International Suspense

On opening day of the new baseball season a small model-kit airplane flies down from the stands and buzzes the mound, where a decorated veteran pilot is about to throw out the first ball. The toy plane is the exact replica of the one flown by the war hero. Everyone laughs, thinking it's a prank or a publicity stunt. Until it explodes, killing dozens. Seconds later a swarm of killer drones descend upon the picnicked crowd, each one carrying a powerful bomb. All across the country artificial intelligence drive systems in cars, commuter trains and even fighter planes go out of control.

Some of the greatest music ever committed to vinyl has come out of Italy. And some of the greatest music to come out of Italy is the rich diversity of soundtracks composed for the indigenous film industry – particularly for gruesome thrillers known as ‘gialli'. The maestros who composed for these include Ennio Morricone, Piero Piccioni, Armand Trovajoli…And Valerius Passeri. He was one of the finest composers of this genre and his original LPs from his 1960s heyday fetch a fortune from collectors. No one disputes that Passeri was a genius…The argument is whether or not he was a murderer.

A young child is snatched in broad daylight outside his nursery. Nobody in charge sees a thing, but the other children say a woman is the culprit. Detective Mina Dabiri calls on her close friend Vincent to untangle the puzzle that surrounds the kidnapped boy. As he finds a link between the boy and other others who have gone missing, it becomes clear that time is running out for everyone involved.

A week's holiday in a luxurious hotel is just what Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid needs. But his vacation ends dramatically with the discovery of a dead body in the whirlpool bath. Despite a suspicious lack of cooperation from the local constabulary, Kincaid's keen sense of duty won't allow him to ignore the heinous crime, impelling him to send for his enthusiastic young assistant, Sergeant Gemma James. But the stakes are raised significantly when a second murder occurs....

The KGB decides to use agent Otto Reimann to seduce Elke Meyer, the personal assistant to a top West German Cabinet member, to give over classified information, but Moscow does not count on the unpredictability of love.

When Arnold Clover is recruited by Lizzie Hawker to help her look into her family inheritance, he cannot begin to guess the journey he is about to embark on. Lizzie's mother, an Italian countess, disappeared thirty years ago, presumed dead. Her father, a famous, some say infamous, music promoter, has just died and now the family home Ca' Scacchi, a leaning palazzo in Dorsoduro, has fallen to her. When her mother vanished so too did a priceless painting, supposedly an erotic portrait of Lucrezia Borgia, which has captivated men for generations.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria was an enigmatic figure who was deposed in 1886, mysteriously drowning three days later. Eccentric to the point of madness, history tells us that in the years before he died Ludwig engaged in a worldwide search for a new kingdom, one separate, apart, and in lieu of Bavaria. A place he could retreat into and rule as he wished. But a question remains: did he succeed? Enter Cotton Malone.

On a beautiful morning in mid-May, the body of a young woman is found in one of Notting Hill's private gardens. To passersby, the pretty girl in the white dress looks as if she's sleeping. But Reagan Keating has been murdered, and the lead detective, DI Kerry Boatman, turns to Gemma James for help. She and Gemma worked together on a previous investigation, and Gemma has a personal connection to the case: Reagan was the nanny of a child who attends the same dance studio as Toby, Gemma, and Kincaid's son.

Tommy and Tuppence, two people flat broke and out of work, are restless for excitement. They embark on a daring business scheme - Young Adventurers Ltd. - "willing to do anything, go anywhere." But their first assignment, for the sinister Mr. Whittington, draws them into a diabolical, political conspiracy. Under the eye of the elusive, ruthless Mr. Brown, they find themselves plunged into more danger than they ever imagined.

England, 1936. On a clear autumn day, Kitty and her mischievous spaniel Bertie take a drive to a nearby village. After a long walk in the rolling country hills and lunch in a pretty tearoom, what could be nicer than to buy a couple of bottles of local cider for her husband—and partner-in-crime solving—Matt? Instead, she finds a body in the orchard… Kitty is shocked to discover Titus Blake dead, crushed by his own cider press.

