P.I.'s in Print A to H

A TO H

July 9, 2008

Barton, Beverly. THE MURDER GAME. Zebra Books pbo. February '08. $6.99. "New Game. The game is simple - he is the Hunter. They are the Prey. He gives them a chance to escape. To run. To hide. To outsmart him. But eventually, he catches them. And that's when the game gets really terrifying... New Rules. Private investigator Griffin Powell and FBI agent Nicole Baxter know a lot about serial killers - they took one down together. But this new killer is as sadistic as they've ever seen. He likes his little games, and he especially likes forcing Nic and Griff to play along. Every unsolvable clue, every posed victim, every taunting phone call - it's all part of his twisted, elaborate plan. And then the Hunter calls, wanting to know if they're really ready to play... But Winner Still Kills All... There's a new game now, and it's much more deadly than the first. A brutal psychopath needs a worthy adversary. He won't stop until he can hunt the most precious prey of all - Nicole. And with his partner in a killer's sights, Griff is playing for the biggest stakes of his life."

Bowen, Rhys. TELL ME, PRETTY MAIDEN. Minotaur Books. March '08. $23.95. "It's wintertime in New York, and for the first time since Irish immigrant Molly Murphy started her early-twentieth-century detective agency, she is completely snowed in with work. While she's proving to be quite the entrepreneur and is very much in demand by some of Broadway's brightest stars and Fifth Avenue's richest families, she has to grudgingly admit that if she's going to work more than one case at a time, then she's going to need some help. Molly's beau, the recently and wrongly suspended police captain Daniel Sullivan, would make an ideal associate, but before they can agree on the terms of his employment, they stumble upon a young woman lying unconscious in the middle of a snow-covered Central Park. When the woman wakes up she is disorientated and has and lost her ability to speak, the authorities are about to pack her off to an insane asylum when Molly can't help but step in and take on yet another case. Lively and colorful, full of absorbing historical detail and delightful characters, TELL ME, PRETTY MAIDEN is another gem in Rhys Bowen's multiple award-winning series."

Bush, Nancy (aka Nancy Kelly). ELECTRIC BLUE. Kensington Books. September '07. $6.99. Second in the series. "Some days are just weird city. Take today. Jane Kelly, thirty- something ex-bartender and current process server, is dutifully putting in slave-labor hours working for Dwayne Durbin, local 'information specialist' (i.e., a private investigator), and on the road to becoming a P.I. herself. Next thing she knows she's socializing with eccentric rich people who have a penchant for going crazy and/or dying in specatularly mysterious ways. A little back story.... Jane's usual motto in life is never trust anyone too handsome. But she's willing to make an exception when Jasper 'Jazz' Purcell, son of Lake Chinook's wealthiest and most famously eccentric family, comes to ask for her help. Sexy, loaded, and charming, the guy's a real catch. It seems the Purcell matriarch, Orchid, is in her eighties and losing her marbles. And since she controls the family fortune, that could be a bad thing. What Jazz needs is somebody from the outside to convince his grandmother to give up control. Somebody neutral. Somebody...with a dog. Orchid likes dogs. And that's how Jane and her pub, The Binkster, end up at Estate Creep-O-Rama, babysitting a dotty old lady, surrounded by a clan so hostile they make 'Survivor' look like a hug-fest. From what Jane can tell, the Purcell family all want Orchid's money; they all hate each other (but not as much as the hate Jane); and they're all hiding some pretty big secrets. And when Orchid turns up in a pool of blood on Jane's watch, the free-for-all has just begun. Diving into the Purcell family history leads Jane on some hair-raising twists and turns through mental illness, greed, deception, betrayal, and lies - including, but not limited to several mysterious deaths, two car accidents, a depressed guy who paints knives, one creepy playhouse, a family member packed off to an asylum, illegitimate birth, and a flamboyant prodigal daughter with great legs and her sights set on Dwayne, who seems only too happy to play along. And when Jane finds the second body, it seems weird city is about to get even weirder...and a lot more deadly...."

