The Nightmare
A Mystery with Mary Wollstonecraft
Nancy Means Wright
ISBN 978-1-56474-509-5
264 pages, trade paperback original, $15.95
Publication Date: September 15, 2011
Dismissed from her governess post in Ireland, Mary Wollstonecraft lands on her feet in London. After the 1792 publication of her ground-breaking Vindication of the Rights of Woman she gains entrée to a circle of celebrated artists and intellectuals. But Mary falls into obsession and infatuation with painter Henry Fuseli after his hauntingly erotic masterpiece The Nightmare is stolen. When a young artist is wrongfully accused and imprisoned, and a bluestocking friend is strangled, Mary’s passionate nature does not allow her to stand aside. Her quest for the truth will lead her into personal notoriety, a trip to a madhouse, and confrontations with more than one possible murderer.
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Murder in Burnt Orange
A Hilda Johansson Book
Jeanne M. Dams
ISBN 978-1-56474-503-3
256 pages, trade paperback original, $15.95
Publication Date: September 15, 2011
Hilda Johansson, formerly a housemaid and now a lady, is pregnant and extremely uncomfortable in the heat of a 1905 Indiana June. She’s making everyone else miserable, as well, so her family encourage her to look into some serious crimes to take her mind off her own problems. No one actually thinks she will be able to solve matters of arson and murder and train-wrecking, especially since custom forbids her leaving the house in her condition, but they reckon without Hilda’s quick mind and stubborn determination to see the job through.
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Bit Player
A Jeri Howard Mystery
Janet Dawson
ISBN 978-1-56474-494-4
282 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95
Young and pretty, Jerusha Layne (Jeri Howard's grandmother) spent five years in Tinseltown, working as an extra and bit player in the movies, hoping for stardom. But she found love instead, marrying Ted Howard in 1942, after Pearl Harbor changed everything. But was there another reason Jerusha left town, involving an actor's unsolved murder? And how does this decades-old crime connect with movie memorabilia and modern-day murders?
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Shadows of a Down East Summer
An Antique Print Mystery
Lea Wait
ISBN 978-1-56474-497-5
282 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95
In the summer of 1891 two young Maine women posed for artist Winslow Homer. What happened that summer, the secrets the women kept, and the lies they told, changed their families forever. Now one of their descendants has been murdered, leaving Maggie Summer the family papers that may finally reveal the truth. Her vision of a romantic vacation in Maine visiting Aunt Nettie and antiquing with beau Will Brewer turns into a murder investigation. But she must discover which, if any, of the families' perceptions are realities, before she, or someone she cares about, becomes the next victim.
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Arsenic and Old Paint—The Art Lover's Mystery Series
Hailey Lind
ISBN 978-1-56474-490-6
248 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95
Publication Date: September 9, 2010
Annie Kincaid, a former art forger in San Francisco, has been operating a legitimate decorative painting business for some time now, but memories are long in the art world. Now, with the blessings of the FBI Art Squad, Annie’s using her underworld connections to boost her new art investigations business, where she’s partnered with none other than the ex-art thief Michael X. Johnson. But when she stumbles across a body in an exclusive Nob Hill men’s club, and an insurance adjuster asks her to find a stolen (and forged) erotic painting, and then her uncle Anton is attacked, Kincaid’s on the trail of more than just art.…This time, she’s looking for justice.
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The Paramour's Daughter—A Maggie MacGowen Mystery
Wendy Hornsby
ISBN 978-1-56474-496-8
300 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95
Publication Date: September 15, 2010
Did you ever, maybe in a dark moment or during a financial pinch, fantasize about suddenly learning that someone you never knew existed has died and left you an inheritance? Be careful what you wish for. When a stranger claims to be filmmaker Maggie MacGowen’s relative, Maggie assumes the woman is what the LAPD calls a fifty-one-fifty, just plain crazy. But when the woman is murdered, Maggie discovers that she was telling the truth. Maggie takes the woman’s ashes home to Normandy, France, to an extended family she did not know existed, all of whom have “expectations” for their share of an inheritance that is tangled in a complex weave of family history, issues, desires, legalities, and for some desperation in a collapsed economy. If the elders of this apparently genteel family did not hesitate to slit the throats of German occupiers to save their estate during the last war, to what lengths will their heirs go to claim their birthright?
