Suspicion Of Murder

The “uncommonly trenchant account of the only known FBI agent to confess to murder” (Kirkus Reviews). When rookie FBI agent Mark Putnam received his first assignment in 1987, it was the culmination of a lifelong dream, if not the most desirable location. Pikeville, Kentucky, is high in Appalachian coal country, an outpost rife with lawlessness dating back to the Hatfields and McCoys. As a rising star in the bureau, however, Putnam soon was cultivating paid informants and busting drug rings and bank robbers. But when one informant fell in love with him, passion and duty would collide with tragic results. A coal miner’s daughter, Susan Smith was a young, attractive, struggling single mother. She was also a drug user sometimes described as a con artist, thief, and professional liar. Ultimately, Putnam gave in to Smith’s relentless pursuit. But when he ended the affair, she waged a campaign of vengeance that threatened to destroy him. When at last she confronted him with a shocking announcement, a violent scuffle ensued, and Putnam, in a burst of uncontrolled rage, fatally strangled her. Though he had everything necessary to get away with murder—a spotless reputation, a victim with multiple enemies, and the protection of the bureau’s impenetrable shield—his conscience wouldn’t allow it. Tormented by a year of guilt and deception, Putnam finally led authorities to Smith’s remains. This is the story of what happened before, during, and after his startling confession—an account that “should take its place on the dark shelf of the best American true crime” (Newsday). Revised and updated, this ebook also includes photos and a new epilogue by the author.

In a single moment, Alexis Parker is transformed from private investigator to cold-blooded killer. With a bullet lodged in her side and a corrupt cop determined to silence her, she's forced to do the one thing she never imagined - she must run. But running only makes her look guiltier. When she signed on to safeguard her client's nightclub from thieves, she never thought that twelve hours later she would be wanted for murder. Wounded and scared, she has to use all of her resources to evade capture. She even allies herself with criminals - the types of people she spent years arresting. But that was a lifetime ago, when she was a federal agent and everything was much more black and white. Now, she'll take all the help she can get, regardless of where it comes from. Alexis is almost out of time and leads. No one can corroborate her story, and the only proof of her innocence is the bullet she carved out of her flesh. As the infection worsens, she considers giving up because if the police don't kill her, the fever will. Fortuitously, she encounters a man who promises to make her problems go away. He has evidence that can exonerate her, except it comes at price. Helping him could cost her everything, but reluctantly, she agrees. However, he takes advantage of her desperation, and the bodies soon pile up. When she attempts to defy him, he threatens her lover. Now she'll do anything to get her old life back. With no where else to turn, she seeks assistance from her former colleagues, and they devise a plan for her salvation - become bait. If it works, life will return to normal, and if it doesn't, police corruption will be the least of her worries.

In the shadow of the "Monster of Florence," a serial murderer who has terrorized Italy for seventeen years, Laura Grimaldi sets her tense psychological thriller Suspicion—a noir mystery of a city transformed by fear, and of friendships and family ties twisted by uncertainty and dark speculation. Grimaldi, whose hardboiled mysteries of the 1950s earned her the title "Italy’s queen of crime," turns here to the deeper, more elusive and disturbing questions that haunt human affairs. For years Matilde, the widow of a prominent Florentine doctor, has lived alone with her eccentric middle-aged son, Enea. When the police pay a call, the balance between mother and son is shifted just subtly enough to make Matilde prey to suspicions and doubts that grow ever more corrosive, ever harder to conceal and more dangerous to reveal. In the literary tradition of such mystery writers as Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell, Grimaldi creates an atmosphere charged with suspense as the daily lives and routines of her characters, infected with suspicion, begin to rearrange themselves around a few frightening facts and infinite monstrous possibilities. Matilde’s efforts to decipher Enea’s secretive movements and occupations appear perfectly sensible and defensible through Grimaldi’s deft shifts between mother and son—and another, chillingly detached perspective on the gruesome murders. Grimaldi’s readers will find themselves as subject to misinterpretation and doubt, to sympathies and suspicions as her Florentine characters, and spellbound until the book’s final page.

In her new reality television series that explores unsolved crimes, Laurie Moran brings together the friends and family of a murdered UCLA student to see what new evidence from the cold case comes to light.

