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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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.
Mastering Suspense, Structure, and Plot
by Jane ClelandEnthrall Your Readers! Suspense is one of the most powerful tools a writer has for captivating readers--but it isn't just for thrillers. From mainstream fiction to memoir, suspense creates the emotional tension that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. Mastering Suspense, Structure, & Plot is your hands-on guide to weaving suspense into your narrative. Award-winning author Jane K. Cleland teaches you how to navigate genre conventions, write for your audience, and build gripping tension to craft an irresistible page-turner. Inside, Cleland will show you how to:Implement thirteen no-fail techniques to construct an effective plot and structure for your storyUse Cleland's Plotting Road Map to add elements of suspense like twists, reversals, and moments of dangerWrite subplots with purposeImprove your descriptions, character development, sentence structure, and morePacked with case studies, exercises, and dozens of examples from best-selling authors, Mastering Suspense, Structure, & Plot is the key to writing suspenseful, engaging stories that leave your readers wanting more. ------ "Indispensable! For newbie authors and veterans alike, this terrific how-to is your new go-to. Don't write your book without it--it's a treasure." --Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity and Mary Higgins Clark award-winning author
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...
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.
Murphy's Law
by Rhys BowenRhys Bowen, author of the much-loved Constable Evans mysteries, takes on the vibrant world of turn-of-the-century Ellis Island and New York in her newest series. With delightful humor and meticulous research Bowen transports readers to the gritty underworld that swallowed new immigrants who dreamed of a better life, and gives us the unforgettable heroine Molly Murphy, a resourceful Irish woman who lives by her own set of laws... Murphy's Law Molly Murphy always knew she'd end up in trouble, just as her mother predicted. So, when she commits murder in self-defense, she flees her cherished Ireland, and her identity, for the anonymous shores of America. When she arrives in New York and sees the welcoming promise of freedom in the Statue of Liberty, Molly begins to breathe easier. But when a man is murdered on Ellis Island, a man Molly was seen arguing with, she becomes a prime suspect in the crime. Using her Irish charm and sharp wit, Molly escapes Ellis Island and sets out to find the wily killer on her own. Pounding the notorious streets of Hell's Kitchen and the Lower East Side, Molly makes it her desperate mission to clear her name before her deadly past comes back to haunt her new future.
The Mutual Admiration Society
by Mo MoultonA group biography of renowned crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers and the Oxford women who stood at the vanguard of equal rights Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking "Are Women Human?" Women's rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers's lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was not ready to concede that women were indeed fully human. Dubbing themselves the Mutual Admiration Society, Sayers and her classmates remained lifelong friends and collaborators as they fought for a truly democratic culture that acknowledged their equal humanity. A celebration of feminism and female friendship, The Mutual Admiration Society offers crucial insight into Dorothy L. Sayers and her world.
Mystery of the Haunted Cave
by Penny WarnerThirteen-year-old Becca and her friends Sierra, CJ, and Jonnie are determined to win the gold medal for Troop 13 at the Gold Rush Jamboree. But they face stiff competition from the other troops--especially Troop 7, whose members love to pull pranks on them. When a mysterious clue hints at treasure buried in Camp Miwok's Haunted Caves, Becca and her friends are determined to get their hands on that, too--even if it means sneaking from camp, hanging out with bats, and being threatened by robbers....
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.
Naughty In Nice
by Rhys BowenRoyalty has its privileges, even when you're thirty-fourth in line to the throne, as Lady Georgiana Rannoch discovers on the glamorous--and dangerous--French Riviera... Why should my clueless brother, Binky, and his decidedly disagreeable wife, Fig, be the only ones to enjoy the fun and sun of the French Riviera? Thankfully, Her Majesty the Queen has once again come to my rescue. She is sending me off to Nice with a secret assignment--recover her priceless, stolen snuff box from the disreputable Sir Toby Groper. Her Majesty's trust is an honor, but an even greater honor is bestowed upon me in Nice--none other than Coco Chanel herself asks me to model her latest fashion. Unfortunately, things go disastrously wrong on the catwalk and before I can snatch the snuff box, someone's life is snuffed out in a very dastardly way. With a murderer on the loose--and my dearest Darcy seen in the company of another woman--how's a girl to find any time to go to the casino?
