"Finely ladled suspense," says the Sun-Sentinel about the complex flavor of Ellen Crosby's debut mystery set in the wealthy Blue Ridge wine country of northern Virginia, where vineyard heiress Lucie Montgomery must find a killer or lose her cherished family heritage.
Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harrisby Charlaine Harris
Lily Bard is a loner. Fiercely protective of her independence, she concentrates on her karate skills and her work as the proprietor of a cleaning and errand-running service, and pays little attention to the town around her. When her landlord is murdered, though, she looks like the prime suspect. Uncovering the real killer may be the only way to prove her innocence, and Lily realizes that she must focus on the other residents of tiny Shakespeare.
A serial killer is on the loose in Boston. The victims are killed in a particularly nasty way: cut with a scalpel on the stomach, the intestines and uterus removed, and then the throat slashed. The killer obviously has medical knowledge and has been dubbed "the Surgeon" by the media. Detective Thomas Moore and his partner Rizzoli of the Boston Homicide Unit have discovered something that makes this case even more chilling. Years ago in Savannah a serial killer murdered in exactly the same way.
Still relatively fresh out of J-school but already a hot scribe at the New York Gazette, Henry Parker (from Pinter's The Mark) files another hair-raising story in the Big Bad Apple. This time the juicy journo's on the trail of the Boy, a sharpshooting serial killer who kills his prey using an antique Winchester 1873, the gun that won the West. The first victim is celebrity diva Athena Paradis, and the killer leaves a note quoting a piece of Henry's. Henry's research reveals a bizarre connection between Henry and a long-dead outlaw of the American West, and, as victims pile up, Henry wonders if the Boy is out for vengeance.
Australia's stark Outback, with its ferocious crocodiles, eccentric opal miners, savage koala's, bloodthirsty wild pigs, cantankerous camels and voracious beer drinkers, still remains to be tamed. But not by Kenneth Cook In the Killer Koala he has put together a selection of hilarious stories culled from his own experiences while travelling all over Australia, from the red desserts and jungles to remote parts of the Barrier Reef.
