The Deadly Dance

The Deadly Dance continues the tradition in M. C. Beaton's beloved Agatha Raisin cozy mystery series—now a hit show on Acorn TV and public television. Bossy, impulsive, and unlucky in love, the all-too-human Agatha Raisin has proved to be a surprisingly effective---and endearing---amateur sleuth. But can Agatha make it as a private investigator? After getting mugged on vacation, in what she will always think of as the Paris Incident, she decides to find out. Agatha soon learns that running her own detective agency in the Cotswolds is not quite like starring in a Raymond Chandler movie. Instead of dames in distress with big shoulder pads, her clients are ladies with missing cats and a man whose son has run off with his car. Agatha even worries that she might be outclassed by her sixty-seven-year-old secretary, Emma Comfrey. But then wealthy divorcée Catherine Laggat-Brown walks in with their first "real" case. Mrs. Laggat-Brown's daughter has received a death threat, and when Agatha thwarts an attack on the girl at a dinner dance, she recognizes an opportunity to show what Raisin Investigations can do. Even better, the case gives her a chance to reunite with her long-absent friend, Sir Charles Fraith. As they scour the Cotswolds in search of leads, Charles' insights prove invaluable and his charms irresistible, leading poor Emma to fall madly in love with him. As ever, Agatha bumbles her way through the case, trying her friends' patience and flirting shamelessly with the chief suspect. Will she put her tiny agency on the map, or has even the outrageous Agatha finally bitten off more than she can chew?

Sex, Money and Murder in 1980s LA and New York: In 1987 a heroin addict murdered an Emmy Award-winning choreographer in Manhattan. Then a wealthy LA surgeon and his teenaged son were targeted. In 1991, an out-of-work redneck flew to London with cyanide to poison three members of a male exotic dance review. If the poison didn't work, he was told to use a hammer to beat them to death. Who was behind these seemingly unrelated horrific crimes? Deadly Dance tells the fascinating story of Steve Banerjee, founder and owner of the smash LA nightclub, Chippendales. In the post-pill, pre-AIDS, sex-filled LA club scene of the 1980s, celebrities, desperate housewives and wild bachelorettes converged on one place: Chippendales-and behind it all was arson, the Mob and murder.

A woman and her two daughters are killed in a car bombing in Tel Aviv. The woman, a sophisticated academic, is also a Mossad assassin of nearly twenty years. Her husband, Pantera, identifies the bodies of his wife and children, swearing vengeance. Reaching as far back as 1989, to their meeting in Rome at a U.S. Embassy New Year's Eve ball, Deadly Dance starts the story of their relationship in the onion-layered world of covert operatives. Of necessity theirs is an encounter beset by lies wrapped in half-truths, concealed in shadowy realities. Kat and Pantera maneuver through action-packed covert operations, romantic encounters, torture and acrobatic combat, all while coming to grips about who they're hunting and who is hunting them. Deadly Dance is based on the life of the youngest Kidon Katsa agent in the history of Mossad and her husband, the fabled Chief Black Site Interrogator, who worked under such special access programs as the Operation Copper Green (created under Donald Rumsfeld), the United Nations Security Council - Special Operations Group (UN-SOG), and Task Forces 88 and 121. "A brilliantly insightful trip into the unique experience and tragic romance of two extraordinary people chasing demons through the secret real world. Wallace demonstrates how easily the most extreme and malevolent behavior can become acceptable when redefined within a context that makes any ordinary sense of right and wrong seem meaningless. His characters are as disturbingly human as any of us, and frighteningly likeable and real from an altered perspective on the everyday world we only thought we knew." Keith Harary, Ph.D. Executive Director, Institute for Advanced Psychology Bestselling author, Who Do You Think You Are?

Private Investigator Taylor Nash had more bad news for Dr. Evander Parker. Once a noted psychiatrist, a loving husband, respected in the community, Dr. Parker is now a homeless fugitive, at the mercy of a private investigator he does not know. And it all began when John McIlvane walked into his office.

Researching the history of a dilapidated Elizabeth manor house, Phineas Fox uncovers the shocking truth behind a mysterious - and deadly - dance. Having unexpectedly inherited an Elizabethan manor house in rural Norfolk, the new owner Quentin Rivers has asked Phineas Fox to investigate the house's history. Phin soon becomes immersed in The Tabor's dark and mysterious past, and in the course of his research uncovers tales of a curious dance, the Cwellan Daunsen: a dance that has not been performed for centuries but whose strange legend still lingers. The dance has a dark side; whenever it took place, children were told to stay indoors - and on no account to look through their windows . . . As Phin delves further, the terrible secrets of The Tabor and the Rivers family ancestors begin to reveal themselves, secrets stretching back more than six hundred years. But as the past gradually creeps up on the present, is history destined to repeat itself . . . ?

Dancing with someone is an act of trust. Elegant and intimate; you're close enough to kiss, close enough to feel your partner's heartbeat. But for Vanessa, dance is deadly - and she must be very careful who she trusts . . .Vanessa Adler attends an elite ballet school - the same one her older sister, Margaret, attended before she disappeared. Vanessa feels she can never live up to her sister's shining reputation. But Vanessa, with her glorious red hair and fair skin, has a kind of power when she dances - she loses herself in the music, breathes different air, and the world around her turns to flames . . . Soon she attracts the attention of three men: gorgeous Zep, mysterious Justin, and the great, enigmatic choreographer Josef Zhalkovsky. When Josef asks Vanessa to dance the lead in the Firebird, she has little idea of the danger that lies ahead - and the burning forces about to be unleashed . . .

As the intelligence specialist for A-Tac, a black-ops CIA unit masquerading as Ivy League faculty, Hannah Marshall is used to working behind the scenes. But when a brutal murder hits too close to home, Hannah finds herself in the middle of the action, falling in love while racing to outwit a sadistic mastermind. A KILLER CLOSES IN After the death of her A-Tac partner, Hannah doubts everything she thought she knew about love and loyalty. When handsome Harrison Blake joins the team, she’s reluctant to trust him—or to act on her intense attraction to him. Then Hannah receives a podcast of a gruesome murder, and the only person who can help her find the killer is Harrison. Harrison has spent years trying to hunt down the cunning monster who killed his sister. Now investigating with Hannah, he faces a shocking possibility—his sister’s murderer has resurfaced. As the danger escalates, Hannah and Harrison grow closer, and the desire simmering between them ignites. After Hannah disappears, Harrison has only one chance to save the woman he loves.

DI David Vogel is first on the scene when Melanie Cooke’s bruised and strangled body is discovered in Bristol’s red-light district. The evidence points to Melanie’s father being the killer, but Vogel’s on edge. The quick arrest is too easy, too straightforward. When two new murders are reported, Vogel’s team broaden the search: new evidence suggests that there are three different, disturbed criminals. Any one of them could have killed Melanie, but which one did? Vogel’s team inch towards the answer, never suspecting that the killer is watching them too, waiting for his moment to strike.