Table of Contents
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Hotlists 2008
Crime Fiction - embedded
Seeing Stars
Lists of (mostly) hardcover books which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ).
The review journal assigns the star.
Out and About. . .
I'm playing around at Shelfari, LibraryThing, and Good Reads. I've set up links to my pages on these sites. And, yes, I have a hard time keeping up-to-date on these sites...
I've set up "shelves" from these sites on Overbooked - here
Overbooked is spacing out: Myspace: Overbooked and Crime Space - and, facing out: Facebook profile.
Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .
Overbooked is the winner of the 2008 Louis Shores - Greenwood Publishing Award: to recognize excellence in book reviewing and other media for libraries. The award recipient is selected for significant achievement related to a reviewing process that helps librarians make selection decisions.
Starred Reviews
Crime Fiction Stars of 2005: July - December
September 9, 2008
Annotated lists of hardcover books which received a starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from any or all of the following review sources: Booklist, Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus, and Library Journal (LJ). Titles are listed by approximate date of publication, then by alphabetically by author.
Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine - unless otherwise noted.
A 
indicates an Overbooked
Jump for Joy book.
December
- Cat Dancers
Author: Deutermann, Peter T.
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312333773 Date: 2005
LJPW
When a vigilante group electrocutes a murderer, Lieutenant Cam Richter must track them down before they strike again. "Relentless, exciting, and gripping- The Cat Dancers sinks its claws in and doesn't let go."--Jeff Lindsay, author of Darkly Dreaming Dexter.
Updated 10.11.05 - Memory Book: Benny Cooperman
Author: Engel, Howard
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 24/$13.95 ISBN: 0786716444/17173 Date: 2005KirkusLJ
Left for dead in a dumpster, private investigator Benny Cooperman becomes his own client in his most puzzling mystery yet.
Benny is recovering in a Toronto hospital from a serious blow to the head. He has a condition called alexia sine agraphia; in layman's terms, it means he can still write but cannot read. And his memory has been affected too: although he can quote lines from his high school production of Twelfth Night, he finds himself brushing his teeth with his shaving cream. Even his girlfriend's name -- Anna Abraham -- continues to elude him.
When Benny learns that he was found unconscious beside a dead woman, he figures he must have been close to solving a case. With Anna working as field agent and two Toronto cops reluctantly sharing their discoveries, Benny pieces together the events that led to a murder-and his own injuries.- Publisher Marketing
Suggested Reading: Amnesia & Memory
Updated 11.1.05 - S is for Silence
Author: Grafton, Sue
Publisher: Putnam $ 26.95 ISBN: 0399152970 Date: 2005KirkusLJ
In Kinsey Millhone's 18th excursion into the world of suspense and misadventure, a daughter wants the solace of closure in the mystery surrounding her mother's absence. Thirty-four years earlier, Violet Sullivan put on her party finery and left for the Fourth of July fireworks display. She was never seen again.
Suggested Reading: Private Eyes | Cold Cases
Updated 10.24.05 - The Moon Tunnel
Author: Kelly, Jim
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 031234922x Date: 2005PWBooklist
Looking for buried Anglo-Saxon treasure on-site at a former POW camp, journalist Philip Dryden is on hand when excavators find the skeletal remains of a man trapped in an underground tunnel. No one can explain the bullet hole in his forehead and the direction of his body: he was crawling in, not out.
Suggested Reading: Cold Cases | Archaeology
Updated 9.23.05 - Forever Odd
Author: Koontz, Dean
Publisher: Bantam $ 27 ISBN: 0553804162 Date: 2006PW
Koontz returns to the unique world of Pico Mundo, and to his unforgettable hero who lives "always between two doors, between a life with the living and a life with the dead, between transcendence and terror." Evil is coming to Pico Mundo, and there can be no innocent bystanders.
Updated 11.7.05
November
- The Actor's Guide to Greed
Author: Copp, Rick
Publisher: Kensington $ 23 ISBN: 0758209606 Date: 2005PW
Jarrod Jarvis's acting career is a long way from what it was when he was a child star. But his stock is about to rise when he runs into an old friend, writer Wallace Goodwin, who has scribed a play, bound for London's West End, with a scene stealing part for Jarrod. As much as the actors all seem to loathe one another, they truly resent Jarrod. It's a "cast" of characters including a hostshot young director; a British legend who's a lush, a Bollywood beefcake--hot for Jarrod's boyfriend, an out of the closet Sir with a penchant for young actors and Oscar-winning actress Claire Richards--Jarrod's only friend in the cast. No one can play a death scene like La Claire. Except that this time, the diva isn't faking it, she's been poisoned and Jarrod was the last one to see her alive. Accused of murdering the star, it's up to Jarrod to find out who killed Claire and clear his name. What becomes clear is that backstage is where the real drama lies -- affairs, lies, secrets, betrayals and blackmail... - Publishers Marketing.
Updated 10.11.05 - What Angels Fear
Author: Harris, C.S.
Publisher: NAL $ 23.95 ISBN: 0451216695 Date: 2005LJ
A scholar of 19th-century Europe pens the debut of a historical suspense series "filled with suspense, intrigue, and plot twists galore" (Victoria Thompson, author of Murder on Lenox Hill).
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 10.11.05 - Total Chaos
Author: Izzo, Jean-Claude
Publisher: Europa $ 14.95 (paper) ISBN: 1933372044 Date: 2005Kirkus
This first installment in the legendary "Marseilles Trilogy" sees Fabio Montale turning his back on a police force marred by corruption and racism and taking the fight against the mafia into his own hands. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled
Updated 10.11.05 - The Lighthouse
Author: James, P.D.