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Midnight Fires—A Mystery with Mary Wollstonecraft
Nancy Means Wright
ISBN 978-1-56474-488-3
248 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95
“Despite the constraints of class, culture, stays and skirts, Wright's fictionalized Mary Wollstonecraft is thoroughly engaging on her voyage of detection and self-discovery.”
— Kate Flora, author of Stalking Death
“An entertainingly seamy portrayal of provincial aristocrats and the day-to-day messiness of 18th century life. Add a feisty, engaging heroine and the result is an atmospheric and absorbing whodunit.”
— Susanne Alleyn, author of The Cavalier of the Apocalypse
Mary Wollstonecraft (the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein) was celebrated in her day as a notorious and free-thinking rebel. Her short life was highly unconventional, with the kidnap of her sister from an abusive husband, love affairs, an illegitimate child, religious dissent, a suicide attempt, participation in the French Revolution, and other eyebrow-raising episodes.
Mitchelstown Castle in County Cork hums with intrigue. In 1786 the new young governess, Mary Wollstonecraft, witnesses the mortal stabbing of the lord's illegitimate son. A young Irishman, Liam Donovan, who hated the victim for seducing his niece, becomes the prime suspect, but Mary, a champion of the oppressed, and susceptible to Liam’s charm, tries to prove him innocent. Set during Mary’s term as a governess, this fictional portrayal presents her as the brilliant, passionate, and conflicted woman that she was in true life.
Nancy Means Wright is the author of a five-book adult mystery series and two mysteries for children, one an Agatha Award winner and the other a nominee. A longtime teacher, Vermont Humanities Council Scholar, and Bread Loaf Scholar, she has also written other fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Wright lives and writes in the environs of Middlebury, Vermont.
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Going, Gone—A Gail McCarthy Mystery
Laura Crum
ISBN 978-1-880284-98-8
192 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95
“If you haven’t discovered Laura Crum yet, please jump at any chance to catch up on the series. The Gail McCarthy books are among my very favorite contemporary mysteries and Crum is, for my money, the successor to mystery giant Dick Francis.”
—Ron Miller, author of Mystery! A Celebration
Veterinarian Gail McCarthy and her family embark on a horse camping trip to a ranch in the Sierra Nevada foothills, only to find that their host, Gail's old boyfriend, Lonny Peterson, has just been charged with murder. Ironically, the sheriff's deputy who comes to arrest Lonny turns out to be Gail's childhood friend Bret Boncantini. Bret explains to the shocked Gail and her family that Lonny is accused of the murders of his girlfriend and her brother, well-known local livestock auctioneer Cole Richardson. Both Gail and Bret are sure that Lonny is innocent, and they begin investigating the killings. As they turn up evidence concerning the crime, the trail leads to Gail's home on the California coast. And as Gail closes in on the answer, the murderer decides she needs to be eliminated. Culminating in a thrilling horseback chase scene through the coastal hills, Going, Gone features all the elements that Laura Crum is known for—fine writing, beautiful landscape, authentic horse lore, and an exciting mystery. What more could any horse lover ask?
Laura Crum, a fourth-generation Santa Cruz County resident, has owned and trained horses for over thirty years. She lives in the hills near California’s Monterey Bay with her family and a large menagerie. Crum has written eleven books about Santa Cruz equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy.
