Amateur Sleuth Suspense

Forced out of the Los Angeles Times amid the latest budget cuts, newspaperman Jack McEvoy decides to go out with a bang, using his final days at the paper to write the definitive murder story of his career. He focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer in jail after confessing to a brutal murder. But as he delves into the story, Jack realizes that Winslow's so-called confession is bogus. The kid might actually be innocent.

In the small village of Kilbane, County Cork, Ireland, Natalie's Bistro has always been warm and welcoming. Nowadays twenty-two-year-old Siobhan O'Sullivan runs the family bistro named for her mother, along with her five siblings, after the death of their parents in a car crash almost a year ago. It's been a rough year for the O'Sullivans, but it's about to get rougher.

It's Halloween in Buttercup, Texas, and reporter-turned-farmer Lucy Resnick is up to her ears in more than goats and wayward cows. Not only has her well dried up, but it turns out the old house Lucy recently moved to has a reputation for spooks, and they are disturbingly active. Then a tarot card reading at a local mead winery foretells death, and minutes later, exotic game ranch owner Bug Wharton goes belly-up. When the dimwitted sheriff fingers local witch and mead winery owner Serafine Alexandre, Lucy gets involved and soon discovers that all kinds of things are brewing in Buttercup.

Max Rupert has left his position as a Minneapolis homicide detective to live in solitude. Mourning the tragic death of his wife, he's also racked by guilt—he alone knows what happened to her killer. But then the former local sheriff, Lyle Voight, arrives with a desperate plea: Lyle’s daughter Sandy and his six-year-old grandson Pip have disappeared. Lyle’s certain Sandy's ex-husband Reed is behind it, but the new sheriff is refusing to investigate. When Max reluctantly looks into their disappearance, he too becomes convinced something has gone very wrong.

New York Times best-selling authors Rita Mae Brown and her cat, Sneaky Pie, have captivated fans around the world with their Mrs. Murphy mysteries. In this fourth entry, the residents of Crozet, Virginia, find their summer slumbers interrupted by a pair of newcomers. When one of the visitors is found dead and $2 million goes missing from the Crozet National Bank, it falls to Mrs. Murphy and her four-legged pals to save the day.

The Anna Pigeon mysteries are a New York Times best-selling series. Each addition is eagerly anticipated by fans of its award-winning author Nevada Barr, who uses her experience as a park ranger to create stunningly authentic details. Blood Lure takes Park Ranger Anna Pigeon high into Glacier Park and deep into a grisly murder case. Anna has joined a bear research team in the vast park that spreads from Montana into Canada.

Ellison Russell wanted a decorator, not a corpse. Too bad she finds Mrs. White in the study killed with a revolver. Things go from bad to worse when she finds Mr. White in the dining room killed with a candlestick. With so many bodies, is it any wonder Detective Anarchy Jones' new partner considers Ellison a suspect? With the country club gossips talking a minute, an unexpected cocktail party, a visit from Aunt Sis, and a romantic decision, Ellison hardly has time to think about murder. Unfortunately, the killer has plenty of time to think about her.

Mason “Mace” Reid lives on the outskirts of Chicago and specializes in human-remains detection - that is, he trains dogs to hunt for dead bodies. He calls his pack of cadaver dogs The Finders, and his prize pupil is a golden retriever named Vira. When Mace Reid and Vira are called in to search Washington Park at three o'clock in the morning, what they find has them running for their very lives.

Past midnight, Chyna Shepard, twenty-six, gazes out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend’s family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Foreman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed “homicidal adventurer,” Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse, or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.

With the arrival of six senior reading group members at the Merry Ghost Inn, the long-awaited grand opening week has finally begun for Melanie West and her grandmother Liza. All is well with the Oregon coast-side B&B until Melanie's dog, Max, finds the dead body of one of their guests.

In a small Lao village, a very strange thing has happened. A woman was shot and killed in her bed during a burglary; she was given a funeral and everyone in the village saw her body burned. Then, three days later, she was back in her house as if she'd never been dead at all. But now she's clairvoyant and can speak to the dead. That's why the long-dead brother of a Lao general has enlisted her to help his brother uncover his remains, which have been lost at the bottom of a river for many years.

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Charlaine Harris has won an Anthony Award for her one-of-a-kind Sookie Stackhouse mystery series. Sookie, a Louisiana cocktail waitress, skilled telepath, and friend to vampires, has a dedicated fan base that grows larger every day.

An extraordinary woman living in extraordinary times, Lady Frances Ffolkes is an Edwardian era suffragette who has an uncanny ability to attract danger and romance. When Major Colcombe, a family friend and war veteran, dies under mysterious circumstances, the good Lady discovers that he was working on a manuscript, about South Africa's bloody Boer War, that reportedly revealed a scandalous mistake that cost many innocent lives.

After leaving a decade ago, Angie Curtis has been called back to Harbor Haven, Maine, by her grandmother, Charlotte, who raised her following her mother's disappearance when she was a child. Her mother has been found, and now the question of her whereabouts has sadly become the mystery of her murder. The bright spot in Angie's homecoming is reuniting with Charlotte, who has started her own needlepointing business with a group called the Mainely Needlepointers.

When Betsy Devonshire arrived in Excelsior, Minnesota, all she wanted was to visit her sister Margot and get her life in order. She never dreamed her sister would give her a place to stay and a job at her needlecraft shop. In fact, things had never looked so good - until Margot was murdered. In a town this friendly, it's hard to imagine who could have committed such a horrible act, but Betsy has a few ideas. There's an ex-employee who wants to start her own needlework store. And there's the landlord who wanted Margot out. Now Betsy's putting together a list of motives and suspects....

When a car bomb nearly kills the charming young tech whiz Eric Thorner, Clare comes to his aid and receives a priceless thank you. Not only does the billionaire buy her a barista's dream espresso machine, he hires her for an extraordinary project: creating the world's most expensive coffee blend. The police arrest Eric's alleged attacker, yet death continues to surround the unlucky mogul, leading Clare to question whether the lethal events are premeditated or merely freak accidents.

22-year-old Eileen goes missing while hiking in the remote Ashlough Forest. Five days later, her camera is discovered washed downriver, containing bizarre photos taken after her disappearance. Chris wants to believe Eileen is still alive. When the police search is abandoned, he and four of his friends create their own search party to scour the mountain range. As they stray further into the dark forest and the unsettling discoveries mount, they begin to believe they’re not alone in the trees and that Eileen’s disappearance wasn’t an accident.

As their beloved Black Sheep member Lucy Binger prepares to tie the knot, the closely knit group decide they need a weekend to unwind before the big day. Suzanne Cavanaugh has just the spot-her friend Amy lives in a luxury New England community on Osprey Island, renowned for its famous cliff walk and spectacular ocean views, and she would be happy to host the knitters. Shortly after their arrival, however, the idyllic setting turns into a crime scene.

It has only been a few months since Sarah Kelling's elderly husband passed away, and she is struggling to adapt to life as a penniless young widow. To make ends meet, she converts her stately Boston home into a boardinghouse, a decision that brings something even better than money: the company of art-fraud-investigator Max Bittersohn. The budding couple is standing on a balcony, recovering from a second-rate concert at a third-rate museum, when something plummets past them. The museum has been robbed, and a guard has fallen to his death.

Near the creek that runs behind her Pennsylvania house, Willow Bellamy has converted an old barn into an art school. When some local merchants gather in the studio for a painting party, they focus their attention on a still life with flowers and an assortment of garden tools, including antique pruning shears that disappear - at the same time despised restaurant owner Evangeline Fletcher is murdered. Willow must use all her gifts to find the killer.