Search results for ""felony mayhem""

With World War II only barely in the rear view mirror, New York apartments are scarcer than hen’s teeth.Janice Cameron has moved to the City to be a writer, trading Honolulu’s sun and flowers for Manhattan in the grip of icy winter. She’s imagined her own cunning little flat, a little table by the window, a little lace cloth...fat chance! Her own flat is completely out of the question, and in fact she’s going to have to share a boarding-house bedroom with a perfect stranger.At least the stranger is perfect: Lily Wu is beautiful, exquisitely dressed, and swathed in mystery. But Janice hasn’t even unpacked before a rather less exquisite mystery intrudes. True, the handyman wasn’t brilliant at maintaining the boiler, but murder seems a rather extreme response.In the best Golden Age tradition, the rooming house is crammed with intriguing suspects, from the tortured musician to the French emigree to the actress with a face f

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Alice Dunbar was a very proper upper East Side woman with a very boring life. There is, in fact, absolutely no reason anyone can think of for Alice to go missing, and yet that's exactly what she does, shortly after the death of an elderly aunt. Henry Gamadge thinks there's more to the story, and as he tracks down Alice's last trip, he turns up a secret life no one suspected. Originally published in 1949.

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Calvary. The name does not inspire cheerful associations, and Calvary Gaol, with its grim facade and brutal history, does nothing to improve the reputation. On a chilly night its ghosts can all but be heard chattering, from the doomed political radical to the dapper ladies' man with a knife in his sleeve, from the blackmailed doctor to the spiritualist who fed, like a vampire, on the misery of World War I. Calvary is abandoned now, but those ghosts are still calling, and TV producer Chad Ingram can't stop listening. With a crew and a journalist in tow, he resolves to film in the prison's execution chamber-sure it's spooky, but with the bustle and technology of the 21st century, he can't imagine they've got anything to fear. Famous last words. Like all of Sarah Rayne's psychological thrillers, The Death Chamber blends different time periods, each with its own cast of characters, while never losing the plot threads.

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The impresario Peregrine Jay has fulfilled a long-cherished dream: Thanks to a very generous gift, he now owns the Dolphin Theatre, and has restored it to its former glory. To celebrate the re-opening, a no-expenses-spared production of The Glove, a new play about the discovery of a true Shakespearean accessory. London's chattering classes are abuzz with gossip about the theatre, rumors about Peregrine, critiques of the play. But when murder takes center-stage, everyone gets very quiet, and only Inspector Alleyn can persuade them to start chattering again-this time, with a purpose.

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Frazer's Mills, in upstate New York, is a small, isolated village, where everyone knows everyone else and things haven't changed much (and the mills have been closed for quite some time). When murder suddenly intrudes upon this sedate rural backwater, Henry Gamadge arrives to solve the mystery and restore order.

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Good breeding simply doesn’t pay the rent anymore. And while Miss Melville has bucketloads of breeding, she finds herself somewhat...lacking, shall we say, when it comes to finances. Distinctly lacking. Her rich friends are no help; they think “broke” means having to buy a smaller yacht. What is an impoverished gentlewoman to do?Become a killer for hire, of course. But Miss Melville (who prefers the term “hitwoman”) doesn’t take just any job, no matter how well paid. That kind of sordid money-grubbing is beneath contempt. No, she reserves her talents for those who...let’s say those who really deserve them. It’s true, her ancestors would roll in their graves at the thought of Miss Melville working—and for a paycheck, my dear! But finger sandwiches and opera tickets don’t come cheap: One does what one must.

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