Showing results for "Spring" in Mystery

Homicide detective Mandi Murphy had seen enough bloodshed on the streets of Houston to last a lifetime. After a botched drug bust left a friend dead, she wanted out of the city. Peaceful little Sawmill Springs seemed like the perfect spot to start over. Six weeks on patrol proved the town to be as quiet and serene as she'd imagined.

A lavish weekend party, a practical joke that goes murderously wrong, and stolen state secrets all transpire in The Seven Dials Mystery, by Agatha Christie. Full of her usual sly wit this clever murder mystery is a classic detective story featuring some of the characters from an earlier novel, The Secret of Chimneys: Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent, Lord Caterham, Bill Eversleigh, George Lomax, Tredwell, and Superintendent Battle.

Poirot’s peace is disturbed when a local gentleman, Roger Ackroyd, is found murdered in his study. Clues include a vanished letter, a scrap of cambric cloth, a goose quill, and an elaborately tooled Tunisian dagger. We follow Poirot, aided by the village doctor, James Sheppard, as he traces his way through a tangle of suspects that include Ackroyd’s sister-in-law, niece, secretary, adopted son, and housemaids—all of whom appear to have motives for killing him.

Sam Pritchard, the Highway Killer from Utah, tried to kill her…but failed. Robin Hood, the winter serial killer who terrorized most of the Midwest, did kill her, and technically, Carolyn Ryder, for almost five minutes, was dead. But the woman who surgeons brought back to life on the operating table is not the same woman who was wheeled into the ER without a heartbeat. She has changed. But one thing hasn’t changed. Carolyn Ryder has some unfinished business, and it’s called Sam Pritchard. She wants to find him real bad.

Marlowe is back...and he's married to a rich, beautiful society lady who wants him to settle down in the posh desert community of Poodle Springs. Marlowe may have married rich, but old habits die hard: he's hired to recover a gambling debt and soon finds himself in a case involving bigamy, pornography and murder. The first four chapters of this final Marlowe mystery were written by noir master Raymond Chandler at the end of his life. Robert B. Parker was chosen by Chandler's estate to complete his last work.

The fourth installment in the Rocco Schiavone mystery series from the international bestselling author, Antonio Manzini picks up three days after his last novel, Out of Season, left off, as Rocco seeks revenge for a friend—and closure for himself. Rocco is still reeling from the death of his...

When Orla Macrae receives a letter asking her to return to the family cattle property where she grew up, she does so grudgingly. Her estranged uncle, Palmer, may be dying, but he is the last person she wants to see, especially since she's made a new life far away from where she lost so much. But on his deathbed he utters a few enigmatic words about a secret locked away and a clue as to its whereabouts.

Flushed with triumph on the evening of the best rodeo in the town's history, Amelia is driving the bags of cash into town when she becomes the victim of a terrifying smash and grab. Injured and distraught after her ordeal, Amelia must convince a skeptical detective that her account of what happened does add up and that he must help her track down the real culprits

On the Fourth of July, just as fireworks are about to go off in Aurora, Minnesota, Cork O'Connor and his new bride Rainy Bisonette listen to a desperate voicemail left by Rainy's son, Peter. The message is garbled and full of static, but they hear Peter confess to the murder of someone named Rodriguez. When they try to contact him, they discover that his phone has gone dead.

Paris in 1968 - seething with revolutionaries and spies - sees Will Flemyng's world turned upside down after a mysterious encounter on the metro and a chance revelation from a rival operative. In a city alive with talk of revolution, Will finds himself in the thick of the action. But now he gets news that threatens the closest and most complicated relationship in his life - the one with his younger brother.

Southern Sweden: Beautiful countryside, endless forests, coastal walks, dark days - and even darker nights. But beneath the beauty lies a dark heart... Skåne, 1986: On the night of Walpurgis, the eve of May Day, where bonfires are lit to ward off evil spirits and preparations are made to celebrate the renewal of spring, a sixteen-year-old girl is ritualistically murdered in the woods beside a castle. Her stepbrother is convicted of the terrible deed and shortly after, the entire family vanishes without a trace.

Earl Swagger is tough as hell. But even tough guys have their secrets. Plagued by the memory of his abusive father, apprehensive about his own impending parenthood, Earl is a decorated ex-Marine of absolute integrity — and overwhelming melancholy. Now he’s about to face his biggest, bloodiest challenge yet. It is the summer of 1946, organized crime’s garish golden age, when American justice seems to have gone to seed for good.

Julia Ford's dream of running a bookshop in the small Somerset town of Biddle Rhyne is fast becoming a nightmare, with the lack of traffic and high running costs. So when the door opens, she hopes it will be a wealthy customer. Rather it is a desperate man—a local accountant whom the police have fingered for murder. Having gained a reputation for solving crimes, Julia takes pity on the disheveled Mr. Cutty—even though he doesn't buy a book—and vows to help him. Yet the victim was seen arguing with Cutty, and named him in her dying breath. No wonder the police are intent on charging him.

Ranch owner Mike Drake is a fixture in Grant County, beloved and respected by friends and neighbors alike. So everyone is shocked when his prize bull is found mutilated on his property near Poison Spring, just outside the village of Kimberly. Police Sergeant Maggie Blackthorne and her partner Hollis Jones are called out to Poison Spring Ranch to investigate the slaughter—but they discover an even greater crime when they find Mike Drake himself shot to death not far from his bull’s carcass.

The best noir writers make us feel the heat of the sun, the touch of a lover. Setting can be gritty but can also be sublime, no longer relegated to urban locales and seedy hotel rooms but also mansions and swimming pools. Hence, Palm Springs, which may seem like an odd setting for a collection of dark short stories—it’s so sunny and bright here. The stories in this collection come on like the wicked dust storms common to the area.

Since attorney Avery Andrews left her high-flying law firm to return to her hometown of Dacus, there has been no end to the run-of-the-mill problems walking through her door. But Avery likes the perplexing cases. And it's been a while since she's dug into one. So she's intrigued to hear of a young woman who was found dead on a tombstone twenty years ago, her packed suitcase by her feet. Her cut throat looked like a ruby-red necklace.

We uncovered the last of the bodies in the red hour before dusk, as the sun stained the snowcaps of the Tian Shan mountains the colour of dried blood and the spring air turned sharp and cold.... Inspector Akyl Borubaev of Bishkek Murder Squad has been exiled to the far corner of Kyrgystan, but death still haunts him at every turn. Borubaev soon finds himself caught up in a mysterious and gruesome new case: several children's bodies have been found buried together - all tagged with name bands.

England, 1925. After years shut away from the world, former detective Lord Edgington of Cranley Hall plans a grand ball to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday. But when someone starts bumping off members of his scheming family, the old man enlists his teenage grandson to help find the killer, before one of them is next.

As a young woman disappears without a trace on a dark backroad in Kentucky, investigative reporter Veronica Lee works to uncover the terrifying truth behind a brutal network of online predators. When Veronica's troubled past leads the FBI to the remains of a young woman who went missing decades before, she finds herself on the trail of a killer with a chilling connection to her small Florida town. And as the desperate killer makes his final move, Veronica must find a way to stop her big story from coming to a deadly end.

A child custody battle turns deadly on a windswept winter prairie in 1878. A man begins a quixotic search for lost love in an effort to mend his shattered life. A sacred Native American shrine is about to be defiled, but not if one determined woman can stop it. These three seemingly unrelated stories collide at the Solomon Springs natural wonder held sacred for centuries because of its legendary healing properties. Murder shatters the spiritual calm that is Solomon Spring.