Val McDermid4.5 Winter 1963: two children have disappeared in Manchester; the murderous careers of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady have begun. On a freezing day in December, another child goes missing: 13-year-old Alison Carter vanishes from the isolated Derbyshire hamlet of Scardale. For the young George Bennett it is the beginning of his most difficult and harrowing case: a murder with no body, an investigation with more dead ends and closed faces than he'd have found in the inner city; an outcome that reverberates down the years. Decades later he tells his story to journalist Catherine Heathcote, but just when her book is poised for publication, Bennett tries to pull the plug. He has new information that he will not divulge, and that threatens the very foundation of his existence. Catherine is forced to reinvestigate the past, with results that turn the world upside down. A taut psychological thriller that explores, exposes and explodes the border between reality and illusion in a multilayered narrative that turns expectations on their head and reminds us that what we know is what we do not know...
Чарлз Тодд4.0 По заданию Скотленд-Ярда инспектор Иен Ратлидж отправляется в Шотландию на поиски следов пропавшей без вести Элинор Грей, дочери высокопоставленных родителей. Местный констебль обращается к нему с просьбой помочь в расследовании странного дела, организованного против Фионы Макдоналд. Фиону обвиняют в убийстве молодой женщины, предположительно Элинор Грей, и похищении ее ребенка. Ратлидж узнает в обвиняемой невесту своего погибшего друга Хэмиша Маклауда. В память о нем он дает себе слово спасти Фиону от виселицы…
Стивен Бут3.7 Детективы Бен Купер и Диана Фрай – полные противоположности. Бен эмоционален и импульсивен, склонен доверять своим ощущениям и озарениям. Диана упорядочена и дисциплинирована, и предпочитает действовать по инструкции. Эти двое плохо ладят между собой. Тем не менее, они – напарники, прекрасно дополняющие друг друга. Поэтому они – лучшие…
Неподалеку от маленького городка в Дербишире найдена мертвой дочь одного из самых богатых местных жителей. Поначалу ни улик, ни тем более свидетелей обнаружить не удалось. Однако констебль Бен Купер – местный до мозга костей, знает округу и живущих в ней людей как свои пять пальцев, и догадывается, где и что искать. Как раз в это время ему дали в напарники нового сотрудника – констебля Диану Фрай, талантливую, честолюбивую, а главное, обладающую свежим взглядом. Так двое детективов приступили к расследованию одного из самых невероятных преступлений в истории Дербишира…
Дэвид Лисс3.7 Англия, 1719 год. Бенджамин Уивер - боксер, за чьими боями следила, затаив дыхание, вся страна, включая особ королевской крови, - оставил ринг. Теперь он частный детектив: разыскивает похищенное и выбивает долги для своих аристократических клиентов. Но вот очередной благородный джентльмен предлагает ему расследовать не что-нибудь, а убийство, причем двойное; и одна из жертв - собственный отец Уивера, биржевой маклер, с которым наш герой не виделся более десяти лет, после того как убежал из дому. На темных улицах ночного Лондона, где зловещие тени сопровождают неосторожного прохожего, и в модных лондонских кофейнях, в шикарных клубах и низкопробных борделях Бенджамин Уивер, ежечасно рискуя жизнью, ведет свое расследование. Он смел и решителен, но этого недостаточно. Раскрыть дело можно, лишь проникнув в сокровенные тайны английской финансовой системы, которая, замерев, следит за смертельным поединком Банка Англии с первой финансовой пирамидой Европы - могущественной и опасной "Компанией южных морей". А в лондонских кофейнях уже вовсю делают ставки - доживет ли Бенджамин Уивер до конца года.
Скотт Филлипс3.1 Чарли Арглист, в прошлом адвокат, а в настоящее время совладелец сети развлекательных заведений, решил выйти из дела, прихватив кассу. Побег разработан до мелочей. Но в последний момент, когда до отлета самолета остались считаные часы, случается непредвиденное: исчезает подельник Чарли, его близкий друг Вик Кавано. Чарли бросается на поиски Вика…
Nevada Barr0.0 Park Ranger Anna Pigeon stumbles upon a gruesome murder with frightening racial overtones in the latest installment of this bestselling series.
In Deep South, Anna travels cross-country to Mississippi, only to encounter terrible secrets in the heart of the south.
