Bibliomysteries Books W

Books W

Summaries by Marsha McCurley, Candy Schwartz and Seth D. Bartner

Wald, Noreen.
Ghostwriter. Berkley Prime Crime, 1999
Jake O'Hara becomes a ghostwriter for an eminent mystery writer and ends up trying to solve a series of murders of ghostwriters before she becomes the next victim.

Wallace, Edgar.
The Door With Seven Locks. New York, A.L. Burt, 1926
Involves theft from a public library and a locked tomb with seven keys

Walshe, Robert.
Wales' Work. London, Secker & Warburg 1985 1st Canadian, Toronto, Stoddard, 1985 1st U.S., New York, Ticknor & Fields, 1986

Set in London, involves London clubs, authors, publishing and publicists.

Warga, Wayne.
Hardcover. New York, Arbor House, 1985
Jeffrey Dean was at an antiquarian book fair, scouting and buying for his rare book business, when he happened upon a first edition of Steinbeck's, Sweet Thursday, with an inscription which he knew postdated the author's death. He knew it was a forgery because he had once owned the book, uninscribed &endash; his code was still penciled on the endpaper. Thus begins a novel of intrigue and espionage, double-dealing and forgery, money, romance and rare books. A bibliomystery classic.
Singapore Transfer. New York, Viking Penguin, 1991
Smuggled in from the Orient, jade, the fabled green stone considered nearly sacred by the ancient Chinese, has a ready value in cold hard cash. Enter Jeffrey Dean, rare book dealer, ex-journalist, ex-CIA courier on a ghost writing assignment for the prime minister of Singapore and a beautiful U.S. customs agent investigating the illegal jade trade.Second book in the Jeffrey Dean series.

Waterhouse, Jane.
Graven Images. New York, Putnam, 1995

A mystery with Garner Quinn who writes true crime and finds herself stalked by a cold-blooded killer while she is tangling with a celebrated sculptor, body parts which have been found in his life-like sculptures.

Welch, Pat.
Murder By the Book, a Helen Black mystery. Tallahassee Fla., Naiaid, 1990
The debut of Helen Black, ex cop, now not so busy PI ... until a body is found in a Berkeley, California bank vault. Series character: Lesbian private investigator Helen Black.

Wells, Carolyn.
Murder in a Bookshop. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1936
A wealthy collector and is killed in the back room of a New York Antiquarian bookshop after he and his private librarian break into the shop after closing.

West, Nigel.
Murder in the Commons. London, Macmillan, 1993
The murdered man's mistress is a librarian. 1st book in the Philip North, MP series.

Westbrook, Perry D.
Infra Blood. New York, Phoenix Press, 1950

Someone is killing people in the Banks College Library in Maine during Christmas holidays

Westlake, Donald.
The Hook. Mysterious Press, 2000.
A chance encounter between two writers at the New York Public Library leads to a pact similar to Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. One author will kill the other's wife; as a reward he gets a book to publish under his own name

Whitelaw, David.
The Lexicon Murders. London, Macdonald, 1945
An old notebook leads to the solution of a series of vendetta murders
The Yellow Door. London, Macmillan, 1951
Agricultural implements salesman Martin Brent who writes nature articles for Orchard Press magazine under the pseudonym Clive Seagrave teams with painter of flora Sheila Maddison to do a book as well as solve a missing person's murder case. A mystery in the classic British style.

Whitney, Phyllis.
A Dream of Orchids. Garden City, Doubleday, 1985
The bookstore owner, narrator, relates a story involving a father who abandoned his daughter, sunken treasure, modern piracy, and love in Key West's Old Town.

Wilcox, Collin.
Doctor, Lawyer ... New York, Random House, 1976
The San Francisco Public Library, a nursery-rhyme killer dubbed The Masked Man who has murdered the doctor, the lawyer and the merchant. Next on his list is the Chief of Police. Series Character: Lt. Frank Hastings of the San Francisco Police Dept.

Williams, Charles.
War in Heaven. London, Gollancz, 1930
Magic and witchcraft - protagonist must find the solution in an ancient manuscript before more copies turn up.