Bush, Nancy (aka Nancy Kelly). ULTRAVIOLET. Kensington Press. November '07. $19.95. "For process server-turned-private investigator, Jane Kelly, weddings are murder. Usually that's a metaphor, but for newly minted P.I. Jane Kelly, it's fast becoming an all-too-accurate nightmare. Roland Hatchmere, plastic surgery magnate, has been found murdered just before his daughter's society wedding. The weapon is a wedding gift: a heavy, silver serving tray. The prime suspect is Roland's ex-wife #2: Violet 'Ultraviolet' Purcell, she of the eccentric-bordering-on-insane Purcell clan. Violet insists that she's completely innocent. After all, Roland was her absolute favorite ex-husband. And she was nowhere NEAR him at the time of the murder. Well, okay, technically she did meet him for a little pre-nup, bedroom tete-a-tete just before. And they did have a huge fight. And she did hit him with the tray. But just once. Honest. So could Jane just hurry up and prove her innocence? Sure. That should be easy. Let's just file this one under '12 Kinds of Crazy.' But when Jane's boss, the temporarily sidelined Dwayne, is convinced Violet's telling the truth, well, there's nothing for Jane to do but take her lovable, misfit pug, Binky, and sniff out a few clues. Everywhere Jane and The Binkster look, there's a suspect odder than the last, including two grown, very troubled kids, an ex-wife strung out on Botox and a current wife who's a cross between Donna Reed and a sex kitten - all of them eager to blame Roland's death on Violet. It doesn't help that Violet's story keeps changing faster than a celebrity's hair extensions. To make matters worse, Dwayne's convalescence is turning him into Jimmy Stewart in 'Rear Window,' complete with binoculars, and he's convinced there is something very bad going down in the private houses across Lakewood Bay, something that needs Jane and Binky's close attention. Faster than she can say, 'I took criminology courses for this?', Jane is up to her eyeballs in lies, secrets, Extreme Botox, New Wave bands, truck-stop coffee kiosks (don't ask), very good scones, Junior League, wedding bandits, high school sociopaths, Plastic Pet Cemetery (don't ask, part II), a budding attraction to her boss, the Millionaire's Club, and someone who would kill to keep the past buried. The deeper Jane digs, the less she wants to know. Every truth leads her deeper into danger, and soon, Jane wonders if her first official case might also be her last...and if the client she's been asked to clear just might be the coldest black widow of all...." Available in paperback. September '08. $6.99.

Crais, Robert. CHASING DARKNESS. Simon & Schuster. July '08. $25.95. "Its fire season, and the hills of Los Angeles are burning. When police and fire department personnel rush door to door in a frenzied evacuation effort, they discover the week-old corpse of an apparent suicide. But the gunshot victim is less gruesome than what they find in his lap: a photo album of seven brutally murdered young women - one per year, for seven years. And when the suicide victim is identified as a former suspect in one of the murders, the news turns Elvis Cole's world upside down. Three years earlier Lionel Byrd was brought to trial for the murder of a female prostitute named Yvonne Bennett. A taped confession coerced by the police inspired a prominent defense attorney to take Byrds case, and Elvis Cole was hired to investigate. It was Cole's eleventh-hour discovery of an exculpatory videotape that allowed Lionel Byrd to walk free. Elvis was hailed as a hero. But the discovery of the death album in Byrd's lap now brands Elvis as an unwitting accomplice to murder. Captured in photographs that could only have been taken by the murderer, Yvonne Bennett was the fifth of the seven victims - two more young women were murdered after Lionel Byrd walked free. So Elvis can't help but wonder did he, Elvis Cole, cost two more young women their lives? Shut out of the investigation by a special LAPD task force determined to close the case, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike desperately fight to uncover the truth about Lionel Byrd and his nightmare album of death - a truth hidden by lies, politics, and corruption in a world where nothing is what it seems to be." Simultaneous release on Audio CD from Brilliance Audio. Abridged edition.

Crais, Robert. THE WATCHMAN. Pocket Star. February '08. $7.99. "The city was hers for a single hour, just the one magic hour, only hers. Larkin Conner Barkley lives like the City of Angels is hers for the taking. Young and staggeringly rich, she speeds through the city during its loneliest hours, blowing through red after red in her Aston Martin as if running for her life. Until out of nowhere a car appears, and with it the metal-on-metal explosion of a terrible accident. Dazed, Larkin attempts to help the other victims. And finds herself the sole witness in a secret federal investigation. For maybe the first time in her life, Larkin wants to do the right thing. But by agreeing to cooperate with the authorities, she becomes the target for a relentless team of killers. And when the U.S. Marshals and the finest security money can buy can't protect her, Larkin's wealthy family turns to the one man money can't buy - Joe Pike. Pike lives a world away from the palaces of Beverly Hills. He's an ex-cop, ex-Marine, ex-mercenary who owes a bad man a favor, and that favor is to keep Larkin alive. The one upside of the job is reuniting with Bud Flynn, Pike's LAPD training officer, and a man Pike reveres as a father. The downside is Larkin Barkley, who is the uncontrollable cover girl for self-destruction - and as deeply alone as Pike. Pike commits himself to protecting the girl, but when they immediately come under fire, he realizes someone is selling them out. In defiance of Bud and the authorities, Pike drops off the grid with the girl and follows his own rules of survival: strike fast, hit hard, hunt down the hunters. With the help of private investigator Elvis Cole, Pike uncovers a web of lies and betrayals, and the stunning revelation that even the cops are not who they seem. As the body count rises, Pike's biggest threat might come from the girl herself, a lost soul in the City of Angels, determined to destroy herself unless Joe Pike can teach her the value of life...and love."

