Liza Kelly, sudoku maven with the Oregon Daily, settled down in Maiden’s Bay to escape the Hollywood career that brought stress into her life—and her marriage. Unfortunately, the producers of Counterfeit have selected the town as the perfect location for their new film starring up-and-coming starlet Jenny Robbins—and they’ve brought in Liza’s ex-husband, Michael, to work on the script. Taking on the role of Jenny’s publicist puts Liza in the center of the action, where inflated egos and artistic temperaments clash both on set and off. But when one of the film’s major players is found buried up to the neck in sand on the Oregon shore, drowned by the incoming tide, liza finds herself investigating the cast and crew to determine who wrote this death scene.
What makes men and women commit the most heinous crimes that mankind has ever witnessed? What exactly is it that tips themover the edge? More importantly, what can be done to stop them? Drawing on his years of professional expereince and extensive research, Larence J. Simon unearths uncensored data on fatal attacks on the unsuspecting citizens of the United States. This spine-chilling anecdotal account looks into the minds of the most vicious offenders presently behind bars. 'Murder By Numbers' offers an informed psychological perspective on serial killers and mass murderers that will intrigue and horrify.
And then there was one . . . can Donald Langham and Maria Dupré stop a killer who's picking off victims one by one? December, 1956. Donald Langham's wife Maria Dupré receives a chilling invitation to attend a death at the home of Maxwell Falwell Fenton in Essex. The once-prominent artist has a number of enemies, and has faded into obscurity since the war ended. Is the invitation to his own death or someone else's? Arriving at Winterfield on a cold winter evening, Donald and Maria meet five strangers who have also received numbered invitations. They all had a reason to hate or fear Maxwell, including Maria, who reveals a secret from her own past. But is she telling the whole truth? The soiree produces a gruesome and dramatic twist, but it's about to get much worse when someone starts picking off the six, one by one. Can Donald untangle lies, betrayal, and incredible revelations to identify the killer before Maria becomes the next victim?
What is the connection between the number 13 and Jack the Ripper? Why was the number 18 crucial in catching Acid Bath murderer John George Haigh? And what is so puzzling about the number 340 in the chilling case of the Zodiac killer? The answers to all these questions and many more are revealed in a unique, number-crunching history of the ultimate crime. James Moore's Murder by Numbers tells the story of murder through the centuries in an entirely new way ... through the key digits involved. Each entry starts with a number and leads into a different aspect of murder, be it a fascinating angle to a case or revealing insights into murder methods, punishments and, of course, the chilling figures behind the most notorious killers from our past. From the grizzly death toll of the world's worst serial killer to your own odds of being murdered, this guide will appeal to the connoisseur of true crime and the casual reader alike.
This is one murder that doesn't add up... Following a spectacular business failure, Clara Mitchell returns to her coastal hometown, Lemon Tree Bay, with an inglorious thud. Living with her mum and working in a hair salon, she's determined to repay her debts and get back to glamorous city living. When she meets poker-faced accountant Lucas Pepper, sparks fly, however, their blossoming romance slips into the red as he becomes the prime suspect in the murder of his uncle. Convinced of Lucas's innocence, Clara locks horns with her ex-boyfriend - local bad boy turned police officer, Senior Constable Adam Billings. He's desperate to prove Lucas guilty and protect Clara at all costs. With evidence threatening to sink Lucas, Clara must unravel the mystery using a trusty grapevine of local gossip and her somewhat unreliable intuition. Will she save Lucas from mounting charges in time, or was Adam right all along? Murder by Numbers is the first book in the Lemon Tree Bay Mysteries - a brand-new cosy, romantic whodunit series by award-winning author, Megan Mayfair.
