chapter and Deaver then completed what he started, bringing each novel to its startling conclusion.The Chopin Manuscript Former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton possesses a previously unknown score by Frédéric Chopin. But he is unaware that, locked within its handwritten notes, lies a secret that now threatens the lives of thousands of Americans.The Copper Bracelet Harold Middleton returns in this explosive sequel to The Chopin Manuscript as he’s drawn into an international terror plot that threatens to send India and Pakistan into full-scale nuclear war.Note: Print edition of the two original audio serialized novels,The Chopin Manuscript and The Copper Bracelet.

The Butcher's Theater


Jonathan Kellerman - 1988
    Here, upon this bloodstained stage,  a faceless killer performs his violent specialty:  The first to die brutally is a fifteen-year-old  girl. She is drained of blood, then carefully bathed  and shrouded in white. Precisely one week later, a  second victim is found. From the sacred  Wailing Wall to the monasteries where dark secrets  are cloistered, from black-clad bedouin enclaves  to labyrinthine midnight alleys, veteran police  inspector Daniel Sharavi and his crack team plunge  deep into a city simmering with religious and  political passions to hunt for a murderer whos  insatiable taste for young women could destroy the  delicate balance on which Jerusalem's very survival  depends. A brilliant novel by a master of  the genre, a vivid look at the tortured  complexities of a psychopath's mind, a rich evocation of a  city steeped in history -- this, and more, is  The Butcher's Theater.

The Three Taps: A Detective Story Without a Moral


Ronald Knox - 1927
    The police, of course, investigate - and so do Miles Bredon and his wife, in the interests of the Indescribable Insurance Company, with which the deceased man, Mr Mottram, had been heavily insured.The culprit is the three gas taps in Mr Mottram's room, and Miles hopes to prove that his death is suicide. Miles' old wartime colleague, Police Inspector Leyland, is convinced it's murder. And the conclusion is as ingenious as it is surprising.

A View to Die For


Richard Houston - 2012
    The sleuth is not a detective, private eye, or lawyer. He's an ordinary guy with an extraordinary dog.Jacob Martin is trying to make the best of a divorce and mid-life crisis when he gets a call at two o’clock Sunday morning from his mother. His sister has been arrested for the murder of her fourth husband, and his father is near death. Thus begins an adventure that takes Jake and his golden retriever from their Colorado retreat to a backwater town in the Missouri Ozarks where they search for cold-blooded killers, a cache of gold coins buried by Jesse James, and the love of a beautiful nurse.