Publisher: Knopf $ 25.95 ISBN: 030726291x Date: 2005Booklist
When one of the distinguished visitors to Combe Island is bizarrely murdered, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called in. Hardly has his team begun to unravel the complicated motives of the suspects than there is a second brutal killing, and Dalgliesh faces a danger more insidious than murder.
Suggested Reading: British Cops
Street Date: 11.22.05
Updated 10.24.05 - Comrades in Miami
Author: Latour, Jose
Publisher: Grove $ 23 ISBN: 0802118100 Date: 2005LJ
Jose Latour delivers a suspenseful, atmospheric novel of intrigue set in contemporary Havana and Miami. Without spy satellites or supercomputers, communist Cuba has relied on its intelligence operatives for the last forty-five years. Colonel Victoria Valiente, one of the most respected officers in the General Directorate of Intelligence, is the Havana-based spymaster of greater Miami. During the past decade, however, her husband has convinced her that Castro's regime is corrupt and moribund and that they must defect. Buoyed by $2.7 million that he steals electronically and salts away in an online bank, the couple sails to Key West. They have no idea that the FBI is on to them, having coerced Elliot Steil, a Cuban exile living in Miami, to help. This exquisitely crafted, erotically charged novel culminates in an electrifying showdown, offering an inside view into the regime's dark corners while shedding light on contemporary Cuba. - Publisher Marketing.
Updated 11.1.05 - Death by Thunder
Author: Sprague, Gretchen
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312347677 Date: 2005Kirkus
Updated 8.8.05 - Ordinary Heroes
Author: Turow, Scott
Publisher: FSG $ 26 ISBN: 0374184216 Date: 2005KirkusPWLJ
In reconstructing the terrible events and agonizing choices his father faced on the battlefield during World War II, in the courtroom, and in love, Stewart Dubinsky gains a closer understanding of his past, of his father's character, and of the brutal nature of war itself.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars | Veterans | All Stars
Updated 10.11.05
October
- The Devil's Own Rag Doll
Author: Bartoy, Mitchell
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312340885 Date: 2005LJ
1940's Detroit: the war effort is in full swing and racial tensions are running high. When a vivacious white heiress is murdered in the black part of town, the city threatens to erupt into mob violence, bringing the factories to a grinding halt and imperiling Allied forces around the world. Newly minted Detective Pete Caudill is charged with covering up the crime in the interests of civic peace and finding some kind of justice for the dead girl. Odds are the girl was killed by her black boyfriend, but some whisper of an Axis plot to hamper America's war effort. Or is Detroit's shadowy political machine manipulating events to its own ruthless ends? As he delves deeper, Caudill soon learns the hard way that friends are rarely what they seem, family ties are often deceptive, and sometimes the bravest thing a man can do is think for himself. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction | Hard Boiled
Updated 9.17.05 - Running With the Dead: Chris Sinclair
Author: Brandon, Jay
Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765308932 Date: 2005Booklist
Sexual politics, corruption in high-school athletics, revenge, and a mysterious stalker combine for an explosive new legal thriller featuring San Antonio District Attorney Chris Sinclair by lawyer/author Brandon.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
Updated 9.20.05 - Flashback
Author: Braver, Gary
Publisher: Forge $ 25.95 ISBN: 0765302519 Date: 2005PW
In this medical thriller from the author of Gray Matter and Elixer, Jack Koryan is attacked by a school of rare jellyfish, whose toxic stings put him in a three-year coma. When he awakens, he finds that the jellyfish toxin has left him with flashbacks, some of which leave him quaking in horror.
Suggested Reading: Medical Fiction | Medical Thrillers
Updated 7.25.05 - Spectres in the Smoke: A Creeping Narrative
Author: Broadbent, Tony
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312290268 Date: 2005Booklist
In austere, post-World War II England, Jethro the cat burglar must again take on the mantle of spy for MI5 as he attempts to prevent a plot to undermine Britain's new Labour Government.
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 9.17.05 - The Great Stink
Author: Clark, Clare
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151011613 Date: 2005PW
With extraordinarily vivid characters and unflinching prose that recall Year of Wonders and The Dress Lodger, The Great Stink marks the debut of an outstandingly talented writer in the tradition of the best historical novelists.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 6.20.05 - The Lincoln Lawyer
Author: Connelly, Michael
Publisher: Little Brown $ 26.95 ISBN: 0316734934 Date: 2005BooklistPW
"New York Times" bestselling author Connelly delivers his first legal thriller--an incendiary tale about a cynical defense attorney whose one remaining spark of integrity may cost him his life.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
Updated 9.17.05 - Bad Lie: Jack Austin
Author: Corrigan, John
Publisher: Univ Pr of New England $ 24.95 ISBN: 1584654546 Date: 2005PW
Updated 8.8.05 - The Color of Law
Author: Gimenez, Mark
Publisher: Doubleday $ 19.95 ISBN: 0385516738 Date: 2005LJBooklist
Clark McCall, ne'er-do-well son of a Texas millionaire presidential hopeful, puts a major crimp in his father's election plans when he winds up murdered--apparently by a heroin-addicted hooker. With echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird as well as early John Grisham, The Color of Law is a provocative page-turner and marks the stunning debut of a major new talent.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars | Debuts
Updated 8.15.05 - The Man with the Iron-On Badge
Author: Goldberg, Lee
Publisher: Five Star $ 25.95 ISBN: 1594143722 Date: 2005Kirkus
Updated 8.8.05 - Resurrecting Langston Blue
Author: Greer, Robert O.
