Special Collections
Agatha Award
Description: Named for Agatha Christie, the Agatha Awards are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write in the cozy mystery subgenre. #award
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A Great Deliverance
by Elizabeth GeorgeTo this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders. Now into Keldale's pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a savage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside. For fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found in her best dress, an axe in her lap, seated in the old stone barn beside her father's headless corpse. Her first and last words were "I did it. And I'm not sorry. " Yet as Lynley and Havers wind their way through Keldale's dark labyrinth of secret scandals and appalling crimes, they uncover a shattering series of revelations that will reverberate through this tranquil English valley--and in their own lives as well. From the Paperback edition.
Something Wicked
by Carolyn HartEveryone--including mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance--loves Arsenic and Old Lace. But something wicked is poisoned a local summer stock production as cast members stab each other in the back and props are sabotaged. Worst of all, the star, aging Hollywood beach-blanket hunk Shane Petree, butchers his lines--while getting top billing in bed with wives and teenage daughters around town. No wonder somebody wants to draw his final curtain. With a little help from Miss Marple, Poirot, and Agatha the Bookstore Cat, a pompous prosecutor tries to pin a murder on Max, Annie's own leading man. Unless Annie can prove her darling's innocence, their wedding date's off! Invoking the tried-and-true methods of her favorite literary sleuths, Annie snoops around the greasepaint and glitter of the show-stopper scene if she doesn't watch it, because theatrical murderers never play fair.
Grime And Punishment
by Jill ChurchillWhen an unpopular cleaning lady is strangled to death with a vacuum cleaner cord, Jane Jeffry, a single mom with an eye for mysteries, finds time between PTA meetings and car pools to do some sleuthing. A widow of seven months, Jane must also delve into her past searching for clues and some meaning to what is happening in her world. Juggling 3 active children, a best friend who likes to volunteer her for things, and a handsome policeman keep Jane on her toes.
Naked Once More
by Elizabeth PetersJacqueline Kirby is writing a sequel to a blockbuster but as she's going through the late author's papers, she realizes someone wants her dead.
Bum Steer
by Nancy PickardHours after the Port Frederick Civic Foundation got wind of a highly unusual bequest: a $4 million Kansas cattle ranch, director Jenny Cain hops a flight west. She arrives at the hospital room of the gravely ill benefactor, Charles W. "Cat" Benet, to find that he's already dead. Murdered. Could charming Quentin Harlan, the ranch hand, be Cat Benet's killer? Or did Cat's estranged daughters, unhappy ex-wives and their jealous second husbands have something to do with his death?
Zero at the Bone
by Mary Willis Walker“Texas dog trainer Katherine Driscoll embarks on a perilous quest to unravel family mysteries in Walker’s gripping debut . . . harrowing.” —Publishers WeeklyWinner of the Agatha and Macavity Awards for Best First NovelIn Mary Walker’s Zero at the Bone, Katherine Driscoll is just three weeks away from disaster: foreclosure on her home and dog training business, even the sale of her beloved golden retriever, Ra. She has no hope of raising the $91,000 she so desperately needs—until the father she hasn’t seen for thirty years writes to her, offering her enough money to solve her problems . . . if she will do one thing in return.But Katherine may never learn what that is. When she arrives in Austin, she is hours too late: her father has died in a bizarre accident at the zoo where he worked. As she sifts through the cryptic notes he left behind, she finds herself caught up in terrible family secrets—and a deadly illicit trade. The more she learns, the more determined she becomes to prove her father’s death was no accident. In doing so, Katherine will make a bitter enemy—one desperate enough to kill . . . and perhaps, kill again.“Walker is terrific at goosebumps!” —The Philadelphia Inquirer“This book grabs readers from the beginning paragraphs and doesn’t let go until a satisfying conclusion . . . Katherine is a likable heroine with a gutsy intelligence that mixes well with her realistic human frailties. A gripping book.” —School Library Journal
I.O.U.
by Nancy PickardThe layered plot of the latest in the excellent Jenny Cain series (SAY NO TO MURDER) finds the Port Frederick, Mass., sleuth probing the cause of her recently deceased mother's insanity. Cain discovers that her mother's mental collapse many years before coincided with the bankruptcy of the family business. The closing of Cain Clams created considerable unemployment locally and countless enemies for the Cains--one such foe may now be trying to prevent the amateur detective from delving further into her family's past and the town's secrets. As she tracks down public mysteries, Cain unearths painful personal issues; an attempt on her life, construed as an effort at suicide, forces her to deal with the legacy of her mother's madness. Pickard masterfully resolves both plot lines in this affecting, provocative novel centering around the mystery at the heart of mother-daughter relationships.
