Under Lock Skeleton Key

"Wildly entertaining." —The New York Times Book Review A Lefty Nominee for Best Mystery Novel Known for her wonderfully addictive characters, multiple award-winning author Gigi Pandian introduces her newest heroine in this heartfelt series debut. Under Lock & Skeleton Key layers stunning architecture with mouthwatering food in an ode to classic locked-room mysteries that will leave readers enchanted. An impossible crime. A family legacy. The intrigue of hidden rooms and secret staircases. After a disastrous accident derails Tempest Raj’s career, and life, she heads back to her childhood home in California to comfort herself with her grandfather’s Indian home-cooked meals. Though she resists, every day brings her closer to the inevitable: working for her father’s company. Secret Staircase Construction specializes in bringing the magic of childhood to all by transforming clients’ homes with sliding bookcases, intricate locks, backyard treehouses, and hidden reading nooks. When Tempest visits her dad’s latest renovation project, her former stage double is discovered dead inside a wall that’s supposedly been sealed for more than a century. Fearing she was the intended victim, it’s up to Tempest to solve this seemingly impossible crime. But as she delves further into the mystery, Tempest can’t help but wonder if the Raj family curse that’s plagued her family for generations—something she used to swear didn’t exist—has finally come for her.

Welcome to Frightville... one-stop shopping for all your fears! When Sofia buys a cool skeleton key from a creepy store, Frightville, it quickly becomes her favorite possession. It seems to open any lock she tries it on - even the rusted old lock on the attic in her new house.But opening that door seems to have magically opened a door into the past. A past that Sofia starts to think should have stayed locked up.

A treasure trove of nine locked room mysteries from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author Gigi Pandian, all set in the Jaya Jones world. Appearing here for the first time, novelette The Cambodian Curse: When an ancient and supposedly cursed Cambodian sculpture disappears from an impenetrable museum, and the carving’s owner is killed by an invisible assailant while a witness is a few feet away, historian Jaya Jones and her old nemesis Henry North team up to solve the baffling crime. Stories included: “The Cambodian Curse,” “The Hindi Houdini,” “The Haunted Room,” “The Library Ghost of Tanglewood Inn,” “The Curse of Cloud Castle,” “Tempest in a Teapot,” “A Dark and Stormy Light,” “The Shadow of the River,” plus bonus novella "Fool’s Gold". With an Introduction from New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King addressing why we love locked rooms, and a Foreword from impossible crime mystery historian Douglas G. Greene, teasing out the tradition of John Dickson Carr that Pandian is following. This collection is filled with ingenious stories of magic, mystery, and history.

“A provocative and entertaining magical mineral tour through the life and afterlife of bone.” —Wall Street Journal Our bones have many stories to tell, if you know how to listen. Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over more than four hundred million years of evolutionary history. It gives your body its shape and the ability to move. It grows and changes with you, an undeniable document of who you are and how you lived. Arguably, no other part of the human anatomy has such rich scientific and cultural significance, both brimming with life and a potent symbol of death. In this delightful natural and cultural history of bone, Brian Switek explains where our skeletons came from, what they do inside us, and what others can learn about us when these artifacts of mineral and protein are all we've left behind. Bone is as embedded in our culture as it is in our bodies. Our species has made instruments and jewelry from bone, treated the dead like collectors' items, put our faith in skull bumps as guides to human behavior, and arranged skeletons into macabre tributes to the afterlife. Switek makes a compelling case for getting better acquainted with our skeletons, in all their surprising roles. Bridging the worlds of paleontology, anthropology, medicine, and forensics, Skeleton Keys illuminates the complex life of bones inside our bodies and out.

Since its publication in 1939, countless would-be readers of "Finnegans Wake" - James Joyce's masterwork, which consumed a third of his life - have given up after a few pages, dismissing it as a "perverse triumph of the unintelligible." In 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first "key" or guide to entering the fascinating, disturbing, marvelously rich world of "Finnegans Wake." The authors break down Joyce's "unintelligible" book page by page, stripping the text of much of its obscurity and serving up thoughtful interpretations via footnotes and bracketed commentary. They outline the book's basic action, and then simplify -- and clarify -- its complex web of images and allusions. "A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake" is the latest addition to the "Collected Works of Joseph Campbell" series.

A thousand-year-old secret room. A sultan’s stolen treasure. A missing French priest. And an invitation to Paris to rekindle an old flame... Historian Jaya Jones finds herself on the wrong side of the law during an art heist at the Louvre. To redeem herself, she follows clues from an illuminated manuscript that lead from the cobblestone streets of Paris to the quicksand-surrounded fortress of Mont Saint-Michel. With the help of enigmatic Lane Peters and a 90-year-old stage magician, Jaya delves into France's colonial past in India to clear her name and catch a killer.

A Scottish legend that hides a secret. A treasure from India that vanished long ago. An unexpected package that ignites an adventure. History professor Jaya Jones is reeling from the news of a former flame's untimely death when she receives a mysterious parcel he’d sent from abroad. Inside is a cryptic plea for help, along with a jewel-encrusted artifact hinting at a treasure from India shrouded in a Scottish legend. As she starts to unravel the mystery, the unsettling discovery of her ransacked apartment makes it clear she's not the only one on the trail. From the iconic British Library in London to the rugged Highlands of Scotland, Jaya is pursued by a shadowy stalker as she seeks to both reveal a lost history and the identity of a murderer. Joining her in the race to decode the baffling clues are her quick-witted magician best friend, a disarmingly handsome art historian harboring his own secrets, and a charismatic archaeologist running for his life. Amidst the thrill of the chase, a troubling question arises—who among her companions might be the love of her life, and who is a cold-blooded killer? Can Jaya solve the puzzle in time to find the long-lost treasure and make it out of Scotland alive? Artifact is the first book in the USA Today bestselling and award-winning Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery Series. If you like lighthearted mysteries filled with fascinating history and a touch of romance, then you’ll love this twisty, globe-trotting caper. Buy Artifact to embark on the adventure today! "Fans of Elizabeth Peters will adore following along with Jaya Jones and a cast of quirky characters as they pursue a fabled treasure." -- "Juliet Blackwell, author of the Art Lover's Mystery series" "How wonderful to see a young, new writer who harks back to the Golden Age of mystery fiction. Artifact is witty, clever, and twisty... Do you like Agatha Christie? Elizabeth Peters? Then you're going to love Gigi Pandian." -- "Aaron Elkins, author of the Gideon Oliver series"

A century-old treasure map of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. Sacred riches from India. Two murders, one hundred years apart. And a love triangle… Historian Jaya Jones has her work cut out for her. 1906. Shortly before the Great San Francisco Earthquake, Pirate Vishnu strikes the San Francisco Bay. An ancestor of Jaya’s who came to the U.S. from India draws a treasure map… Present Day. Over a century later, the cryptic treasure map remains undeciphered. From San Francisco to the southern tip of India, Jaya pieces together her ancestor’s secrets, maneuvers a complicated love life she didn’t count on, and puts herself in the path of a killer to restore a revered treasure. - - - - - - - - - - - - - PIRATE VISHNU by Gigi Pandian A Henery Press Mystery. If you like one, you'll probably like them all.