Publisher: Frog $ 23.95 ISBN: 1583941363 Date: 2005LJ
Carmen Nguyen never knew her father, an Army sergeant presumably killed in Vietnam. Charting a course to find him untangles a decades-old mystery involving the disappearance of Amerasian war babies, illegal paramilitary operations, and power grabs that lead all the way to the halls of the U.S. Senate.
Updated 9.23.05 - The Stranger House
Author: Hill, Reginald
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060820810 Date: 2005Booklist
The "sorcerer of style" ("New York Times Book Review") delivers a stunning stand-alone novel full of suspense, romance, history, sex, and miracles--an exploration of the sometimes twisted side of the human psyche.
Updated 9.17.05 - Already Dead: A Joe Pitt Casebook
Author: Huston, Charlie
Publisher: Del Rey $ 12.95 ISBN: 034547824x Date: 2005PW
The daughter of a prominent New York family is missing, and her Vampyre fascination makes Joe Pitt--private detective and Vampyre--the man for this most dangerous job.
Suggested Reading: Vampires
Updated 10.11.05 - Jar City: A Reykavik Thriller
Author: Indridason, Arnaldur
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312340702 Date: 2005LJ
A man is found murdered in his Reykjavik flat, and the police have no obvious leads. Delving into the dead man's past, two investigators discover that the city of Reykjavik has one or two secrets of its own, secrets it would rather keep.
Suggested Reading: European Crime Fiction
Updated 10.11.05 - The Only Suspect
Author: Jacob, Jonnie
Publisher: Kensington $ 23 ISBN: 0758208006 Date: 2005Kirkus
Sam Russell wakes up in his car in a ditch with no memory of how he got there. There's a woman's shoe in his trunk and dried blood under his fingernails--and he returns home to find his wife missing. As Hannah Montgomery investigates, secrets expose an intricate web of deceit and betrayal.
Suggested Reading: Amnesia and Memory Loss
Updated 7.7.05 - Half Broken Things
Author: Joss, Morag
Publisher: Delta $ 22 ISBN: 0385339402 Date: 2005PWBooklist
When a mixture of deceit, good luck, and misfortune draws three strangers--an aging house-sitter, a struggling con man, and a pregnant young woman--together at Walden Manor, each sees one final chance to start over.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
Updated 8.15.05 - Seven Lies
Author: Lasdun, James
Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393057542 Date: 2005LJ
A young East German yearns for love, glory, and freedom--in America. By a series of blackly comic and increasingly dangerous maneuvers, he finds himself in the country of his dreams, married to the woman he idolizes. And then the world begins to fall apart.
Updated 8.24.05 - Fiddlers: A Novel of the 87th Precinct
Author: McBain, Ed
Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151012164 Date: 2005LJ
The latest installment in the 87th Precinct series finds the detectives stumped by a serial killer who doesn't fit the profile. It falls to Detective Steve Carella and his colleagues to find out what or whom the victims had in common before another body is found.
Suggested Reading: Police Procedurals
Updated 9.17.05 - Friends, Lovers, Chocolate: Sunday Philosophy Club
Author: McCall Smith, Alexander
Publisher: Pantheon $ 21.95 ISBN: 0375422994 Date: 2005KirkusBooklist
The delightful second installment in Alexander McCall Smith's already hugely popular new detective series, The Sunday Philosophy Club, stars the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie--editor of the "Journal of Applied Ethics"--and her no-nonsense housekeeper, Grace.
Suggested Reading: Scottish Crime Fiction
Updated 7.11.05 - How to Seduce a Ghost
Author: McIntyre, Hope
Publisher: Warner $ 24.95 ISBN: 0892960132 Date: 2005BooklistLJ
A young ghost writer must track down a deadly arsonist in the first of an exciting new mystery series.
Updated 9.17.05 - The Syracuse Codex
Author: Nisbet, Jim
Publisher: Dennis McMillan $ 35 ISBN: 093976752x Date: 2005Booklist
Updated 10.11.05 - School Days: Spenser
Author: Parker, Robert B.
Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399153233 Date: 2005KirkusBooklist
The celebrated series continues as a troubled teenager accused of a horrific crime draws Spenser into one of the most desperate cases of his career.
Suggested Reading: Private Eyes
Updated 9.17.05 - The Best American Mystery Stories 2005
Author: Penzler, Otto (ed)
Publisher: Houghton $ 27.50 ISBN: 0618517448 Date: 2005PW
This volume brings together the genre's finest from the past year. With stories from mystery veterans and newly discovered talents, this thrilling collection is sure to appeal to crime fiction fans of all tastes.
Updated 8.22.05 - 13 Steps Down
Author: Rendell, Ruth
Publisher: Crown $ 25 ISBN: 1400098424 Date: 2005PW
From the multi-award-winning author of The Babes in the Wood and The Rottweiler, comes a chilling new novel about obsession, superstition, and violence. Mix Cellini's sharp-eyed landlady senses that his obsession with a model is taking a dark and dangerous turn.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
Updated 8.15.05
September
- Panic
Author: Abbott, Jeff
Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525949046 Date: 2005Booklist
Updated 8.15.05 - The Man from Beyond
Author: Brownstein, Gabriel
Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393051528 Date: 2005Booklist
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle arrives in New York on a spiritualist crusade, defending the powers of the mysterious medium Margery. His good friend Harry Houdini is a skeptic, and when Doyle claims Margery's powers are superior to Houdini's, the magician goes on the attack.
Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Elementary Stars | Magic & Magicians | Spiritualist Stars
Updated 8.15.05 - My Very Own Murder
Author: Carr, Josephine
Publisher: NAL $ 12.95 ISBN: 0451216466 Date: 2005LJ
A voice in her head warns Anne Johnson that there will be a murder in her building in 30 days. She confides in the building's cleaning woman, and the duo plan a party to ferret out the would-be killer.