Blanche on the Lam
by Barbara NeelyIt's hard enough making ends meet on the pittaful Blanche White earns doing day work for the Southern families of North Carolina. But when her fourth bad check lands her a jail sentence, Blanche goes on the lam. Inadvertently, she finds work at the summer home of a well to do family, the members of which have plenty of secrets of their own And when a dead body is discovered, Blanche finds herself the prime suspect. Using her wit and intelligencenot to mention the remarkably efficient old-girl network among domestic workersshe gets to work uncovering the real duller before she lands in more hot water.
Bootlegger's Daughter
by Margaret MaronUnconventional, still unwed (at the ripe old age of 34) North Carolina attorney Deborah Knott has done the unthinkable: tossed her hat into the heated race for district judge of old boy-ruled Colleton County. The only female candidate, she's busy defending indigent clients and reeling in voters. Then suddenly, the young daughter of Janie Whitehead begs her to help solve Janie's senseless, never-solved, eighteen-year-old murder. Deborah takes on the case: following twisted, typically Southern bloodlines, turning up dangerous, decades-old secrets, and inspiring someone to go on an all-out campaign to derail her future--political and otherwise. But it will take more than sleazy smear tactics to scare this determined steel magnolia off the scent of down-home deceit...even in a town where a cool slug of moonshine made by Deborah's father can go down just as smoothly as a cold case of triple murder.
Edgar Allen Poe Award Winner.
Track of the Cat
by Nevada BarrAnna Pigeon takes a job as a park ranger looking for peace in the wilderness-but finds murder instead.
Dead Man's Island
by Carolyn G. HartHart, whose fanciful Death on Demand series captured every major mystery award, debuts a sassy, sixtyish new sleuth: former journalist, crime writer and amateur detective Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins. When a media magnate narrowly escapes a murder plot, he enlists Henrie O's help in uncovering the would-be murderer.
Do Unto Others
by Jeff AbbottJordan Poteet has left the big city to work as a librarian in his hometown of Mirabeau, Texas. But his dream of the quiet life is shattered when he locks horns with Miss Beta Harcher, the town's prize religious fanatic, in a battle over censorship. When Jordan finds her murdered body in the library, he becomes the prime suspect. And when the police find a cryptic list stashed next to her fanatical heart, it seems as if Beta Harcher has the whole town in a death grip . . .From the Paperback edition.
She Walks These Hills
by Sharyn MccrumbFrom School Library Journal YA?Mystery and folklore are skillfully blended in this contemporary Appalachian tale. Driving the plot are "Harm" (Hiram) Sorley, an aging prisoner suffering from recent memory loss, who receives a spiritual message to escape from prison and return home to North Carolina; history grad student Jeremy Cobb, who wants to hike the trail used by Katie Wyler in the late 1700s when she escaped from Indians who held her captive; and members of the sheriff's department who search for both of these men
The Body in the Transept
by Jeanne M. DamsDorothy, a charming amateur sleuth and widowed American, relocates to England. The Christmas service is painful as her first holiday without her husband. She stumbles over the body of Canon and finds herself in the case very much alive & sleuthing.
If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him ...
by Sharyn Mccrumb"Whenever Sharyn McCrumb suits up her amateur detective, Elizabeth MacPherson, it's pretty certain that a trip is in the offing and that something deadly funny will happen on the road. " --The New York Times Book Review Now, the author of She Walks These Hills brings her storytelling gifts to a novel about crimes committed a century apart. For forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson, solving mysteries hardly seems the fun it used to be--even if she is the official private investigator for her brother Bill's fledgling Virginia law firm. Then Bill and his feminist firebrand partner, A. P. Hill, take on two complex cases that will require Elizabeth's special participation. Eleanor Royden, a perfect lawyer's wife for twenty years, has shot her ex-husband and his beautiful late-model wife in cold blood. And Donna Jean Morgan finds herself married to a Bible-thumping bigamist who has the nerve to die in circumstances that implicate his wife. A. P. does her damnedest for Eleanor, an abused wife in denial, and Bill gallantly defends Donna Jean. Meanwhile, Elizabeth's forensic expertise, including her special knowledge of poisons, gives her the most challenging case of her career. As questions of wife abuse and abandonment emerge in the court of public opinion, Elizabeth becomes a war correspondent in the battle of the sexes--a battle as old as the hills and unlikely to reach a truce any time soon. . . .
Murder on a Girls' Night Out
by Anne GeorgeA Different Kind of Sister ActPatricia Anne -- "Mouse" -- is respectful, respectable, and demure, a perfect example of genteel Southern womanhood. Mary Alice -- "Sister" -- is big, brassy, flamboyant, and bold. Together they have a knack for finding themselves in the center of some of Birmingham's most unfortunate unpleasantness.Country Western is red hot these days, so overimpulsive Mary Alice thinks it makes perfect sense to buy the Skoot 'n' Boot bar -- since that's where the many-times-divorced "Sister" and her boyfriend du jour like to hang out anyway. Sensible retired schoolteacher Patricia Anne is inclined to disagree -- especially when they find a strangled and stabbed dead body dangling in the pub's wishing well. The sheriff has some questions for Mouse and her sister Sister, who were the last people, besides the murderer, of course, to see the ill-fated victim alive. And they had better come up with some answers soon -- because a killer with unfinished business has begun sending them some mighty threatening messages...
