The Byline Murders Prologue Somewhere west of Chicago’s Loop (about two a.m.) The two thugs who yanked Sid Coffin from the Conover hotel lobby into thirty minutes of mind-blowing terror had to know by now he had somehow freed himself from the grisly horror in their bloody van. It was Sid’s luck the murderers felt they needed a drink before continuing westward from the city to dump him and the already butchered half of their cargo. Now, chilled and filthy, he cringed against the outside wall of the clapboard two-story road house called Bud and Alma’s. He was in complete darkness, but he felt as visible and as easy to attack as a duck soaring in innocent flight over a multi-gun blind.

The Touchman Murders By: Gerald C. Davis A serial murderer is on the loose in the ghetto and the city is on alert. The Touchman Murders tracks the developments in the homeless community in a fast-paced chase from a homeless camp to the courtroom. Tensions are mounting as the events gain national attention and the murders continue.

It isn't Brand Name celebrity news when New York Daily Press reporter Fitz's pal who plays piano at Elaine's is murdered... ...until Ed Fitzgerald digs into it. As usual he drives his City Editor, Ironhead Matthews, crazy, this time because he has been assigned to a publisher's pet feature story about America Sail. How can Fitz pursue the murderer when he's harassed by Ironhead and irritated cops, urged by the publisher's son Pippy to cover the Tall Ships, and lured on by an importunate beauty? The self-deprecating Fitz can only bumble on and seek advice from his mentor, the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius, as he pursues bloody intrigue in New York's Chinatown, in Don Flynn's A Brand X Murder.

A New York Times Bestseller & the Basis for the Hit Showtime Docuseries Murder in the Bayou is a New York Times bestselling chronicle of a high-stakes investigation into the murders of eight women in a troubled Southern parish that is “part murder case, part corruption exposé, and part Louisiana noir” (New York magazine). Between 2005 and 2009, the bodies of eight women were discovered in Jennings, Louisiana, a bayou town of 10,000 in the Jefferson Davis parish. The women came to be known as the Jeff Davis 8, and local law enforcement officials were quick to pursue a serial killer theory, stirring a wave of panic across Jennings’ class-divided neighborhoods. The Jeff Davis 8 had been among society’s most vulnerable—impoverished, abused, and mired with mental illness. They engaged in sex work as a means of survival. And their underworld activity frequently occurred at a decrepit motel called the Boudreaux Inn. As the cases went unsolved, the community began to look inward. Rumors of police corruption and evidence tampering, of collusion between street and shield, cast the serial killer theory into doubt. But what was really going on in the humid rooms of the Boudreaux Inn? Why were crimes going unsolved and police officers being indicted? What had the eight women known? And could anything be done do stop the bloodshed? Mixing muckraking research and immersive journalism over the course of a five-year investigation, Ethan Brown reviewed thousands of pages of previously unseen homicide files to posit what happened during each woman’s final hours delivering a true crime tale that is “mesmerizing” (Rolling Stone) and “explosive” (Huffington Post). “Brown is a man on a mission...he gives the victims more respectful attention than they probably got in real life” (The New York Times). “A must-read for true-crime fans” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), with a new afterword, Murder in the Bayou is the story of an American town buckling under the dark forces of poverty, race, and class division—and a lightning rod for justice for the daughters it lost.

Savannah Stone makes her living creating puzzles for logic lovers. But when a novice puzzle maker’s number is up, Savannah has to fill in the blanks to solve a murder... Savannah would almost rather drink poison than have tea with Joanna Clayton. Not only is the unpleasant woman one of the worst gossips in Asheville, North Carolina, over tea she flaunts her new assignment creating logic puzzles for a local newspaper—one that has repeatedly turned down Savannah’s work. But when Savannah’s retired police chief husband, Zach, calls her later to tell her Joanna has actually been poisoned, she is more than puzzled—she’s troubled. Will the police consider puzzle envy a strong enough motive and think she decided to eliminate the competition? It’s time for Savannah to sort through Joanna’s long list of enemies to find out who was bitter enough to poison the prospective puzzle maker . . .

Gossip, scandal and murder collide on the express train to London. Did the journalist fall from the first-class carriage, or was she pushed? Cleo’s holiday with her family to the seaside resort town of Brighton is everything she hoped it would be…until she receives a blackmail note. The blackmailer demands Cleo help her or a story revealing Cleo’s investigating will appear in the newspaper. With her uncle warning her to keep her detecting activities private, Cleo agrees to meet the blackmailer when they return to London. But when the woman is seen getting on the train but not off, Cleo grows concerned. She enlists the help of the hotel staff to search for the body along the railway line. Finding it confirms her suspicions and leads her to discover that her blackmailer was a gossip columnist. What scandal had the victim uncovered that led to her death? And which fellow passenger had a secret worth killing for? With Harry Armitage’s assistance, Cleo attempts to track down the murderer. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on the hotel staff to host a society wedding that will be featured in the social pages for all the right reasons.

I had a job I didn't understand on a magazine I understood even less. The pay was okay, but I had no idea what I had to do to earn it. Did it include murder?