| Conviction by Julia DahlMystery. Ambitious Rebekah Roberts writes for a New York City tabloid, but longs for a more prestigious byline. So when she learns of an inmate who claims that his murder confession -- given as a teen -- was coerced, it could be a career-making story. As she digs deeper, she realizes she knows one of the original cops and that the case's prosecutor is set to be the new hotshot D.A. But no one wants to talk about the 1992 Brooklyn crime, which happened amid simmering racial tensions between Jewish and black neighbors. Featuring neat plotting, well-done characterization, and a fascinating look at tight-knit communities, this stellar third in a series can be read on its own; if you want Rebekah's background details, start with the first book, Invisible City. |
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| A Fever of the Blood by Oscar de MurielHistorical Mystery. An inmate, Lord Ardglass, escapes from Edinburgh's lunatic asylum, leaving a behind a fatally injured nurse before heading to town and attacking his elderly mother. Tracking down the escapee are eccentric Scot Adolphus "Nine-Nails" McGray and London dandy Ian Frey. The two mismatched investigators venture through the worst blizzard in memory while examining links between the Ardglass family and rumors of witches and black magic. A Fever of the Blood, the atmospheric follow-up to The Strings of Murder, is a "mad romp" (New York Times). Fans of Alex Grecian's Murder Squad books who've been looking for a gritty new Victorian mystery series peopled with fascinating characters will want to try these books. |
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Murder is for Keeps: A Penny Brannigan Mystery
by Elizabeth J. Duncan
Cozy Mystery. Local artist and amateur sleuth Penny Brannigan has been spending her summer painting the exterior and views of the once-lovely Gwrych Castle, now in a heartbreaking state of disrepair. A privately owned castellated country house of jaw dropping scale, the gorgeous house located just outside of Penny's picturesque Welsh town has been sadly neglected for decades. Penny is thrilled when she hears local Mark Baker is leading a team of enthusiastic volunteers to restore the castle grounds and formal gardens to their former grandeur. But there are always disagreements about how everything should be done, and it's not long before they turn deadly.
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Walking on My Grave
by Carolyn G. Hart
Mystery. When a wealthy shop owner who has written several cash-strapped locals into her will suffers a suspicious accident, Annie and her husband, Max, race to identify a calculating killer from among several suspects. The 26th, and final, book in the critically acclaimed Death on Demand series by the Agatha Award-winning author of Letter from Home. "...The author is an undisputed maven of mystery. Despite having nothing left to prove, Walking on My Grave is incontrovertible evidence to one simple fact: You've got to have Hart." (Criminal Elements)
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Too Lucky to Live: A Somebody's Bound to Wind Up Dead Mystery
by Annie Hogsett
Mystery. Allie Harper believes all her problems would be solved if she could find a nice, smart, hot guy and enough money to get her car fixed. The hot guy arrives first, Allie rescues Tom along with his groceries and lottery ticket from the street after a driver lays on her horn startling the blind man. Helping him home, they turn on the television to discover Tom has the winning Mondo Lottery numbers. The ticket turns out to be a hot target with killers and kidnappers after them. Debut novel in a new series. "As the plot zigs and zags, readers will enjoy hanging out with Tom and Allie." (Publishers Weekly)
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| The Violated by Bill PronziniMystery. Using multiple points of view, this "masterly stand-alone novel" (Library Journal) by veteran author Bill Pronzini tells what happens to a small town when a registered sex offender thought to be responsible for four recent rapes is murdered. Though Martin Torrey had no prior assaults on his record, and no evidence linked him directly to the rapes, the police in Santa Rita, California thought he was their guy. Now, in addition to officially solving the rapes, police chief Griffin Kells, whom the power-hungry mayor is actively trying to get rid of, and brusque detective Robert Ortiz need to solve a murder, too. That's hampered when their tangled case grows even more complex in this fast-paced story that thoughtfully examines how crime impacts everyone it touches. |
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| A Welcome Murder: A Novel by Robin YocumMystery. Meet Johnny Earl, a washed-up former professional baseball player and ex-con who is the best athlete Steubenville, Ohio has ever produced. He'd like to find the drug money he's hidden there and get out of town, but a Neo Nazi also wants the money...and the high-school friend and FBI informant who sent Johnny up the river has been murdered. Johnny's a suspect, of course, but he's not the only one. Turns out plenty of people are happy Rayce Daubner is dead, including Johnny Earl's high-school girlfriend, her current husband, the local sheriff, and his unhappy wife. Told from the first-person point of view of several people, this lively, violent, funny novel provides an intimate look at an eccentric cast of memorable characters. |
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Under the Harrow
by Flynn Berry
Edgar Award Winner - Best First Novel When Nora travels from London to visit her sister in the countryside, she finds her sister has been brutally murdered. Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can't return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can't trust them to find her sister's killer. Haunted by the murder and the secrets that surround it, Nora is under the harrow: distressed and in danger. As fear turns to obsession, Nora becomes as unrecognizable as the sister her investigation uncovers.