The handwritten sign on the tree said it all: Repent. For Anna, this should have been reason enough to turn back for her beloved Mesa Verde. Instead she heads for the Natchez Trace Parkway and the promotion that awaits her. Almost immediately, she finds herself in the midst of controversy: As the new district ranger, she faces resentment so extreme her ability to do her job may be compromised, and her life may very well be in danger. But all thoughts of personal safety are set aside with the discovery of a young girl's body in a country cemetery, a sheet around her head, a noose around her neck.
The kudzu is thick and green, the woods dark and full of secrets. And the ghosts of violence hover as Anna struggles for answers to questions that, perhaps, should never be asked.
Джо Р. Лансдейл4.0 Великая депрессия, Восточный Техас. Молодой Гарри Коллинс и его сестра случайно обнаруживают чудовищно изувеченный труп женщины, оставленный в низовьях реки. Вскоре в городе находят еще одно тело, а потом еще одно, и люди паникуют, считая, что где-то поблизости бродит опасный безумец. Гарри начинает собственное расследование, ведь он считает, что эти убийства как-то связаны с байками о получеловеке-полукозле, странном существе, которое, по преданиям, обитает недалеко от того места, где обнаружили тело первой жертвы. И вскоре Гарри поймет, что правда куда страшнее любой легенды, а убийца подбирается все ближе к его семье.
Marcia Muller0.0 For PI Sharon McCone, when one door opens, another shuts. In the midst of celebrating a joyous wedding, she gets word that her father has died. The news leads her to the rituals of death: the scattering of ashes, the sharing of grief, the sorting of a loved one's belongings. But the last of these acts leads to a shocking discovery that will flip her life upside down. Soon, McCone is drawn into a conspiracy that includes the attempted murder of an activist lawyer and threats on her own life. No one is talking, and to discover the truth, Sharon McCone must learn to listen to the silence -- before a killer's bullet silences her.
Элизабет Питерс0.0 1914 finds archaelogists Amelia Peabody, narrator, and husband Radcliffe Emerson back in Egypt for another dig, despite civil unrest. Defiantly pacifist son Ramses hides his spy activity with cousin David. He rescues Molly, and his dazzling smile conquers yet another female. An artifact from Giza confirms the return of archnemesis Sethos.
Qiu Xiaolong4.0 Shanghai in 1990. An ancient city in a country that despite the massacre of Tiananmen Square is still in the tight grip of communist control. Chief Inspector Chen, a poet with a sound instinct for self-preservation, knows the city like few others.
When the body of a prominent Communist Party member is found, Chen is told to keep the party authorities informed about every lead. Also, he must keep the young woman's murder out of the papers at all costs. When his investigation leads him to the decadent offspring of high-ranking officials, he finds himself instantly removed from the case and reassigned to another area.
Chen has a choice: bend to the party's wishes and sacrifice his morals, or continue his investigation and risk dismissal from his job and from the party. Or worse . . .
Боб Трулак0.0 Winner of the 1999 St. Martin's Press/ PWA Award for Best First Private Eye Novel
When we meet private detective Duncan Sloan he's just handed back a five thousand-dollar check meant as advance payment on a job. The wealthy prospective client wants Sloan to find a woman with an eyeball tattooed on her bottom. All he knows is the tattoo, that she's very young, white and probably somewhere in or near Orlando, Florida, Sloan's hometown. Thanks but no thanks; that's not enough. But when the five grand reappears in Sloan's mailbox, he uses it for a Costa Rican vacation and never mind the job.
Pike, however tracks him down. When he explains the assignment, Sloan finds it bizarre enough to say "yes." Isaac Pike is the only son of a top-ranked tycoon. He is also gay. Because he genuinely wants to be a father, he has deposited sperm with a reputable clinic while he searches for a suitable mother. But a paroled convict working at the clinic steals the sperm, impregnates a teenager with it, and blackmails Pike - send money or we abort the child.
Although Pike's idea of a suitable mother is not quite a waif from an Orlando trailer park, he is decent enough to be genuinely concerned about both mother and child.
Sloan pursues the thief and his buddies and, he hopes, the girl, through the Florida city's sad neighborhoods and outlying cheap motels, calling on his drug-enhanced informers and a contact in the police. Getting closer brings him to the mangled bodies of the young mother-to-be's relatives, and closer to his own danger as well. On he goes -- Duncan Sloan may be a reluctant detective, but when he's wound up he's hard to stop.
