An unidentifiable body is found in an Indianapolis park, deliberately arranged so that police know it's not just a random crime. Former cop Frank Behr, now a P.I. with no cases, no money and no options, finds himself chasing down the disappearance of a wayward young woman who's been missing for months in a futile attempt to collect a reward. With assistance from his few remaining contacts on the force, Behr follows the tenuous thread of his case into the world of small-time prostitution-and discovers a possible connection to the body in the park. When another murder victim turns up, it's clear there's a serial killer at work, but this predator seems to be invisible, camouflaged by his perfectly normal-looking life. Behr's relentless quest for the missing girl and his parallel pursuit of the killer become entangled with the official police investigation. Ultimately, Behr's obsession with the truth will lead him into the darkest places, and force him to make an unavoidable and devastating decision.

"Celebrating 50 years of Hard Case Crime! Okay, not really. But what if, instead of having been founded 50 books ago, Hard Case Crime had been founded 50 years ago, by a rascal out to make a quick buck off the popularity of pulp fiction? Such a fellow might make a few enemies -- especially after publishing a supposed non-fiction account of a heist at a Mob-run nightclub, actually penned by an 18-year-old showgirl with dreams of writing for The New Yorker. With both the cops and the crooks after them, our heroes are about to learn that reading and writing pulp novels is a lot more fun than living them..." --

Between writing her bestselling novels, Caroline Lawrence has penned several short stories, covering incidents alluded to in the novels, but not dramatised at length. This book brings together all the mini-mysteries to date to provide even more coverage of events in the lives of our four detectives during the dangerous, exciting reign of Emperor Titus.

Eliza Altairsky-Lointaine is the toast of Moscow society, a beautiful actress in an infamous theatre troupe.Her love life is as colourful as the parts she plays. She is the estranged wife of a descendant of Genghis Khan. And her ex-husband has threatened to kill anyone who courts her.He appears to be making good on his promise.Fandorin is contacted by concerned friend - the widowed wife of Chekhov - who asks him to investigate an alarming incident involving Eliza. But when he watches Eliza on stage for the first time, he falls desperately in love . . . Can he solve the case - and win over Eliza - without attracting the attentions of the murderer he is trying to find?

Jack Faith, world-renowned superstar entertainer, would stoop to anything—even murder—to prevent an unauthorized biography about him and his adulterous romantic escapades with countless beautiful Hollywood starlets (sometimes underaged) from being published. How he gets caught by his own nefarious schemes and exposed as the charlatan he is, is the story of not only his life, but at the same time gives the reader an inside peek at what the real Hollywood is like.

So I'm a Heel It's just a lucky break the way Ed Hawkins gets a look at that police blotter that tips him off on the arrest-and-release of his rich neighbor, Otto Weylin, for molesting a minor. Nobody ever gave Hawkins a break, and he doesn't intend to give Weylin a break either. He figures that Weylin is good for ten grand to keep this little bit of information out of the papers, and maybe he's right. But why all of a sudden is his 10-year-old son becoming so friendly with Weylin? What is the secret that Weylin's sex-starved wife keeps hinting at? The blackmail scheme is rapidly backfiring and Hawkins can't trust anyone, even his own wife--and now his own boy has gone missing Flint Flint took a bullet in the lung during that last job, a hole that just won't seem to plug itself. But hired killers don't get to retire, and Flint is called out to Colorado for one more job. A rancher named Mr. Good wants his competition removed, and he's got a pretty plan how to get away with it. So Flint rides out and meets the local sheriff, a man so fat he spends all his time in his office--should be easy to work around. He meets his victim, Thomason, a poor but honest man, who naively hires him on the spot. And then he meets Thomason's wife, Cora, who seems....very friendly--but is she all that she seems? And can Mr. Good really be trusted? This is supposed to be Flint's last job, but it's funny how a simple plan can soon get so complicated. The Big Out Brick Palmer, catcher for the Blues, gets a call after the game. His kid brother Johnny is in trouble again. Johnny is the brilliant one, the one who's going to be a doctor, but he's forged Brick's name on a $10,000 Syndicate debt. So Brick does what he has to do, he pays off the Syndicate punk, then busts his nose. Randy York of the Herald sees the payoff and reveals the meeting in his column the next day. Unable to rat out his brother, Brick is thrown out of the league. All he can do is play for one of the outlaw leagues. So he and wife Cathy move to Montreal and try to start over. But they're all out to get him--the fans and players for selling out, the Umps for dirtying the game. They're all out for blood. But for the Syndicate punk it's personal--he plans to make it murder.

