Lionel Scampion, British consul in Naples, has been stabbed to death while bicycling through the piazza of the Porta Carmine. According to his sister, he had no enemies. The Neapolitan police suggest he was murdered by a bicycle-racing rival. In Naples, every mystery is attributed to the Camorra, a powerful criminal society; could its members be involved? Scampion enthusiastically backed the Italian invasion of Libya and befriended army officers of the newly formed Italian Bicycle Brigade. Now the Foreign Office in London has heard that international politics emanating from Rome might have been involved. Seymour of the Special Branch is sent to find out the motive for the murder and, incidentally, to identify the culprit. From the Hardcover edition.

The fifth exciting crime novel in Michael Pearce's Dead Man series.

A fun-filled romp of action and wit, The Marc Huntington Adventures chronicle the exploits of adventurers Marc and Dana Huntington as they race from one deadly situation to another in search of missing persons, stolen prizes, and maybe even financial gain. That is, if they survive the day. Marc learns that the son of his former special-ops commander has gone missing from a paleontological expedition deep in the Amazon jungle. Shots ring out nearly as soon as he and Dana arrive on the scene. Chaos ensues. A deadly blaze rages. Now they're in a fight for their lives as they seek to uncover the real truth behind the young paleontologist's disappearance.

Crime historian Lizzie Stuart goes to Gallagher, Virginia for a year as a visiting professor at Piedmont State University. She is there to do research for a book about a 1921 lynching that her grandmother, Hester Rose, witnessed when she was a twelve-year-old child. Lizzie's research is complicated by her own unresolved feelings about her secretive grandmother and by the disturbing pres­ence of John Quinn, the police officer she met while on vacation in England. When an arrogant but brilliant faculty member of Piedmont State University is murdered, Lizzie begins to have more than a few sleep­less nights. A Dead Man’s Honor is a haunting story that will keep you awake nights, too. Praise for Frankie Y. Bailey “She has a tremendous eye and ear.” —The Times Union, Albany, New York

Malta, 1913, and hot air balloons hover over the Grand Harbor. But one of them falls from the sky, the balloonist dying later from his injuries. He is not the only one to die unexpectedly at the Naval Hopspital, however, as a letter to The Times points out. Special Investigator Seymour of the Foreign Office is sent out from London to uncover the truth. Malta is still a British protectorate; indeed, with its red post boxes, English beer and English language, it seems like an exotic "Little Britain." But as the rumblings of war reach the small island, many of the old Maltese families are becoming divided in their loyalties, as some start to question Malta's subordinate status and wonder whether the time has come to strike out an independent path for themselves. The letter to The Times has touched a raw nerve, as Seymour soon finds out: is it simply a critique of bad nursing practices? Or is there a different, more sinister explanation to these sudden deaths?