Updated 9.17.05 - Eye of the Wolf
Author: Coel, Margaret
Publisher: Berkley $ 23.95 ISBN: 0425205460 Date: 2005PW
Tony Hillerman calls Coel 'a master' . . . It is no wonder. Coel brings Native Americans to the fictional frontier in a way that honors the genre."--"Denver Post."
Updated 8.2.05 - Billie Morgan
Author: Denby, Joolz
Publisher: Serpents Tail $ 15 ISBN: 1852428651 Date: 2005Kirkus
Billie is in her forties, running a little jewelry shop in Bradford, trying to live a quiet life, trying to forget the past. Because Billie has a lot of past to forget. She was a biker chick, one of the Devil's Own, the speed- and acid-fueled road demons. Her life was hurtling out of control, and it ended in murder. Now, years later, she has to face the consequences. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled
Updated 11.9.05 - Immoral
Author: Freeman, Brian
Publisher: Minotaur $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312340427 Date: 2005LJ
In a moral world, murder is the ultimate crime, a killer pays the ultimate price, and the victim remains buried. Unless everyone is immoral.
Suggested Reading: Debuts
Updated 8.24.05 - Tilt A Whirl
Author: Grabenstein, Chris
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 23.95 ISBN: 0786715847 Date: 2005BooklistLJ
There isn't much sun in the fun when a billionaire real estate tycoon is found murdered on the Tilt A Whirl at a seedy seaside amusement park in the otherwise quiet summer tourist town of Sea Haven. John Ceepak, a former MP just back from Iraq, heads up the murder investigation.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | Amusement & Theme Parks
Updated 10.4.05 - Lost Stories
Author: Hammett, Dashiell
Publisher: Vince Emery $ 24.95 ISBN: 0972589813 Date: 2005Booklist
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled
Updated 6.20.05 - Sleep Pale Sister
Author: Harris, Joanne
Publisher: Perennial $ 13.95 ISBN: 0060787112 Date: 2005LJ
Harris' early novel, never before published in the United States, is a powerful, darkly Gothic evocation of Victorian artistic life. An illicit love draws a controlling artist's wife into a dangerous world of intrigue, blackmail, and revenge.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense
Updated 10.3.05 - Demon of the Air: An Aztec Mystery
Author: Levack, Simon
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312348347 Date: 2005PWLJ
In this gripping murder mystery, intrigue, drama, treachery and romance combine with historical fact and a potent imagination to bring life to the strange and brutal world of the Aztecs.- Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Aztec Stars | Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 9.17.05 - Door to Bitterness
Author: Limon, Martin
Publisher: Soho $ 23 ISBN: 1569474044 Date: 2005Booklist
The pair of G.I. cops Martin Limon first introduced in Jade Lady Burning (a "New York Times Notable Book of the Year) are back with a vengeance in their latest adventures in Seoul and the sin cities surrounding the capital in the 1970s. North Korea is menacing, Vietnam is burning as these two weave through the back alleys and bordellos, as they try to tip back the scales of justice in the right direction. - Publisher Marketing.
Updated 9.17.05 - Rituals of the Season
Author: Maron, Margaret
Publisher: Warner $ 23.95 ISBN: 0892968095 Date: 2005PWLJ
The multiple winner of the most coveted prizes for mystery fiction, Maron is back with a new tale featuring her perennially popular sleuth, Judge Deborah Knott.
Updated 7.12.05 - The Third Brother
Author: McDonell, Nick
Publisher: Grove $ 22 ISBN: 080211802x Date: 2005Kirkus
A news magazine intern sorts through the chaos of his life and the world around him after his parents' murder-suicide, and his brother's confession and suicide.
Suggested Reading: Thai Stars
Updated 7.7.05 - Cinnamon Kiss
Author: Mosley, Walter
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316073024 Date: 2005PW
This "New York Times" bestselling author's sizzling new novel pits Easy Rawlins against his greatest challenge ever--a terrifying murder during the Summer of Love.
Suggested Reading: African American Stars | Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 7.11.05 - Murder Never Forgets
Author: O'Hehir, Diana
Publisher: Berkley $ 23.95 ISBN: 0425205851 Date: 2005KirkusBooklist
One of the most intellectually delightful murder mysteries ever written . . . The narrating voice is a pleasure from beginning to end . . . Three cheers."--Vivian Gornick, author of Fierce Attachments
Updated 9.23.05 - Tyrannosaur Canyon
Author: Preston, Douglas J.
Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765311046 Date: 2005LJ
What fire bolt from the galactic dark shattered the Earth eons ago, and now hides in that remote cleft in the southwest U.S. known as Tyrannosaur Canyon?
Suggested Reading: Action & Adventure
Updated 7.12.05 - Dead Game: John Marquez
Author: Russell, Kirk
Publisher: Chronicle $ 23.95 ISBN: 0811850781 Date: 2005
Booklist
The abduction of a confidential informant draws California Fish and Game warden John Marquez into a desperate race against time to find the missing woman before it is too late and into an investigation that leaves him in the middle of a confrontation between the Russian mob and the FBI.
Suggested Reading: Wildlife
Updated 8.15.05 - Drive
Author: Sallis, James
Publisher: Poisoned Pen $ 19.95 ISBN: 1590581814 Date: 2005PWBooklist
Much later, as he sat with his back against an inside wall of a Motel 6 just north of Phoenix, watching the pool of blood lap toward him, Driver would wonder whether he had made a terrible mistake. Later still, of course, there'd be no doubt.