The author of "The Comic Book Killer" offers up twelve tales of mystery, magic, and grouchiness - served with a liberal dash of sarcasm and cynicism. A woman's birthday celebration becomes a prelude to murder; an absinthe-minded author seeks inspiration from a bottle; a rare volume could destroy the love/hate relationship of two book dealers; an interplanetary romance is threatened by the untimely intervention of the Scorpion Men of Venus; and that's just the beginning! These stories leap from planet to planet, down dark avenues of hatred, and curl up in cozy nostalgic places.Stories include: "Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl!"; "The Green Fairy"; "Sisoh Promatem"; "Uncle Elmer"; "Greetings from Comrade Kim"; "Night Lands Dream"; "The Salamanca Encounter"; "Scorpion Men of Venus"; "Dead of Winter"; and from Rigel science fiction magazine, three "Tales of the Tin Can Worlds": "Lux Was Dead Right"; "Transtemporal Creatures Unlimited"; and "Joe Nieman's Knees.

New York City€™s Lower East Side on the eve of WWI. Abraham Cahan, editor-in-chief of The Jewish Daily Forward, receives a letter addressed to his €œBintel Brif€ column from a twenty-three-year-old girl who confesses to living in sin with her uncle and seeks his advice. The girl€™s description of her plight inflames Cahan€™s imagination; the enclosed photograph, a young woman in a white cotton shift gazing languidly up at the camera from her bed, overwhelms him with desire. €œPeering at the photograph, wondering if her slackened, unprotected presentation of herself was the aftermath of a feverish embrace, Cahan felt a ghostly invisible presence possess him, settling into the emptiness in his soul.€ Thus begins the drama of a righteous man€™s struggle to free himself from an obsession that threatens to destroy him and mortally wound his family. Desperate to fathom the mystery of her power, Cahan explores the girl€™s past only to discover that her st

In a time of Rasputin's magic and Romanov mystery, a young girl finds herself at the heart of the royal family. She was an orphan, ushered into the royal palace on the prayers of her majestry. Yet, decades later, her time spent in the embrace of the Romanovs haunts her still. Is she responsible for those murderous events that changed everything? If only she can find the heir, maybe she can put together the broken pieces of her own past-maybe she can hold on to the love she found

One of the "top ten women who write superior crime fiction" (Charles Champlin, mystery reviewer for the "Los Angeles Times), Rochelle Krich propels her exceptional sleuth, LAPD homicide detective Jessie Drake, into a deadly maze of rage, revenge, and moral complexities in what is the award-winning author's most gripping and provocative novel to date. At first glance it appears to be a random multiple murder -- a prominent plastic surgeon and his nurse and receptionist shot dead in their plush Century City office. But to Jessie Drake, the savage nature of Dr. Ronald Bushnell's fatal wounds suggests a crime of intense passion...and bitter retribution.Following her suspicions, the conscience-driven detective takes her investigation to the core of the seemingly harmonious family life of the slain surgeon. On the surface, Bushnell had everything: respect, money, a palatial home, a loving wife and daughter. But there is a joker in the deck, Bushnell's foster son, Ethan Meissner -- a troubled young loner with dark periods in his history. And the boy hasn't been seen since the murders.Ethan's unexplained disappearance suggests that the runaway knows something; he may be a material witness in a triple homicide or a premeditated killer...or another victim. The search for the missing teenager takes Jessie across many volatile borders -- those between nations, between families, and the razor-thin one that separates love from hatred. But the truth lies somewhere in a harrowing past of tainted blood and horrific personal tragedy. The deeper Jessie ventures into this shadow world of cruelty and secrets, the more she is haunted by the echoes of a lost soul's unanswered cry for help...and by the mostheinous crime of all, in which the sins of the guilty are visited on the innocent.