When a shocking murder and abduction on the streets of London leads investigators to open a safe in Langley for the first time in ten years, they find a note directing them to a few key individuals. Three of the people on the list are dead. The fourth is Ben Koenig. Koenig has no idea why his name is on the list. Then he realizes that he knows the woman who carried out the killings. Ten years earlier, without being told why, he was tasked with helping her disappear.

Three years after her mother’s death, Ruth is finally sorting through her things when she finds a curious relic: a decades-old photograph of her own Norfolk cottage—before she lived there—with a peculiar inscription on the back. Ruth returns to the cot­tage to uncover its meaning as Norfolk’s first cases of Covid-19 make headlines, leaving her and Kate to shelter in place there. They struggle to stave off isolation by clapping for frontline workers each evening and befriending a kind neighbor, Zoe, from a distance.

With the lovely Priscilla Halburton-Smythe away in London, Hamish Macbeth, the constable of the small Scottish town of Lochdubh, pines for company during the long Scottish winter. He gets his wish - and more - when a troupe of flashy, urbane filmmakers clamors into the nearby town of Drim. Before long bedlam erupts around their make-believe mystery - and culminates in the sudden appearance of one very real corpse.

When Scotland Yard superintendent Duncan Kincaid takes Gemma, Kit, and Toby for a holiday visit to his family in Cheshire, Gemma is soon entranced with Nantwich's pretty buildings and the historic winding canal, and young Kit is instantly smitten with his cousin Lally. But their visit is marred by family tensions exacerbated by the unraveling of Duncan's sister Juliet's marriage. And tensions are brought to the breaking point on Christmas Eve with Juliet's discovery of a mummified infant's body interred in the wall of an old dairy barn.

Through a particularly ill-fated series of events, couch potato Maeve Kelly, an elementary school teacher whose mother always assured her curvy girls shouldn't waste their time trying to be fit, has been forced to sign up for the Other Half, Bath's springtime half marathon. The training is brutal, but she must disprove her mother and collect pledges for her aunt's beloved charity. What Maeve doesn't know is just how vicious some of the other runners are.

The Chinese police have once more been forced to enlist the services of American forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell, this time to investigate a series of four horrific ritual executions in Beijing. Detective Li Yan is determined to discover just how one of the victims in particular, an American diplomat, became caught up in the slaying. And he is arguably even more determined to have nothing to do with Campbell, whom he finds simultaneously too foreign and too... familiar. The personal polarity that once attracted Yan and Campbell again strengthens their professional partnership.

A businessman found hanged. A tortured and mutilated loaner. High finance has never been so deadly.... DI Nathaniel Caslin is spiralling toward a professional crisis. His biggest case in years has collapsed amid accusations of police intimidation. A rebuilt reputation is now facing ruin.... As the extremes of nationalist hate descend upon York, a refugee is tortured to death while a straightforward case of a bankrupt’s suicide proves to be anything but simple. How does an enigmatic campaigner with a secret to keep link these two disparate worlds?

Je suis l'ombre. Je suis la proie. Je suis le tueur. Je suis la cible. Pour m'en sortir, une seule option : fuir l'autre. Mais si l'autre est moi-même ?

When someone makes a present of a fer-de-lance - the dreaded snake - to Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin knows he's close to solving two apparently unrelated murders. As for Wolfe, he's playing snake charmer in a case more deadly than a cobra and whistling a seductive tune he hopes will catch a killer with poison in his heart.

Now, for the first time, Herron’s short fiction has been collected into one volume. In Dolphin Junction, devoted fans and future converts alike will find much to amuse, delight, and terrify them. Five stand-alone nerve-racking and thrilling crime fiction stories are complemented by four mystery stories featuring the Oxford wife-and-husband detective team of shrewd Zoë Boehm and hapless Joe Silvermann. The collection also includes a peek into the past of Jackson Lamb, irascible top agent at Slough House.