Eichler, Selma. MURDER CAN CRASH YOUR PARTY. Signet Books. June '08. $6.99. "Full-figured Manhattan P.I. Desiree Shapiro doesn't like public speaking - so she's surprised when her talk at a mystery writers' convention is a hit. But she receives an even bigger surprise when eccentric author Belle Simone approaches her with a truly bizarre proposition. If Desiree can solve the mystery in Belle's yet unpublished novel, she'll be paid $24,940! Desiree is engrossed by Belle's story of adultery and murder. But the real mystery is: why someone would pay her such an exorbitant sum to solve a homicide that exists only on paper?"

Evanovich, Janet. PLUM LUCKY. St. Martin's Press. February '08. $17.95. "Looking to get lucky? Stephanie Plum is back between-the-numbers and she's looking to get lucky in an Atlantic City hotel room, in a Winnebago, and with a brown-eyed stud who has stolen her heart. Stephanie Plum has a way of attracting danger, lunatics, oddballs, bad luck...and mystery men. And no one is more mysterious than the unmentionable Diesel. He's back and hot on the trail of a little man in green pants who's lost a giant bag of money. Problem is, the money isn't exactly lost. Stephanie's Grandma Mazur has found it, and like any good Jersey senior citizen, she's hightailed it in a Winnebago to Atlantic City and hit the slots. With Lula and Connie in tow, Stephanie attempts to bring Grandma home, but the luck of the Irish is rubbing off on everyone: Lula's found a job modeling plus-size lingerie. Connie's found a guy. Diesel's found Stephanie. And Stephanie has found herself in over her head with a caper involving thrice-stolen money, a racehorse, a car chase, and a bad case of hives. Plum Lucky is an all-you-can-eat buffet of thrills, chills, shrimp cocktail, plus-size underwear, and scorching hot men. It's a between-the-numbers treat no Evanovich fan will want to miss!" Available in paperback. January '09. $6.99.

Goldberg, Lee. MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS. Signet Books. February '08. $6.99. "Fourth in the all-new series of original mysteries starring Adrian Monk, the brilliant investigator who always knows when something's out of place. Now that her ne'er-do-well husband has been arrested for murder, Monk's former assistant, Sharona, is ready to reclaim her place in Monk's extremely well-ordered life. But his current assistant, Natalie, is not pleased with this turn of events. While Monk tries to maintain a delicate balance between the two women, he discovers a few snags in the case against Sharona's husband. And with other murders to investigate, Monk realizes he may be up against a killer who not only understands him, but is one step ahead."

Grafton, Sue. T IS FOR TRESPASS. Putnam. January '08. $26.95. A Kinsey Millhone Mystery. "tres-pass\'trespes\ n: a transgression of law involving one's obligations to God or to one's neighbor; a violation of moral law; an offense; a sin - Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, Unabridged. In what may be her most unsettling novel to date, Sue Grafton's T IS FOR TRESPASS is also her most direct confrontation with the forces of evil. Beginning slowly with the day-to-day life of a private eye, Grafton suddenly shifts from the voice of Kinsey Millhone to that of Solana Rojas, introducing readers to a chilling sociopath. Rojas is not her birth name. It is an identity she cunningly stole, an identity that gives her access to private caregiving jobs. The true horror of the novel builds with excruciating tension as the reader foresees the awfulness that lies ahead. The suspense lies in whether Millhone will realize what is happening in time to intervene. Though set in the late eighties, T IS FOR TRESPASS could not be more topical: identity theft; elder abuse; betrayal of trust; the breakdown in the institutions charged with caring for the weak and the dependent. It reveals a terrifying but all-too-real rip in the social fabric. Once again, Grafton opens up new territory with startling results." Available in paperback. Berkley Books. December '08. $7.99.

