Visar resultat för..."Felony Mayhem"

With World War II only barely in the rear view mirror, New York apartments are scarcer than hen’s teeth.Janice Cameron has moved to the City to be a writer, trading Honolulu’s sun and flowers for Manhattan in the grip of icy winter. She’s imagined her own cunning little flat, a little table by the window, a little lace cloth...fat chance! Her own flat is completely out of the question, and in fact she’s going to have to share a boarding-house bedroom with a perfect stranger.At least the stranger is perfect: Lily Wu is beautiful, exquisitely dressed, and swathed in mystery. But Janice hasn’t even unpacked before a rather less exquisite mystery intrudes. True, the handyman wasn’t brilliant at maintaining the boiler, but murder seems a rather extreme response.In the best Golden Age tradition, the rooming house is crammed with intriguing suspects, from the tortured musician to the French emigree to the actress with a face for radio. Lily and Janice would much prefer to leave, but they’ve nowhere to go. Solving the murder seems the best possible option, especially since if someone were arrested and taken away...well, that would free up a room, now wouldn’t it?

Hawaii just after the war is an unspoiled paradise. Any mystery fan can tell you that won’t last. Aloha! It's 1950, and the SS Lurline is steaming into Honolulu harbor. On board are Janice Cameron, coming to celebrate the novel she's written about Hawaii; a boatload of tourists eager to get their leis on; and a few people who are not what they seem. Watching them all—and missing nothing—is the beautiful and enigmatic Lily Wu. Like Janice, she's coming home: While they may have met in New York, they're both Hawaii girls of long standing. But while Janice may be surprised by the changes that the tourists (and their money) have brought to her beloved islands, very little surprises Lily. Which is lucky for Janice, as those surprises get ugly very fast.

We do love a man in a uniform, but the "Constables" in question are not policemen but paintings-the landscapes, specifically, of the 19th-century painter John Constable. Agatha Troy (the artist wife, you'll remember, of Inspector Alleyn) has a special fondness for Constable's work, so she jumps at the chance to take a river-cruise through "Constable Country" in the east of England. Her enthusiasm dims a little when it becomes clear that the ticket became available at the last minute only because a previous passenger was murdered in his cabin-and murdered, it seems, by a notorious international criminal known as the "Jampot." (How we long for the days when notorious international criminals had really cute names.)

It's 1972, and while Elton John and Alice Cooper may be topping the charts, Inspector Alleyn's latest case is set in that most gloriously retro environment: The country-house party. A Christmas party, as it happens, where Agatha Troy is enjoying the local holiday pageant and also painting the host's portrait. The painting's coming along fine, but the pageant goes a little pear-shaped when one of the players disappears. Could one of the party's eccentric guests (are there any other kind?) have been involved? Or-perhaps more likely-could the finger of blame come to rest on one of the manor-house servants, each of whom happens to be a recent prison parolee? What luck! Inspector Alleyn is on hand to wrap up the questions into the perfect Christmas parcel.

Like The Gracie Allen Murder Case before it, Winter was first written as a screenplay, in this case a vehicle for the figure skater Sonja Henie. However, while Allen’s scatterbrained persona made a charming foil for Philo’s stuffed-shirt pretensions, Ms. Henie provided no such inspiration. Van Dine did not live long enough to see her outed as a Nazi supporter, but her ice-princess act offered less for Philo to play against. It should be noted that Winter was published posthumously to close out the series, and though it went to press without Van Dine’s usual repeated revisions, it is true vintage Philo—utterly distinctive in style and its own very genuine kind of pleasure.

It’s tough to be a preacher’s kid, and for Leo Stanhope it may be harder than for most. He was born Charlotte, and in the Reverend Pritchard’s home—as in all of Victoria’s England—there is little room for persons unwilling to know their place and stick to it. And things are about to get harder: There’s a gentleman who knows the secret that could get Leo locked up for life, and this so-called gentleman is not above a spot of blackmail. There is a bright spot, though, in the form of two little kids who are teaching Leo’s heart to open again, after a wretched year. In warming to them, he realizes how much more he has to learn. Leo knows how to be a man. Now he must learn to be a father.

In this, his third adventure, Professor Andrew Basnett takes a brief break from his usual stomping grounds in the Little English Village, opting to spend Christmas in a Small Australian City instead. He’s visiting Tony, an old colleague with a newish wife, and he’s barely had a post-flight snack before he’s made aware of a cloud hanging over the marriage. Jan, Tony’s bride, is widely believed to have bashed her first husband over the head, and though she was acquitted of the murder, Tony himself is starting to have uncomfortable second thoughts. Things don’t get any more comfortable when, at a family dinner, one of the guests is done in, killed with a chunk of the same crystal that put paid to Jan’s first husband. And Jan herself? She’s disappeared. Only the Professor, it would seem, can banish the clouds of distrust and reveal the truth, clear as crystal.

Andrew Basnett may be retired from academia, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped his former colleagues from dumping problems in his lap. This time around it’s the peppery Constance Camm, whose neighbors keep disappearing. Miss Camm and her sister, Mollie, might be tempted to shrug things off, were it not for a frightening letter. “I know where you buried the body,” says the letter, but…to which disappeared neighbor does the letter refer? And why was it sent to Mollie, who hasn’t been burying anything? Spurred by a desire to help a friend (and—admit it!—by his own curiosity), Professor Basnett starts poking around. But his efforts uncover more than one village skeleton, and they may call up more than anyone has bargained for.

