Murder Most Sweet: A Bookish Baker Mystery

WALKER

Laura Jensen

Crooked Lane Books

Carl Houseman, the deputy sheriff of rural Nation County, Iowa, leaves home to enter the world of international intrigue in the sixth in Donald Harstad's critically acclaimed series. Houseman's daughter, Jane, has been studying abroad in the UK. When her best friend Emma Schiller has been kidnapped, Houseman, desperate to protect his daughter and help her friend, accepts Scotland Yard's invitation to take him on as a consultant. Emma's trail leads to the door of her former professor—and ex-lover—Dr. Robert Northwood, whose impassioned activism on behalf of a pair of Muslim political prisoners has landed him unwittingly in cahoots with a cadre of dangerous individuals. It seems like a simple hoax, except that if Houseman doesn't track down the professor's co-conspirators, the consequences will be anything but simple—and the harm that will result could be global in Harstad's gripping new installment in his outstanding series.

November Rain: A Carl Houseman Mystery

Literature & Fiction

HARSTAD, Donald

United States

The society-bred wife of a celebrity producer takes a lethal dose of poison in her bedroom. Twenty years later, her daughter Hannah is convicted of stealing a priceless necklace. And when Hannah attempts to change from wild child to purposeful young woman, she begins to uncover secrets that will make her the target for murder. A suspenseful and witty page-turner that combines a murder mystery and a love story, with Hollywood financial intrigue and the unearthing of old family secrets.

The Producer's Daughter

Marcott, Lindsay

Brooklyn native John Testarossa has been knocked around on ad off the job en route to his current home on the West Coast. Now an LAPD homicide detective, he thinks he's seen it all. Then a human arm washes in with the Santa Monica breakers, followed by the body of the arm's former owner. The lethal repercussions of his investigation sets Testarossa on a vengeful path, and there may not be anyone able to hold him back from the brink. The sins of the past reverberate into the present in Julie Vail's pulse-pounding thriller, A Deadly Legacy.

A Deadly Legacy: A John Testarossa Novel (John Testarossa Mystery)

Vail, Julie

Sabrina Salter traded a high-pressure job as a Boston meteorologist for life as an innkeeper on sun-soaked St. John. But storm clouds roll in when Sabrina finds Carter Johnson, her most attractive guest, tucked up in a hammock way past check-out time...and he's not just dead to the world, he's just plain dead, with a bullet hole in his chest. This isn't the first time Sabrina has seen a dead body, and the island police are well aware of that. Thanks to her checkered history, not to mention the fact that she was the last person who saw Carter alive and far from entirely clothed, she finds herself marked as the prime suspect. The U.S. Virgin Islands may be the sort of place where even defense attorneys wear flip-flops, but the laid-back life is over for Sabrina unless she can clear her name. So, she sets out to solve the crime, only to find herself caught in a tidal wave of adultery, kidnapping, identity fraud and murder in No Virgin Island, C. Michele Dorsey's outstanding mystery debut.

No Virgin Island: A Sabrina Salter Mystery

Dorsey, C. Michele

A Catskills resort's production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet takes a wickedly ironic turn when the leading lady, Lauren Richmond, is first poisoned and then stabbed. Who would extinguish the life of such a beautiful young thespian? Who wouldn't? Seems like just about everyone had a motive to pull the ropes on her final curtain call. At the center of this Shakespearian tragedy is Charlotte Fairfax, formerly the costume mistress of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Upstate New York is a long way from the royal stage, but Charlotte is always the queen of her domain. As this small production's costume designer, she has stitched her way into everyone's lives, learning more than anyone could possibly imagine about the rise and fall of Lauren Richmond. But curiosity killed the cat. And it might well kill the costume designer. Witty and wise work, Untimely Death, the first in Elizabeth J. Duncan's charming cozy series, is sure to delight.

Untimely Death: A Shakespeare in the Catskills Mystery

Duncan, Elizabeth J.

Genre Fiction

Dark Waters: A Raisa Jordan Thriller

Raisa "Rae" Jordan, an agent for the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service, isn't in Israel for more than a day before her predecessor is killed in a Tel Aviv square. Assigned to investigate the assassination of one of her own, she must also protect Judge Ben Taylor and his teenage daughter. They may be the sniper's next target and are most certainly being threatened by a desperate cadre of terrorists with their sights set on the Secretary of State's upcoming visit. But is an attack on the Secretary of State all that they have planned or is that just the beginning? There are no protocols for this kind of a situation, and following the rules is exactly the kind of thing that could get the Taylors killed. To subvert an attack that could crush the fledgling peace in the Middle East, Jordan must trust her instincts and bring together a contentious team of agents from Israel, the U.S., and the Palestinian territories to uncover a conspiracy years in the making. With millions of lives hanging in the balance, Dark Waters, Chris Goff's explosive new thriller, is a series debut that mirrors global headlines and will have you frantically turning pages.

Goff, Chris

Nia Washington is an incredibly talented ballerina. She fought her way up from the streets and was nearing the pinnacle of her profession when an injury and a broken heart derailed her career. Taking a temporary job at an elite boarding school was supposed to give her time to nurse both body and soul. It was supposed to be a safe place to launch a triumphant comeback. It is anything but. Shortly after she arrives at the beautiful lakeside campus, she discovers the body of a murdered student, and her life takes a truly dark turn. It's not long before she is drawn into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with a ruthless killer. And Nia isn't the only target. She must use all of her street smarts to protect her dancers, save a wrongfully accused student, and rescue the man she loves. A stunning and suspenseful tale of passion and betrayal, Cate Holahan's Dark Turns will take readers deep into the mind of a murderer and the woman who must put an end to the killing.

Dark Turns: A Novel

Holahan, Cate

When a teenager from a wealthy suburb outside of Oakland, CA is dumped at an inner city bus stop, homicide detective Matt Sinclair catches the case. It's his first since being bumped to desk duty for a bust that went south... fast. With few leads and plenty of attention, it's the worst kind of case to help him get back up to speed. And it only gets worse as the bodies start to pile up--first at the same bus bench, then around the city. Sinclair is unable to link the victims to each other, but the killer is just getting started and time is running out on Sinclair's career, not to mention the people closest to him. With Red Line, Brian Thiem, a veteran of the Oakland police department and the Iraq war, has written a nuanced police procedural in the vein of Michael Connelly, filled with the kind of insight that could only be written by a detective who has walked the streets and lived the life.

Red Line: A Matt Sinclair Mystery

Thiem, Brian

When single mom and computer security specialist Kate Ford is suddenly and mysteriously put on administrative leave, she finds herself drawn into the drama of a lurid kidnapping case with ties to her company. Kate has enough on her plate dealing with a condition that leaves her extra-sensitive to stimuli, but the case is too juicy to leave untouched. But what begins as simple curiosity quickly leads her to the country's darkest corners of power and leaves her and her family the target of a ruthless network of war profiteers, who will stop at nothing to protect their billion-dollar interests in Hostile Witness, the first in this sharp and engaging series.

Hostile Witness: A Kate Ford Mystery

Adams, Leigh

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