"Chaos has descended on the Valducci family. Gina Valducci’s grandmother, mentor, and founder of the family’s thriving nursery business, has died. Her death sets off a string of seemingly unrelated events, including two horrific murders. Gina’s colleague Jeff stands out as an obvious suspect, with plenty of motivation, opportunity, and means.
In her most unusual and complex case yet, Barbara Holloway accepts Jeff as her reluctant client. But to defend him, she must first discover how a secret will, corporate greed, stolen art of the World War II era, family skeletons, attempted murder, and an old ornate mirror factor in to the case. Barbara must reassemble the puzzle pieces perfectly, before it’s too late."
"From 1966 to 1980, Damon Knight created the Orbit series of anthologies, representing the finest writing in the science fiction genre. Nineteen of Kate Wilhelm's stories were included in this series of twenty-one volumes. Among these are 'Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang,' an exploration of infertility and cloning in the aftermath of global environmental collapse. It won the Locus, Jupiter, and Hugo awards for Best Novel in 1977. 'The Planners' reaches into the moral conflicts of a primate researcher and won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1968. Other stories include a road trip into a woman's psyche; primal fears through the eyes of a wise and empathetic alien; an encounter in a bus depot during a raging winter storm; and the first 'interactive' reality TV show. Ms. Wilhelm's stories are prophetic yet as recognizable as a story in this morning's paper."
"Sam and Lori had only just met and now they are dead, the result of a car accident. Accident? No. Dead? Not exactly. In life, Sam was a successful playwright, Lori a secretary for Ben Carnahan, a scheming movie producer who wants Sam's new script and whose negligence on a movie set twenty years earlier killed Lori's father. Now Sam and Lori are ghosts out of sequence with the real world yet fully aware of their existence. As they work together to find out what happened to them, a plot to murder Ben is revealed. As ghosts, how can they possibly stop this conspiracy? They can't contact the living, for rules are rules—in life and in death and even when you're in between."
"Travis Morgan's case seems open and shut: a plot to kill his estranged father, fundamentalist preacher Arlie Morgan, goes awry and his bullet slays an innocent bookkeeper. Two eyewitnesses seal Travis' fate. But despite damning evidence and an admitted hatred of his father, Travis staunchly maintains his innocence.
Beseeched by his anguished mother, veteran defense attorney Barbara Holloway agrees to represent Travis. With the support of her father, attorney Frank Holloway, and crack private investigator Bailey, Barbara reveals a zealot, his ultrarich backers, and unimaginable atrocities. Travis' case proceeds to trial, and Barbara finds herself pitted against a complacent legal system and a judge eager to simply close the case and retire. Knowing she must intervene decisively to avoid a conviction, Barbara steps squarely into the path of danger. Risking her own life, Barbara confronts the killer in order to save Travis'."
"Hiram Granville, a modern Leonardo, secured more than a thousand patents during his lifetime, often just ahead of others who had already been working the same ideas. His son John, an economics genius, never lost a cent in the stock market—or any other financial deal—and was investigated for insider trading on more than one occasion. Now Cat, a documentarian; her researcher, Mercy; and Cracker Jack, an electronics whiz, are doing a film about the Granville clan. What they find as they research the family is madness, suicide, a seemingly total seclusion, and a frightening glimpse about what it means to peer into the future."
"Charlie didn't want to take this case—he hated cases involving crazy wills—but when one of the new clients mentioned that the Bainbridge men are cursed, he knew resistance was hopeless: Constance could not resist confronting a curse.
In a quiet college town in New Jersey, five million dollars in cashier's checks lies hidden in a dead man's house, and whoever finds the checks gets to keep it all. Four family members have four weeks before the house and its contents become the property of a small college. Soon two deaths by drowning from the past and another clear case of murder in the present complicate matters. It takes the combined skills of a superbly trained homicide detective, Charlie, and an equally well trained psychologist, Constance, to unravel the mystery of the Bainbridge curse—and expose a killer."
"In Kate Wilhelm's latest crime novel, a small Oregon town is rocked by a wheels-within-wheels case of art, fraud, and murder.
