January 2019
Police officer Ellery
Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a murderer in
cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group therapy for
victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher priorities than
“getting in touch with her feelings.”
For one, she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict
the wrong man for a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery gets
entangled in the desperate requests of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He
is still out there, this man with the spider-like ability to climb through
bedroom windows. Ignoring all warnings, Ellery starts digging around in
everyone’s past but her own – a move that, at best, could put her out of work permanently,
and at worst, could put her in the city morgue.
No Mercy is by Joanna
Schaffhausen
February 2019
For years, The Joker,
Clown Prince of Crime, has been caught in a dance of violence with his greatest
nemesis, the Batman. Escaping Arkham Asylum, he plots his most lethal caper.
This will be the ultimate punch line… his KILLING JOKE. Meanwhile, as Batman and Batgirl pursue the
ruthless criminals of Gotham City, Commissioner James Gordon and Detective
Harvey Bullock take on a cartel distributing “giggle sniff,” a drug derived
from a venom created by The Joker. A rapid-fire sequence of events spirals
together to threaten Batman’s closest friends and allies, and locks the two
eternal foes in their ultimate death match. The
Killing Joke is by Christa Faust and Gary Phillips.
Brothers Keepers is by
Donald E Westlake. What will a group of
monks do when their two-century-old monastery in New York City is threatened
with demolition to make room for a new high-rise? Anything they have to. “Thou
Shalt Not Steal” is only the first of the Commandments to be broken as the
saintly face off against the unscrupulous over that most sacred of relics, a
Park Avenue address. Returning to
bookstores for the first time in three decades, Brothers Keepers offers not
only a master class in comedy from one of the most beloved mystery writers of
all time but also a surprisingly heartfelt meditation on loss, temptation, and
how we treat our fellow man.
Sherlock Holmes has just
uncovered the truth about the theft of a priceless ruby. The wealthy Lady
Damury staged the theft and tried to frame her husband – but just as Holmes
reveals the truth, Lady Damury is found murdered. Holmes deduces that this is
no crime of passion, but the work of a ruthless killer with no connection to
the jewel. With reports of a man in a strange, trance-like state, Holmes finds
himself entangled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the sinister Dr
Caligari… The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Instrument of Death
is by David Stuart Davis.
Batman the Court of Owls
is by Greg Cox. For generations, an
apocryphal cabal has controlled Gotham from the shadows, wielding fear and
violence through its undead assassins, the Talons. The Court of Owls. Dating back centuries, its leaders are men
and women of wealth and influence who meet in secrecy, hiding their identities
behind stark white masks. Employing science and alchemy, they sought to kill
Bruce Wayne who, as Batman, dealt them their greatest defeats. Even then they
faded back into the darkness, and he could not eliminate them entirely. Now, Gotham City is plagued with a series of
brutal murders in which mutilated bodies are burned almost beyond recognition.
Batman and his allies—including Nightwing and Batgirl—quickly realize that the
Talons have returned, yet the reason for the killings remains tauntingly
unknown. As the heroes seek answers,
their path stretches back more than a century. Should the Owls obtain what they
seek, it could grant them power that no one could counter. With each moment
that passes, more victims appear. Batman
must stop the Talons before they kill again.
The Revenant Express: A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation is by George Mann.
Sir Maurice Newbury is bereft as his trusty assistant Veronica Hobbes
lies dying with a wounded heart. Newbury and Veronica’s sister Amelia must take
a sleeper train across Europe to St. Petersberg to claim a clockwork heart that
Newbury has commissioned from
Faberge to save Veronica
from a life trapped in limbo. No sooner
do they take off then sinister goings-on start to plague the train, and it is
discovered that an old villain, thought dead, is also on board and seeking
revenge. Can Newbury and Amelia defeat him and get the clockwork organ back to
the Fixer in time to save Veronica? And can they do so without Newbury going so
far into the dark side of occult magic that he can never return? Meanwhile, Sir Charles Bainbridge is the only
one of their team left in London to struggle with a case involving a series of
horrific crimes. Someone is kidnapping prominent men and infecting them with
the Revenant plague, leaving them chained in various locations around the city.
But why? It’s a rousing chase to save
both London and Veronica. Will these brave detectives be up to the task?