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In the Guise of Mercy—a Maggie MacGowen Mystery
by Wendy Hornsby
ISBN 978-1-56474-482-1
264 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95
“…tough and heartfelt from the first page to the last. Wendy Hornsby is one of America’s very best mystery writers. Anyone who wants to know why Hornsby won an Edgar should read In the Guise of Mercy immediately.” —Timothy Hallinan, author of Breathing Water
“A suspenseful ride through LA’s rainbow streets, this deftly plotted tale and its smart, tender heroine should win many hearts.… Los Angeles comes alive in all its grit, glitz, grift and natural grandeur.” —Denise Hamilton, author of The Last Embrace
A decade has passed since filmmaker Maggie MacGowen’s last investigation in the pages of Hornsby’s award-winning noir series. Gritty and streetwise, yet compassionate, these mysteries appeal to America’s current fascination with realistic crime stories. Maggie MacGowen has taken on many tough assignments over the years. However, when she discovers a note from her newly dead husband, Detective Mike Flint, urging her to take a fresh look at a decade-old unsolved case of a boy who went missing, she isn’t sure that she’s up to the challenge. But how does one say no to a dead man? Maggie seeks information from anyone who has a connection: a spoiled cop, an ex-con taxi dancer, the dead youth’s gang set—the hookers, the cons, the addicts, the homeless and the hopeless—and the good and decent people among them who remain the foundation of a community always in transition, always under siege. The answers Maggie discovers aren’t what she expects, nor is the sometimes deadly opposition from all sides.
Wendy Hornsby is the author of eight critically praised and award-winning mysteries, six of them about Maggie MacGowen. She is also a short story Edgar Award winner, and she lives in Southern California, where she is a professor of history at Long Beach City College.
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An Old Chaos—A Latouche County Mystery
By Sheila Simonson
ISBN 978-1-56474-485-2
280 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95
…intriguing, many-layered mysteries that are leavened with a sly, wry wit and a wonderfully keen eye for social observation. Jane Austen is every bit as much in her ancestry as is Agatha Christie.” —Aaron Elkins, Edgar-winning author, Skull Duggery
“Simonson’s characters are real people who stand out as distinctive personalities.... But the local color is what really makes this story soar.... If you are a fan of Tony Hillerman, pick up a copy of Buffalo Bill’s Defunct. You won’t be sorry.” —Gumshoe Review on Buffalo Bill’s Defunct
When a landslide kills six people and destroys several expensive homes, Madeline Thomas, principal chief of the Klalos tribe, and geologist Charlie O’Neill know something is rotten in Latouche County: the land should never have been built on. Sheriff’s investigator Rob Neill uncovers a suppressed hazard warning and evidence of payoffs to county government, with the help of librarian Meg McLean. Rob leads an investigation that implicates local development bigwigs and county personnel, including his boss and mentor, the sheriff. Then there's a murder to keep the cover-up covered up.
Cop, librarian, nurse, sheriff, and even an Indian chief are all viewpoint characters. Again set in the rural Columbia Gorge town introduced in the critically praised Buffalo Bill’s Defunct, there is heroism as well as corruption in high and low places. And human fallibility’s potential for diasaster is joined by the landscape’s; as the eponymous Wallace Stevens poem says, “We live in an old chaos of the sun.”
Sheila Simonson, a native of the Pacific Northwest, is the author of eleven novels, seven of them mysteries. She is a retired English and history college teacher, and she lives in Vancouver, Washington.
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Run a Crooked Mile—A Mystery Novel
Janet LaPierre
ISBN 978-1-880284-88-9, 1-880284-88-X
240 pages, Trade Paperback Original, $14.95
Rosemary Mendes, looking for a new life after her husband's death, believes she has found refuge in remote Trinity County, California. But a tale offered in passing by a young neighbor is enlarged by information from women she's working with at the local senior center: a young woman, another in-comer "kind of like you, Rosemary," has been shot dead in the forest, apparently by a careless deer-hunter, and no one knows who she really was. Rosemary, caught by a growing sense of identification with the woman, tries to learn more about her, and her efforts prove both successful and dangerous.
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Docketful of Poesy—A Poetic Death Mystery
Diana Killian
ISBN 1-880284-97-1
240 pages, Trade Paperback Original, $14.95
"Theater of the Absurd" takes on a whole new meaning when former high school teacher and literary scholar Grace Hollister is hired as a script doctor for a straight-to-cable film production of her own academic exploits. Although the film's budget seems boundless, almost no one in the cast or crew seems to have any experience making movies. It would almost be comical in a Woody Allen sort of way?until history repeats itself for real, and it's curtains for one of the cast.