Weddings can bring out the worst in people. . . . “For those who enjoy civilized mayhem, the charming Freers will be a welcome diversion.” —Kirkus Reviews   Against her better judgment, Virginia Freer has agreed to be a witness at an old friend’s second wedding―against her better judgment because the other witness is Felix, her sort-of-ex-husband. On the other hand, she does rather enjoy Felix . . . in small doses.   Thank heavens for that, because little else about the wedding is enjoyable, from the oddly unwelcoming hostess to the vicious murder of the groom’s father shortly after the spectacularly dull reception. At least the police are amusing―right out of a third-rate comedy, with their insistence that this was just a robbery gone wrong. True, some silver appears to be missing, but Felix and Virginia have (sadly) seen enough murders to know when a fellow has been deliberately whacked in the head. But nailing down the details and persuading the police will take some time. It seems Virginia is in for rather a larger dose of Felix than she bargained for . . .   Praise for the novels of E.X. Ferrars   “[An] engrossing whodunit.” —Publishers Weekly   “Fans of Agatha Christie will be pleased.” —Denver Post

A couple’s been separated for six years—but it doesn’t stop them from sleuthing together—in this British mystery by a CWA Lifetime Achievement Award winner.   Virginia Freer has had it with her sort-of-ex-husband’s taste for drama. A shopkeeper who lived in Virginia’s town has been murdered, and Felix Freer’s neighbor in London, a sweet old bird, has too. The crimes took place miles apart. But look at the coincidences, Felix insists. That unpleasant silversmith. That awful couple seeking revenge. These were not two separate murders, according to him—there is Something going on.   Virginia raises an eyebrow and sighs deeply: The world lost a second Olivier, she thinks, when Felix opted for gambling, mooching, and petty theft rather than the stage. But eventually even her relentless pragmatism gets worn down, and thank goodness, because there is, indeed, Something going on. And Felix and Virginia are just the duo to sort it out, chalk and cheese though they may be . . .    “There are few detective-story writers so consistently good.” —Sunday Times

Pretty and popular, sixteen-year-old Mariah Ebinger is the typical American teen. Well, except for the weird dreams. And the helicopter phobia. And the—OK, this is pretty strange—the ability to speak Spanish. She’s, like, never even heard Spanish! But except for that stuff, totally typical. The terrible thing is that Rolando Carrera may be typical as well. His wife and daughter murdered by the death squads in Argentina’s “dirty war,” Carrera has crossed some terrible internal line. His grief, his rage…they have blended into a toxic cocktail of obsession with one single burning aim: Kill Mariah Ebinger.

Sarah Deane is an English teacher by profession, but with these first two adventures she discovers that sleuthing—of the strictly amateur variety—may be where her truest passions lie.The first book takes Sarah, still a grad student at this point, out of her natural New England habitat and into the wilds of Texas, where her maybe-boyfriend is keen on a spot of birdwatching. But birds are not all that she spies through her binoculars, and so the adventures begin. In Down East, Sarah is glad to be back on home ground, but somebody, it appears, is not happy in any way at all, and Sarah is forced (and secretly thrilled) to put her newfound detecting skills to use again.

A comedy of manners and the odd dead bodyLondon is full of clubs. The Garrick, for example, caters to those with theatrical inclinations, the Athenaeum to eggheads. But the Asterisk may have the strictest membership regulations: Acquitted murderers only.Happily, Benjamin Cann fits the brief. Sure, he strangled Rachel Bolger with a length of pongee silk, but the jury thought different, so while Benji's old landlord may not want him back, the Asterisk gang—suave Clifford Flush (pushed ladies off trains), Mitteleuropean sexpot Lilli Cluj (crushed her husband with a bumper-car), et al.—offers a warm welcome. Benji doesn't love the thought of sharing digs with people more than usually inclined to poison the sherry, but the motherly Mrs. Barratt (dosed Mr. B with ground glass) is delighted. So nice to have fresh blood. And it will be such fun to watch him meet the neighbors!

Good breeding simply doesn’t pay the rent anymore.And while Miss Melville has bucketloads of breeding, she finds herself somewhat...lacking, shall we say, when it comes to finances. Distinctly lacking. Her rich friends are no help; they think “broke” means having to buy a smaller yacht. What is an impoverished gentlewoman to do?Become a killer for hire, of course. But Miss Melville (who prefers the term “hitwoman”) doesn’t take just any job, no matter how well paid. That kind of sordid money-grubbing is beneath contempt. No, she reserves her talents for those who...let’s say those who really deserve them. It’s true, her ancestors would roll in their graves at the thought of Miss Melville working—and for a paycheck, my dear! But finger sandwiches and opera tickets don’t come cheap: One does what one must.

New York in the 1920s is the world’s most glamorous city, and drinking it in like the finest champagne is Philo Vance, an expert in art with the deepest pockets, the brainiest brains, and the most gloriously ludicrous pretensions in the history of crime fiction.When a scheming young stockbroker is murdered—in a delicious locked-room scenario based on a real case of the day—Vance steps in to solve the puzzle not merely because he is bored and seeking new entertainment, but also because honor compels him to point out all the ways in which the police are getting it wrong. The cops of course are profoundly grateful, like all members of the lower orders when their mistakes are pointed out. Peter Wimsey would be appalled, but the reader will be delighted. Philo Vance (here in his first outing) is the sleuth you love to hate.

Clifford Flush, happily—if wrongly—acquitted of and semi-contentedly retired from the pursuit of murder, has not felt the need to off anyone in ages. Sure, he fled London when the return of the old urges left him open to a spot of blackmail, but he's been doing fine—thriving, in fact. He and the other members of the Asterisk Club, all murderers the law couldn't manage to hold, have turned the gory business of killing into a legitimate business venture: they've set up a homicide consultancy firm and are teaching discerning students the ropes (and guns, and getaways). Nice work if you can get it...or it is until one aspiring killer turns up dead on their very own premises. It's an intolerable embarrassment, and the culprit must be found out!