Williams, David.
Unholy Writ. London , Collins Crime Club, 1975; 1st US, New York, St. Martin's, 1976
The plot involves a manuscript copy of a Shakespeare play and Shakespearean skullduggery in a stately home as Treasure tries to discover who murdered the gravedigger. Series character: Mark Treasure, investment banker-vicar and sleuth.
Treasure Preserved. London , Macmillan, 1982. 1st US, New York, St. Martin's, 1983.
Louella Brassett dies mysteriously, after researching some Sydney Marshford family papers in the archives of Topharen Public Library. Series character: Mark Treasure
Murder in Advent. London , Macmillan, 1985. 1st US, New York, St. Martin's, 1986
The novel centers around the theft one of the four extant copies of the Magna Carta bearing the Great Seal of King John dated 23 June 1215 from its home in the Cathedral library. 9th book featuring series character investment banker-vicar Mark Treasure
Treasure in Oxford. London, Macmillan 1988. 1st US, New York, St. Martin's, 1989
Murder and theft in an architectural library. Series character: Mark Treasure

Williams, Sydney.
The Drury Club Case. Philadelphia, Penn Publishing Company, 1927

Denizens of Drury Club Library formulate a mystery plot

Wills, Garry.
At Button's. Mission, Kansas, Andrews and McMeel, 1979

The mystery begins with a murder in the foyer of the NYPL

Wiltz, Chris.
The Killing Circle. London, Mysterious Press, 1981
New Orleans P.I. and ex cop, Neal Rafferty is hired to locate a missing $90,000 set of the works of William Blake held by unfaithful husband and rare book dealer Stanley Garber. It takes him 48 hours to locate the books but only a few to find Gerber &endash; quite dead. Each of the suspects is female, two are 'devastatingly attractive,' and Rafferty promptly falls in love with one of them.

Wings, Mary.
She Came By the Book. New York, Berkley Prime Crime, 1996
Set in San Francisco, Emma Victor, lesbian P.I. is entrusted with the private papers of an assassinated gay politician. Third book with series character Emma Victor

Wittig, Clifford.
Murder in Blue. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1937; New York,

Scribner's, 1937

Murder in an English country bookshop. Series character: Inspector Charlton of the CID's first case.

Wogan, Charles.
The Horror at Wardens Hall. London, Long, 1948.
Murder, a mysterious book and the bookselling community. Introducing Sebastian Stole, 'a detective who might have been a king.'

Wolf, S. K.
Mackinnon's Machine. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1991
A San Diego librarian assists a military SAS agent in a plot involving political assassination in a Middle East setting.

Wolzien, Valerie.
All Hallows' Evil. New York, Fawcett, 1992
At first Susan Henshaw thought the body in the library was a Halloween trick until she saw the blood and heard the man's dying gasp. Then a second body, celebrity talk-show host Jason Armstrong, was found stabbed on his front porch. As Susan begins to investigate the deaths, she uncovers secrets that a killer would go to any lengths to keep hidden. 4th book in the Susan Henshaw, Connecticut suburban housewife/sleuth series

Woods, Sara.
They Love Not Poison. London, Macmillan, 1972; 1st US, Holt, Rinehart, 1972
Clues are found in library in a novel of witchcraft and sudden murder which shattered the peace of the English countryside. Anthony Maitland, English barrister series

Wren, M.K. (Pseudonym of Martha Kay Renfroe)
Curiosity Didn't Kill the Cat. Garden City, Doubleday, 1973
When Conan Flagg, former detective, now proprietor of a Dickensian bookshop on the Oregon Coast, investigates the death of a neighbor all the clues lead back to his own bookshop. He soon he finds that the crime has implications far beyond his own little seaside resort community. Author's first mystery introduces series character: Conan Flagg
A Multitude of Sins. Garden City, Doubleday, 1975
Senator John Canfield left his daughter 4 million--and a legacy of fear. Series character: Conan Flagg
Oh, Bury Me Not. Garden City, Doubleday, 1976
Nothing's Certain But Death. Garden City, Doubleday, 1978
Conan Flagg was the innocent recipient of a friend's errant punch during a barroom brawl. The punch was intended for an IRS agent who turns up dead the next morning. Series character: Conan Flagg
Seasons of Death. Garden City, Doubleday, 1981
Silver City Idaho is a Ghost town where the past still lives and a killer still walks. Series character: Conan Flagg
Wake Up Darlin' Corey. Garden City, Doubleday, 1984
Protagonist, Conan Flagg, runs a used and rare bookstore

