A Fondness for Truth

Honesty isn’t always the best policy in Kim Hays’ third Linder and Donatelli Mystery novel . . .

Andi Eberhart is riding her bicycle home on an icy winter night when she is killed in a hit-and-run. Her devastated partner, Nisha, is convinced the death was no accident. Andi had been receiving homophobic hate mail for several years, and the letters grew uglier after the couple’s baby was born.

Bern homicide Detective Giuliana Linder is assigned to investigate what happened to Andi. As she pieces together the details of Andi and Nisha’s lives, her assistant Renzo Donatelli looks into Andi’s job advising young men drafted into Switzerland’s civilian service. Working closely together, Giuliana and Renzo are again tempted to become more than just friendly colleagues.

As both detectives dig into Andi’s life, one thing becomes clear: Andi’s friends and family may have loved her for her honesty, but her outspokenness threatened others—perhaps enough to get rid of her.


The Strange Case of the Pharaoh’s Heart

To crack the case the time around, Sherlock Holmes must return to the place he swore he’d never revisit and face his demons . . . literally . . .

1923: In his last years, Sherlock Holmes has abandoned his strict method of logic for the practice of spiritualism, to the everlasting shame of his old friend Dr. Watson. When Lord Carnarvon dies unexpectedly, barely two months after opening the tomb of Tutankhamun, Holmes blames his death—and a string of others, from an American millionaire to an Egyptian prince, on an ancient curse. But Watson, never one for the supernatural, decides to finally part ways with the formerly great detective.

However, shortly after his departure from Holmes, Lord Carnarvon’s daughter, Lady Evelyn, approaches Watson with a plea: accompany Holmes to Tutankhamun’s tomb to uncover the truth of her father’s death, whether natural, supernatural, or cold-blooded murder. Watson reluctantly accepts the challenge. But much to his displeasure, there’s a third member of their company—Mrs. Estelle Roberts, who communicates with the dead.

Although divided by different beliefs, the trio must band together to unravel the extraordinary secret of the boy king and the treasure missing from his tomb that men have killed for. Their journey takes them from London to Monte Carlo to Cairo and Luxor, and finally to the place that haunts Sherlock Holmes’s dreams, the place he swore never to return to: the Reichenbach Falls, where the spirit of the one man he killed in his long career may be awaiting its revenge: Moriarty.


Divorce Is Murder

Toby Wong visits her quiet hometown in British Columbia, where nothing ever happens–until her old high school rival is found murdered. Shortly after returning to her sleepy hometown on Vancouver Island, Chinese-Canadian divorce lawyer Toby Wong runs into Josh Barton, who broke her heart as a teen at summer camp. Now a wealthy entrepreneur, Josh wants to divorce Tonya, the mean girl who made Toby’s life hell all those years ago. Not long after Toby takes Josh’s case, Tonya is found murdered. Josh is the prime suspect. Together with her fortune-teller mom and her pregnant best friend, Toby sets out to clear Josh, whom she still has a guilty crush on. While he seems equally smitten, can Toby trust him? The handsome cop charged with finding Tonya’s killer doesn’t think so. Since Tonya stayed in touch with everyone from that lousy summer camp, Toby keeps running into ex-campers she’d rather forget. Could one of Tonya’s catty friends be her killer? Are Toby’s old insecurities making her paranoid? Only too late does she realize that she really is in danger.