Mystery - May 5, 2012
You're viewing an archived version of the Mystery newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter or check out all of our newsletters.
|
Mystery |
|---|
|
Saturday, May 5, 2012
View more Mystery: Blog View | Archived Newsletter View | Insider Questions? Email madtech @ scls.lib.wi.us
|
 Tote Bags and Toe Tags
Haley Randolph's new job as a corporate events coordinator suits her like classic Chanel-as long as no one finds out her only degree is from bartending school. But then again, trouble's always afoot in the life of this amateur sleuth/professional fashionista. On Haley's first day on the job, she finds the chief of security-who was performing Haley's background check -bludgeoned in her office. Naturally, the police peg Haley as their prime suspect, so she'll need to shop around on her own for some guilt-proof clues.
|
 Rest in Pizza
Cozy towns like Timber Ridge, North Carolina-the home of Eleanor Swift's delectable pizzeria, A Slice of Delight-don't take well to prima donna celebrities. So no one is particularly pleased when TV host and famous chef Antonio Benet roars into town for a book signing and manages to insult Eleanor, her deliciously saucy sister Maddie, and everyone else within earshot. Insults are one thing, however...but a cold dish of murder is quite another.
|
 The Vanishing Point
Young Jimmy Higgins is snatched from an airport security checkpoint while his guardian watches helplessly from the glass inspection box. But this is no ordinary abduction, as Jimmy is no ordinary child. His mother was Scarlett, a reality TV star who, dying of cancer and alienated from her unreliable family, entrusted the boy to the person she believed best able to give him a happy, stable life: her ghost writer, Stephanie Harker. Assisting the FBI in their attempt to recover the missing boy, Stephanie reaches into the past to uncover the motive for the abduction.
|
 Walking Into the Ocean
Veteran Scotland Yard Chief inspector Peter Cammon, semi retired, is sent to the Jurassic Coast to solve what at first seems to be an ordinary domestic crime involving a local mechanic. At first glance, it seems that the mechanic has murdered his wife and then drowned in the English Channel. Yet it doesn't take long for Cammon to learn that his case is a sideshow to a series of broader murders along the cliffs that has thwarted local police. A serial killer is at large and the two cases are intertwined, the solution can only be found together.
|
 Target Tinos
In an isolated olive grove on the idyllic Aegean island of Tinos, revered by pilgrims around the world as the Lourdes of Greece, the remains of two bodies charred beyond recognition are discovered chained together amid bits and pieces of an incinerated Greek flag. An enraged press screams out for justice for the unknown victims, until the dead are identified as gypsies and the story simply falls off the face of the earth. Is it a gypsy clan war, a hate crime, or something else? With no one seeming to care, the government has no interest in resurrecting unwanted media attention by a search for answers to such ethnically charged questions and orders the investigation closed. But Andreas Kaldis, feared head of Greece's special crimes division, has other plans.
|
 Sherlock Holmes and the Swedish Enigma
A corpse in a sarcophagus, a headless macaw, and a stolen slice of Black Forest gateau alert Sherlock Holmes to a macabre international crime in progress, and lead him through London's backstreets to the gloomy moors of Cornwall. People vanish, Greek statues vanish. Even Holmes vanishes -- to the distress of his companion, James Wilson, whose emails and text messages go unanswered. But Holmes is in top form, fully recovered from his journey through ice to the twenty-first century and ready to reveal a multitude of secrets.
|
 These Violent Delights
As the studio that made the classic film Tristan and Isolde prepares for a 20th anniversary re-release, Anastasia Day, the film's female star, realizes how many members of the cast and crew have met untimely deaths. Knowing that the murderous rage must somehow have been triggered during shooting, she fights the agoraphobia that has kept her prisoner in her late husband's English castle to uncover the culprit before the gala reunion turns into a mass-murder.
|
 The Seven Wonders
The year is 92 B.C. Gordianus has just turned eighteen and is about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime: a far-flung journey to see the Seven Wonders of the World. Gordianus is not yet called "the Finder" - but at each of the Seven Wonders, the wide-eyed young Roman encounters a mystery to challenge the powers of deduction.
|
 Rest for the Wicked
Armed with little more than a message on her phone from a dead man, PI and restaurateur Jane Lawless races to find a killer. DeAndre Moore came to Minneapolis from St. Louis to clear up a misunderstanding. But when the situation gets out of hand, he reaches out to P.I. Jane Lawless just as his uncle, Jane's partner Andy Nolan, told him to. However, the message Moore leaves on Jane's phone becomes a voice from beyond the grave when she discovers that he left it minutes before he was knifed outside of a gentlemen's club. And soon his murder isn't the only one.