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled
Updated 10.11.05 - First Drop
Author: Sharp, Zoe
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312341695 Date: 2005PW
It should have been an easy introduction to Charlie Fox's new career as a bodyguard, working for the personal protection agency run by her ex-lover, Sean Meyer. Their trip to Florida together should have been a working holiday--and a chance to build on the fresh start they promised to make when they last worked together. All Charlie has to do is baby-sit Trey Pelzner, the gawky fifteen-year-old son of a rich computer programmer in Fort Lauderdale. The last thing anyone expected was a determined attempt to snatch the boy, or that Trey's father and their entire bodyguard team--including Sean--would disappear off the face of the earth at the same time. Now somebody out there wants the boy badly and they're prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way. Evading them, alone in unknown territory, takes all the skill and courage Charlie possesses. As hair-raising as a roller-coaster ride, First Drop skyrockets Zoe Sharp to the top of that exclusive list of suspense writers who are going places fast. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | Hard-Boiled
Updated 8.2.05 - The Grail Conspiracy
Author: Scholes, Lynn & Joe Moore
Publisher: Midnight Ink $ 14.95 ISBN: 0738707872 Date: 2005LJ
On assignment in the Middle East, television journalist Cotton Stone stumbles upon an archeological dig that uncovers the world's largest most-sought-after religious relic: The Holy Grail. With his last dying breath, Dr. Noel Archer gives it to Cotton, uttering "You are the only one" in a language she's heard from only one other person her deceased twin sister. What begins as a hot news story for the ambitious young reporter soon turns into a nightmare when the Holy Grail is stolen and strange accidents befall her dearest friends. Running for her life, she turns to John Tyler, a priest with firsthand knowledge of religious artifacts, for help. An anonymous source leads them to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, where an abominable experiment is underway that unless destroyed promises to unleash an ancient evil upon the Earth. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: If You Like The Da Vinci Code
Updated 8.24.05 - The Mayor of Lexington Avenue
Author: Sheehan, James
Publisher: Yorkville $ 14.95 ISBN: 097674421x Date: 2005Booklist
Praise for James Sheehan from Nelson DeMille: "If you like South Florida crime novels, legal thrillers, and courtroom dramas, then you'll love The Mayor of Lexington Avenue, which has all three, plus some nostalgic New York City flashbacks as an added bonus. James Sheehan, a FL trial attorney, has created Jack Tobin, a Florida trial attorney, and one of the most interesting and complex characters I've come across in a long time. This is a debut novel, but it reads like it was written by a master of the genre." - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars | Florida Fiction
Updated 9.17.05 - The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant
Author: Tusset, Pablo
Publisher: Cannongate $ 14 (paper) ISBN: 1841957151 Date: 2005Booklist
The 30-year-old black sheep of the staid Barcelona finance titans of Miralles and Miralles is yanked into family business matters when the president of the family business, his older, accomplished brother, disappears. Thus begins an easy-riding, reluctant-detective story.
Updated 8.15.05 - Whiskey on the Rocks: Whiskey Mattimoe
Author: Wright, Nina
Publisher: Midnight Ink $ 13.95 ISBN: 073870749x Date: 2005LJ
Still reeling from her husband's death, thirty-three-year-old realtor Whiskey Mattimoe is adjusting to a new life, which includes the embarrassing purse-snatching antics of her mischievious Afghan hound. That's bad for business, but not as bad as having clients die on the premises. When one of her properties turns into a murder scene, Whiskey becomes hopelessly tangled in a devious scheme involving identity fraud and priceless art. Dodging a house fire, break-ins, and attempts on her life, Whiskey manages to keep her sense of humor throughout the chaos with help from a part-time police force, her eight-year-old neighbor, and other eccentric characters in the Lake Michigan resort town of Magnet Springs. This fast-paced, darkly comic tale is the first in a series of mysteries featuring the amateur sleuthing of Whiskey Mattimoe. - Publisher Marketing.
Updated 8.24.05
August
- The Blood-dimmed Tide
Author: Airth, Rennie
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670899968 Date: 2005PW
The author of the "New York Times" Notable Book River of Darknessreturns with a macabre tale of the social struggles of post-World War I Britain and the looming menace of Hitler's Germany. When a young girl is savagely murdered in rural English village, the crime catapults former Inspector John Madden into the grisly world of a brutal killer.
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 6.20.05 - The Young Widow
Author: Chan, Cassandra
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312337485 Date: 2005LJ
Making a striking debut, Chan introduces two intriguing sleuths in a brand-new series. DS Jack Gibbons is aided by his best friend Phillip Bethancourt in an investigation where the prime suspect is wealthy, dangerous, and irresistible.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | Pick Your Poison
Updated 6.9.05 - The Big Over Easy
Author: Fforde, Jasper
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670034231 Date: 2005LJ
When D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, is found shattered to death, all the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself. But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced.
Suggested Reading: Rhyming Stars
Updated 7.12.05 - Midnight Plague
Author: Keizer, Gregg
Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399153195 Date: 2005PW
A heart-pounding tale--part historical suspense, part medical thriller--is set in the final months of World War II when an American doctor travels to occupied France to uncover the German lab where a biological weapon is being tested.
Suggested Reading: Medical Thrillers | Biological Warfare
Updated 6.29.05 - After the Armistice Ball
Author: McPherson, Catriona
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 25 ISBN: 0786716088 Date: 2005PW
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 7.18.05 - Dead at Daybreak
Author: Meyer, Deon
Publisher: Little Brown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0316000124 Date: 2005LJBooklistPW
The newest headspinning thriller from the breakout South African crime writer, author of Heart of the Hunter, is the story of an ex-cop who has seven days to solve a seemingly unsolvable crime--the answer to which lies in his own dark past.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | South Africa
Updated 7.11.05 - The Last Resort
Author: Posadas, Carmen
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375508864 Date: 2005PW
Rafael Molinet, an elderly, introverted Spaniard living in London, arrives at a lavish Moroccan spa and befriends the widow of a recently murdered Madrid lothario. When a throng of gossipy Europeans arrive on the scene, Molinet's eavesdropping leads him to a startling turn of events.