This Body’s not Big Enough for Both of Us is by Edgar Cantero. In a dingy office in
Fisherman’s Wharf, the glass panel in the door bears the names of A. Kimrean
and Z. Kimrean, Private Eyes. Behind the door there is only one desk, one
chair, one scrawny androgynous P.I. in a tank top and skimpy waistcoat. A.Z.,
as they are collectively known, are twin brother and sister. He’s pure
misanthropic logic, she’s wild hedonistic creativity. The Kimreans have been
locked in mortal battle since they were in utero, which is tricky because they,
very literally, share one single body. That’s right. One body, two pilots. The
mystery and absurdity of how Kimrean functions, and how they subvert every
plotline, twist, explosion, and gunshot – and confuse every cop, neckless thug,
cartel boss, ninja, and femme fatale – in the book is pure Cantero
magic. Someone is murdering the sons of
the ruthless drug cartel boss known as the Lyon in the biggest baddest town in
California: San Carnal. The notorious A.Z. Kimrean must go to the sin-soaked,
palm-tree-lined streets of San Carnal, infiltrate the Lyon’s inner circle, and
find out who is targeting his heirs, and while they are at it, rescue an
undercover cop in too deep, deal with a plucky young stowaway, and stop a major
gang war from engulfing California. They’ll face every plot device and break
every rule Elmore Leonard wrote before they can crack the case, if they don’t
kill each other (themselves) first. This Body’s Not Big Enough for Both of
Us is a brilliantly subversive and comic thriller celebrating noir
detectives, Die Hard, Fast & Furious, and the worst case of
sibling rivalry, that can only come from the mind of Edgar Cantero.
Child psychiatrist Kate
Wolfe’s world comes crashing down when one of her young patients commits
suicide, so when a troubled girl is left at the hospital ward, she doubts her
ability to help. But the girl knows things about Kate’s past, things she
shouldn’t know, forcing Kate to face the murky evidence surrounding her own
sister’s murder sixteen years before. A murder for which a man is about to be
executed. Unearthing secrets about her own family, and forced to face both her
difficult relationship with her distant father and the possibility that her
mother might also have met a violent end, the shocking final twist brings Kate
face to face with her deepest fear. A Breath after Drowning is by Alice
Blanchard.
A Baby’s Bones is by
Rebecca Alexander. Archaeologist Sage
Westerfield has been called in to excavate an ancient well, and expects to find
little more than soil and the odd piece of pottery. The disturbing discovery of
a woman’s skeleton along with that of a baby – which shows signs of violence –
makes it clear that she has stumbled onto an historical murder mystery. Heavily
pregnant herself by her ex boyfriend, a married man, Sage feels drawn to
investigating the circumstances surrounding the tiny bones. When the wife of
the owner of Banstock Manor shows her the account of Vincent Garland, the
steward of the estate in the 1580s, Sage learns of a destructive love triangle
between an embroideress, an alchemist, and the Lord of the Manor’s
daughter. Yet there is more to the case
than a four-hundred-year-old mystery. The owners of the cottage next to the
well appear to be cursed with bad luck, the local vicar – with whom Sage is
beginning a tentative relationship – is being plagued with abusive phone calls
that come from inside the cottage, and Sage becomes convinced that she is being
followed. Then a tragic death makes it all to clear that a modern murderer is
at work, and Sage may well be his next target.
March 2019
Hammer is summoned to a
meeting with Jamie Winters, United States Senator from New York, and Jamie’s
lovely, very smart wife, Nicole, considered by many to be the power behind the
throne. Winters is being blackmailed, and Hammer is given a list of suspects
who may be behind the threats to the Senator’s career. But when the suspects
begin to drop like flies, Hammer realises there is more to this case than just
a salacious tape. Mike Hammer: Murder My
Love is by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins.
April 2019
On the 100th anniversary
of prohibition, learn what really happened, The National Prohibition Act was
passed, making it illegal across America to produce, distribute, or sell
liquor. With this act, the U.S. Congress also created organized crime as we
know it. Italian, Jewish, and Irish mobs sprang up to supply the suddenly
illegal commodity to the millions of people still eager to drink it. Men like
Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz and Bugsy Siegel, Al Capone in
Chicago and Nucky Johnson in Atlantic City, waged a brutal war for power in the
streets and on the waterfronts. But if you think you already know this
story…think again, since you’ve never seen it through the eyes of one of the
mobsters who lived it. Called “one of
the most significant organized crime figures in the United States” by the U.S.
District Attorney, Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo was just 15 years old when
Prohibition became law. Over the next decade, Alo would work side by side with
Lansky and Luciano as they navigated the brutal underworld of bootlegging,
thievery and murder. Alo’s later career included prison time and the ultimate
Mob tribute: being immortalized as “Johnny Ola” in The Godfather, Part II. Introduced to the 91-year-old Alo living in
retirement in Florida, Dylan Struzan based this book on more than 50 hours of
recorded testimony—stories Alo had never shared, and that he forbid her to
publish until “after I’m gone.” Alo died, peacefully, two months short of his 97th
birthday. And now his stories—bracing and violent, full of intrigue and
betrayal, hunger and hubris—can finally be told. A Bloody Business is by Dylan Struzan and
Drew Struzan.
