"The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man introduces my favorite kind of flawed cynical protagonist in Ruddy McCann, former football star, now Repo Man in a small town full of memorable weirdos. It's suspenseful, action-packed, romantic, and above all, truly funny. I loved it."—Nelson DeMille, New York Times bestselling author Ruddy McCann, former college football star, has experienced a seismic drop in popularity; he is now Kalkaska, Michigan's full-time repo man and part-time bar bouncer. His best friend is his low-energy Basset hound Jake, with whom he shares a simple life of stealing cars. Simple, that is, until Ruddy starts hearing a voice in his head. The voice introduces himself as Alan Lottner, a dead realtor. Ruddy isn't sure if Alan is real, or if he's losing his mind. To complicate matters, it turns out Katie, the girl he's fallen for, is Alan's daughter. When... Views: 36
Kat Harper wants nothing more than to forget about her disastrous job interview, but that's pretty hard to do when your interviewer turns up murdered. Now her search for a job has turned into a search for a killer. But Kat better watch her back, or she might just need her cats to come to her rescue once more. Views: 36
Thirteen-year-old Trav has always wondered about his dead-before-he-was-born dad. But when he heads from California to his grandmother's house in rural Minnesota, hoping to learn about his past, he gets more than he bargained for. It turns out his dad was involved in a bank robbery right before he mysteriously disappeared, and the loot from the take is still missing. Along with Kenny and Iz, the kids next door, Trav embarks on a search for the cash. But the trio's adventure quickly turns dangerous when it becomes clear that someone else is looking for the money—someone who won't give up without a fight! Views: 36
Margaret Coel's mysteries "shouldn't be missed by anyone interested in either new trends in mystery writing or contemporary American Indian culture. She?s a master at both." —Tony Hillerman Father John O'Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden return to face a brutal crime of greed, false promises, and shattered dreams... * Third in the bestselling and award-winning series featuring Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden Views: 36
An authentic new voice in crime fiction. Determined to overrule the Nigerian President, a powerful secret society employs a terrorist cell to carry out attacks in Northern Nigeria under the guise of forming an Islamic state. A young man and woman in Southern Nigeria hide their love affair from their fathers. When the girl goes missing, the men employ all their resources to find her, but do they know more than they suggest? As the police search for the missing girl, a series of attacks are launched against members of the Order. With the terrorist attacks intensifying and The Sacred Order losing control, an investigation is launched to identify the killers, before it is too late... Views: 36
Recently widowed, unhappily stuck on a pricey whiplash tour of Italy, Elizabeth Berman comes face to face with the first documented painting of a teardrop in human history, and in the presence of that tearful mother, and the arresting company of the renowned and anonymous women painted by Giotto in the Arena Chapel, she wakes up to the possibility that she is not lost.Mitchell left me everything, just as he promised. Everything," he liked to say during his last month on the sofa, everything will be yours," as if it wasn't yet. I was left with that and two adult children who could not tolerate my sitting in my home by myself—admittedly, rather too often in a capacious pink flannel nightgown and the green cardigan Mitchell was wearing on the afternoon he died. That's how Elizabeth winds up on a tour better suited to her late-husband, a Dante scholar. Mitchell masterminded the itinerary as a surprise for their thirty-fifth wedding... Views: 36