Updated 6.29.05 - For Edgar
Author: Rusch, Sheldon
Publisher: Prime Crime $ 23.95 ISBN: 042520409x Date: 2005Kirkus
A killer who calls himself The Raven honors the macabre tales of Edgar Allan Poe through a series of slayings. Special Agent Elizabeth Taylor Hewitt tracks The Raven's tell-tale signs, leading her into a mystery that binds them both in an ingenious nightmare.
Suggested Reading Lisst: Poe Stars | Serial Killers
Updated 6.9.05 - The Chariots of Calyx
Author: Rowe, Rosemary
Publisher: Headline $ 9.99 (paper) ISBN: 0747265194 Date: 2005PWLJ
Libertus is in Londinium, at the invitation of the Roman Governor, when news arrives of the brutal murder of Caius Monnius, the city's chief corn-officer. Still reeling from the shock of catching sight of the wife he lost to slavery 20 years earlier, only to lose her again, the ever-inquisitive Libertus is, for once, uninterested in unmasking the murderer. But when the Roman Governor asks you to investigate...The dead man's mother is convinced that the truth behind the killing lies with Fortunatus, a celebrated charioteer with whom Monnius' wife was having an affair. But with the discovery of a second corpse, it soon becomes clear that this case is more complex--and more sinister--than anyone ever expected. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 8.22.05 - Death's Little Helpers
Author: Spiegelman, Peter
Publisher: Knopf $ 22.95 ISBN: 1400040795 Date: 2005PWLJ
Spiegelman, winner of the 2004 Shamus Award for Best First Novel for Black Maps, returns along with private investigator John March for this follow-up. Hired to find a missing Wall Street analyst, March soon unearths a rat's nest of family strife, business betrayals, and deceptions.
Suggested Reading: Private Investigators | Financial
Updated 7.12.05 - Pardonable Lies: Maisie Dobbs
Author: Winspear, Jacqueline
Publisher: Holt $ 23 ISBN: 0805078975 Date: 2005LJPWBooklist
In the third novel of this bestselling series, London investigator Maisie Dobbs faces grave danger as she returns to the site of her most painful World War I memories to resolve the mystery of a pilot's death.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 8.16.05
July
- The Architech
Author: Ablow, Keith
Publisher: St Martin $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312323921 Date: 2005PW
Ablow, one of the country's leading forensic psychologists, writes a thriller about an architect who insists on designing the lives of his clients as well as their homes.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
Updated 6.6.05 - The Tale of Holly How
Author: Albert, Susan Wittig
Publisher: Prime Crime $ 23.95 ISBN: 0425202747 Date: 2005PW
In the second "Cottage Tales" mystery, Miss Beatrix Potter has won over human and animal hearts alike in her new home, the sleepy village of Sawrey, England. Here, everyone of both human and animal persuasion has a good word to say about local shepherd Ben Hornby. But one day, Beatrix finds him dead in the meadow and suspects foul play.
Updated 6.6.05 - Blood of Angels
Author: Arvin, Reed
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 16.95 ISBN: 0060596341 Date: 2005KirkusPW
From the author of the acclaimed The Last Goodbye comes another gripping thriller--the story of a Nashville prosecutor whose office is rocked to its core by the case of a Sudanese refugee charged for killing a white woman that generates protests on all sides, threatening to tear the city apart.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
Updated 6.6.05 - Red Mass
Author: Aubert, Rosemary
Publisher: Bridge Works $ 23.95 ISBN: 1882593960 Date: 2005BooklistLJ
Updated 6.9.05 - The Burning Girl
Author: Billingham, Mark
Publisher: Morrow $ 16.95 ISBN: 0060745266 Date: 2005LJ
Detective Tom Thorne must hunt vicious contract killers out for his own blood in this electrifying fourth novel from the British author of Lazybones.
Suggested Reading: Hit Men | British Police
Updated 7.12.05 - Bloodless Shadow
Author: Blake, Victoria
Publisher: Prime Crime $ 14 (paper) ISBN: 0425203093 Date: 2005LJ
Blake's debut novel introduces Oxford-educated private eye Samantha Falconer. While working in London, Sam is summoned home by her brother to investigate the disappearance of a young woman--and confront the trauma she's tried so hard to forget.
Suggested Reading: P.I. Stars | Debuts
Updated 7.12.05 - Crusader's Cross
Author: Burke, James Lee
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25.95 ISBN: 0743277198 Date: 2005KirkusBooklistPW
Dave Robicheaux, the tough, former New Orleans cop, is back in perhaps his strongest and most exciting thriller. On a visit to a dying cop whom he once hated, Robicheaux is led towards the solution of the disappearance of a young woman he and his brother once knew--and family secrets he must confront and resolve.
Suggested Reading: P.I. Stars | Hard-Boiled | All Stars
Updated 6.6.05 - Rogues' Game
Author: Burton, Milton
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312336810 Date: 2005BooklistKirkus
With a wildcatting spirit--and set in a West Texas town in 1947-- The Rogues' Game is a high stakes novel and an exquisite quest for revenge.
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 5.25.05 - Thirty-three Teeth
Author: Cotterill, Colin
Publisher: Soho $ 24 ISBN: 1569473889 Date: 2005Kirkus
From the acclaimed author of The Coroner's Lunch comes a tale of justice done, Laotian shamanic style. With the assistance of his helpers, Dr. Siri Paiboun, the national coroner of Laos, elucidates the causes of mysterious deaths.