Dive into the heart-pounding mystery by the renowned and provocative writer Warren Adler, famed for his blockbuster "The War of the Roses." In the shadowy corners of upper Michigan, Josh and Emily Flanagan, escapees from the high-pressure world of Manhattan's elite, launch an eccentric antique store. Emily, with her keen eye honed in the cutthroat antique appraisal scene, and Josh, a shrewd art and antique insurance adjuster, find their quiet life shattered when a mysterious man arrives, desperate for an antique doll for his sick grandchild. This innocuous request spirals into a whirlwind of dark family secrets, betrayal, and a chilling murder. The Flanagans are thrust into a perilous game of cat and mouse, using their astute investigative skills and creative thinking to uncover clues and untangle a web of deception. At the heart of this suspenseful novel lies a profound mystery. It promises to keep readers on the edge of their seats until the shocking truth is revealed. Readers are hooked on Flanagan's Dolls: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This story has a bit of Holmes, Christie and Fletcher. Loads of characters to choose from." - Goodreads Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This is a book of luxurious enjoyment for anyone who loves a good mystery, or comedy, or sparkling good characterization. It has all three and much more." - Goodreads Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Quite different from most of Adler's books, but still a great cozy!" - Goodreads Review

In the years following World War II, former Secret Service employee Mirabelle Bevan can't seem to resist an attraction to danger and a thirst for justice . . . The mysterious disappearance of eighteen-year-old debutante Rose Bellamy Gore, last seen outside a Soho jazz club in the company of a saxophone player named Lindon Claremont, has the London tabloids in a frenzy. When Lindon turns up in Brighton desperately seeking help, Mirabelle counsels him to cooperate with the authorities. But after the local police take the musician into custody and ship him off to Scotland Yard, Mirabelle and her best friend, Vesta Churchill, decide to take matters into their own hands. After hopping a train to London, Mirabelle and Vesta scour smoky jazz clubs searching for clues to the deb's disappearance. What they find is a sinister underworld where the price of admission can be one's life. Mirabelle will need to draw on her espionage skills to improvise her way out of a disappearing act of her own . . . Praise for Sara Sheridan and London Calling "Mirabelle Bevan's second case takes her into the divided worlds of underground jazz clubs and missing debutantes. As a British historical mystery, this fits the bill." -- RT Book Reviews "An extraordinarily rich historical." -- Publishers Weekly "A series that deserves a long run." -- Booklist

mystery novel actually ghost written by Charles W. Runyon

Mystery, Fictional Novel

Jack Cooper is an unhappy man-mind, body, and spirit. He has lost his longstanding job to the economy, his mother to illness, and his wife to her secret lover. All in the blink of an eye. Beaten, broken and crippled by tragedy, Jack withdraws into total isolation, narrowing his life down to the simplest routines to block out the pain. His day begins with a strenuous workout at the Bethesda Health Club, his oasis. There, his mind and body can be free. His day ends in his tiny apartment, where he escapes from reality with his books until he can lose himself in sleep. Rinse and repeat. That is until he meets the enigmatic Mike Parrish. Parrish has no official identification. He was stolen from the hospital as a newborn and passed around from household to household. To the government and the world at large, he does not exist. He is an anonymous drifter but also the first person who breaks through Cooper's emotional confinement. Cooper finds solace in his friendship with Parrish, a man who understands his plight and is sympathetic to his pain. But then Parrish suddenly disappears, leaving Cooper to search for a virtually invisible man. As he looks for clues as intangible as ghosts and chases down leads as fleeting as shadows, his search leads him back to the one place he called his refuge: the Bethesda Health Club. How much can be taken from a man before he has nothing to lose?

Set during the summer heatwave of 1953, 'England Expects' finds Mirabelle and Vesta investigating the seemingly unrelated murders of a racing journalist and a cleaning woman. Their searches lead them through Brighton Pavilion's crumbling passageways to the quad of a Cambridge college and finally into the shady underworld of Brighton freemasonry. And, while not on the murder trail, Vesta has to make some difficult decisions about her personal life.

“Moses Wine is a force to reckon with and to read with pleasure.” —Dick Lochte, Los Angeles Times Book Review “A fun detective novel you just don’t get enough of anymore...there is a certain style reminiscent of those 1950s Mickey Spillane novels when men were men and private investigators were ‘private dicks’...definitely recommended reading.” —West Coast Review of Books With a new introduction by Roger L. Simon A guided tour of the People’s Republic, Aunt Sonya had said: U.S.-China Friendship Study Tour Number Five, arranged by the China Friendship Society, an organization in which she was involved. Why not get away from it all? Moses Wine figured. At least it would get him away from personal injury cases, murder investigations, and the insistent feeling that boredom and alienation were about to become his constant companions in his middle age. But China has a way of springing surprises, and soon California's hippest ex-radical detective is chasing down the priceless Han Dynasty Peking Duck, falling for a gorgeous dragon lady in a Mao suit—and fighting for his life across a vast, mysterious land he barely knows...