"A shattering first novel... You can't look away from it."--New York Times Book ReviewMaureen O'Donnell wakes up one morning to find her therapist boyfriend murdered in the middle of her living room and herself a prime suspect in a murder case. Desperate to clear her name and to get at the truth, Maureen traces rumors about a similar murder at a local psychiatric hospital, uncovering a trail of deception and repressed scandal that could exonerate her - or make her the next victim."I can't think of a more interesting - and less likely - crime hero than Maureen O'Donnell, the damaged but determined center of Denise Mina's marvelous debut mystery. . . . The book bristles with angry energy and the spare urban poetry of its unique language." -Chicago Tribune"A groundbreaking book...its emotional rawness and visceral honesty pack a punch more potent than any boxer-turned-PI could provide."--Washington Post Book World"This raw, powerful story is an exceptional debut." -Kansas City Star"A compelling story. . . . This is the reason we read mysteries." -Rocky Mountain NewsAmazon.com ReviewGarnethill (the name of a bleak Glasgow suburb) won the John Creasey Memorial Award for Best First Crime Novel--the British equivalent of the Edgar. It's a book that crackles with mordant Scottish wit and throbs with the pain of badly treated mental illness, managing to be both truly frightening and immensely exhilarating at the same time.Maureen O'Donnell, surely one of the most unlikely crime solvers in recent history, comes from a family so seriously dysfunctional that it deserves a television series of its own. Her mother is an overly dramatic alcoholic who "could scene-steal from an eclipse"; her brother Liam is a bumbling drug dealer; and the black sheep of the family is a sister who went to London and became a Thatcherite. The troubled but gutsy Maureen decides to dump her boyfriend, Douglas--an abusive (and married) psychologist she met while a patient at a sex-abuse clinic. After a night of drinking with a friend who's a social worker, Maureen wakes up to find that Douglas has been tied to a kitchen chair in her flat with his throat slashed. As someone with both a motive and a history of mental illness, Maureen is the most likely suspect--until a second, similar murder occurs that links the crimes to a local psychiatric hospital. Denise Mina, who has a background in health care, law, and criminology, is definitely a writer to watch. --Dick AdlerFrom Publishers WeeklyFrom its opening pages, this winner of the 1998 John Creasy Memorial Award for best first crime novel pulls readers inexorably into the tortured world of sexual abuse victims and their struggle to survive as whole people. Eight months after spending almost half a year in a Glasgow psychiatric hospital devoted to treating sex abuse victims, Maureen O'Donnell is desperately trying to hold together her shattered life. Bored with her job at a theater ticket office and depressed because her affair with one of the hospital's doctors, Douglas Brady, is over, Maureen and a friend get drunk. The next morning Maureen finds Brady's body in her living room, his throat cut. With bloody footprints matching Maureen's slippers at the scene, Detective Chief Inspector Joe McEwan sets out to prove the woman's guilt. He's not alone in thinking her the culprit: to Maureen's shock, both her alcoholic mum and Douglas's politician mother also think she's the killer. Convincing them that she isn't becomes her goal. She picks up a rumor about one of the hospital therapists having sex with a patient and learns that, before his death, Douglas gave formerly hospitalized victims large sums of money. Maureen begins to suspect Douglas's killing is connected to the hospital's clinic. Did a relative of a molested client kill Douglas? Or was the deceased about to turn in a colleague who raped patients? With sharp dialogue and painfully vulnerable characters, Mina brings Maureen's world of drug dealers, broken families, sanctimonious health-care workers and debilitated victims to startling life. Maureen's valiant struggle to act sane in an insane world will leave readers seeing sex abuse victims in a new light. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 36
On March 18, 1963, in one of its most significant legal decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that all defendants facing significant jail time have the constitutional right to a free attorney if they cannot afford their own. Fifty years later, 80 percent of criminal defendants are served by public defenders. In a book that combines the sweep of history with the intimate details of individual lives and legal cases, veteran reporter Karen Houppert movingly chronicles the stories of people in all parts of the country who have relied on Gideon’s promise.There is the harrowing saga of a young man who is charged with involuntary vehicular homicide in Washington State, where overextended public defenders juggle impossible caseloads, forcing his defender to go to court to protect her own right to provide an adequate defense. In Florida, Houppert describes a public defender’s office, loaded with upward of seven hundred... Views: 36