Wright, Eric.
The Night the Gods Smiled. Toronto, Collins Crime Club, 1983; London, Collins Crime Club, 1983.; 1st US, New York. Scribner's, 1983
Innocent as a Charles Lamb English Professor, David Summers, is found dead in his hotel room while attending the annual conference. Introducing Inspector Charlie Salter. Won Canada's Arthur Ellis Award and England's John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award, both for best first crime novel
Death of a Sunday Writer. Woodstock,VT, Foul Play Press, 1996; 1st UK, London, Macmillan, 1996
A librarian inherits a detective agency. Introduces Lucy Trimble Brenner, Private Detective
Death on the Rocks. New York, St. Martin's, 1999
Second in the Lucy Trimble series. Librarian turned detective gets embroiled in a client's family mystery.

Wright, Laurali R. (early novels pub. as L.R. Wright).
The Suspect. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1985. 1st US, New York, Viking 1985.
An odd murder by eighty year old, George Wilcox, leaves the sleepy British Columbia community of Sechelt searching for answers. Author's first mystery and the introduction of R.C.M.P. Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg of Sechelt, British Columbia and his off-again on-again associate and romantic interest, librarian Cassandra Mitchell. 1st in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series.Edgar for Best First Novel.
Sleep While I Sing. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1986. New York, Viking Penguin, 1986
She was a woman traveling alone, with no identification and now she is dead, her throat slashed and nobody in the sleepy hamlet of Sechelt knows anything about the death. So Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg has to start from scratch. But he is distracted by Cassandra Mitchell, the local librarian with whom he has an on-again, off-again relationship, and her infatuation with a flirtatious actor visiting from Los Angeles. As Alberg struggles to separate jealousy from suspicion, the killer stalks the sleepy town, and only another murder can lead him to the horrifying truth. 2nd in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series
A chill Rain in January. Toronto, Macmillan Canada, 1990; New York, Viking Penguin, 1990
In a small village on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast, Zoe Strachan, a woman of seductive beauty and shattering secrets who is living a secluded, private, and happy life. When her brother Benjamin arrives on the scene with incriminating childhood diaries and a blackmail demand, what is she to do? At the same time, Alberg investigates the sudden disappearance of an elderly widow from a village nursing home - a disappearance he doesn't connect with the Strachan case until it is almost too late. Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel3rd in Karl Alberg, R.C.M.P. and librarian Cassandra Mitchell series
Fall from Grace. Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1991; New York, Viking Penguin, 1991; London, Macmillan Crime Case, 1992
When he takes his on-again, off-again "significant other," town librarian Cassandra Mitchell, on a boat trip to a sun-drenched cove on the Pacific coast, Alberg was expecting a room with a view. What he got was the body of Steven Grayson, belted with a money cache of thousands, plummeting before his eyes from a high cliff. 4th in Karl Alberg, R.C.M.P. and librarian Cassandra Mitchell series
Prized Possessions. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1993; New York, Viking Penguin, 1993
After the death of his father, Alberg is at loose ends until he agrees to track down Charlie O'Brea. a vanished insurance executive whom, he discovers, has been spending a year planning his escape from his marriage to his obsessively devoted wife, Emma, while in another part of town, a gawky delivery boy's attraction to an attractive coed turns violent. 5th in Karl Alberg, R.C.M.P. and librarian Cassandra Mitchell series
A Touch of Panic. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1994; New York, Scribner's, 1994
Sgt. Alberg has to solve several different crimes while protecting Cassandra Mitchell from ruthless businessman and killer, Gordon Murphy, who has finally found for himself the perfect woman. 6th in Karl Alberg, R.C.M.P. and librarian Cassandra Mitchell series. Edgar Award for Best Novel.
Mother Love. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1995; New York, Scribner's, 1995.
Returning to an embittered family seven years after a mysterious abandonment, Maria Buscombe is murdered just after seeing her daughter for a brief, unsettling moment. To find her killer, Alberg must probe the sad, shocking truth of the dead woman's past. He must also deal with his relationship with Cassandra Mitchell, who, after being kidnapped and nearly killed, is terrified of being alone. 7th in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series
Strangers Among Us. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1996; New York, Scribner's, 1996.
Why would teenager Eliot Gardener suddenly take a machete to his family on a Sechelt beach, killing his father and mother and seriously wounding his beloved eight-year-old sister Rosie? And why has salesman Jack Coutts, mourning his own wife and daughter, returned to the coast of British Columbia packing a gun, evidently intending to use it to postpone, to the indefinite future, Alberg's marriage to his live-in librarian love, Cassandra Mitchell? 8th in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series
Acts Of Murder. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1997; New York, Scribner's, 1998
A 64-year-old cleaning woman proves to be an unlikely link in a string of murders in a small Canadian town, as Alberg explores the wicked web of mystery surrounding the untimely deaths. The investigation would have been easier if he hadn't been so preoccupied with his marriage to his longtime love Cassandra Mitchell. Introduces Karl Alberg's ambitious new sidekick Edwina Henderson. 9th in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series

