California Historical Mysteries

Former trapeze artist Amalie Vaughn moved to Burning Cove to reinvent herself, but things are not going well. After spending her entire inheritance on a mansion with the intention of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast, she learns too late that the villa is said to be cursed. When the first guest, Dr. Norman Pickwell, is murdered by his robot invention during a sold-out demonstration, rumors circulate that the curse is real.

In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director… Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace, just as her career is taking off. Almost sixty years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic, only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles.

Josie Bianci was killed years ago on a train during a terrorist attack. Gone forever. It’s what her sister, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, has always believed. Yet all it takes is a few heart-wrenching seconds to upend Kit’s world. Live coverage of a club fire in Auckland has captured the image of a woman stumbling through the smoke and debris. Her resemblance to Josie is unbelievable. And unmistakable. With it comes a flood of emotions - grief, loss, and anger - that Kit finally has a chance to put to rest: by finding the sister who’s been living a lie.

Maggie Lodge, assistant to the reclusive advice columnist known only as Dear Aunt Cornelia to her readers, hires down-but-not-quite-out private eye Sam Sage to help track down the person who is blackmailing her employer. Maggie and Sam are a mismatched pair. As far as Sam is concerned, Maggie is reckless and in over her head. She is not what he had in mind for a client, but he can’t afford to be choosy. Maggie, on the other hand, is convinced that Sam is badly in need of guidance and good advice. She does not hesitate to give him both.

Investigative apprentice Lyra Brazier, the newest resident of Burning Cove, is unsettled when her boss suddenly goes on a health retreat at an exclusive spa and disappears without another word. Lyra knows something has happened to Raina Kirk, and she is the only one who can track her down. The health spa is known for its luxurious offerings and prestigious clientele, and the wealthy, socialite background Lyra desperately wanted to leave behind is perfect for this undercover job.

It is the Summer of Love as Cinnamon Kiss opens, and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armored car. It's farther outside the law than Easy has ever traveled, but his daughter, Feather, needs a medical treatment that costs far more than Easy can earn or borrow in time. And his friend Mouse tells him it's a cinch. Then another friend, Saul Lynx, offers a job that might solve Easy's problem without jail time.

Rancho Santa Elena in 1987 seems like the ideal Southern California paradise—that is, until a series of strange crimes threatens to unravel the town’s social fabric: workers attacked with mysterious weapons; a wealthy real estate developer found dead in the pool of his beach house. The only clues are poison and red threads found at both crime scenes. As Detective Benjamin Wade and forensic expert Natasha Betencourt struggle to connect the incidents, they begin to wonder: Why Santa Elena? And why now?

Clifford Hickey is scheduled to perform at the festival in what might be his last guitar gig before heading off to law school to please his father. He arrives at the peaceful woodland campsite of his brother Alvaro, but within moments six armed men in badges crash the camp, and Alvaro runs. Clifford is arrested and roughly handcuffed. One of the sheriffs’ nephews has been murdered, and Alvaro is the posse’s quarry. When Clifford’s father and mother arrive on the scene, it’s the beginning of a confrontation between the Hickey family and the locals, including the Cossacks, who seemingly have their own agenda for Alvaro.

Cassy Kim is being set up as a new kind of espionage device: brilliant analyst, emotionally compromised by the artful leader of a mystical Muslim sect obsessed with divine judgment. But while her background makes her a perfect post-modern spy, her handlers have underestimated her ability to pursue her own agenda. She needs redemption from her own unknown past.

1958. Kate Morgan is looking for an escape, and she gets her chance by honoring a cryptic plea from her grandfather: Find the beautiful stranger. The search takes her to Hotel del Coronado, the beachfront landmark on the Southern California coast where filming is underway on the movie Some Like It Hot. For a movie lover like Kate, it’s a fantasy come true. So is the offer of a position at the glamorous hotel. But as sure as she is that Coronado is her future, Kate discovers it’s also where the ghosts of the past have come to stay.

It's 92 AD. The imperial city of Rome rules Western civilization. A young man named Marco from Corinth joins a small team of brilliant engineers to work on classified projects. Titus, the Roman Prefect of Egypt, knew Marco's father and he sponsors the young man, who then promptly falls in love with Titus' daughter, Paula. Titus orders Marco's team to find a new weapon to help defeat the rebels. They create a shockingly powerful device, but before they can deliver it to Titus, the rebels obtain it and begin murdering.

Oakland, California, 1983: a city churning with violent crime and racial conflict. Officer Hanson, a Vietnam veteran, has abandoned academia for the life-and-death clarity of police work, a way to live with the demons that followed him home from the war. But Hanson knows that justice requires more than simply enforcing the penal code. He believes in becoming a part of the community he serves - which is why, unlike most officers, he chooses to live in the same town where he works. This strategy serves him well...to a point. He forges a precarious friendship with the drug king of East Oakland.

When a bishop is killed inside the Vatican by someone after an ancient artifact, a team is assembled to try to find the artifact and killer before more blood is spilled. In the process, an absent-minded professor and his archaeologist friend get swept up in what could very well be a wild goose chase - but nothing is as it appears. When the professor goes missing, his grandson and his student must pick up the trail to find the professor before it's too late.

Bound for Gold continues New York Times bestselling author William Martin’s epic of American history with the further adventures of Boston rare-book dealer Peter Fallon and his girlfriend, Evangeline Carrington. They are headed to California, where their search for a lost journal takes them into the history of Gold Rush. The journal follows young James Spencer, of the Sagamore Mining Company, on a spectacular journey from staid Boston, up the Sacramento River to the Mother Lode.