A man with everything on the line...Known to the underworld only as Jericho, billionaire Theo Fitzgerald is one of the most powerful men in the world. But his plan is to tear down the criminal empire his father created from the inside out—unless someone else does it for him. He suspects a bold, seductive woman named Temple Cross might be trying to take him out with it—but for the chance to burn in the heat she gives off, he's not sure if he minds... A hired hit woman, Temple has been waiting to get close to Jericho her whole life. The man who destroyed her family is worth looking in the eye before she kills him—but when she's finally alone with Jericho, he's nothing like the ruthless barbarian she imagined. Her reaction to his touch is explosively sexual—and their emotional connection is too powerful for her to ignore. Is she his shot at redemption? Or will he have to risk losing her love to save her life, in In Bed with... Views: 36
Praise for Melodie Johnson Howe's City of Mirrors:"City of Mirrors is deftly written and smart. On top of that, it is entertaining as hell."—Michael Connelly"A fine crime novel with an engagingly cynical edge"—Simon BrettNew York can be a deadly place. In this gripping murder mystery, the enigmatic private eye Claire Conrad and her independent assistant Maggie Hill are in New York and about to fly to Los Angeles when a young woman appears at their hotel bearing an unusual message: a legendary fashion model who died recently did not commit suicide. When the messenger is stabbed to death, Claire and Maggie have no choice but to stay in New York to solve the mystery, whatever the risks..."Howe has created a wonderful, highly entertaining (and just a touch bizarre) pair of female sleuths."—Library Journal"One of the genre's best short story writers and novelists... More than glamour of setting, what makes Ms. Howe's work stand out is... Views: 36
On trial in Russia, Blackford Oakes fights to carry out a mission that will change the course of the Cold War The prisoner in the dock is accused of unspeakable crimes against the Soviet Union—charges Blackford Oakes is proud to be guilty of. The agent has spent 9 years fighting the spread of Communism in Europe, and he intends to continue the battle. It shouldn't be hard for the Russians to convict him of espionage—after all, Oakes was found on Soviet soil in a downed U-2 spy plane—and it will take a masterstroke for the agent to escape execution. The funny thing is, the Russians are playing right into his hands. After 3 years on leave from the CIA, Oakes was brought back to take part in 1 of the most daring operations in intelligence history. His mission is to crash the plane, get captured, and endure the trial. So far, everything's going according to plan. Now he just has to get out of the Soviet Union alive. Marco... Views: 36
When Colin Farquharson refused to sell the horse called Mogollon to Beatrice, Vicomtesse de Brioude, her husband swore to make him change his mind. To help him enforce his will upon the Scot, the Vicomte had a bunch of hired killers and a dozen cavalrymen commanded by an ambitious lieutenant besotted by the voluptuous Vicomtesse. Against them, the Scot had ten Mexican mesteneros and three Texas cowhands not yet twenty years of age. They were Ole Devil Hardin's newly-formed floating outfit. Mark Counter, a handsome blond giant with the strength of a Hercules and a brace of real fast guns. The Ysabel Kid, baby-faced but deadly expert in the use of a Winchester rifle or a bowie knife. And their leader. Small, insignificant in appearance, he looked more like the horse-wrangler than the segundo of the biggest ranch in Texas. His name was Dusty Fog.Although the Vicomte did not know it, taking the horse called Mogollon would be far from as easy as he imagined. Views: 36
Espionage takes to the twenty-first century playing fields, where rules are broken and remade outside the reach of governments and the law. Agents recruited for the clandestine organization known as Room 59 play hard, play for keeps…or die trying. But now new Room 59 agent Ajza Manaev, a top MI6 operative, discovers just how high the stakes really are when she goes undercover inside Chechnya's terrorist training camps, where bitter young widows harness their hate as suicide bombers. Ajza doesn't know she's being manipulated by many sides of a deadly game. Her mysterious Room 59 handler has his own agenda, while the secret, silent mastermind behind a global destabilization plot hopes to push Ajza's loyalties to the breaking point. And in a game where the ground is always shifting, Ajza is inducted by hellfire into Room 59's harsh reality: she's on her own. Views: 36
