The Metropolitan Opera Murders

When the prompter falls dead during the second act of Richard Wagner's Die Walküre during a matinee performance at the Metropolitan Opera, as one can imagine, it causes quite a stir, especially when it is discovered that the deceased, a one time world famous Heldentenor has been poisoned. The detective assigned to the case, Lt. Quentin, finds himself immersed in the back stage drama of professional opera. His task is made more difficult when he decides that it had really been the star soprano who had been the intended victim, and not the prompter. Will he be able to solve the case before there is another Metropolitan Opera Murder?

Based on the exclusive accounts of Detectives Mike Struk and Jerry Giorgio of how they solved the Phantom of the Opera Case.

DIVDIVA frightening confession leads a priest to hunt down a murderer in Grand Master of crime fiction Dorothy Salisbury Davis’s bestselling novel, which critic Anthony Boucher called “one of the best detective stories of modern times”/div On a hot Saturday night in Manhattan, Father Duffy sits in a confessional, growing alarmed as he listens to the voice of a distraught young man who speaks of bloody hair and a dead woman and a compulsion to do things with a hammer that he does not understand. Before the priest can persuade the man to confess to the police, the killer flees, still clutching the hammer.DIV The next day, Father Duffy learns that a high-class call girl on the East Side has been savagely murdered, and no suspect has been found. As he searches for the disturbed young man who he fears will kill again, cerebral New York Police detective Sergeant Ben Goldsmith takes the lead in the investigation of the call-girl murder, racing against the clock to catch a very clever killer who, when enraged, cannot control his need to swing a hammer./divDIV/div/div

Ambitious, but ill-educated, naïve, and immature, Clyde Griffiths is raised by poor and devoutly religious parents to help in their street missionary work. As a young adult, Clyde must, to help support his family, take menial jobs as a soda jerk, then a bellhop at a prestigious Kansas City hotel. There, his more sophisticated colleagues introduce him to bouts of social drinking and sex with prostitutes. Enjoying his new lifestyle, Clyde becomes infatuated with manipulative Hortense Briggs, who takes advantage of him. After being in a car accident in which a young girl loses her life, Clyde is forced to run away from the town in search for the new life.

At the height if his popularity, S.S. Vane Dine pens a locked-room mystery with a lethal dose of sex and sin where infamous actress, "The Canary," is murdered in her cage after a passionate night with her lover. Margaret Odell, the famous Broadway beauty and ex-Follies girl known as "The Canary", is found murdered in her ransacked apartment, her jewelry stolen. It appears to be a robbery gone wrong, but the police can find no physical evidence to pinpoint a culprit. No one witnessed anyone entering or leaving, and the only unwatched entrance to the apartment building was bolted from the inside. Who could have killed the Canary in her locked cage? Margaret was seeing a number of men, ranging from high society gentleman to ruthless gangsters, and more than one man visited her apartment on the night she died.

This work contains thrilling detective stories. It revolves around two men, Mr. Barnes and Robert Leroy Mitchel, trying to solve challenging mysteries. Filled with intrigues, thefts, and unexpected twists, this is a must-read mystery book of interconnected stories.

Private investigator Robert Brixton has always hated Washington. Against his better judgment, he decides to stick around and take a job as an agent in a new State Department security agency headed by his former boss at the Washington P.D. After work one day he meets his youngest daughter, Janet, for a drink at an outdoor cafe. Shockingly, a young Arabic woman blows herself up, killing Janet and a dozen others. Seeking revenge for his daughter, Brixton follows the tracks of the bomber to a powerful senator's son. Brixton finds himself digging deep into what turns out to be a small but powerful cabal whose goal is to kill embassy workers from nations involved in the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Donald Bain thrills again with Undiplomatic Murder, the riveting next installment in the Margaret Truman's beloved Capital Crimes series. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This charming autobiography captures the life story of a fascinating woman: a Missouri girl-turned-world-class soprano who remained true to her roots through it all. Born and reared in St. Louis and proud of her origins, Helen Traubel grew up in a modest German-American family. She spent her teens and twenties singing with church choirs and quartets in the city, studying under first- rate teachers. She did not leave Missouri for New York until she was in her early thirties. Although she replaced the great Kirsten Flagstad at the Metropolitan Opera, she refused to confine herself to singing before elite crowds and prided herself on reaching a larger, more general audience via nightclubs, radio, television, and theater. St. Louis Woman is filled with candid and amusing stories as full of zest as Traubel herself. One such story details her audition for the Ford Hour, during which she suffered a terrible case of poison ivy, and the booth technicians interrupted her performance with laughter. Furious, she announced she would sing no more and started to leave. Without explanation, the technicians asked her to continue. Traubel later discovered that the higher-ups had called down to the technicians demanding they stop playing the Flagstad record and let that kid sing. The qualities that made Traubel such a notable individual are captured in this entertaining book. Her strong, independent character shines through. Outspoken and at times brutally honest, Traubel recounts her experiences at the Met, as both a popular performer and a teacher. She tells of exasperating moments when she was coaching famous pupil Margaret Truman. This is not a fact-laden examination of the singer’s Wagnerian repertory or a study of high opera; rather this engaging book introduces the reader to a nationally renowned performer who, despite her unmatched talent, retained her hometown identity and lived her life as a St. Louis woman.