Detecting Women 2
by Willetta L. HeisingIf you love the Fantastic Fiction website, you'll love Detecting Women 2. It's a small book of lists of series of women detectives with the authors and the books in the series. More than 600 series detectives created by women. Over 3400 mystery titles in correct series order.
Up Jumps the Devil
by Michael Poore“The sustained comedy in this hilarious novel is equaled only by its heart, and the myriad ways there are for it to break. I love this book. Michael Poore writes like an angel.”—Daniel Wallace, author of Big FishJohn Scratch, the Devil himself, is the protagonist in this stunningly imaginative, sharp, funny, and tender novel, as he tricks, teases, and prods America to greatness in the hope of luring his lost love back down to Earth from Heaven. Up Pops the Devil is fiction with humor and heart, the kind of hilarious, off-beat, and original reading experience that fans of Chris Moore, Joe Hill, Chuck Palahniuk, and Jim Shepard would sell their souls for—a brilliant blending of the occult and the outrageous starring the anti-hero of anti-heroes, the one and only Prince of Darkness.
The Salaryman's Wife
by Sujata MasseyWinner of the Agatha Award."Sujata Massey blasts her way into fiction with The Salaryman's Wife, a cross-cultural mystery of manners with a decidedly sexy edge."-- Janet EvanonichJapanese-American Rei Shimura is a 27-year-old English teacher living in one of Tokyo's seediest neighborhoods. She doesn't make much money, but she wouldn't go back home to California even if she had a free ticket (which, thanks to her parents, she does.) She's determined to make it on her own. Her independence is threatened however, when a getaway to an ancient castle town is marred by murder.Rei is the first to find the beautiful wife of a high-powered businessman, dead in the snow. Taking charge, as usual, Rei searches for clues by crashing a funeral, posing as a bar-girl, and somehow ending up pursued by police and paparazzi alike. In the meantime, she attempts to piece together a strange, ever-changing puzzle—one that is built on lies and held together by years of sex and deception.The first installment in the Rei Shimura series, The Salaryman's Wife is a riveting tale of death, love, and sex, told in a unique cross-cultural voice.
The Doctor Digs A Grave (Dr. Fenimore Mysteries)
by Robin HathawayHathaway introduces sleuth cardiologist Dr. Andrew Fenimore, whose expert medical knowledge helps unravel the mysterious death of a Lenape woman. When Fenimore spots a street kid named Horatio unsuccessfully trying to bury his dead cat in a public park on Philadelphia's affluent Society Hill, he befriends the youth and offers to help him lay his pet to rest in what is rumored to be an ancient burial ground of the Lenape. Descendants of this East Coast tribe still live in the eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey area. While burying the animal, the doctor and Horatio stumble upon the body of a young girl who is buried in an upright position facing east as is traditional with the Lenape. From this curious discovery, Hathaway's novel weaves the forgotten culture of this tribe, the doctor's unconventional avocation as a P.I., and a cast of lovable but eccentric characters into a well-crafted tale of suspense. -Amazon.com
Butchers Hill
by Laura LippmanTess Monaghan has finally made the move and hung out her shingle as a p.i.-for-hire, complete with an office in Butchers Hill. Maybe it's not the best address in Baltimore, but you gotta start somewhere, and Tess's greyhound Esskay has no trouble taking marathon naps anywhere there's a roof. Then in walks Luther Beale, the notorious vigilante who five years ago shot a boy for vandalizing his car. Just out of prison, he says he wants to make reparations to the kids who witnessed his crime, so he needs Tess to find them. But once she starts snooping, the witnesses start dying. Is the "Butcher of Butchers Hill" at it again? Like it or not, Tess is embroiled in a case that encompasses the powers that-be, a heartless system that has destroyed the lives of children, and a nasty trail of money and lies leading all the way back to Butchers Hill.
Murder with Peacocks
by Donna AndrewsMeg is given the difficult task of coordinating three of her friends' weddings. Her situation becomes more difficult when people begin to be murdered.
Mariner's Compass
by Earlene FowlerTo claim an inheritance that a mysterious stranger left her, Benni must delve into the secrets of her own past--and a place she once called home.
Death On A Silver Tray
by Rosemary StevensIn the days of Regency England, Beau Brummell stood as the uncrowned king of genteel society. The quintessential style-maker, trend-setter, and fashion-forger, Brummell was the last person one would expect to find in the middle of a murder mystery. But then, Beau Brummell was never one to do what was expected. When the Duchess of York begs for his help, Beau Brummell wouldn't think of refusing. The Countess of Wrayburn has been poisoned, and her paid companion is the prime suspect. Unfortunately, the Duchess is the one who arranged the young woman's employment with the late Countless, and the scandal could ruin the Duchess' good name.