Ernest Dudley, creator of that superb pair of sleuths, Dr. Morelle and Miss Frayle, here introduces another vivid character, Nat Craig, whose methods as London’s foremost private investigator are utterly different from those of the famous doctor, yet just as penetrating and conclusive in their results. Craig believes in hitting first and pulling no punches, which makes for exciting period action tales featuring murder, mayhem, blackmail, and robbery. The indomitable Craig ruthlessly tracks down...
The artists' reception at the popular Mosaic Gallery in Tucson, Arizona is a great success, but the next morning, when the body of Armando, the owner's husband, is discovered, things start turning ugly. Every artist becomes a suspect, and each of them has their own reason to want the man out of the picture. But who disliked him enough to want him dead? And who stole the fake Mexican artifacts and the sculpture of the goddess Gaia? Gallery owner Barbara Atwell is devastated at her young...
Maria Black, Head of Roseway College for Young Ladies during World War II, and a textbook solver of crimes, finds herself faced with a problem after her own heart when the strange, haughty Frances Hasleigh, daughter of a somewhat mysterious British Major, enrolls in her school. Within a few days the girl is found hanged in a nearby wood, in circumstances that seem devoid of clues and without motive. Scotland Yard is called in to solve the horrifying crime, but Black Maria has her own unique...
R. Doubting Thomas Perdue, tough Aussie former P.I. and jailbird, is in trouble, and it can only get worse. Tom's *Feng shui* consultancy implodes when some bastard drives a Mack truck through his heritage office. Fatal things keep happening to his phones. And who's been blabbing about his racehorse-doping past? The love of his life has made a ten-year vow of celibacy to the Virgin Mary. Tom's Goth daughter's girlfriend's obese sister has vanished, extremely foul play...
Move over, Jessica Fletcher and Miss Marple! Make room for another aging woman amateur sleuth–Carolyne Santire, plant-hunter extraordinaire! Carolyne's search for the next major botanical find takes her to Brazil in South America, where she encounters political machinations, mayhem, and…murder. The suspect list is long–fellow scientists, Brazilian land barons, prospectors, a cuckolded video director, a rock star–and, eventually, even her! During the shooting of an entertainment film in the...
At first, the two events seem apparently unconnected–except for their violent nature. The first is the escape of four vicious convicts from Halifax Prison in North Carolina; simultaneously, in the southern state of Virginia, a vicious mob lynches and burns a man alive. But when the escaped convicts steal a car and cross the state line, it automatically brings in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As the strange interweavings of fate and coincidence result in ever more horrible murders, F.B.I....
This second book of Ernest Dudley’s stories about his London-based private eye, Nat Craig, and his lovely French secretary, Simone, features a varied collection of the detective's eccentric clients: young, wealthy women getting themselves blackmailed; upper-class men or women who have the jitters over the safety of their precious family heirlooms; and, occasionally, even members of the criminal class, appealing to their former nemesis for help in clearing their names of false accusations....
Mystery novelist Paisley Sterling is happier than she ever dreamed. As successful writer she is free to return to her mother's farm in Kentucky where she trades in her panty hose and high-heeled shoes for jeans and loafers. Her only problem is the pen name of «Leonard Paisley» that her agent encourages her to assume because «a detective novel will sell better if it's written by a man.» Unfortunately Paisley finds out that every paradise has its snake when her beautiful daughter, Cassie...
For an illusionist to make a woman vanish from a cage is merely a parlor trick, because the person must go somewhere; but in this instance the woman really DOES disappear, in full view of an audience, and cannot be found afterwards. This seeming impossibility is the commencement of a completely baffling puzzle, which even Scotland Yard finds hard to crack. And then the magician himself is found murdered in his flat, lending credence to the notion that the woman has also been killed. Scotland...
As an honest cop, Captain Lanny Just has problems. His Police Chief and several of his men are on the take from local gangster kingpin, “Boss” Myrtle. Myrtle’s daughter Bonnie is in love with Lanny, but the young policeman feels he can't pursue the relationship because of her father’s criminal activities–of which Bonnie is unaware. Lanny’s problems multiply alarmingly as his hometown of Freshwater is threatened by a sudden influx of murderous criminals from New York–a gang of bank raiders...