|
 The Namesake
When magistrate Matteo Arconti's namesake, an insurance man from Milan, is found dead outside the court buildings in Piazzo Clodio, it's a clear warning to the authorities in Rome--a message of defiance and intimidation from a powerful crime syndicate. Commissioner Alec Blume, interpreting the reference to his other ongoing case--a frustrating one in which he's so far been unable to pin murder on a Mafia boss operating at an untouchable distance in Germany--knows he's too close to it. Handing control of the investigation to now live-in and not-so-secret partner Caterina Mattiola, Blume takes a backseat. And while Caterina embarks on questioning the Milanese widow, Blume has an underhand idea of his own to lure the arrogant mafioso out of his hiding place.
|
 The Jewels of Paradise
Caterina Pellegrini is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she's had to leave home to pursue her career. With a doctorate in baroque opera from Vienna, she lands in Birmingham, England. Birmingham, however, is no Venice. When Caterina gets word of a position back home, she jumps at the opportunity. The job is an unusual one. After nearly three centuries, two locked trunks, believed to contain the papers of a baroque composer have been discovered. Deeply-connected in religious and political circles, the composer died childless; now two Venetians, descendants of his cousins, each claim inheritance. Caterina's job is to examine any enclosed papers to discover the "testamentary disposition" of the composer. But when her research takes her in unexpected directions she begins to wonder just what secrets these trunks may hold.
|
 Mrs. Jeffries Defends Her Own
She keeps house for Inspector Witherspoon. Everyone's awed by his Scotland Yard successes-but they don't know about his secret weapon. No matter how messy the murder or how dirty the deed, Mrs. Jeffries' polished detection skills are up to the task. When the general office manager of Sutcliffe Manufacturing is murdered, no one is really surprised. Ronald Dearman was anything but a dear man. The tyrannical bully had more than enough enemies to go around. But who hated him enough to walk into his office and put a bullet between his eyes? For once, Inspector Gerald Witherspoon doesn't get the case; it's given to another inspector. Then someone from Mrs. Jeffries' past-someone she'd hoped to never see again-shows up and begs for her help. Now Mrs. Jeffries must step into the fray and stop a terrible miscarriage of justice.
|
 Kingdom of Strangers
A secret grave is unearthed in Saudi Arabian desert revealing the bodies of 19 women and the shocking truth that a serial killer has been operating undetected in Jeddah for more than a decade. However, lead inspector Ibrahim Zahrani is distracted by a mystery closer to home. His mistress has suddenly disappeared, but he cannot report her missing since adultery is punishable by death. With nowhere to turn, Ibrahim brings the case to Katya, one of the few women in the police department. Drawn into both investigations, she must be increasingly careful to hide a secret of her own.
|
 Hiss and Hers
Agatha has fallen head over heels in love - again. This time, she has her eye on the local gardener, George Marston, but so do other women in their little Cotswold village. Shamelessly determined, Agatha will do anything to get her man - including footing the bill for a charity ball just for the chance to dance with him. And then George doesn't even show up. Only partly deterred, Agatha goes looking for him, and finds his dead body in a compost heap.
|
 Farewell, Miss Zukas
In the twelfth and concluding Miss Zukas mystery, Chief of Police Wayne Gallant has finally popped the question to Miss Helma Zukas, librarian par excellence. But before Bellehaven, Washington can rejoice, Helma's mother and Aunt Em are robbed and the alleged robber lies dead - or does he? Helma and her artist friend Ruth race to discover the truth and recover the stolen items, especially Aunt Em's mysterious Lithuanian carving.
|
 Hawkwood
The year 1811, and Bow Street Runner Matthew Hawkwood is ordered by Chief Magistrate James Read to investigate the double murder of a coachman and a naval courier on the Kent Road. Hawkwood is initially puzzled as to why the Chief Magistrate is so concerned by this relatively simple case, but as his investigation unfolds, another body is discovered and a higher agenda begins to emerge--an attempt by the Emperor Napoleon to bring about a crushing military and psychological blow to Britain, the means of which would bring terror to the seas for years to come.
|
 The Deathly Portent
A violent murder has left the village of Witherley aghast. The locals are convinced that a witch doing the devil's work is to blame-a young woman believed to have second sight. The new vicar, Aidan, taking up the cudgels in her defence, fears the witch hunt is escalating out of his control. But help is at hand. The bright and perceptive Ottilia, once a lady's companion and now bride to Lord Francis Fanshawe, is drawn to Witherley by an insatiable curiosity. Ottilia rapidly uncovers a raft of suspects with grudges against the dead man, one of whom is determined to incriminate the "witch." And as foul play runs rampant, Ottilia must wade through the growing hysteria to unravel the tangle.
|
 The Fallen
Despite a rocky start to their romantic getaway, Private Investigator Jade de Jong and her policeman boyfriend David Patel are soon thrown into a murder investigation and forced to put their differences aside. The victim was a straightlaced, high powered business woman, and Jade soon becomes suspicious that the murderer got the wrong woman. However, the other diving instructor, a drug-taking, job-hopping thief disappears, leaving Jade and David to pursue her for the vital information they are certain she possesses. |
