The Inquisitor

Catherine Jinks

An inquisitor in southern France in the early 14th century, Dominican Father Bernard Peyre's job is rooting out remnant Cathars. Shrewd and empathic, he is an effective inquisitor, but when his superior starts looking through old depositions for evidence of corruption and is brutally murdered, he has to become a detective as well. The Inquisitor starts off as a kind of "inquisition procedural", introducing us to the personnel and workings of the Holy Office and the other powers in the town, the Bishop, the Seneschal, and the Prior. But authorities can't always be trusted, approved procedures are not always followed, and the replacement chief inquisitor is more interested in demonic magic than in heresy — and has a personal grudge against Bernard. Even worse, Bernard has fallen in love, endangering his vows and clouding his judgement, and his situation rapidly becomes untenable.
The Inquisitor purports to be written by Bernard, though of course no one in the 14th century could have written something that works as a modern novel. Clever sleight of hand by Jinks stops us noticing the contrivance, however, and the result works both as a thriller and a historical novel. The background exposition necessary for a reader without knowledge of the period is unobtrusively slipped in and the language and characterisations capture something of "the spirit of the times" without making the novel indigestible. Bernard in particular is a fine psychological study: he may occasionally seem anachronistic in his sensibilities, but he is not just a modern dressed up in historical costume. -- A book review by Danny Yee © 2002 http://dannyreviews.com/
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Bunny Girl

Joan Conway

Clara Bowe’s life is not is not in the best condition: no job, no boyfriend, back living with her mother in suburban Dublin. Enter John, Clara’s ex-an-never-slept-with-him boyfriend, who’s launching his new telecommunications company. He’s very interested in helping Clara out of her predicament – and into his bed.

Her new job is not what she dreamed of. Well, dressing up as a giant rabbit to market a mobile phone is hardly the high point of a career in advertising, is it?

Clara spends her days as a bunny and her evening being wooed by John but something strange is happening… is someone trying to get her out of the way? Who are the other rabbits that John has recruited? And who exactly is the owner of the startling violet eyes, handsome face and bad line in rabbit jokes who keeps hopping into her life?

The answers are there – but dare she find them?
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Bubbles Ablaze

Sarah Strohmeyer

There's more to Bubbles Yablonsky than blond curls and bright outfits. She's becoming a hot reporter, but she still needs to add new highlights to her image. Right now, though, she's planning a romantic break with gorgeous photojournalist Steve Stiletto. He's already hours late when she's summoned to cover a press conference at an old coalmine. Bubbles arrives to find it strangely deserted,except for an injured Stiletto - and a dead body. It's Bud Price, a businessman whose plan to build a casino in small-town Pennsylvania divided the old-fashioned community. An instead of relaxing at the Passion Peak Resort, Bubbles is suddenly dodging explosions and investigating a murder.

As her loony mother and precocious teenage daughter throw themselves into the fray, Bubbles is in a race against time to beat Stiletto to the scoop, discover who wanted Price dead - and keep her own pretty little head out of the line of fire....--book cover.
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Chasers

Lorenzo Carcaterra

It's 1985 - and the city that never sleeps is about to wish it had stayed in bed. The heinous machine-gun murder of innocent bystanders in a Manhattan restaurant shocks all five boroughs. The surviving members of the Apaches - controversial, take-no-crap, outside-the-law ex-cops - swear to hunt down those responsible.

Along for the harrowing ride with Boomer, Dead-Eye and Reverend Jim are three new Apaches: Ash, a wounded female Hispanic cop who specializes in arson investigations: Quincy, an HIV-positive recruit an forensics expert: and a retired police dog named Buttercup. Now this dedicated team will become Chasers, working cultiple cases that will converge into one explosive, all-out New York City street war. --- book cover
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Justice Deferred

Len Williams

Criminal: Billy Ray Billings grew up with few rules - and managed to break the ones he had. A small-time thief with three felony convictions, he finds himself behind bars for life when overzealous cops ufairly book him for a fourth. In Alabama, three strikes and you're out.

Convict: at first Billy Ray is paralyzed by his fate. But then he slowly becomes a model prisoner, taking classes and finding God. All the while, he's planning an improbable escape....