Suggested Reading: Laos
Updated 6.9.05 - The Enemy of God
Author: Daley, Robert
Publisher: Harcourt $ 23 ISBN: 015101244x Date: 2005LJBooklist
Gabe Driscoll, NYPD chief of Internal Affairs, reunites with the surviving members of his high school swim-relay team in an attempt to determine if the recent suicide of a former teammate was actually a murder. The search for answers takes them to Vietnam and Africa and back to Harlem, and inside their own ambitions, passions, and secrets.
Updated 8.15.05 - Sun and Shadow
Author: Edwardson, Ake
Publisher: Norton $ 22.95 ISBN: 0393051285 Date: 2005LJ
What greets Chief Inspector Winter and his team when they arrive at a crime scene appears as a stage setting, grotesquely symbolic in its composition. While Winter trawls ads in men's magazines in search of the suspect, a trail from the clues left by the killer leads into the cult world of the gothic, a riddle of nightmares, of good versus evil, of sun and shadow.
Suggested Reading: European Crime Fiction
Updated 5.18.05 - Eleven on Top
Author: Evanovich, Janet
Publisher: St Martins $26.95 ISBN: 0312306261 Date: 2005Booklist
Stephanie Plum has decided to quit her job as a bounty hunter. She wants something safe. She wants something normal. She's tired of creeps, weirdos, and stalkers. Then just when she thinks she's out, they pull her back in.
Suggested Reading: If You Like Janet Evanovich
Updated 5.20.05 - The Water Room
Author: Fowler, Christopher
Publisher: Bantam $ 24 ISBN: 0553803891 Date: 2005PW
Everyone's favorite British detective heroes return in a darkly hilarious puzzler. Arthur Bryant and John May must pool their resources to track down a murderer with an extraordinary motive and uncover the shocking secrets hidden in London's very deep underground.
Suggested Reading: British Police
Updated 5.23.05 - Puppets
Author: Hecht, Daniel
Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 14.95 ISBN: 1582344957 Date: 2005Booklist
Seven people are murdered, hung up with strings attached to their limbs like puppets. After the murderer is caught, state police detective Mo Ford finds another victim. Did the police catch the wrong man? Mo's theory expands to involve U.S. intelligence agencies and a horrific experiment with humans. With so many forces behind the scenes, who is the real puppet master?
Updated 6.20.05 - Six Bad Things
Author: Huston, Charlie
Publisher: Ballantine $12.95 (paper) ISBN: 0345464796 Date: 2005Booklist
From the author of the Hitchcockian debut Caught Stealing comes a fast-paced crime thriller about a good man who just wants to go home--and the bad past that won't let him.
Suggested Reading: Surfer Stars | Hard-Boiled
Updated 5.9.05 - Easy Streets: Harpur & Iles
Author: James, Bill
Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 039306042x Date: 2005PWBooklist
Suggested Reading: British Police
Updated 6.20.05 - Locked Rooms
Author: King, Laurie R.
Publisher: Bantam $ 24 ISBN: 055380197x Date: 2005PWKirkusLJBooklist
As Mary Russell and her husband, the eminent Sherlock Holmes, attempt to settle their affairs in the City by the Bay, Mary's past isn't the only thing that catches up with them: a mysterious stranger is waiting for the pair, and may be the only one who holds the key to the locked rooms that have been haunting Mary's dreams.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Elementary Stars
Updated 5.9.05 - Dearly Devoted Dexter
Author: Lindsey, Jeff
Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385511248 Date: 2005Booklist
Homicidal maniac Dexter Morgan, narrator of the bestselling Darkly Dreaming Dexter, returns and must slip further into his foolproof domestic disguise to avoid the suspicions of Miami Police Sergeant Doakes.
Suggested Reading: Serial Killer Stars
Updated 5.9.05 - Cold Granite
Author: MacBride, Stuart
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 031233995x Date: 2005BooklistPWLJ
DCI Logan McRac returns to his job in Aberdeen CID after recuperating from a gunshot wound and finds himself assigned to a brutal serial killer case.
Sugg Suggested Reading: Scottish Crime Fiction Stars | All Stars | Debuts
Updated 6.15.05 - Society Girls
Author: Mason, Sarah
Publisher: Ballantine $ 12.95 ISBN: 0345469577 Date: 2005LJ
Sisters Holly and Clemmie Colshannon search for a society journalist who disappears right before her wedding date. The drama morphs into a crisis and the whole family must flee to the south of France, with an ex-convict hot on their heels.
Updated 6.9.05 - Field of Blood
Author: Mina, Denise
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316735930 Date: 2005PWLJ
In the explosive start of a new series by the author of the acclaimed Garnethill trilogy, neophyte journalist Paddy Meehan becomes intimately involved in her first assignment - the brutal murder of a local boy.
Suggested Reading: Scottish Crime Fiction Stars
Updated 6.29.05 - Weaving Shadows
Author: Murphy, Margaret
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312328532 Date: 2005PW
In this follow-up, lawyer Clara Pascal returns--alive but still shaken from her traumatic experience as a kidnapping victim--to find herself unwittingly thrown into a new murder investigation.