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Better Dead: A Nathan Heller Mystery
by Max Allan Collins
2017 Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Honoree Working reluctantly for a zealous Joe McCarthy at the height of 1950s anti-Communist activities, Chicago detective Nate Heller is forced to choose between loyalties when he takes the case of a group of literary leftists who are supporting alleged spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. "Collins’s writing is as electric as the Cold War atmosphere he’s set Heller into. All the characters, both real and created, are authentic and believably written." (Historical Novel Society) By the best-selling author of Road to Perdition.
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Fever in the Dark: A Jane Lawless Mystery
by Ellen Hart
2017 Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Honoree When a video of their engagement goes viral on the heels of the Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage, Fiona and Annie turn for help to private investigator Jane Lawless to safeguard a secret from Annie's past. As the media storm continues to grow, Fiona revels in the attention, but Annie is furious. And then, when a murder occurs and Annie and Fiona are both suspects, it’s up to Jane to prove their innocence…although the more she learns, the more she starts to wonder whether they actually are innocent. By the award-winning author of The Grave Soul.
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Before the Fall
by Noah Hawley
Edgar Award Winner - Best Novel. On a foggy summer night, eleven people--ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter--depart Martha's Vineyard headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the passengers disappear into the ocean. The stories of the wealthy victims of a plane crash intertwine with those of the painter and a 4-year-old boy, the tragedy's only survivors, as odd coincidences surrounding the crash point to a possible conspiracy. By the Emmy-, Golden Globe- and Peabody Award-winning writer of the television show Fargo.
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Rain Dogs: A Detective Sean Duffy Novel
by Adrian McKinty
Edgar Award Winner - Best Paperback Original It's just the same things over and again for Sean Duffy: riot duty, heartbreak, cases he can solve but never get to court. But what detective gets two locked-room mysteries in one career? When journalist Lily Bigelow is found dead, it looks like a suicide. Yet there are just a few things that bother Duffy enough to keep the case file open. Which is how he finds out that she was working on a devastating investigation of corruption and abuse at the highest levels of power in the UK and beyond. And so Duffy has two impossible problems on his desk: Who killed Lily? And what were they trying to hide?
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The Reek of Red Herrings: A Dandy Gilver Mystery
by Catriona McPherson
Agatha Winner - Best Historical Novel Something's dead in a Scottish businessman's fish barrels, and it isn't just the herring. Not wanting the grisly discoveries to ruin his business or the local fishing industry, he hires Dandy Gilver and her bachelor partner Alex Osborne. To catch a killer, the duo pose as sibling folklorists at a small fishing village on the Banffshire coast, learning all about the local dialect, while encountering a variety of interesting characters. This well-plotted ninth in the Dandy Gilver murder mysteries, is a delight for Golden Age mystery fans as well as those who adore Scotland.
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A Great Reckoning
by Louise Penny
Agatha Winner - Best Contemporary Novel When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes. Former Quebec homicide investigator Armand Gamache follows clues to the site of a dead Sûreté academy professor and an unlikely cadet with whom he is implicated in a murder case. The frantic search for answers takes the investigators back to Three Pines and a stained glass window with its own horrific secrets. By the award-winning author of The Nature of the Beast.
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The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
by Kate Summerscale
Edgar Award Winner - Best Fact Crime When a pair of pre-adolescent boys are implicated in the murder of their mother during the summer of 1895, the older is convicted and sent to the country's most infamous criminal lunatic asylum, where he embarks on a shocking new life that raises questions about period education, pulp fiction, criminality, and mental illness. By the best-selling author of Queen of the White Cay.
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The Shattered Tree: A Bess Crawford Mystery
by Charles Todd
Edgar Award Winner - Mary Higgins Clark Award A soldier is brought to battlefield nurse Bess Crawford's aid station, where she treats his injuries before he is sent to a rear hospital. The odd thing is, the officer isn't British--he's French. But in a moment of anger and stress, he shouts at Bess in German. When Bess reports the incident, her superior offers a ready explanation. The soldier is from Alsace-Lorraine, a province in the west where the tenuous border between France and Germany has continually shifted through history. But if he is, on which side of the war do his sympathies really lie? Bess remains uneasy--and unconvinced. If he was a French soldier, what was he doing so far from his own lines...and so close to the Germans? When the officer disappears in Paris, it's up to Bess--a soldier's daughter as well as a nurse--to find out why, even at the risk of her own life.
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