Street Level is Bob Truluck's first novel. It was chosen as the Best First Private Eye Novel of 1999 in the contest sponsored by Private Eye Writers of America and St. Martin's Press.
Кейт Грилли0.0 Kelly Ryan has her hands full when a hurricane hits her tropical island home, leaving damaged houses, broken windows -- and a dead body.
Кэти Мангер0.0 Taking It To The Mat...Don't mess with North Carolina's Casey Jones-smart-mouthed ex-con, unlicensed P.I. and reluctant partner to a Barry White wannabe. Casey's big and bad, with attitude to match her altitude. Especially when she's been double-crossed.
At first, Casey proves a sucker for the fragile blond who claims her estranged husband has disappeared with their child. But when Casey locates the fugitive spouse a little too easily, she begins to suspect that the lovely Tawny Bledsoe has played her for a fool. Especially when Casey gets stiffed on the fee, then finds herself embroiled in a murder case with Tawny's name written all over it. Bad check in hand and a bad taste in her mouth, Casey resolves to stop Tawny once and for all, but the battle quickly turns personal when Tawny proves more than a match for the irrespressible Casey. Ego rattled, Casey laces up her high-tops to track her nemesis to Florida for a Saturday night catfight. Casey must leave her sweet-and-sour Southern ways far behind in order to prove that Tawny Bledsoe is one bad-to-the-bone babe who belongs behind bars-no matter what it takes to bring her down.
Дэниел Сташовер0.0 Now You See Her...Now You Don'tIt's difficult to gain the public's attention in turn-of-the-century New York--even if you are the greatest escape artist the world has ever seen. So the young performer who calls himself Harry Houdini must be content, for the time being, working for the internationally renowned Keller, the "Dean of American Magicians." But tragedy strikes at the inaugural performance of the master's most astonishing illusion, the Floating Lady, when Keller's levitating assistant plummets abruptly to the ground, apparently to her death. Yet an investigation soon reveals that it is drowning, and no fatal fall, that has killed the unfortunate young lady. An intriguing impossibility to be sure. And it is the great, albeit unsung, Houdini--with the aid of wife Bess and brother Dash--who must solve the deadly conundrum, leading them all into a maze of twisted schemes, grim deceptions, and bloodletting that is no mere stage fakery.
Chassie West0.0 Out on disability leave, Washington, D.C., policewoman Leigh Ann Warren can't stay off the job and out of the game -- not when her partner and former fiance Dillon Upshur "Duck" Kennedy has vanished mysteriously and determined and dangerous people on both sides of the law are hunting him down. And the dead body she discovers in her own apartment only strengthens Leigh Ann's resolve to find Duck first.
But the trail is twisted with perilous, unexpected turns, leading her deep into the woods of western Maryland -- and to the lair of a killer who'd just as soon leave behind two dead cops rather than one.
Лаура Уилсон0.0 London, 1955. Three bodies are found in a house – but when the police search for the murder weapon, vital evidence is destroyed. One of the victims is former society beauty Georgina Gresham, prime suspect in the notorious murder of her husband, James, almost thirty years earlier. Beside her lie the bodies of her brother Edmund and housekeeper Ada.
But there is a link with the past. In the 1890s, in a beautiful garden, three children played together. Their lives were secure, their future certain – until the youngest child was found with fatal head injuries…
Эрик Райт0.0 Joe Barley, a part-time lecturer in English Literature and part-time security guard, is alerted by his maid to the disappearance of another of her employers, Rosie Dawn, a student of classics who is working her way through school by being an exotic dancer and the mistress of a fast-food entrepreneur. The novel also involves campus politics--a student tries to exploit the nervous administration over its minority policies.
0.0 An anthology of orginial traditional mystery stories
Including Agatha Christie's classic mystery "The Case of the Discontented Soldier"With fourteen Christie inspired tales from today's most talented mystery writersDig into a toxic treat of murder most foul from the devious minds of the finest writers
Robert Bernard
Jan Burke
Kate Charles
Marjorie Eccles
Teri Holbrook
Gwen Moffat
Marcia Talley
Dorothy Cannell
Charles Todd
Ann Granger
Walter Satterthwait
Carolyn Wheat
Susan Moody
Sample some delectable bits of malicious motives...and most intriguing murders
Residents of an old-age home have a killer of a plan for dealing with chronic complainers.
The ladies of the parish just love Father Luke...they love him to death.
