THE PRICE OF MURDER – VG

Bruce Alexander – 10^th and final book in series

Set in Georgian England, blind magistrate, Sir John Fielding, and his young apprentice Jeremy Proctor investigate the brutal murder of a little girl whose mother had sold her into slavery. The trail leads Jeremy

into the world of horseracing, as he joins forces with the victim's uncle,

legendary jockey Deuteronomy Plummer. The challenges of the…

BURGLARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS – G+

Lawrence Block – 1^st of series – REISSUE

Bernie Rhodenbarr is a professional burglar who has been hired to procure a blue, leather box from the desk of a off-Broadway producer.

The job is not without problems; first, there’s no blue box; second,

he’s caught by the police and; third,…

EVAN’S GATE – VG

Rhys Bowen – 8^th in series

Constable Evan Evans becomes involved with two cases of missing children; one new, one old. Although the cases are 25 years

apart, there are striking similarities in the age and appearance of the

children. Evans feels a particular

involvement as he played with the girl who disappeared 25 year’s ago and wonders

whether the two…

LORD DARCY – G+

Randall Garrett

Welcome to an alternate world where Richard the Lion-Heart did not die in the year 1199... where magic is a science and science is an art... where the great detective

Lord Darcy and the sorcerer Sean O'Lochlainn combine occult skills and

brilliant deductions to bring criminals to the King's Justice and thwart those

who plot against the Realm. Welcome to a…

As graduates of the Stonecroft Academy class of '84 prepare for their twentieth high-school reunion, only a pimple-faced reporter for the school paper notes that this class has seen more

than its share of mysterious deaths--and that all were members of a popular

clique. We only know it was someone who was spurned by girls and made fun of by

everyone, someone who dubbed his evil alter ego The…

REDEMPTION STREET – VG

Reed Farrel Coleman – 3rd in series

Moe Prager—retired New York City cop-turned-wine shop owner—still possessed of his vintage police savvy, and is, perhaps, the only Jewish licensed PI in the five boroughs, Moe wonders if he’s really meant to be

a merchant and not a cop. Redemption Street finds him in 1981, lured into the

mystery of a 1966 hotel fire—one that killed seventeen people, including…

CODEX – OK

Lev Grossman

Up-and-coming investment banker wunderkind Edward Wozny is dropped into the musty realm of medieval literature when a powerful client's commission to uncrate and organize a library. The diversion quickly becomes an

obsession after he enlists the help of the quirkily attractive scholar Margaret

Napier. Together they discover his employer, the mysterious Duchess of Bowmry,

is in a…

MANHATTAN NOCTURNE – NR

Colin Harrison

NYC tabloid columnist, Porter Wren attends a party and is sought out by beautiful Caroline Crowley, widow of film director Simon Crowley, because she has "a

little problem." After phoning his wife and lying about why he'll be

home late, Porter finds himself in Caroline's Fifth Avenue apartment and drawn

ever deeper into the life…

SO LONG AS YOU BOTH SHALL LIVE – VG

Ed McBain – 32^nd in series

Det. Bert Kling had just married beautiful Augusta Blair and was anticipating his wedding night. Augusta was waiting for him. He got out of the shower, and

opened the door, but Augusta

is gone. He’s not too worried as he had

been told of a quaint custom of kidnapping the bride on her wedding night and

his…

The East Bay Mystery Readers' Group -

2 March 2004 Meeting Recap

THE ADVENTURESS (Amateur Sleuth) - Carole Nelson Douglas - GOOD+

Diva/detective Irene Adler and her bridegroom, handsome barrister Godfrey Norton, are honeymooning in Paris when they become embroiled in an investigation: a drowned sailor's body has been recovered from the Seine, and on his chest is a…

DI Tom Thorne is up against is a particularly creepy specimen who savagely killed three victims but his fourth, Alison, has undergone a deliberately induced stroke and although all her senses are intact,

she is totally unable to move or communicate. This hideous condition, called

Locked-in Syndrome is, however, quite possibly the killer's first

miscalculation…

Amanda Witham enjoys wearing the eighteenth century garb while working as a tour guide at Williamsburg, Virginia's Melrose House. When archeologists discover two-century-old

bones in the nearby garden, Amanda received visits from the ghost of James

Grant who persuades her to uncover the truth about his untimely death. Upon

traveling to Scotland Amanda finds herself embroiled…

BOOKMAN’S PROMISE – VG

John Dunning – 3^rd in series (Investigative mystery)

Cliff Janeway former homicide cop turned antiquarian bookseller, is thrilled with his purchase of a first edition by nineteenth-century explorer Richard Burton, but the book brings more grief than it does pleasure.

After an elderly woman arrives in Janeway's store claiming that the Burton belongs to her, Janway finds himself in the middle

of a…

ONCE UPON A TIME – G+

Barbara Fradkin – 2nd in series (Canadian – police procedural)

When an old man dies a seemingly natural death, only Inspector Michael Green finds it suspicious. Talking to the man's family only increases Green's curiosity. A search of his house turns up an old tool box

with a hidden compartment containing a German ID card from World War II. Gradually,

suspects emerge, including members of the man's own…

In 1922, Scientific American offers five thousand dollars for evidence of "conclusive psychic manifestations." Inspired by this real-life event, Inamorata follows Martin Finch, a twenty-three-year-old Harvard graduate student and

member of Scientific American’s investigative committee, on the…

Jack Ruskin, a well-respected New York lawyer, is also living every parent's nightmare after his teenage daughter becomes the victim of a sexual predator. As Jack

tends to her, his sorrow and pain gradually grow into hot-blooded rage and he

decides to take matters into his own angry hands. This is a novel where the "good"

guy is…

BLOOD HOLLOW – Ex

William Kent Krueger – 4^th in series

When the corpse of a beautiful high school student is discovered four months after her, all evidence points to her boyfriend, local bad boy Solemn Winter Moon. However Cork

O'Connor, Aurora's

former sheriff, is convinced he’s innocent. In a battle to clear Solemn's name,

Cork encounters

small-town bigotry, bureaucracy…

Ex-Crusader, now trader in holy relics and general sword for hire, Sir Richrad Straccan has lost the woman he loved to his enemies. His first task is to find her. His second, to escort the great bell, Gaudete, to its resting

place in Durham.

His third to save from her enemies a young woman, the Gleemaiden of…

OH BEULAH HEIGHT – G

Reginald Hill – 17^th in series

With modernity raising its head in Yorkshire, the Water Board decided to flood a local valley to make a reservoir. Of course they had to bulldoze the homes of Dendale, and relocate the families. That was

when three little girls disappeared. Andy Dalziel, a young detective in those

days, took the case hard. No bodies were ever…

DATING DEAD MEN – G

Harley Jane Kozak – 1^st book

Los Angeles greeting-card artist and card-and-gift shop manager Wollie Shelley is dating forty men in sixty days as research for a bestselling author’s book, How to Avoid Getting Dumped All the Time.

Wollie is meeting plenty of eligible bachelors but not falling in love, not

until she stumbles over a dead…