Wright, Sally.
Publish and Perish. New York Ballantine, 1999.
University archivist Ben Reese investigates the murder of the Chair of English Dept.
Pride and Predator. Ballantine Books, 1999.
Archivist Ben Reese is back in this mystery, which has him investigating murder in a Scottish castle.
Pursuit and Persuasion. Multnomah Publishers, 2000.
The third installment in author Sally Wright's Archivist Ben Reese Mystery series explores the issues of human possessiveness and self-obsession, highlighting how lust for what we want can lead us astray. Scottish professor Georgina Fletcher has died of "natural causes," but not before writing a letter asking for an investigation into her death. American archivist Ben Reese takes up the dangerous challenge that starts out with a sixteenth-century stabbing and incorporates elements of falconry, tire making, microbiology, and book collecting before Georgina's hidden poems eventually help him find the killer.

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Wald, Noreen. Ghostwriter. Berkley Prime Crime, 1999 Jake O'Hara becomes a ghostwriter for an eminent mystery writer and ends up trying to solve a series of murders of ghostwriters before she becomes the next victim.
Wallace, Edgar. The Door With Seven Locks. New York, A.L. Burt, 1926 Involves theft from a public library and a locked tomb with seven keys
Walshe, Robert. Wales' Work. London, Secker & Warburg 1985 1st Canadian, Toronto, Stoddard, 1985 1st U.S., New York, Ticknor & Fields, 1986 Set in London, involves London clubs, authors, publishing and publicists.
Warga, Wayne. Hardcover. New York, Arbor House, 1985 Jeffrey Dean was at an antiquarian book fair, scouting and buying for his rare book business, when he happened upon a first edition of Steinbeck's, Sweet Thursday, with an inscription which he knew postdated the author's death. He knew it was a forgery because he had once owned the book, uninscribed &endash; his code was still penciled on the endpaper. Thus begins a novel of intrigue and espionage, double-dealing and forgery, money, romance and rare books. A bibliomystery classic. Singapore Transfer. New York, Viking Penguin, 1991 Smuggled in from the Orient, jade, the fabled green stone considered nearly sacred by the ancient Chinese, has a ready value in cold hard cash. Enter Jeffrey Dean, rare book dealer, ex-journalist, ex-CIA courier on a ghost writing assignment for the prime minister of Singapore and a beautiful U.S. customs agent investigating the illegal jade trade.Second book in the Jeffrey Dean series.
Waterhouse, Jane. Graven Images. New York, Putnam, 1995 A mystery with Garner Quinn who writes true crime and finds herself stalked by a cold-blooded killer while she is tangling with a celebrated sculptor, body parts which have been found in his life-like sculptures.
Welch, Pat. Murder By the Book, a Helen Black mystery. Tallahassee Fla., Naiaid, 1990 The debut of Helen Black, ex cop, now not so busy PI ... until a body is found in a Berkeley, California bank vault. Series character: Lesbian private investigator Helen Black.
Wells, Carolyn. Murder in a Bookshop. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1936 A wealthy collector and is killed in the back room of a New York Antiquarian bookshop after he and his private librarian break into the shop after closing.
West, Nigel. Murder in the Commons. London, Macmillan, 1993 The murdered man's mistress is a librarian. 1st book in the Philip North, MP series.
Westbrook, Perry D. Infra Blood. New York, Phoenix Press, 1950 Someone is killing people in the Banks College Library in Maine during Christmas holidays
Westlake, Donald. The Hook. Mysterious Press, 2000. A chance encounter between two writers at the New York Public Library leads to a pact similar to Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. One author will kill the other's wife; as a reward he gets a book to publish under his own name
Whitelaw, David. The Lexicon Murders. London, Macdonald, 1945 An old notebook leads to the solution of a series of vendetta murders The Yellow Door. London, Macmillan, 1951 Agricultural implements salesman Martin Brent who writes nature articles for Orchard Press magazine under the pseudonym Clive Seagrave teams with painter of flora Sheila Maddison to do a book as well as solve a missing person's murder case. A mystery in the classic British style.