The first instalment in the bestselling Anna Travis series from the BAFTA-winning writer Lynda La Plante, author of Widows, now a major motion picture Young Anna Travis has been assigned to her first murder case - a series of killings that has shocked even the most hardened of detectives. They started eight years ago - now the body count is up to six. The method of killing is identical, the backgrounds of the girls identical - all drug-users and prostitutes. Then a seventh body is found. The modus operandi is the same - but the victim is a young student with the 'face of an angel'. The profile of the murderer has changed dramatically. Determined to earn the respect of her male colleagues, Anna stumbles on a vital piece of information which links one man to the killings, a much-loved actor on the brink of international stardom. His arrest would create a media frenzy. But if he were foundinnocent, his wouldn't be the only career over - Anna's hard fought for reputation would be destroyed once and for all … 'Lynda La Plante practically invented the thriller. Above Suspicion blew me away - it grabs you and doesn't let go until the last page' KARIN SLAUGHTER 'La Plante is building up an interesting body of writing that is underrated… Anna proves a resourceful and believable heroine and heralds the launch of a major new character' GUARDIAN 'The prime suspect here is an adored actor, poised to hit the big time. Could he really be behind a string of grisly murders? It's up to Anna Travis, La Plante's gutsy new heroine, to find out' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Like Jane Tennison, Anna Travis has to work a world which is still rampantly chauvinistic… it is a novel to read about the complexity of relationships, as well as for its compelling plot' DAILY EXPRESS

Myron Willgrubs is a pedantic professor at the Plattefield campus of a large Midwest university. When he discovers a body in Pilgrims Park, he calls 911, but for reasons of his own refuses to divulge his name and later denies making the call. Before the police arrive to investigate, John Olivier, a macho formerly with the Green Berets and now heir apparent to the campus chancellery, also discovers the body, which he knows is that of Carl Madewell. Olivier has been having a torrid affair with Carl Madewell's wife Penelope. In what he tells himself is the Hoffa solution, Olivier removes the body from the park and stashes it in the freezer in his basement for later interment. When Penelope Madewell reports that her husband is missing, the police spring into action, thus bringing together a lovelorn detective, Patrick Delaney, and Professor Willgrubs' niece, Emily Peterson, runner-up in the 1997 Alice in Dairyland beauty contest. Several zany characters soon join the action, impeding both the police investigation and Detective Delaney's quest for Ms. Peterson's affections. Old and senile, Hattie Ellie Guck was watching for blue herons in Pilgrims Park through binoculars when she saw a man dump a body in the trunk of his car (or was it the backseat? she later wonders) and speed away. Although she doesn't call the police, she does tell her crooked grandnephew, Elwood Smythe, what she saw. A loose cannon, Smythe swings wildly from one target to another in schemes of blackmail. Underhanded and incompetent, Philip Moran is Plattefield's most senior detective and Delaney's mentor. He longs to organize a SWAT team to wage war on campus potheads. He vows revenge when taken off the case by the Chief of Police. Detective Delaney's old flame, Gigi Lamour, off to Hollywood to become a star, makes a porno flick and gets mixed up with the mob. She scurries back to Plattefield to marry Detective Delaney for both his money and his protection. Having hated each other for years, Mabel Freitag and Sophie Gargano work in the outer office of the current chancellor. Both are secretly plotting to ensure that John Olivier becomes the new chancellor, each supposing the other will get the boot when Olivier gets the appointment. Both conceal evidence that Olivier has a motive for murder and is lying to the police. The mystery is resolved when a psychopath, Sonny Zitsow, comes to Plattefield to kill Detective Delaney and is subdued by the most unlikely people in a most unlikely way.

DANGEROUS DANA is a Mystery/Suspense/Thriller about a young gorgeous Caribbean woman living in New York who gets revenge by killing people, living a secret double life as a murderer. DANGEROUS DANA involves chasings, fistfights, chokings, stalkings, arrests, jail time, prison time and a series of murders. Dana is not the kind of person who goes around looking for trouble, but if it happens to come her way or any member in her family’s way, she will become a psychopath and respond with violence. Dana fights like a boxer and is very well known for breaking people’s bones when she fights. She believes in fighting fire with fire. Is she a savior, or is she a psycho? Is she a vigilante, or is she a homicidal maniac?

Ellie Quicke finds herself the target of a local cult-like church, but are their motives truly Christian or is there darkness at their heart? Ellie is desperate to find someone to look after their elderly housekeeper, whose health is failing. But employing a carer found by Ellie’s difficult daughter, Diana, proves to be a mixed blessing when Ellie returns from a trip to America to find that carer Claire has implemented a number of bizarre changes to the Quicke household routine. Claire, is heavily involved in ‘the Vision’, a local church with a charismatic, powerful pastor, who – seemingly coincidentally – is looking to Ellie for financial help in his current project, housing reformed addicts. But Ellie is suspicious – and more so, when details of Claire’s chequered past comes to light. Can Ellie trust Claire and Pastor Ambrose? Ellie investigates and doesn’t like what she finds . . .