One Night Gone
by Tara Laskowski“A subtly but relentlessly unsettling novel.” —TANA FRENCH, author of The Witch ElmIt was the perfect place to disappear...One sultry summer, Maureen Haddaway arrives in the wealthy town of Opal Beach to start her life anew—to achieve her destiny. There, she finds herself lured by the promise of friendship, love, starry skies, and wild parties. But Maureen’s new life just might be too good to be true, and before the summer is up, she vanishes.Decades later, when Allison Simpson is offered the opportunity to house-sit in Opal Beach during the off-season, it seems like the perfect chance to begin fresh after a messy divorce. But when she becomes drawn into the mysterious disappearance of a girl thirty years before, Allison realizes the gorgeous homes of Opal Beach hide dark secrets. And the truth of that long-ago summer is not even the most shocking part of all...“A heart-wrenching and suspenseful novel of betrayal and revenge. Stunning!”—Carol Goodman, award-winning author of The Night Visitors“Featuring a brilliantly executed dual timeline with two unforgettable narrators, One Night Gone is a timely and timeless mystery that will keep you obsessively reading well past your bedtime.”—Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World
The Other Side of Dark
by Sarah SmithLaw Walker knew Katie Mullens before she was crazy. Before her mother died. Law knows Katie's crazy now, but she's always been talented. And she keeps filling sketch pads even though her drawings have gone a little crazy as well--dark, bloody. What Law doesn't know is that these drawings are real. Or were real. Katie draws what she sees--and Katie sees dead people. People who have died--recently, and not so recently--in accidents, from suicide, even a boy who was trapped in a house that burned down more than 100 years ago. And it's this boy who makes Law want to get to know Katie all over again. So what if his dad doesn't want him dating a white girl? So what if people think Katie is dangerous? The ghost boy is hiding a secret that Law needs to know--and it's much bigger, much more shocking than anyone ever expected.
Prime Time
by Hank Phillippi RyanIn the cutthroat world of television journalism, seasoned reporter Charlotte McNally knows that she'd better pull out all the stops or kiss her job goodbye. But it's her life that might be on the line when she learns that an innocent-looking e-mail offer resulted in murder, mayhem and a multimillion-dollar fraud ring.All too soon her investigation leads her straight to Josh Gelston, who is a little too helpful and a lot too handsome. Charlie might have a nose for news, but men are a whole other matter. Now she has to decide whether she can trust Josh...before she ends up as the next lead story.
Queen of Hearts
by Rhys BowenDownton Abbey fans will rejoice for Lady Georgiana Rannoch, thirty-fifth in line for the British throne, who's off to Hollywood, where she must reprise her role as sleuth...
My mother, the glamorous and much-married actress, is hearing wedding bells once again--which is why she must hop across the pond for a quickie divorce in Reno. To offer my moral support, and since all expenses are paid by her new hubby-to-be, Max, I agree to make the voyage with her.Crossing the Atlantic, with adventure in the air and wealthy men aboard, Mother meets movie mogul Cy Goldman who insists on casting her in his next picture. Meanwhile, I find myself caught up in the secret investigation of a suspected jewel thief. Lucky for me, the lead investigator happens to be my dashing beau, Darcy!Mother's movie and Darcy's larceny lead everyone to Cy's Hollywood home, where the likes of Charlie Chaplin are hanging about and there's enough romantic intrigue to fill a double feature. But we hardly get a chance to work out the sleeping arrangements before Cy turns up dead. As if there wasn't enough drama already...