Someone just can't wait for old Aunt Marigold's heart to give out. Joan Hess presents
MALICE DOMESTIC 9
AN ANTHOLOGY OF ORIGINAL TRADITIONAL MYSTERY STORIES
Including Agatha Christie's classic mystery "The Case of the Discontented Soldier"With fourteen Christie inspired tales from today's most talented mystery writers
Dig into a toxic treat of murder most foul from the devious minds of the finest writers
Robert Bernard Jan Burke Kate Charles Marjorie Eccles Teri Holbrook Gwen Moffat Marcia Talley Dorothy Cannell Charles Todd Ann Granger Walter Satterthwait Carolyn Wheat Susan Moody
Sample some delectable bits of malicious motives?and most intriguing murders
Residents of an old-age home have a killer of a plan for dealing with chronic complainers.
The ladies of the parish just love Father Luke...they love him to death.
Someone just can't wait for old Aunt Marigold's heart togive out.Joan Hess presents
MALICE DOMESTIC 9
AN ANTHOLOGY OF ORIGINAL TRADITIONAL MYSTERY STORIES
Including Agatha Christie's classic mystery "The Case of the Discontented Soldier"With fourteen Christie inspired tales from today's most talented mystery writers
Dig into a toxic treat of murder most foul from the devious minds of the finest writers
Robert Bernard Jan Burke Kate Charles Marjorie Eccles Teri Holbrook Gwen Moffat Marcia Talley Dorothy Cannell Charles Todd Ann Granger Walter Satterthwait Carolyn Wheat Susan Moody
Sample some delectable bits of malicious motives?and most intriguing murders
Residents of an old-age home have a killer of a plan for dealing with chronic complainers.
The ladies of the parish just love Father Luke...they love him to death.
Someone just can't wait for old Aunt Marigold's heart to give out.
Кэролин Уит0.0 In 1983, Carolyn Wheat burst on the mystery scene with her Edgar-nominated novel about Cass Jameson, one of the first female lawyers in a crime series. Wheat's work is filled with sympathy for the underdog. In Three Time Loser, Cass is torn between her feelings for an elderly woman and her job of giving the best defense for a young immigrant. In Crime Scene a young female cop is encouraged to cry out of pity for a murder victim, and in doing so solves the crime. Some of the 19 stories are lighter in tone, including a clever pastiche of Sherlock Holmes and a case involving cats and smuggling. Includes an introduction and prefaces by the author, and a Carolyn Wheat checklist.
Джим Хуан0.0 The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association list of 100 favorite mysteries of the 20th century represents the accumulated wisdom of the most knowledgeable people in the business. These are the books we most enjoy, the books we present to our customers over and over again, and the books that we return to when we want to visit with cherished friends.In this book, we journey through our list of 100, with reviews contributed by booksellers across the US and Canada. The book also features booksellers' lists of titles that did not make the list of 100 but should have, insights about mysteries and what our favorites mean to us, a directory of independent mystery booksellers and, finally, a 100 favorites shopping list.
Мэтью Бансон0.0 Included in this volume: a comprehensive biography of Christie, including new theories on her strange disappearance in 1926; plot synopses that offer colorful capsules of the stories (without giving away the solutions!); A-to-Z entries on characters from vicars to butlers, police sergeants to maids, each cross-referenced to the story or novel; detailed listings of all films, television programs, radio shows, and documentaries of Christie and her works; up-to-date entries on the most recent releases of previously unpublished Christie writings; and sixty illustrations, including book covers, shots from movies, and stage productions." "Whether you've read every title in the giant Christie canon, or are just discovering her writing, The Complete Christie reveals in delectable detail why the mystique, fascination, and brainteasing fun of the mysteries penned by the century's most successful writer remain forever undiminished.
Марта Дюбоз, Маргарет Колдуэлл Томас0.0 In this remarkable book, Martha Hailey DuBose has given those multitudes of readers who love the mystery novel an indispensable addition to their libraries. Unlike other works on the subject, 'Women of Mystery' is not merely a directory of the novelists and their publications with a few biographical details. DuBose combines extensive research into the lives of significant women mystery writers from Anna Katherine Green to P.D. James, with evaluations on their work, anecdotes, critical opinions and some of the women's own comments. She takes us through the Golden Age of the British women mystery writers, Christie, Sayers, Marsh, Allingham and Tey, to the leading crime novelists of today, focusing on the women who have become legends of the genre. And though she laments, "So many mysteries, so little time," she makes a good effort a mentioning "some of the best of the rest."