Con Man: What follows next is sweet freedom. a new identity. And a daring strategy to seek vengeance on the corrupt system that almost stole his life...

Based on the bizarre events surrounding the disappearance of the author's own son,this unforgettale page-turner will take you on a wild ride you won't soon forget... book cover
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The Private Patient

P.D.James

When the notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn booked into Mr. Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar, she had every prospect of a successful operation by a distinguished surgeon, a week's peaceful convalescence in one of Dorset's most beautiful manor houses and the beginning of a new life. she was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive. Dalgliesh and his team, called in to investigate the mrder, and later a second death, are confronted with problems even more complicated than the question of innocence or guilt. -- book jacket
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A Death in Tuscany

Michele Giuttari

In the picturesque Tuscan hill town of Scandicci, the body of a girl is discovered. Scantily dressed with no purse or other possessions, she is lying by the edge of the woods. The local police investigate the case - but after a week they still haven't even identified her, let alone got to the bottom of how she died.

Frustrated by the lack of progress, Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara, head of Florence's elite Squadra Mobile, decides to step in. Because toxins were discovered in the girl's body many assumed that she dued if a self-inflicted drugs overdose. But Ferrara quickly realises the truth is darker than that: he believes the girl was murdered.

And when he delves deeper, there are many aspects to the case that convince Ferrara that the girl's death is part of a sinister conspiracy - a conspiracy that has its roots in the very foundations of Tuscan society.

A cleverly plotted, atmospheric mystery, A Death in Tuscany has been a bestseller in Italy and has been translated into nine languages. Written by a former Florence police chief Michele Giuttari, it gives a unique insight into life and police work in Tuscany. -- book jacket.
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The Girl of His Dreams

Donna Leon

One rainy morning Commissario Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello respond to a 911 call reporting a body floating near some steps on the Grand Canal. Reaching down to pull it out, Brunetti's wrist is caught by the silkiness of golden hair, and he sees a small foot - together he and Vianello lift a dead girl from the water.

But, inconceivably, no one has reported a missing child, nor the theft of the gold jewellery that she carries. So Brunetti is drawn into a search not only for the cause of her death but also for her identity, her family, and for the secrets that people will keep in order to protect their children - be they innocent or guilty.

The investigation takes Brunetti from the canals and palazzos of Venice to a Gypsy encampment on the mainland, through quicksands of connections and relationships both known and concealed, as he struggles with institutional prejudice and entrenched criminality to try to unravel the fate of the dead child. - book cover
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Roots of Evil

Sarah Rayne

"Laura Trent is used to having the legend of her glamourous, disreputable grandmamma disinterred from time to time - the infamous Lucretia von Wolff, whose lovers were legion, whose scandals were numerous, whose life ended abruptly in a bizarre double murder and suicide at the Ashwood Film Studios in 1952. Lucy rather enjoys Lucretia's legend - although most of the family would prefer it to be quietly forgotten.

But when a body is found in the now-derelict studios, brutalised in a macabre echo of the 50-year-old case, disturbing facts about the past begin to emerge... Facts which point to the eerie legend of the child known simply as Alraune. The child named after Lucretia's most famous film. The child who may nvere have existed at all.

In the ensuing murder investigations, Lucy is to discover the truth about her family's dark and often poignant history - a history which spans the glittering concert halls of 1920's Vienna to the bleak environs of wartime Auschwitz.

And at the heart of it all lies the shocking truth about the mysterious child called Allraune." - - book cover.
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The vows of silence

Susan Hill

Gunmen are terrorising young women in the cathedral town of Lafferton.. What – if – anything – links the apparently random murders? Is the marksman with a rifle the same person as the killer with a handgun?

Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler falls back on well-tried police methods such as questioning neighbours and house-to-house searches. Simon has been promoted and is now with the Serious Incident flying Taskforce, but he is still at heart a loner and these chilly murders are on his home territory. He tries to stay one step ahead of the killer, to prevent each new outrage. And he tries to think himself into the gunman’s head…

Meanwhile, his sister, Cat, had returned with her husband and children from Australia, and Simon is once again sucked into family life at her welcoming farmhouse. But tragedy strikes, and the warmth and security of home are cruelly tested. - - book cover
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Justice Hall

Laurie R. King

Only hours after Holmes and Russell return from solving one murky riddle on the moor, another knocks on their front door … literally. It’s a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since. But it’s not until Holmes and Russell arrive at Justice Hall, a home of unearthly perfection set in a garden modelled on Paradise, that they fully understand the riony echoed in the family motto, Justicia fortudo mea est: “Righteousness is my strength” -- book cover
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Death of a baritone

Karen Sturges

At the exclusive Long Island opera colony of singing legend Anna Varovna, residents are rehearsing their summer production of Cosi fan tutte. But Phoebe quickly sees that relations offstage are less than cozy, and Mozaart’s honeyed melodies soon give way to high-decibel melodrama. Then handsome baritone Frank Palermo is found dead of an allergy to the penicillin pill covertly planted among his vitamins – and Anna urges Phoebe to make some discreet inquiries. Could Frank’s recent joint of the Children of Truth cult have somehow earned him an early grave? And why did Frank, clutching his opera score as he died, scratch an X on the name “Amadeus”? Before Phoebe can make sense of it all, a fatal cacophony of love, lust, genius, and guilt reveals itself – and the tempo accelerates as death strikes again. – book cover.
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Nice Girls Finish Last

Sparkle Hayter

At 37, with one failed marriage and several lousy dates behind her, Robin Hudson is still working on a new attitude - a positive mental attitude! Sure she's still toiling away in the tabloidesque special reports unit at All News Network for her loathsome bodd, Jerry Spurdle, but amidst the trumours of cutbacks she thinks a good attitude might improve her karma. Besides, she's added a new weapon to her personal defence system - a hot-glue gun with two settings, steam and spray - wo what could go wrong?

Then her gynaecologist is murdered and Jerry sends Robin to investigate a link with the S&M sex-club underworld. In the meantime, someone is taking potshots at ANN's male talent. Are the shootings connected to the murder of the doctor? To Robin? Her PMA hanging by a thread, Robin must solve the mystery - or she may never have another date. -- book cover.

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Cat Catcher

Caroline Shaw

Meet Lenny Aaron, a Zen-cool young ex-cop with a few left-field addictions, a super droll style and a seedy little office of her own in downtown Footscray. Sworn off true crime after a harrowing experience on duty, Lenny earns her living tracking missing cats down Melbourne’s alleys and byways.

But everything changes for Lenny when a routine search for a daughter’s missing Ragdoll brings her into the viperous bosom of Australia’s most powerful media family. The patriarch is dying, and the stakes are sky-high for a piece of the action. When someone takes it, brutally, Lenny finds herself back in the murder business.

And is doesn’t stop there. While Lenny trawls through the morass of corruption, sex, greed, power and money to find the killer, she is forced to confront her haunting past. Will her feline cunning and ice-cool courage be enough to survive? -- book cover
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Under the Lake

Stuart Woods

The lake had been built at a terrible price to satisfy one man’s obsession. But its horrifying secret still lay beneath the placid waters … waiting.
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Kick Back

Val McDermid

Kate Brannigan, feisty Manchester-based PI, is back, investigating the bizarre case of the missing conservatories. Before long she’s up to her neck in crooked land deals, mortgage scams, financial chicanery and murder. But when a favour for a friend puts Kate’s own life in danger, bizarre is not the first word she thinks of….” – book cover
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A Walk Through the Fire

by Marcia Muller.

"When documentary film-maker Glenna Stanleigh suspects sabotage on set,she calls Sharon McCone. Only too pleased to travel to the sunny Hawaiin island of Kauia, McCone anticipates business mixed heavily with pleasure. But as vandalism escalates into large-scale violence, and McCone's personal and progessional life come under attack, she finds herself at the centre of a blazing fire of emotion and terror ... [book cover]

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Kickback

by Val McDermid

Kate Brannigan, feisty Manchester-base PI, is back, investigating the bizarre case of the missing conservatories. Before long she's up to her neck in crooked land deals, mortgage scams, financial chicanery - and murder. But when a favour for a friend puts Kate's own life in dander, bizarre is not the first word she thinks of...


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