Whitney, Phyllis. A Dream of Orchids. Garden City, Doubleday, 1985 The bookstore owner, narrator, relates a story involving a father who abandoned his daughter, sunken treasure, modern piracy, and love in Key West's Old Town.
Wilcox, Collin. Doctor, Lawyer ... New York, Random House, 1976 The San Francisco Public Library, a nursery-rhyme killer dubbed The Masked Man who has murdered the doctor, the lawyer and the merchant. Next on his list is the Chief of Police. Series Character: Lt. Frank Hastings of the San Francisco Police Dept.
Williams, Charles. War in Heaven. London, Gollancz, 1930 Magic and witchcraft - protagonist must find the solution in an ancient manuscript before more copies turn up.
Williams, David. Unholy Writ. London , Collins Crime Club, 1975; 1st US, New York, St. Martin's, 1976 The plot involves a manuscript copy of a Shakespeare play and Shakespearean skullduggery in a stately home as Treasure tries to discover who murdered the gravedigger. Series character: Mark Treasure, investment banker-vicar and sleuth. Treasure Preserved. London , Macmillan, 1982. 1st US, New York, St. Martin's, 1983. Louella Brassett dies mysteriously, after researching some Sydney Marshford family papers in the archives of Topharen Public Library. Series character: Mark Treasure Murder in Advent. London , Macmillan, 1985. 1st US, New York, St. Martin's, 1986 The novel centers around the theft one of the four extant copies of the Magna Carta bearing the Great Seal of King John dated 23 June 1215 from its home in the Cathedral library. 9th book featuring series character investment banker-vicar Mark Treasure Treasure in Oxford. London, Macmillan 1988. 1st US, New York, St. Martin's, 1989 Murder and theft in an architectural library. Series character: Mark Treasure
Williams, Sydney. The Drury Club Case. Philadelphia, Penn Publishing Company, 1927 Denizens of Drury Club Library formulate a mystery plot
Wills, Garry. At Button's. Mission, Kansas, Andrews and McMeel, 1979 The mystery begins with a murder in the foyer of the NYPL
Wiltz, Chris. The Killing Circle. London, Mysterious Press, 1981 New Orleans P.I. and ex cop, Neal Rafferty is hired to locate a missing $90,000 set of the works of William Blake held by unfaithful husband and rare book dealer Stanley Garber. It takes him 48 hours to locate the books but only a few to find Gerber &endash; quite dead. Each of the suspects is female, two are 'devastatingly attractive,' and Rafferty promptly falls in love with one of them.
Wings, Mary. She Came By the Book. New York, Berkley Prime Crime, 1996 Set in San Francisco, Emma Victor, lesbian P.I. is entrusted with the private papers of an assassinated gay politician. Third book with series character Emma Victor
Wittig, Clifford. Murder in Blue. London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1937; New York, Scribner's, 1937 Murder in an English country bookshop. Series character: Inspector Charlton of the CID's first case.
Wogan, Charles. The Horror at Wardens Hall. London, Long, 1948. Murder, a mysterious book and the bookselling community. Introducing Sebastian Stole, 'a detective who might have been a king.'
Wolf, S. K. Mackinnon's Machine. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1991 A San Diego librarian assists a military SAS agent in a plot involving political assassination in a Middle East setting.
Wolzien, Valerie. All Hallows' Evil. New York, Fawcett, 1992 At first Susan Henshaw thought the body in the library was a Halloween trick until she saw the blood and heard the man's dying gasp. Then a second body, celebrity talk-show host Jason Armstrong, was found stabbed on his front porch. As Susan begins to investigate the deaths, she uncovers secrets that a killer would go to any lengths to keep hidden. 4th book in the Susan Henshaw, Connecticut suburban housewife/sleuth series
