As the holidays draw near in Caerphilly, Mother volunteers to take part in a big Christmas-themed decorator show house - each room of a temporarily untenanted house is decorated to the hilt by a different decorator for the public to tour. Of course, Mother insists that Meg pitch in with the organization, and she finds herself surrounded by flamboyant personalities with massive egos clashing and feeling their professional reputations are at stake. Then the rooms start to be sabotaged, and an unfortunate designer turns up dead - making Mother a prime suspect. Can Meg catch the real killer in time to save Mother the indignity of arrest?
Part 18 of the Meg Langslow Mysteries series.
Cal Claxton is determined to reinvent himself as a small-town lawyer in the aftermath of his wife’s suicide. Once a hard-charging Los Angeles prosecutor, he now lives in solitude in an old farmhouse overlooking Oregon’s wine country. When a scruffy, tattooed kid shows up asking for help in solving a cold case—that of his mother’s murder—Cal wants to say no. Times are tough, and he’s no private eye, anyway. But the kid, who calls himself Picasso, has ridden a bicycle in the rain all the way from Portland, and something about his determination touches Cal.
It turns out that Picasso is homeless, joining the legions of kids who are drawn to Portland’s Old Town. He is also a gifted artist in the process of painting a mural on the side of a health clinic run by an idealistic doctor named Anna. Things take an ugly turn when Picasso is charged with the murder of a prominent Portland businessman. The evidence against him is overwhelming, but Cal steps in to defend Picasso at Anna’s urging. Suddenly Cal finds himself pitted against the police, the media, and some of Portland’s most powerful citizens.
Is Picasso being framed? And if so, is there a connection between the two murders? Cal’s desperate search uncovers a dark web of blackmail, deception, and a lineup of suspects from Portland’s A-list. As he peels back the layers of truth, he realizes too late that he has put both himself and Anna in the crosshairs of a ruthless killer.
“Matters of Doubt is a fast, fun read with a fascinating defendant and our hero, Cal Claxton, a small town lawyer who risks his life to solve a big-time cold case.”--Phillip Margolin, New York Times bestselling author
Summer is a hectic time of the year for Annie Darling. Sun and scorching temperatures never fail to bring swarms of tourists to her mystery bookstore, Death on Demand. But Annie still finds time to enjoy herself. The Broward's Rock Fourth of July dance is just around the corner, and the island is buzzing with excitement - Shell Hurst included. Shell is the kind of woman wives hate - and most of them wish she would just disappear. But when she does, Annie can't help but feel like someone should be looking for her. The residents of Broward's Rock grow uneasy when a second islander mysteriously disappears. Annie and her husband, Max, soon find themselves following a twisted trail marked by blackmail, betrayal, and adultery.
Part 23 of the Death on Demand series.
Sequel to Fish & Chips
Cut & Run Series: Book Four
Baltimore, Maryland, is a city in alarming distress. Rising violence is fanning the flames of public outrage, and all law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, are catching blame. Thus the FBI's latest ideas to improve public relations: a municipal softball league and workshops for community leaders. But the new commitments just mean more time Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett have to spend apart when they're happily exploring how to be more than by-the-book partners.
Then the latest spate of crime explodes in their faces-literally-throwing the city, the Bureau, and Ty and Zane's volatile partnership both in and out of the office into chaos. They're hip-deep in trouble, trying to track down bombers and bank robbers in the dark with very few clues, and the only way to reach the light at the end of the tunnel together requires Ty and Zane to close their eyes and trust each other to the fiery end.
Cut & Run Series: Book One
A series of murders in New York City has stymied the police and FBI alike, and they suspect the culprit is a single killer sending an indecipherable message. But when the two federal agents assigned to the investigation are taken out, the FBI takes a more personal interest in the case.
Special Agent Ty Grady is pulled out of undercover work after his case blows up in his face. He's cocky, abrasive, and indisputably the best at what he does. But when he's paired with Special Agent Zane Garrett, it's hate at first sight. Garrett is the perfect image of an agent: serious, sober, and focused, which makes their partnership a classic cliché: total opposites, good cop-bad cop, the odd couple. They both know immediately that their partnership will pose more of an obstacle than the lack of evidence left by the murderer.
Practically before their special assignment starts, the murderer strikes again - this time at them. Now on the run, trying to track down a man who has focused on killing his pursuers, Grady and Garrett will have to figure out how to work together before they become two more notches in the murderer's knife.