A Question of Honor
by Charles ToddIn the latest mystery from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd, World War I nurse and amateur sleuth Bess Crawford investigates an old murder that occurred during her childhood in India, a search for the truth that will transform her and leave her pondering a troubling question: How can facts lie?Bess Crawford enjoyed a wondrous childhood in India, where her father, a colonel in the British Army, was stationed on the Northwest Frontier. But an unforgettable incident darkened that happy time. In 1908, Colonel Crawfords regiment discovered that it had a murderer in its ranks, an officer who killed five people in India and England yet was never brought to trial. In the eyes of many of these soldiers, men defined by honor and duty, the crime was a stain on the regiments reputation and on the good name of Besss father, the Colonel Sahib, who had trained the killer. A decade later, tending to the wounded on the battlefields of France during World War I, Bess learns from a dying Indian sergeant that the supposed murderer, Lieutenant Wade, is alive--and serving at the Front. Bess cannot believe the shocking news. According to reliable reports, Wades body had been seen deep in the Khyber Pass, where he had died trying to reach Afghanistan. Soon, though, her mind is racing. How had he escaped from India? What had driven a good man to murder in cold blood?Wanting answers, she uses her leave to investigate. In the village where the first three killings took place, she discovers that the locals are certain that the British soldier was innocent. Yet the present owner of the house where the crime was committed believes otherwise, and is convinced that Besss father helped Wade flee. To settle the matter once and for all, Bess sets out to find Wade and let the courts decide. But when she stumbles on the horrific truth, something that even the famous writer Rudyard Kipling had kept secret all his life, she is shaken to her very core. The facts will damn Wade even as they reveal a brutal reality, a reality that could have been her own fate.
The Reek of Red Herrings
by Catriona McPhersonAgatha Award Winner for Best Historical Novel: Something fishy is going on in this clever mystery with “an exciting climax” set in a tiny Scottish village (Publishers Weekly).Winner, Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery NovelFinalist, Macavity/Sue Feder Memorial Award for Best Historical MysteryOn the rain-drenched, wind-battered Banffshire coast, dilapidated mansions cling to cliff tops and tiny fishing villages perch on ledges that would make a seagull think twice. It’s nowhere for Dandy Gilver, a child of gentle Northamptonshire, to spend Christmas.But when odd things start to turn up in barrels of fish—with a strong whiff of murder most foul—that’s exactly where she finds herself. Enlisted to investigate, Dandy and her trusty cohort, Alec Osborne, are soon swept up in the fisherfolks’ wedding season as well as the mystery. Between age-old traditions and brand-new horrors, Dandy must think the unthinkable to solve her most baffling case yet.“A host of colorful characters . . . the setting of this cozy thriller is vividly detailed and full of creeping menace.” —Kirkus Reviews“Not since Maisie Dobbs first surfaced has there been a pluckier or more winning heroine.” —Charles Finch, author of The Fleet Street Murders“A dandy series.” —The Boston Globe
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.
Seldom Disappointed
by Tony HillermanWhen Tony Hillerman looks back at seventy-six years spent getting from hardtimes farm boy to bestselling author, he sees lots of evidence that Providence was poking him along. For example, when an absentminded Army clerk left him off the hospital ship taking the wounded home from France, the mishap put him on a collision course with a curing ceremony held for two Navajo Marines, thereby providing the grist for a writing career that now sees his books published in sixteen languages around the world and often on bestseller lists. Or, for example, when his agent told him his first novel was so bad that it would hurt both of their reputations, he nonetheless sent it to an editor, and that editor happened to like the Navajo stuff. In this wry and whimsical memoir, Hillerman offers frequent backward glances at where he found ideas for plots of his books and the characters that inhabit them. He takes us with him to death row, where he interviews a man about to die in the gas chamber and details how this murderer became Colton Wolf in one of his novels. He relates how flushing a solitary heron from a sandbar caused him to convert Joe Leaphorn from husband to widower, and how his self-confessed bias against the social elite solved the key plot problem in A Thief of Time. No child abuse stories here: The worst Hillerman can recall is being sent off to first grade (in a boarding school for Indian girls) clad in cute blue coveralls instead of the manly overalls his farm-boy peers all wore. Instead we get a good-natured trip through hard times in college; an infantry career in which he "rose twice to Private First Class" and also won a Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart; and, afterward, work as a truck driver, chain dragger, journalist, professor, and "doer of undignified deeds" for two university presidents. All this is colored by a love affair (now in its fifty-fourth year) with Marie, which involved raising six children, most of them adopted. Using the gifts of a talented novelist and reporter, seventy-six-year-old Tony Hillerman draws a brilliant portrait not just of his life but of the world around him.