“It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore.”—The New York Times Book Review Introduction by David Handler It wasn’t Leonard Dykes’s writing style that offended. But something in his unpublished tome seemed to lead everyone who read it to a very unhappy ending. Now four people are dead, including the unfortunate author himself, and the police think Nero Wolfe is the only man who can close the book on this novel killer. So the genius sleuth directs his sidekick to set a trap . . . and discovers that the truth is far stranger—and far bloodier—than fiction. A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America’s greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. Together, Stout and Wolfe have entertained—and puzzled—millions of mystery fans around the world. Now, with his perambulatory man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth is back in the original seventy-three cases of crime and detection written by the inimitable master himself, Rex Stout.
A New York Times Bestseller & the Basis for the Hit Showtime Docuseries Murder in the Bayou is a New York Times bestselling chronicle of a high-stakes investigation into the murders of eight women in a troubled Southern parish that is “part murder case, part corruption exposé, and part Louisiana noir” (New York magazine). Between 2005 and 2009, the bodies of eight women were discovered in Jennings, Louisiana, a bayou town of 10,000 in the Jefferson Davis parish. The women came to be known as the Jeff Davis 8, and local law enforcement officials were quick to pursue a serial killer theory, stirring a wave of panic across Jennings’ class-divided neighborhoods. The Jeff Davis 8 had been among society’s most vulnerable—impoverished, abused, and mired with mental illness. They engaged in sex work as a means of survival. And their underworld activity frequently occurred at a decrepit motel called the Boudreaux Inn. As the cases went unsolved, the community began to look inward. Rumors of police corruption and evidence tampering, of collusion between street and shield, cast the serial killer theory into doubt. But what was really going on in the humid rooms of the Boudreaux Inn? Why were crimes going unsolved and police officers being indicted? What had the eight women known? And could anything be done do stop the bloodshed? Mixing muckraking research and immersive journalism over the course of a five-year investigation, Ethan Brown reviewed thousands of pages of previously unseen homicide files to posit what happened during each woman’s final hours delivering a true crime tale that is “mesmerizing” (Rolling Stone) and “explosive” (Huffington Post). “Brown is a man on a mission...he gives the victims more respectful attention than they probably got in real life” (The New York Times). “A must-read for true-crime fans” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), with a new afterword, Murder in the Bayou is the story of an American town buckling under the dark forces of poverty, race, and class division—and a lightning rod for justice for the daughters it lost.
Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library—she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn’t expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town . . . Addie left some painful memories behind in the big city, including the unsolved murder of her fiancé and her father’s fatal car accident. After an unexpected inheritance from a great aunt, she’s moved to a small New England town founded by her ancestors back in colonial times—and living in spacious Greyborne Manor, on a hilltop overlooking the harbor. Best of all, her aunt also left her countless first editions and other treasures—providing an inventory to start her own store. But there’s trouble from day one, and not just from the grumpy woman who runs the bakery next door. A car nearly runs Addie down. Someone steals a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Then, Addie’s friend Serena, who owns a nearby tea shop, is arrested—for killing another local merchant. The police seem pretty sure they’ve got the story in hand, but Addie’s not going to let them close the book on this case without a fight . . .
"From the prize-winning biographer--the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: can a novel kill? In May 1840, Lord William Russell, well known in London's highest social circles, was found with his throat cut. The brutal murder had the whole city talking. The police suspected Russell's valet, Courvoisier, but the evidence was weak. And the missing clue lay in the unlikeliest place: what Courvoisier had been reading. In the years just before the murder, new printing methods had made books cheap and abundant, the novel form was on the rise, and suddenly everyone was reading. The best-selling titles were the most sensational true-crime stories. Even Dickens and Thackeray, both at the beginning of their careers, fell under the spell of these tales--Dickens publicly admiring them, Thackeray rejecting them. One such phenomenon was William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard, the story of an unrepentant criminal who escaped the gallows time and again. When Courvoisier finally confessed his guilt, he would cite this novel in his defense. Murder By the Book combines the thrilling true-crime story with a illuminating account of the rise of the novel form and the battle for its early soul between the most famous writers of the time. It is a superbly researched, vividly written, fascinating read from first to last"--