Woods, Sara. They Love Not Poison. London, Macmillan, 1972; 1st US, Holt, Rinehart, 1972 Clues are found in library in a novel of witchcraft and sudden murder which shattered the peace of the English countryside. Anthony Maitland, English barrister series
Wren, M.K. (Pseudonym of Martha Kay Renfroe) Curiosity Didn't Kill the Cat. Garden City, Doubleday, 1973 When Conan Flagg, former detective, now proprietor of a Dickensian bookshop on the Oregon Coast, investigates the death of a neighbor all the clues lead back to his own bookshop. He soon he finds that the crime has implications far beyond his own little seaside resort community. Author's first mystery introduces series character: Conan Flagg A Multitude of Sins. Garden City, Doubleday, 1975 Senator John Canfield left his daughter 4 million--and a legacy of fear. Series character: Conan Flagg Oh, Bury Me Not. Garden City, Doubleday, 1976 Nothing's Certain But Death. Garden City, Doubleday, 1978 Conan Flagg was the innocent recipient of a friend's errant punch during a barroom brawl. The punch was intended for an IRS agent who turns up dead the next morning. Series character: Conan Flagg Seasons of Death. Garden City, Doubleday, 1981 Silver City Idaho is a Ghost town where the past still lives and a killer still walks. Series character: Conan Flagg Wake Up Darlin' Corey. Garden City, Doubleday, 1984 Protagonist, Conan Flagg, runs a used and rare bookstore
Wright, Eric. The Night the Gods Smiled. Toronto, Collins Crime Club, 1983; London, Collins Crime Club, 1983.; 1st US, New York. Scribner's, 1983 Innocent as a Charles Lamb English Professor, David Summers, is found dead in his hotel room while attending the annual conference. Introducing Inspector Charlie Salter. Won Canada's Arthur Ellis Award and England's John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award, both for best first crime novel Death of a Sunday Writer. Woodstock,VT, Foul Play Press, 1996; 1st UK, London, Macmillan, 1996 A librarian inherits a detective agency. Introduces Lucy Trimble Brenner, Private Detective Death on the Rocks. New York, St. Martin's, 1999 Second in the Lucy Trimble series. Librarian turned detective gets embroiled in a client's family mystery.
Wright, Laurali R. (early novels pub. as L.R. Wright). The Suspect. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1985. 1st US, New York, Viking 1985. An odd murder by eighty year old, George Wilcox, leaves the sleepy British Columbia community of Sechelt searching for answers. Author's first mystery and the introduction of R.C.M.P. Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg of Sechelt, British Columbia and his off-again on-again associate and romantic interest, librarian Cassandra Mitchell. 1st in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series.Edgar for Best First Novel. Sleep While I Sing. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1986. New York, Viking Penguin, 1986 She was a woman traveling alone, with no identification and now she is dead, her throat slashed and nobody in the sleepy hamlet of Sechelt knows anything about the death. So Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg has to start from scratch. But he is distracted by Cassandra Mitchell, the local librarian with whom he has an on-again, off-again relationship, and her infatuation with a flirtatious actor visiting from Los Angeles. As Alberg struggles to separate jealousy from suspicion, the killer stalks the sleepy town, and only another murder can lead him to the horrifying truth. 2nd in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series A chill Rain in January. Toronto, Macmillan Canada, 1990; New York, Viking Penguin, 1990 In a small village on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast, Zoe Strachan, a woman of seductive beauty and shattering secrets who is living a secluded, private, and happy life. When her brother Benjamin arrives on the scene with incriminating childhood diaries and a blackmail demand, what is she to do? At the same time, Alberg investigates the sudden disappearance of an elderly widow from a village nursing home - a disappearance he doesn't connect with the Strachan case until it is almost too late. Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel3rd in Karl Alberg, R.C.M.P. and librarian Cassandra Mitchell series Fall from Grace. Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1991; New York, Viking Penguin, 1991; London, Macmillan Crime Case, 1992 When he takes his on-again, off-again "significant other," town librarian Cassandra Mitchell, on a boat trip to a sun-drenched cove on the Pacific coast, Alberg was expecting a room with a view. What he got was the body of Steven Grayson, belted with a money cache of thousands, plummeting before his eyes from a high cliff. 4th in Karl Alberg, R.C.M.P. and librarian Cassandra Mitchell series Prized Possessions. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1993; New York, Viking Penguin, 1993 After the death of his father, Alberg is at loose ends until he agrees to track down Charlie O'Brea. a vanished insurance executive whom, he discovers, has been spending a year planning his escape from his marriage to his obsessively devoted wife, Emma, while in another part of town, a gawky delivery boy's attraction to an attractive coed turns violent. 5th in Karl Alberg, R.C.M.P. and librarian Cassandra Mitchell series A Touch of Panic. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1994; New York, Scribner's, 1994 Sgt. Alberg has to solve several different crimes while protecting Cassandra Mitchell from ruthless businessman and killer, Gordon Murphy, who has finally found for himself the perfect woman. 6th in Karl Alberg, R.C.M.P. and librarian Cassandra Mitchell series. Edgar Award for Best Novel. Mother Love. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1995; New York, Scribner's, 1995. Returning to an embittered family seven years after a mysterious abandonment, Maria Buscombe is murdered just after seeing her daughter for a brief, unsettling moment. To find her killer, Alberg must probe the sad, shocking truth of the dead woman's past. He must also deal with his relationship with Cassandra Mitchell, who, after being kidnapped and nearly killed, is terrified of being alone. 7th in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series Strangers Among Us. Toronto, Doubleday Canada, 1996; New York, Scribner's, 1996. Why would teenager Eliot Gardener suddenly take a machete to his family on a Sechelt beach, killing his father and mother and seriously wounding his beloved eight-year-old sister Rosie? And why has salesman Jack Coutts, mourning his own wife and daughter, returned to the coast of British Columbia packing a gun, evidently intending to use it to postpone, to the indefinite future, Alberg's marriage to his live-in librarian love, Cassandra Mitchell? 8th in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series Acts Of Murder. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1997; New York, Scribner's, 1998 A 64-year-old cleaning woman proves to be an unlikely link in a string of murders in a small Canadian town, as Alberg explores the wicked web of mystery surrounding the untimely deaths. The investigation would have been easier if he hadn't been so preoccupied with his marriage to his longtime love Cassandra Mitchell. Introduces Karl Alberg's ambitious new sidekick Edwina Henderson. 9th in the Karl Alberg, Cassandra Mitchell series
Wright, Sally. Publish and Perish. New York Ballantine, 1999. University archivist Ben Reese investigates the murder of the Chair of English Dept. Pride and Predator. Ballantine Books, 1999. Archivist Ben Reese is back in this mystery, which has him investigating murder in a Scottish castle. Pursuit and Persuasion. Multnomah Publishers, 2000. The third installment in author Sally Wright's Archivist Ben Reese Mystery series explores the issues of human possessiveness and self-obsession, highlighting how lust for what we want can lead us astray. Scottish professor Georgina Fletcher has died of "natural causes," but not before writing a letter asking for an investigation into her death. American archivist Ben Reese takes up the dangerous challenge that starts out with a sixteenth-century stabbing and incorporates elements of falconry, tire making, microbiology, and book collecting before Georgina's hidden poems eventually help him find the killer.