"Friday, October 31, 9:37 p.m., 100 block of South Martel. A vandal threw a pumpkin through the front window of a house and several eggs at the front door." "The police report read like just another Halloween prank - a nasty, petty act. But the attack is one in a recent spate of increasingly violent vandalisms targeting residents who have paid millions of dollars for their dream homes in the ritziest enclaves of Los Angeles." "Residents are already seething, hotly divided about the growing number of Historical Architectural Restoration and Preservation (HARP) boards that prevent homeowners from remodeling their expensive real estate, forcing them to preserve the traditional integrity of neighborhoods where Hollywood legends once lived. So impassioned are pro- and anti-HARP forces that Crime Sheet columnist Molly Blume suspects that members from both sides of the debate may be perpetrating the vandalism that claims new victims almost daily." "But the arson that destroys a house on Fuller Street doesn't fit the pattern. This beautiful property belongs to Margaret Reston and her husband, Hank; and the sick old man who dies when it burns is Margaret's father. Margaret herself has disappeared. She was last seen working in her garden five months ago - and although traces of her blood were found in her car, the police have no idea what has happened to the missing woman." "This intrigue all makes good copy for hard-hitting newshound Molly. Almost in love again with the high-school sweetheart who dumped her and is now a rabbi, Molly can't stop thinking about Margaret and Hank Reston and the old man whose life was tragically, though accidently, cut short. But was it an accident? What has happened to Margaret Reston? Where does malice end and evil begin?"--BOOK JACKET.

Caring and compassionate, LAPD homicide detective Jessica Drake isn't about to write off the death of an elderly man found dead in a secluded area of Rancho Park as simply a heart attack. The nonresident guest at an old age home was in vigorous health, with plenty of friends...and suddenly he's mysteriously dead. Jessie suspects foul playIn search of what caused the old gentleman's death, Jessie combs the records of local retirement homes and prods the memories of the residents. She discovers that the victim was the only person in his family to come out of the concentration camps alive--and his demise is just one of a number of mysterious deaths among camp survivors. The possible connection to the Holocaust is a particularly heart-wrenching irony to Jessie, who has just recently learned of her own link to the historic atrocity. Now she's just determined to follow a twisted trail of decades-old deceit to catch a killer...and spare the survivors of the death camps from the treachery of a modern-day maniac.Caring and compassionate, LAPD homicide detective Jessica Drake isn't about to write off the death of an elderly man found dead in a secluded area of Rancho Park as simply a heart attack. The nonresident guest at an old age home was in vigorous health, with plenty of friends...and suddenly he's mysteriously dead. Jessie suspects foul play. In search of what caused the old gentleman's death, Jessie combs the records of local retirement homes and prods the memories of the residents. She discovers that the victim was the only person in his family to come out of the concentration camps alive--and his demise is just one of a number of mysterious deaths among camp survivors. The possibleconnection to the Holocaust is a particularly heart-wrenching irony to Jessie, who has just recently learned of her own link to the historic atrocity. Now she's determined to follow a twisted trail of decades-old deceit to catch a killer...and spare the survivors of the death camps from the treachery of a modern-day maniac.Caring and compassionate, LAPD homicide detective Jessica Drake isn't about to write off the death of an elderly man found dead in a secluded area of Rancho Park as simply a heart attack. The nonresident guest at an old age home was in vigorous health, with plenty of friends...and suddenly he's mysteriously dead. Jessie suspects foul play. In search of what caused the old gentleman's death, Jessie combs the records of local retirement homes and prods the memories of the residents. She discovers that the victim was the only person in his family to come out of the concentration camps alive--and his demise is just one of a number of mysterious deaths among camp survivors. The possible connection to the Holocaust is a particularly heart-wrenching irony to Jessie, who has just recently learned of her own link to the historic atrocity. Now she's determined to follow a twisted trail of decades-old deceit to catch a killer...and spare the survivors of the death camps from the treachery of a modern-day maniac.