When DuBose writes of the lives of her principal players, she relates them to their times, their families, their personal situations, and above all to their books. The biographies of these women are as engrossing as the stories they wrote, and Martha DuBose has shined a different, intimate, and intriguing light on them, their works, and the lives that informed those works.
This book is so full of treasure it's hard to see how any mystery enthusiasts will be able to do without it. And what a gift it would make for anyone on your list who has been heard to announce "I love a mystery."
Марвин Лахман0.0 Penzler Pick, February 2001: More than 30 years ago, Marvin Lachman began writing a series of articles for a now defunct mystery fan magazine (fanzine, to the informed), The Mystery Reader's Newsletter. The subject was regional mysteries, which previously had not been written about. When that pioneering newsletter folded, it was picked up by the greatest of all mystery fanzines, The Armchair Detective, under the impressive editorship of Allen J. Hubin. The series required 14 installments, running from February 1970 to October 1977. The impetus for a subject that at first flush appeared somewhat arcane was the realization that the mystery genre had undergone a major transformation after World War II. While fully 50 percent of all American mysteries had traditionally been set either in New York or California, authors had begun to discover new locales in which to set their tales. Equally important, or perhaps of even greater significance, it no longer seemed sufficient merely to mention that a story was set in, say, Boston. Writers began to fill out the description of their locales to bring a greater sense of place and ambience, moving the genre away from mere puzzles to fully developed novels.
While occasional stories from earlier times did evoke a place and time (no better examples come to mind than Melville Davisson Post's Uncle Abner stories or O. Henry's marvelous tales of turn-of-the-century New York), it is Raymond Chandler who receives credit for making locale an integral element of a story. His Southern California is more real to most Americans than the actual place ever could have been.
Is this really a big deal, you might ask. The answer is yes. Mystery novels, not unlike mainstream novels, made a point of becoming more realistic, so various locales no longer served as a convenient setting for a murder in a vicar's garden, but as a real place filled with people of varying socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds who spoke, dressed, and behaved according to the region in which they lived. From these mystery novels, historians and sociologists of the next century will probably be able to have a more accurate view of life in these 50 United States than could be gleaned from the history and sociology texts of our time, with all the biases and agendas toted around by their authors.
The American Regional Mystery is more than a compilation of those 14 very learned and surprisingly comprehensive articles. The past quarter-century has seen a greatly heightened level of regional writing, and the entire project had to be dramatically researched, rethought and rewritten. And what a job Lachman has done. One can only imagine the amount of reading and note-taking he needed to put together this superb tome of more than 500 densely packed pages. If you have any interest whatever in mystery fiction beyond the element of puzzle-solving, this should be a book for your reference shelf. --Otto Penzler
Erin A. Smith0.0 In the 1920s a distinctively American detective fiction emerged from the pages of pulp magazines. The "hard-boiled" stories published in Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and Clues featured a new kind of hero and soon challenged the popularity of the British mysteries that held readers in thrall on both sides of the Atlantic. In Hard-Boiled Erin A. Smith examines the culture that produced and supported this form of detective story through the 1940s.Relying on pulp magazine advertising, the memoirs of writers and publishers, Depression-era studies of adult reading habits, social and labor history, Smith offers an innovative account of how these popular stories were generated and read. She shows that although the work of pulp fiction authors like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Erle Stanley Gardner have become "classics" of popular culture, the hard-boiled genre was dominated by hack writers paid by the word, not self-styled artists. Pulp magazine editors and writers emphasized a gritty realism in the new genre. Unlike the highly rational and respectable British protagonists (Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, for instance), tough-talking American private eyes relied as much on their fists as their brains as they made their way through tangled plot lines..
Casting working-class readers of pulp fiction as "poachers", Smith argues that they understood these stories as parables about Taylorism, work and manhood; as guides to navigating consumer culture; as sites for managing anxieties about working women. Engaged in re-creating white, male privilege for the modern, heterosocial world, pulp detective fiction shaped readers into consumers by selling them what theywanted to hear -- stories about manly artisan-heroes who resisted encroaching commodity culture and the female consumers who came with it. Commenting on the genre's staying power, Smith considers contemporary detective fiction by women, minority and gay and lesbian writers.
