Murder With Love

'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times An earthquake shakes Southern California and the Los Angeles Police Department. With no air-conditioning and a temperature around 98 degrees the heat is turned up when there's a triple shooting of a highly respected Doctor, his wife and his nurse. Can Lieutenant Luis Mendoza and his team solve the case while chaos reigns around them?

A collection of 16 original stories from today's foremost fiction writers--including Ed McBain, Jonathan Kellerman, Sara Paretsky, Mary Higgins Clark, Elmore Leonard, James Crumley, John Gardner, Anne Perry, Donna Tartt, Shel Silverstein, Bobbie Ann Mason, Carol Higgins Clark, William J. Caunitz, Michael Malone, and Faye Kellerman--each a brilliant mystery exploring that peculiar area that lies between love and death.

Early on the morning of May 6, 1840, the elderly Lord William Russell was found in his London house with his throat so deeply cut that his head was nearly severed. The crime soon had everyone, including Queen Victoria, feverishly speculating about motives and methods. But when the prime suspect claimed to have been inspired by a sensational crime novel, it sent shock waves through literary London and drew both Dickens and Thackeray into the fray. Could a novel really lead someone to kill? In Murder by the Book, Claire Harman blends a riveting true-crime whodunit with a fascinating account of the rise of the popular novel and the early battle for its soul among the most famous writers of the day.

What would you do if your best friend died? What if she'd betrayed you hours earlier?Emma's nights are haunted by the twisted sight of her friend's body in Stone Lake. Others in the sleepy town of Camber slap an accident label on the death and call it a day. Emma can't. It hurts too much to leave it alone.Proving the drowning was murder isn't easy. The sheriff stonewalls her, her friends want her to leave it alone, and her parents are too busy bickering to worry over much else.Cole's mistrust for corporations and government hasn't made him many friends in town, but his willingness to believe Emma makes him her strongest ally. Together they'll dig into the town's past-and their own-to get to the truth.Even if it brings more danger to their doorsteps.

On Friday, April 8th, 1994 the body of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was discovered in a room above his garage in Seattle. The police declared it an open-and-shut case of suicide, but this book, drawing on forensic evidence and police reports, explodes the myth that Cobain took his own life and reveals the official scenario was scientifically impossible. Love & Death paints a critical portrait of Courtney Love - suspected of knowing the whereabouts of Cobain in the days prior to his death, and that he was planning to divorce her - and it reveals the case tapes made by Love's own PI, Tom Grant; a man on a mission to find the truth about Kurt Cobain's demise after becoming suspicious of Courtney's actions and the rushed police investigation. In addition, Cobain's grandfather goes public, charging that his grandson was murdered.

A campy dark comedy for the angry and the disenchanted. Last November, I found a dead body inside the freezer that my roommate keeps inside the garage. My first thought was to call the police, but Jignesh hadn't paid his share of the rent just yet. It wasn't due until the thirtieth, and you know how difficult it is to find people who pay on time. Jignesh always does. Also, he had season tickets for the LA Opera, and well . . . Madame Butterfly. Tosca. The Flying Dutchman . . . at the Dorothy Chandler . . . you cannot say no to that, can you? Well, it's been a few good months now--Madame Butterfly was just superb, thank you. However, last Friday, I found a second body inside that stupid freezer in the garage. This time I'm evicting Jignesh. My house isn't a mortuary . . . alas, I need to come up with some money first. You'll understand, therefore, that I desperately need to sell this novel. Just enough copies to help me survive until I find a job . . . what could I do that doesn't demand too much effort? We have a real treasure here, anyhow. Some chapters are almost but not quite pornographic. You could safely lend this to nana afterward!

Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library—she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn’t expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town . . . Addie left some painful memories behind in the big city, including the unsolved murder of her fiancé and her father’s fatal car accident. After an unexpected inheritance from a great aunt, she’s moved to a small New England town founded by her ancestors back in colonial times—and living in spacious Greyborne Manor, on a hilltop overlooking the harbor. Best of all, her aunt also left her countless first editions and other treasures—providing an inventory to start her own store. But there’s trouble from day one, and not just from the grumpy woman who runs the bakery next door. A car nearly runs Addie down. Someone steals a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Then, Addie’s friend Serena, who owns a nearby tea shop, is arrested—for killing another local merchant. The police seem pretty sure they’ve got the story in hand, but Addie’s not going to let them close the book on this case without a fight . . .