The Bookseller

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Who is killing the celebrated bouquinistes of Paris?

Max—an elderly Paris bookstall owner—is abducted at gunpoint. His friend, Hugo Marston, head of security at the US embassy, looks on helplessly, powerless to do anything to stop the kidnapper.

Marston launches a search, enlisting the help of semiretired CIA agent Tom Green. Their investigation reveals that Max was a Holocaust survivor and later became a Nazi hunter. Is his disappearance somehow tied to his grim history, or even to the mysterious old books he sold?

On the streets of Paris, tensions are rising as rival drug gangs engage in violent turf wars. Before long, other booksellers start to disappear, their bodies found floating in the Seine. Though the police are not interested in his opinion, Marston is convinced the hostilities have something to do with the murders of these bouquinistes.

Then he himself becomes a target of the unknown assassins.
With Tom by his side, Marston finally puts the pieces of the puzzle together, connecting the past with the present and leading the two men, quite literally, to the enemy’s lair.

Just as the killer intended.


Corrupt Practices

An attorney with courtroom stage fright must uncover the truth . . . and confront his own long-buried secrets.

Parker Stern’s legal career is on the rise. But when his mentor Harmon Cherry commits suicide, Parker begins experiencing stage fright so severe that he becomes paralyzed whenever he steps into a courtroom. Unable to work, he languishes at a coffee house that is owned by his former law partner (and occasional lover) Deanna Poulos.

His down time is interrupted when Rich Baxter, another ex-colleague, calls from jail and asks Parker to represent him. Baxter has been charged with embezzling millions from his church, a powerful cult that Parker despises. At their first meeting, Baxter surprises Parker by claiming that Harmon Cherry did not commit suicide, but was murdered by someone connected to the church. Parker doesn’t believe it until Baxter is found hanging in his cell.

Ultimately, Parker agrees to represent Baxter’s father in a lawsuit brought by the church. In the process of representing his client and uncovering the truths behind the deaths of his friends, Parker must overcome his own long-buried secrets and deep-seated fears.


Dante’s Wood

A troubled psychiatrist turns investigator when a young patient confesses to murder.

Psychiatrist Mark Angelotti knows that genes don’t lie. Or do they?

Back at work after a devastating illness, Mark believes he has put his past behind him when he is asked to examine Charlie Dickerson, a mentally handicapped teenager whose wealthy mother insists he is a victim of sexual abuse. Mark diagnoses a different reason for Charlie’s ills, but his prescription turns deadly when a teacher is murdered and Charlie confesses to the police.

Volunteering to testify on Charlie’s behalf, Mark’s worst fears are realized when paternity tests show the victim was pregnant with Charlie’s child. Now it’s up to Mark to prove Charlie’s innocence in a case where nothing is as first meets the eye.

Not even genes—Mark’s or Charlie’s—can be trusted to shine a light on the truth.


Styx & Stone

Ellie Stone is a professed modern girl in 1960s’ New York City, playing by her own rules and breaking boundaries while searching for a killer among the renowned scholars in Columbia University’s Italian Department.

“If you were a man, you’d make a good detective.”

Ellie Stone is sure that Sgt. McKeever meant that as a compliment, but that identity-a girl wanting to do a man’s job-has throttled her for too long. It’s 1960, and Ellie doesn’t want to blaze any trails for women; she just wants to be a reporter, one who doesn’t need to swat hands off her behind at every turn.

Adrift in her career, Ellie is back in New York City after receiving news that her estranged father, a renowned Dante scholar and distinguished professor, is near death after a savage bludgeoning in his home. The police suspect a routine burglary, but Ellie has her doubts. When a second attempt is made on her father’s life, in the form of an “accident” in the hospital’s ICU, Ellie’s suspicions are confirmed.

Then another professor turns up dead, and Ellie’s investigation turns to her father’s university colleagues, their ambitions, jealousies, and secret lives. Ellie embarks on a thorny journey of discovery and reconciliation, as she pursues an investigation that offers her both a chance at redemption in her father’s eyes, and the risk of losing him forever.


See Also Murder

In 1964, a grisly murder is committed in the small town of Dickinson, North Dakota.

Erik and Lida Knudsen are found murdered in their bed, their throats slit. Two grown sons-Jaeger and Peter-live in the same house, but claim to have heard nothing while asleep in their rooms. 

Sheriff Hilo Jenkins is called to the scene and discovers a strange copper amulet clasped in Erik’s hand. Knowing that his friend Marjorie Trumaine is a skilled researcher and professional indexer, Jenkins asks for her help in investigating the possible meaning of the amulet with its unusual markings.

As she gets closer to the truth, Marjorie feels increasingly threatened, knowing the killer will stop at nothing to cover his tracks.

The Survivors

Successful psychologist Cal Henderson has a busy practice in Washington, DC, good friends, and big plans for the future. But he can’t escape a terrible secret.

When he was a boy, his mother murdered his father and two brothers and severely wounded Cal’s best friend, Scottie Glass. Desperate to keep the nightmare at bay, Cal has turned his back on everything that happened that night.

Then on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the traumatic event, Scottie shows up at Cal’s office—edgy, paranoid, but somehow still the loveable kid he once was. Though their lives have taken very different paths, they both believe Cal’s mother couldn’t have been a murderer. She loved them too much, no matter what dark place she found herself in. They set off to dig up the real story.

In his search for answers he uncovers secrets about his mother’s life involving a defense contractor’s dark dealings, a nominee for U.S. Attorney with a questionable past, and a shady corporate billionaire whose sphere of influence seems to include everyone from the Pentagon on down.

Meanwhile, as Cal gets closer to discovering the truth, recovered memories of his childhood push him into a psychological tailspin.


Idyll Threats

 

 

Clean-cut Thomas Lynch is police chief of Idyll, Connecticut, where serious crimes can be counted on one hand—until Cecilia North is found murdered on the town’s golf course.

 

By chance, Chief Lynch met her mere hours before she was killed. The case should be a slam dunk. But there’s a problem. If he tells his detectives about meeting the victim, he’ll reveal his greatest secret—he’s gay. 

So Lynch works angles of the case on his own. Without the aid of fellow detectives, he is forced to seek help from unlikely allies—a Goth teen and a UFO-obsessed conspiracy theorist. Meanwhile, he must contend with pressure from the mayor to solve the crime before the town’s biggest tourist event opens, all the while coping with the suspicions of his men, casual homophobia, and difficult memories of his partner’s recent death.

During the investigation, Lynch realizes that small town Idyll isn’t safe, especially for a man with secrets that threaten the thing that he loves most—his job.


A Killing at Cotton Hill

 

A lot of people had it in for Dora Lee . . .

 

The chief of police of Jarrett Creek, Texas, doubles as the town drunk. So when Dora Lee Parjeter is murdered, her old friend and former police chief Samuel Craddock steps in. He discovers that a lot of people may have had it in for Dora Lee—the conniving rascals on the farm next door, her estranged daughter, and her live-in grandson. And then there’s that stranger Dora Lee claimed was spying on her. As Craddock digs to find the identity of the killer, the human foibles of the small-town residents—their pettiness and generosity, their secret vices and true virtues—are also revealed.