Updated 6.13.05 - Fire Sale
Author: Paretsky, Sara
Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399152792 Date: 2005KirkusPWBooklist
Warshawski takes over coaching duties of the girls' basketball team at her former high school. Shortly after the mother of one of the players voices concerns about sabotage in the manufacturing plant where she works, a deadly explosion occurs. As Warshawski investigates, she must track down a particularly cruel murderer.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Private Investigators
Updated 6.20.05 - Lifeguard
Author: Patterson, James & Andrew Gross
Publisher: Little Brown $ 26.95 ISBN: 0316057851 Date: 2005Booklist
From the bestselling team behind The Jester comes a suspenseful new novel. Life is good for lifeguard Ned Kelley. He's involved with the beautiful Tess, and a million dollars awaits him as his share of the score for the robbery of some world-class art. But when Tess is murdered and others involved in the robbery are massacred, Ned is the prime suspect. He's been set up.
Updated 6.20.05 - Now Comes Death: Harry Brock
Author: Roby, Kinley
Publisher: Five Star $ 25.95 ISBN: 1594142874 Date: 2005Booklist
Updated 8.15.05 - Double Cross Blind
Author: Ross, Joel
Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385513887 Date: 2005LJ
In this electrifying debut, Ross combines political insights with the high stakes and fast pace of classic espionage fiction, as he delivers a spellbinding novel that follows an American agent's attempts to stop a Nazi spy just days before the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.
Suggested Reading: Debuts | Espionage Stars | Historical Crime Fiction | Nazis
Updated 6.9.05 - Killer Swell
Author: Shelby, Jeff
Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525948805 Date: 2005LJ
Surfing and murder come together in this dazzling debut mystery series featuring San Diego private investigator Noah Braddock.
Suggested Reading: Surfer Stars | Debuts
Updated 6.9.05 - This Dame for Hire
Author: Scoppettone, Sandra
Publisher: Ballantine $ 21.95 ISBN: 034547810x Date: 2005PWLJ
Meet Faye Quick, a sassy secretary who reluctantly becomes a P.I. when her boss joins the Army. As it turns out, she catches on quickly and is especially adept at solving crimes she stumbles over--literally.
Suggested Reading: P.I. Stars | Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 7.12.05 - Trance
Author: Sorrrentino, Christopher
Publisher: FSG $ 26 ISBN: 0374278644 Date: 2005Booklist
Sorrentino's second novel traces the Symbionese Liberation Army in the mid-70s, leading the reader on a breathtaking, hilarious, and heartbreaking underground tour across a beleaguered America, in the company of scam artists, visionaries, cultists, and a mismatched gang of middle-class people who typify the guiding conceit of their time, that of self-renovation.
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 6.20.05 - Ripples on a Pond
Author: Swindells, Madge
Publisher: Allison & Busby $ 25.95 ISBN: 0749083670 Date: 2005LJ
The well-heeled village of Temple Minnis, placid, privileged and picturesque, hides its guilty secret well, presenting a facade as smooth and calm as its deep, dark lake. Thirty years before, the villagers conspired to plan and conceal a murder, but only their dying local novelist, Melissa, suffers from pangs of conscience as she races toward extinction. It takes tough words and a touch of magic from the charismatic Tanzanian vicar, once the witchdoctor of his tribe, to persuade her to write her story...but as the villagers face up to the past, their lives change irrevocably. Love turns to fury and tragedy when Simon, a farmer hampered by a surfeit of caring, and Bela, precariously straddling two strong cultures, are caught up in the revelations. This is also spiritual story where life's deeply moving traumas are not only revealed through Simon's tragic, but through comical farming, marriage, and family disasters. Through love, Simon finds a way to overcome his karma and experience universal oneness and joy. - Publishers Marketing.
Updated 9.17.05 - The Russian Hill Murders
Author: Tallman, Shirley
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 031238575 Date: 2005PW
Defying convention, spirited 19th-century lawyer Sarah Woolson sets out to prove herself in her first criminal trial.
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction | Legal Stars
Updated 6.13.05 - The Tea-Olive Bird Watching Society
Author: Trobaugh, Augusta
Publisher: Dutton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0525948791 Date: 2005LJ
Southern comedy-of-manners crosses with the classic film Arsenic and Old Lace, in this surprising new novel by the author of Sophie and the Rising Sun. Trobaugh spices up her pitch-perfect Southern style with a witty murder plot--providing a hilarious twist that is sure to draw new readers to her work.
Updated 7.12.05 - Forcing Amaryllis
Author: Ure, Louise
Publisher: Warner $ 23.95 ISBN: 0892960094 Date: 2005LJ
Ure provides a new slant on courtroom mysteries. Louise Ure pulls back the curtain on jury consulting: the combination of psychology and marketing that has fascinated the nation in major courtroom battles since the O.J. Simpson trial. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
Updated 5.4.05 - Yellow
Author: Visman, Janni
Publisher: Viking $ 22.95 ISBN: 0670034029 Date: 2005Booklist
Stella is an agoraphobic aromatherapist in a relationship with the seemingly decent Ivan, but as doubts about his past and present creep in, her shut-in status makes for a perfect theatrical evocation of claustrophobia and paranoia.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
Updated 5.9.05 - Chain of Command
Author: Weinberger, Caspar
Publisher: Atria $ 25.95 ISBN: 074343773X Date: 2005KirkusPW
From well-connected Washington insiders comes this edge-of-the-seat political thriller about domestic terrorism, Secret Service plots, and a presidential assassination that will throw the entire country into catastrophe.
Suggested Reading: Political Fiction
Updated 6.3.05 - Over Her Dead Body
Author: White, Kate
Publisher: Warner $ 24.95 ISBN: 0446531766 Date: 2005PW
From "New York Times" bestselling author Kate White, editor-in-chief of "Cosmopolitan" magazine, comes a sizzling-hot mystery that takes listeners into the cutthroat world of fashion and celebrity magazines in the edgy and hip tradition of The Devil Wears Prada.
Updated 6.3.05
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