Silver Bay, Oregon, a small coastal resort town of under a thousand residents, is home to three generations of women: Marnie, the long-widowed owner of a small gift shop; Van, her granddaughter who is about to graduate from medical school; and Stef, mercurial and difficult, a brilliant artist who refuses to sell her work. When Stef discovers that Dale Oliver-the latest husband/paramour in a very long line-is trying to sell her work behind her back, she puts a stop to it and threatens to do the same to him. Shortly thereafter, Stef dies in an accident in her studio, and Dale shows up with a signed contract granting him the right to sell her work. Convinced that Stef was murdered to steal her artwork, Marnie and Van, grandmother and granddaughter, decide to do whatever is necessary to see that Dale doesn't get away with any of it. This includes enlisting the help of the new stranger in town, Tony, a former New York City cop who might be the only one who can prove it was murder and bring the killer to justice."
"Barbara Holloway is a low-key attorney in Eugene, Oregon, who left her father's high-powered firm to handle small legal problems for local residents and ponder her next move. But while trying to sort out her own future, two people, desperate for help, show up on her doorstep: former pro football player Martin Owens and his wife, Binnie. Binnie, who is mute, met her husband when she sneaked aboard his boat while it was docked in Haiti and smuggled herself into the US. Now Immigration is seeking to deport her back to Haiti, which would be a death sentence. Born to a woman from Belize who was kidnapped and enslaved by pirates, Binnie's only hope is to prove her and her mother's real identity. With only days to find the truth and protect Binnie, Holloway sets off for Belize. But what she knows is only the tip of the iceberg in what turns out to be one of her most complex, compelling, and dangerous cases yet."
"It started with a promise, a pact. It became a secret that no one must tell: that their parents were dead and gone, including the one they'd buried in the backyard.
When they move to a new home in Oregon, the McNair family knows they're where they belong. But when tragedy strikes the family, the children face the prospect of being separated by the state. Rather than being sent to different foster homes, the four children decide to lie. And it's a big lie. The sort of deceit that can hold a family together or tear it apart.
Now the McNair children are growing older, discovering love, college, and careers. But their lie haunts them. Their home holds them captive. Only the horrifying truth of their mother's death can set the children free. And only the truth can destroy them all."
"Constance Leidl and Charlie Meiklejohn are an unlikely pair of detectives. He is a former arson detective; she is a psychologist. Together, the husband-and-wife team has a knack for unraveling a mystery. Seven Kinds of Death is a famous sculpture, but the name takes on new meaning when bodies start turning up at the creator's art colony.
A party launching the art tour of an old friend and the opening of her husband's condominiums turns tragic when the sculptures are vandalized and one of the guests, a highly regarded art-magazine editor, is found strangled in one of the new condos. Charlie and Constance interview some of the guests and learn there has already been another death at the condo site, viewed at the time as an accident. Connecting the two deaths leads the two sleuths to an unexpected suspect."
"Controversial author and scholar David Etheridge is not the kind of company an aspiring politician wants to keep. But ambitious senator Robert McCrutchen has a history with Etheridge that he's desperately trying to keep under wraps. Twenty-two years ago, both men were investigated in the death of a young coed, but the case was never solved.
When Etheridge returns to Eugene, Oregon, McCrutchen is his grudging host-until the senator is found shot dead. Now, Etheridge is once again suspected of murder, only this time, with the cold case reopened, he's facing a double charge. Attorney Barbara Holloway must battle both the prosecution and the court of public opinion, which has already tried and convicted Etheridge for both murders. As the pressure mounts, Barbara ties the past and present together, risking her own life to preserve justice."
"Stanley Huysman, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, had spent his later years on far-out experiments never much heeded by the scientific community. Only after Huysman's death does his visionary genius become clear, when his widow, Irma, arranges for Drew Lancaster to write the scientist's biography. As Drew delves into Huysman's notes, he discovers not only that the great scientist had actually been able to induce telepathy in his subjects by genetic manipulation, but also that Huysman's assistant, Clyde Dohemy, has unscrupulously taken over the project in hopes of lucrative funding.
When Drew recruits his ex-wife, Irma, and a group of young people who knew about Huysman's experiments to set a trap for Dohemy, they are drawn into a web of secrets involving Senate files, counterfeit money, gambling casinos, and the Secret Service."