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Indigo Christmas—A Hilda Johansson Mystery
Jeanne M. Dams
ISBN 978-1-880284-95-7
256 pages, Trade Paperback Original, $14.95
Publication Date: September 2008
MOOD INDIGO FOR CHRISTMAS
The secret to Dams’s success is in the details.... We learn, without realizing we’re being taught anything at all, about social customs, class divisions, even the day-to-day operations of a wealthy turn-of-the-century household. Great characters, fascinating history, compelling mystery: this series could go on forever.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“If you’re a classic mystery lover, you’re sure to enjoy the books of Jeanne M. Dams. Her characters, setting, and stories have a depth not often seen in this subgenre.”
—Mystery News
Once housemaid to the wealthy Studebaker family in South Bend, Indiana, Hilda Johansson is now married and living a well-to-do life with her new husband. But her Swedish family doesn’t get along with his Irish relations. She’s having trouble finding friends, since she no longer fits into her old world and isn’t accepted in the new one. Just before Christmas, when the husband of her sole remaining friend is accused of theft, arson, and murder, Hilda has to find new ways of investigating a crime that seems to make no sense.
In the hard times of 1904 with bank failures weekly, Hilda tries to help the unemployed youth of South Bend by helping to form a Boys’ Club (modeled after Hull House founded in Chicago).. And she also enlists some of them as “Baker Street Irregulars” in her mystery investigation, giving the reader a vivid sense of the city and street life of the times.
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Buffalo Bill’s Defunct—A Latouche County Mystery
Sheila Simonson
ISBN 978-1-880284-96-0
280 pages, Trade Paperback Original, $14.95
Publication Date: September 2008
The 2009 WILLA Award winner
for best paperback novel!
COLUMBIA RIVER CRIME
“Sheila Simonson can always be relied on for appealing, intelligent protagonists, witty dialogue, a great sense of place, and suspense galore.”
—Carola Dunn, author of the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries
“Sheila Simonson’s Buffalo Bill’s Defunct had me from the title. Meg McLean just wants to escape to western Washington and work as a librarian. She didn’t count on the stolen petroglyphs or the body in her garage. The book’s plot, characters, setting, and theme all click together just right to make for highly entertaining reading.”
—Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes mysteries
Sheriff’s investigator Rob Neill made a mess of his first case, the theft of sacred artifacts belonging to the Klalo, a Native American tribe from the western end of the Columbia River Gorge. Ten years later, a stolen petroglyph emerges—along with a body buried in a garage. Neill sees a chance to redeem himself, with the help of his new neighbor, librarian Meg McLean. Her information-retrieval skills work together with the police investigation—but the partnership threatens to turn unprofessionally romantic. Meanwhile, two more people are murdered, and the Klalos’ feisty chief, Madeline Thomas, has her own agenda that seems to hinder as much as help. Can a kind of justice finally come to Latouche County?
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Chasing Cans—A Gail McCarthy Mystery
Laura Crum
ISBN 978-1-880284-94-0
192 pages, Trade Paperback Original, $14.95
Publication Date: April 2008
HORSE WRECK—OR WAS IT MURDER?
“If you haven’t discovered Laura Crum yet, please jump at any chance to catch up on the series. The Gail McCarthy books are among my very favorite contemporary mysteries and Crum is, for my money, the successor to mystery giant Dick Francis.”
—Ron Miller, author of Mystery! A Celebration
Chasing Cans is rodeo slang for barrel racing, a competition that can bring its winners fame and big bucks. To Gail McCarthy, a horse vet turned stay-at-home mom, chasing cans also stands for the ambitious pursuit of empty career goals at the expense of personal and family tranquility. While Gail is wrestling with this question in her own life, she witnesses a mystifying riding accident that kills a neighbor, a barrel-racing trainer. Whether it’s her veterinarian’s integrity or just stubborn curiosity, Gail’s unofficial investigation into strange happenings at the ranch could make her the object of a chase that might cost her own life.
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