The Semester of Our Discontent
by Cynthia KuhnAgatha Award Winner: “An engaging heroine, a college setting that will have you aching to go back to school, and a puzzler of a mystery.” —Laura DiSilverio, national bestselling author of the Readaholics Book Club Mysteries English professor Lila Maclean is thrilled about her new job at prestigious Stonedale University—until she finds one of her colleagues dead. When she herself is suspected of involvement—by everyone from the chancellor to the detective working the case—she has no choice but to assign herself the role of amateur detective. More attacks on professors follow, and the only connection is a curious symbol at each of the crime scenes. Putting her scholarly skills to the test, Lila gathers evidence, but her search is complicated by an unexpected nemesis, a suspicious investigator, and an ominous secret society. Rather than earning an “A” for effort, she receives a threat featuring the mysterious emblem and must act quickly to avoid failing . . . and becoming the next victim. This Agatha Award winner for Best First Novel is “a pitch-perfect portrayal of academic life with a beguiling cast of anxious newbies, tweedy old troublemakers and scholars as sharp as they’re wise” (Catriona McPherson, author of the Dandy Gilver series). “Kuhn is phenomenal at conveying the tension-filled atmosphere that inundates higher institutions, where one’s fate rests entirely on a few out-of-touch, pompous faculty members.” —Kings River Life Magazine “A very intricate, cool story featuring the depth of an institution where everyone is dying to climb the ladder of success.” —Suspense Magazine
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
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.
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
by Alan BradleyA delightfully dark English mystery, featuring precocious young sleuth Flavia de Luce and her eccentric family. The summer of 1950 hasn't offered up anything out of the ordinary for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce: bicycle explorations around the village, keeping tabs on her neighbours, relentless battles with her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, and brewing up poisonous concoctions while plotting revenge in their home's abandoned Victorian chemistry lab, which Flavia has claimed for her own.
But then a series of mysterious events gets Flavia's attention: A dead bird is found on the doormat, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. A mysterious late-night visitor argues with her aloof father, Colonel de Luce, behind closed doors. And in the early morning Flavia finds a red-headed stranger lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath.
For Flavia, the summer begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw: "I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life." Did the stranger die of poisoning? There was a piece missing from Mrs. Mullet's custard pie, and none of the de Luces would have dared to eat the awful thing. Or could he have been killed by the family's loyal handyman, Dogger... or by the Colonel himself?
At that moment, Flavia commits herself to solving the crime -- even if it means keeping information from the village police, in order to protect her family. But then her father confesses to the crime, for the same reason, and it's up to Flavia to free him of suspicion. Only she has the ingenuity to follow the clues that reveal the victim's identity, and a conspiracy that reaches back into the de Luces' murky past.
A thoroughly entertaining romp of a novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is inventive and quick-witted, with tongue-in-cheek humour that transcends the macabre seriousness of its subject.
Winner of the 2007 Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger.
Sydney Mackenzie Knocks 'Em Dead
by Cindy CallaghanWest Coast girl Sydney Mackenzie moves to Delaware after her parents inherit a cemetery—and becomes involved in a mystery surrounding the Underground Railroad—in this M!X novel from the author of Lost in London, Lost in Paris, Lost in Rome, and Lost in Ireland.Sydney Mackenzie is an aspiring actress and average less-than-popular California Girl. So when her parents drop the biggest bombshell ever—they have inherited a cemetery called Lay to Rest, which means a move to boring Delaware—Sydney is NOT happy. And to make matters worse? Their “new” house is actually right on the cemetery grounds—and it isn’t exactly California chic. But after settling in, Sydney discovers that the creepy old house might have more history than she once thought. And someone—or something—is encouraging her to delve deeper into a decades-old mystery that dates back to the Underground Railroad. Will Sydney’s filmmaking skills and the help of some new friends be enough for her get to the bottom of the mystery of her new home?
Three-Day Town
by Margaret MaronThree-Day Town is the winner of the Agatha award for best novel.After a year of marriage, Judge Deborah Knott and Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant are off to New York City for a long-delayed honeymoon. January might not be the perfect time to take a bite of the Big Apple, but Dwight's sister-in-law has arranged for them to stay in her Upper West Side apartment for a week.Deborah had been asked to deliver a package to Lieutenant Sigrid Harald of the NYPD from Sigrid's Colleton County grandmother. But when the homicide detective comes to pick it up, the package is missing and the building's super is found murdered. Now despite their desire to enjoy a blissful winter getaway, Deborah and Dwight must team up with Lt. Harald to catch the killer before he strikes again. 70000 words
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.