Филлис Дороти Джеймс3.7 В ризнице церкви обнаружены два трупа. Убийство? В этом нет сомнений. Но что связывает жертв – нищего бродягу Харри Мака и ушедшего на покой политика Пола Бероуна?
Многоопытный детектив Адам Дэлглиш, ведущий расследование, убежден: мотивы преступления следует искать в ближайшем окружении Бероуна. Ведь никто из обитателей этого роскошного дома не может объяснить, что именно делал сэр Пол глухой ночью в старинной церкви.
Красавица вдова, ее респектабельный брат, аристократка-мать, молчаливый шофер – похоже, каждый из них хранит какую-то тайну.
Лоренс Блок3.9 Мэтт Скаддер, в прошлом нью-йоркский полицейский, а ныне частный детектив и завсегдатай кабаков, становится свидетелем вооруженного ограбления бара братьев Моррисси. Братья просят Мэтта выследить грабителей без лишнего шума и не привлекая к делу полицию. В то же самое время убивают жену знакомого Мэтта, а у его друга пропадают важные документы. Скаддер начинает расследование всех трех дел..
Max Allan Collins0.0 From a foxhole on Guadalcanal (shared with Barney Ross) to the glitzy underworld of Hollywood in the '40s, Nate Heller fights his memories and the Mob. Something happened at the Canal, something Heller's blocking out. What he can't block, though, is the wound he received -- the million-dollar wound, the one that got him home. Back in the States, and back in Chicago, he becomes involved once again with Frank Nitti during the gang boss' last violent days, and with the gangland attempts to take over the movie unions. The homefront is every bit as violent as the war-torn Pacific, and even the solace of Sally Rand can do nothing to ease Heller, who is haunted by the death of a friend in Guadalcanal, and surrounded by the mayhem of gangland murders.
Joe Gores0.0 Released after spending several years in San Quentin, Runyan must confront several people involved in the jewel heist that put him away--insurance investigator David Moyers, treacherous accomplice Jamie Cardwell, and Louise Graham, author of a book on the
Stephen Greenleaf0.0 "Readers who like their private-eye novels witty, literate, and properly balanced between misanthropy and compassion will find Stephen Greenleaf's BEYOND BLAME exactly to taste." — NEWSWEEK — Psychologist Dianne Renzel has been brutally butchered in her own bed. The evidence points to her husband, Lawrence Usser, a brilliant law professor, whose speciality is the successful use of the insanity defense for a variety of unsavory clients.
Now Dianne's parents have hired Tanner to make sure Usser doesn't use his customary fancy legal footwork to skip the rap for his own wife's murder. But as Tanner digs into the case, assumption after assumption gives way to question after question, and soon it's nearly impossible to know who is guilty and who is beyond blame....
Tony Hillerman0.0 With the attempted murder of Officer Jim Chee, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn finds three unsolved homicides may be linked to witchcraft buried deep within the Navajo culture.
Джон Ле Карре3.9 Магнус Пим, советник британского посольства в Вене, внезапно исчезает. Все считают его дезертиром. Скоро выясняется, что Пим был связан с вражеской разведкой. Коллеги Пима и их соперники начинают розыск шпиона-двойника, приводящий к самым неожиданным результатам.
Авторский вымысел в романе удачно сочетается с реальными фактами, что дало право мировой прессе назвать его самым интересным и убедительным произведением о деятельности английских спецслужб.
Bill Pronzini0.0 "Pronzini is a pro."
- The New York Times In Deadfall Bill Pronzini's popular "Nameless Detective" returns in his most baffling - and harrowing - case to date. While staked out on a routine car repossession, Nameless all but witnesses the shooting of a San Francisco lawyer, Leonard Purcell. He arrives on the scene in time to hear Purcell's dying words, one of which is "deadfall." But Purcell dies in Nameless's arms before the cryptic word can be explained. The mystery deepens when Nameless discovers that Leonard's brother, Kenneth, fell to his death six months earlier. Is Purcell's death linked to the apparent accidental "deadfall" of his brother? Leonard's housemate thinks so, and he hires Nameless to prove it. The detective's search takes him into a labyrinth of bizarre relationships involving Kenneth's promiscuous widow, his unattractive daughter, her drug-addicted boyfriend, a shrewd society matron with a passion for antique snuff bottles, a bisexual Filipino, and a missing Mexican deliveryman. Before Nameless can learn the truth behind the demise of the Purcell brothers, the case takes a number of turns that leave his own life hanging in the balance.
Masako Togawa0.0 A classic mystery from one of Japan's best-loved crime writers The Lady Killer leads a double life in the shadow world of Tokyo's singles bars and nightclubs. By day a devoted husband and hard worker, by night he cruises nightclubs cafes and cinemas in search of lonely single women to seduce. But now the hunter is being hunted, and in his wake lies a trail of gruesome murders. Who is the culprit? The answer lies tangled in a web of clues, and to find it he must accept that nothing is what it seems. This is a moody, brilliantly plotted mystery from the writer dubbed 'the P.D. James of Japan'.