Greenlaw, Lindae. FISHERMAN'S BEND. Hyperion. July '08. $24.95. "When former Miami homicide detective Jane Bunker left her big-city life for Green Haven, Maine, she thought she was also leaving behind the pollution, noise, and dead bodies. Well, as any New Englander will tell you, two out of three ain't bad. After solving a murder and surviving a couple of attempts on her life (recounted in the bestselling mystery SLIPKNOT), Jane Bunker believes she's finally earned a respite from murder and intrigue. But if she thinks it's time for her to soak up the peace and quiet she's been seeking, she should think again. On her way back from a routine investigation into some smashed equipment, Jane takes a moment to appreciate the beauty of a Maine autumn - there's the sublime rainbow foliage of the highlands, the serene reflections of the setting sun on the bay's gentle waves, the elegant silhouette of a lobster boat on the bay. But her calm lasts only as long as it takes for Jane to make the chilling discovery that the vessel is in serious trouble with nobody aboard - and that its owner has vanished without a trace... And that's the least of the mysteries. A young mariner dead of a heroin overdose; the real agenda of a charismatic Indian leader; a missing bait iron and a corpse painted red - nothing is what it seems. FISHERMAN'S BEND brings us Greenlaw's pitch-perfect ear for all things maritime. From the eccentric denizens of little Green Haven - Audrey, the punk rock waitress, the delightful Vickersons with their all-mussel cookbook - to the dark undercurrents that run beneath this seemingly idyllic coastal village, Greenlaw's flair for combining humor and Down East flavor with roller-coaster suspense makes this a mystery that will grab you hook, line, and sinker." Simultaneous release on MP3 Audio CD from Brilliance Audio.

Haines, Carolyn. HAM BONES. Kensington Books. July '08. $6.99. "Carolyn Haines's Southern Belle mysteries kick sleuthing up a notch with Sarah Booth Delaney, the sassiest heroine this side of the Mississippi.... Displaced from its New Orleans venue, a red-hot touring production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is opening right in the heart of Zinnia, and featuring hunky star Graf Mileau! Sarah Booth, who had her own brief stint with Mileau, is less than thrilled. Graf is now linked with his costar, Renata Troviola, a dyed-in-the-wool diva who plans to ride Graf's coattails all the way to Hollywood. But Renata's trip to the top comes to a screeching halt on the play's second night, when someone laces her lipstick with cyanide. It seems Renata was stirring up plenty of drama behind the scenes, making enemies galore: her long-suffering makeup artist, an extremely harsh critic, an angry audience member...even boy toy Graf had a motive. But the most damning evidence points to Sarah. Now, to save her reputation, Sarah reckons she'll have to bring the curtain down on a mystery with more twists and turns than the Old Muddy...."

Harris, Charlaine. AN ICE COLD GRAVE. Berkley Prime Crime. October '07. $23.95. Third in the Harper Connelly series. "Hired to find a boy gene missing in Doraville, North Carolina, Harper Connelly and her brother Tolliver head there - only to discover that the boy was only one of several who had disappeared over the previous five years. All of them teenagers. All unlikely runaways. All calling for Harper. Harper soon finds them - eight victims, buried in the half-frozen ground, all come to an unspeakable end. Afterwards, what she most wants to do is collect her fee and get out of town ahead of the media storm that's soon to descend. But when she's attacked and prevented from leaving, she reluctantly becomes a part of the investigation as she learns more than she cares to about the dark mysteries and long-hidden secrets of Doraville - knowledge that makes her the next person likely to rest in an ice-cold grave." Available in paperback. October '08. $7.99.

Harrison, Kim. FOR A FEW DEMONS MORE. Eos Books. December '07. $7.99. Fifth in the Hollows series. In this entry, witch/bounty hunter Rachel Morgan is up against serial killers. "Despite dating one vampire and living with another, Rachel Morgan has always managed to stay just ahead of trouble...until now. A fiendish serial killer stalks the Hollows, claiming victims across society, and the resulting terror ignites a vicious Inderland gang war. And while the ancient artifact Rachel is hiding may be the key to stopping the murderer, revealing it could also create a battle to the death among the numerous supernatural races that live in and around Cincinnati. For every action has its price, and when the vampire master Piscary is set free and the demonic Algaliarept dares to walk openly under the sun, even Rachel Morgan can't hide forever."

Hughes, Declan. THE PRICE OF BLOOD: An Irish Novel of Suspense. William Morrow. April '08. $24.95. "What's in a name? Apparently everything for Ed Loy, because that's the only information Father Vincent Tyrrell, brother of prominent racehorse trainer F.X. Tyrrell, offers when he asks for Ed's help in finding a missing person. Even the best private eye needs more than just a name, but hard times and a dwindling bank account make it difficult for Loy to say no. He is not without luck, however. While working another case, Loy discovers a phone number that seems linked to F.X. found on an unidentified body. Thinking it more than a coincidence, he begins digging into the history of the Tyrrells - a history consumed with trading and dealing, gambling and horse breeding - and soon realizes there is more to the family than meets the eye, a suspicion confirmed when two more people with connections to the Tyrrells are killed. On the eve of one of Ireland's most anticipated sporting events, the four-day Leopardstown Race-course Christmas Festival, all bets are off as Loy pursues a twisted killer on the final leg of a reckless master plan. In THE PRICE OF BLOOD, Declan Hughes once again paints an arresting portrait of an Ireland not found in any guidebooks. Deadly passions beget dark secrets in a chilling story that will have readers on edge right up to its shocking conclusion."

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