Sequel to Sticks & Stones
Cut & Run Series: Book Three
Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett are back on the job, settled into a personal and professional relationship built on fierce protectiveness and blistering passion. Now they're assigned to impersonate two members of an international smuggling ring-an out-and-proud married couple-on a Christmas cruise in the Caribbean. As their boss says, surely they'd rather kiss each other than be shot at, and he has no idea how right he is.
Portraying the wealthy criminals requires a particular change in attitude from Ty and Zane while dealing with the frustrating waiting game that is their assignment. As it begins to affect how they treat each other in private, they realize there's more to being partners than watching each other's backs, and when the case takes an unexpected turn and threatens Ty's life, he and Zane will have to navigate seas of white lies and stormy secrets, including some of their own.
Sequel to Cut & Run
Cut & Run Series: Book Two
Six months after nearly losing their lives to a serial killer in New York City, FBI Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett are suffering through something almost as frightening: the monotony of desk duty. When they're ordered to take a vacation for the good of everyone's sanity, Ty bites the bullet and takes Zane home with him to West Virginia, hoping the peace and quiet of the mountains will give them the chance to explore the explosive attraction they've so far been unable to reconcile with their professional partnership.
Ty and Zane, along with Ty's father and brother, head up into the Appalachian mountains for a nice, relaxing hike deep into the woods... where no one will hear them scream. They find themselves facing danger from all directions: unpredictable weather, the unrelenting mountains, wild animals, fellow hikers with nothing to lose, and the most terrifying challenge of all. Each other.
It's late in the fall in Edinburgh and late in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he is simply trying to tie up some loose ends before his retirement, a new case lands on his desk: a dissident Russian poet has been murdered in what looks like a mugging gone wrong.
Rebus discovers that an elite delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, looking to expand their interests. And as Rebus's investigation gains ground, someone brutally assaults a local gangster with whom he has a long history.
Has Rebus overstepped his bounds for the last time? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, inglorious career, will Rebus even make it that far?
In his sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel, All the Flowers Are Dying, New York Times bestselling author Lawrence Block takes the series to a new level of suspense and a new depth of characterization. Block puts Scudder -- and the reader -- at the very edge of the abyss.
A man in a Virginia prison awaits execution for three hideous murders he swears -- in the face of irrefutable evidence -- he did not commit. A psychologist who claims to believe the convict spends hours with the man in his death row cell, and ultimately watches in the gallery as the lethal injection is administered. His work completed, the psychologist heads back to New York City to attend to unfinished business.
Meanwhile, Scudder agrees to investigate the suspicious on-line lover of an acquaintance. It seems simple enough. At first. But when people start dying and the victims are increasingly closer to home, it becomes clear that a vicious killer is at work. And the final targets may be Matt and Elaine Scudder.
The governor of Colorado has commuted the prison sentence of Goldy Schulz's ultra-handsome, ultra-charming, ultra-wealthy, ultra-venal ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, otherwise known to Goldy as the Jerk. He's released, and soon afterward Goldy becomes the victim of threats, rumors, and violence.
Then there's a murder and suspicion centers on Goldy. Suddenly, she is faced with the challenge of running her successful catering business while fending off two persistent detectives.
Caught in a web of secrets and lies that can tear her family apart, Goldy must use all of her considerable powers of detection to find the real killer before she herself becomes a target.
Off California's San Miguel Island, a fishing boat struggles in the battering-ram seas and blinding rain of a sudden squall.
On the beach near his home, private investigator Wil Hardesty is approached by a Vietnamese fisherman. Vinh Tien is not convinced that the disappearance at sea of his only son was the accident it was ruled. Wil, a Vietnam vet, resisting the ghosts of a past war, decides to help Vinh Tien because Wil, too, lost a son to the ocean.
What Wil discovers brings him into a shadowy world of Asian gangs and corruption played out against the exotic background of the Vietnamese culture. Wil must discover the truth within a web of violence and secrecy before a ghost-killer finds him.
Based on an unsolved 1969 homicide, this latest Kinsey Millhone case puts her on the trail of the murderer of a young "Jane Doe, " whose body was discovered 18 years ago near a quarry off California's Highway 1. The original detectives want one last shot to solve the case, and they turn to Kinsey to help identify the girl and find her killer.