Коллин Уилкокс0.0 Hastings investigates a murder among a set of wealthy adulterers. By the time Haney and the woman get to her apartment, they are so drunk they can hardly get through the door. They undress and begin to fool around, but before they make it to the bedroom, they have an argument. Haney is about to leave when the woman starts to laugh at him. He spins around and slugs her as hard as he can. His head is beginning to clear by the time he makes it home. He's just sober enough to notice the glint of a dagger before it's buried in his gut. Haney's wife finds his body at the foot of the stairs. She calls the police, but cannot tell them the truth about the evening - that she and her husband were both in other people's beds. Lieutenant Frank Hastings has no trouble interrogating criminals, but untangling this web of marital lies will be one of the trickiest cases of his career.
Faye Kellerman0.0 The quiet, ordered world of a yeshiva in the California hills is shattered when a woman is brutally raped as she returns from the mikvah, the bathhouse where women perform their cleansing ritual. Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD has never heard anything like it. And although most of the community refuses to talk to him, Rina Lazarus, the only witness, does, steering him through the maze of confusing religious laws that thwart his investigation at every turn. As the trail grows cold, Decker's only getting closer to Rina and not to the rapist--or is he? Maybe Rina wa the intended victim all along. And the rapist may not stop with rape the next time...
Мэрилин Уоллес0.0 Carrie Rayborn is a transplanted New Yorker, trying to start a new life as a painter in San Francisco's Bay Area with her 17-year-old daughter Tricia. She soon learns it isn't easy being both a freelance artist and a single mother, but trouble really starts when Tricia is arrested for car theft and accused of shooting a young man named Clifford Hawkins. Although Tricia admits she was high on marijuana and was in the car Hawkins was shot from, she denies murdering him. The authorities are skeptical, and it is left for police detectives Goldstein and Cruz to sort out the puzzle. Hawkins, they discover, was not only a sadistic bully and rapist, but was also part of a crypto-military group named Oneida, bent on terrorist acts. It looks as if Hawkins may have been assassinated by his fellow members, but there are a few surprises in store for the detectives. This first novel is notable for the warmth and sensitivity it displays toward its characters, placing it above the average.
Bill Crider0.0 Everyone knew her. A lot of them like her. One of them killed her. Jeanne Clinton was a pretty and well-liked woman - though in her younger days she'd been known to be a bit wild. But she married an older man and settled down to a quiet, respectable life. Now she is dead, brutally murdered in her home. Dan Rhodes, the thoughtful, hard-working sheriff of Blacklin County, Texas, has enough to worry about already: a rash of burglaries in town and an election coming up against a hot-shot opponent. Now he's got to find a killer among the residents of his little town - a wily killer, bound and determined not to be caught. The deeper Rhodes digs into the hearts and minds of his neighbors, the more secrets he turned up...and the more violence he encounters. But Rhodes doesn't give up easily. And neither does the killer.
Joseph Koenig0.0 In this stunning debut, crime reporter Joseph Koenig weaves a gripping psychological thriller in which a relentless sheriff hunts an elusive and vicious criminal who stalks his victims with savage intensity and then kills them one by one.
Mike Lupica0.0 When an ex-girlfriend--a former Miss America turned television commentator--is reported missing and presumed dead, Peter Finley, an investigative journalist for a New York cable TV station, trails the clues that lead to a powerful Christian cable TV network.
Эдвард Матис0.0 While visiting his small hometown in Texas, private eye Dan Roman is asked to investigate the recent death of the mild-mannered assistant librarian. His findings connect that death to the also-recent suicide of one of the town's richest citizens, the man who had married Roman's high-school sweetheart. Enduring assorted threats to his life while he suffers the souring of some of his innocent youthful fantasies, Roman does some killing of his own. In the end he solves the mysteries and managesafter five murders and a disappearanceto leave town with the general citizenry unaware of any wrongdoing. This first novel (and the first in a series to feature P.I. Roman) offers a strong sense of place but is marred by over-writing; the action seems soap-opera arbitrary and the characters video-screen flat.
Томас Максвелл0.0 First novelist Maxwell seems passionate and serious about his craft. But this homage to the tough-guy films of the 1930s and 1940s, complete with suggestions for actors to play the characters, does not come at all close to the tight, sharp styles of Hammett, Chandler and modern writer Elmore Leonard. Lew Cassidy, a pro football player whose career is ended by an injury, pals with the wrong peoplehis schoolboy chum Terry Leary, now a cop on the take, and gangster Max Baumanand their enemies try to convince him to betray them. Meanwhile Lew is drawn dangerously close to the gangster's moll. The period touches are frequently just the dropping of famous namesthere's a weird conspiracy involving D.A. Thomas Dewey and Mafioso Lucky Luciano, and embarrassingly familiar dinner conversation with Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Despite some suspense, and some butchery, the plot has no true, focus and the bloody ending is not worth the wait.
Марсия Мюллер, Билл Пронзини 0.0 1001 Midnights; The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, written by authors Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller, is a reference book for anyone interested in the Mystery genre. The book is 879 pages of mystery authors - listed alphabetically and giving descriptions of the authors' characters, lives and plots. The books are broken down by code within the genre: i.e., Action and Adventure, Comedy, Classic Sleuths, Private Eyes, Thriller and many more. There is information preceded by an * for titles which are especially notable and ** for "cornerstone works in the field."
