Author and playwright Victoria Kneubuhl returns with another thoroughly entertaining, yet complex, whodunit set in 1930s Hawai`i featuring the lead characters from Murder Casts a Shadow and Murder Leaves Its Mark. The pair of unlikely sleuths—part-Hawaiian Mina Beckwith and her fiancé, part-Samoan Ned Manusia—find themselves unraveling a deadly web of espionage and murder. As the story opens, Ned is in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, where he has been sent to rescue his friend Nigel, a British spy being ruthlessly hunted by the Japanese police. The action moves to Honolulu where Mina is embroiled with a group of eccentric artists whose numbers are being depleted in a series of dramatically staged murders. While Mina looks into the murders of the artists, Ned and Nigel attempt to ferret out a spy sending reports on the activities of the Navy at Pearl Harbor to the Japanese government. The two plot lines become intertwined as Ned and Mina are enmeshed in a dangerous net of international intrigue. Like the previous novels, Murder Frames the Scene offers readers a fascinating glimpse into prewar Hawai`i, full of colorful local characters, descriptions of familiar places in another era, and a vivid sense of the islands as much more than beaches and palm trees. A Latitude 20 book

Murder Frames the Scene is Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl's third novel in her Hawaii Mystery series featuring her two sleuths, part-Hawaiian Mina Beckwith and her fiance, part-Samoan Ned Manusia. Mina Beckwith, currently an out-of-work journalist, and Ned Manusia, an accomplished playwright who sometimes serves the British government in behind-the-scenes operations, find themselves unraveling a deadly web of espionage and murder. As the story opens, Ned is in Japanese occupied Shanghai, where he has been sent to rescue his friend Nigel, a British spy who is being ruthlessly hunted by the Japanese police. Ned brings Nigel (and Nigel's new wife) to Honolulu and discovers that Mina is embroiled with a group of eccentric artists whose numbers are being depleted in a series of dramatically staged murders. While Mina and her brother-in-law, Todd Forest, Chief of Detectives at the Honolulu Police Department, look into the murders of the artists, the Office of Naval Intelligence recruits Ned and Nigel to ferret out a spy sending reports on the activities of the Navy at Pearl Harbor to the Japanese government. The two plot lines become intertwined as Ned and Mina are enmeshed in a dangerous net of international intrigue. The plot not only places the characters in the larger context of world events but also informs the reader about some of the history of Pearl Harbor before it became a base of military operations. Like the previous novels,Murder Frames the Scene offers readers a fascinating glimpse into prewar Hawaii, full of local characters, descriptions of familiar places in another era, and a vivid sense of the islands as much more than beaches and palm trees.

New Year’s Eve, 1934. While Honolulu celebrates with champagne and fireworks, someone is making away with the Bishop Museum’s portrait of King Kalakaua and its curator. A series of brutal murders follows, and an unlikely pair, newspaper reporter Mina Beckwith and visiting playwright Ned Manusia, find themselves investigating a twisted trail of clues in an attempt to recover the painting and uncover the killer. Honolulu in the 1930s is a unique (and volatile) mix of the provincial and the urban, East and West, islander and mainlander. Mina and Ned, both of Polynesian descent, confront the complexities and contradictions of Island life as their investigation takes them into the heart of Honolulu society and close-knit local families, whose intricate histories and relationships will have a direct impact on future lives and events. A lively cast of characters aids Mina and Ned in their search for answers: Cecily Chang, an antiques and explosives expert, steers them through Chinatown’s back alleys; Hinano Kahana, a hula chanter and dancer, brings Ned closer to solving an ancient riddle; Mina’s grandmother, Hannah, helps them unlock a secret from the past. Prewar Honolulu comes to life in this thoroughly entertaining mystery that evokes a colorful bygone era. The Mina Beckwith and Ned Manusia series continues with Murder Leaves Its Mark, available September 2011.

THE MUST-READ MULTIMILLION BESTSELLING MYSTERY SERIES • The final book in the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series that reads like your favorite true crime podcast or show. By the end, you'll never think of good girls the same way again... Pip is about to head to college, but she is still haunted by the way her last investigation ended. She’s used to online death threats in the wake of her viral true-crime podcast, but she can’t help noticing an anonymous person who keeps asking her: Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears? Soon the threats escalate and Pip realizes that someone is following her in real life. When she starts to find connections between her stalker and a local serial killer caught six years ago, she wonders if maybe the wrong man is behind bars. Police refuse to act, so Pip has only one choice: find the suspect herself—or be the next victim. As the deadly game plays out, Pip discovers that everything in her small town is coming full circle . . .and if she doesn’t find the answers, this time she will be the one who disappears. . . And don't miss Holly Jackson's next thriller, Five Surive!

In its ten-year history, the Hitchcock Annual has established itself as a key source of historical information and critical commentary on one of the central figures in film history and arguably one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. Fans of Alfred Hitchcock-both scholars and general readers alike-will be entertained and informed by this selection of writings, which offers an overview of the current thinking on the filmmaker and his work. The articles span his career and cover a wide range of topics from archeological investigations uncovering new details about his working methods and conditions to incisive analyses of the films themselves. The collection begins with rare insights into Hitchcock's early years, including his work in Germany and his silent film Easy Virtue, which, with its metaphoric play on the concept of "being framed," dramatizes aspects of the human condition to which Hitchcock returned repeatedly. Commentators explore a variety of themes, including the centrality of kissing shots and sequences in nearly all the films, and images of women's handbags as elements of suspense and sexual tension in such films as Dial M for Murder and Psycho. Other essays examine the influence of Vertigo, The Birds, and Frenzy on Fran'ois Truffaut, the remaking of Psycho, and feminist interpretations of Shadow of a Doubt. Interviews with Jay Presson Allen and Evan Hunter illuminate Hitchcock's working relationship with screenwriters, actors, and actresses. Written by established as well as emerging critics of Hitchcock, this fascinating collection will help shape future appreciation and interpretation of an enormously important and influential filmmaker.

Though mystery, crime, and detective fiction are some of the most popular genres in the world, little scholarship currently exists regarding Native American writers and how they add new dimensions to this widely read literary form. Rather, the majority of scholarship examines the depiction of Native characters from the perspective of non-Native authors. Native American Mystery Writing: Indigenous Investigations analyzes how Native authors use the genre to foreground centuries of settler-colonial crimes and comment upon the ways in which these acts continue to impact Native individuals and communities today. Considering fourteen novels and two made-for-TV films, this book surveys a spectrum of settler-colonial crimes: the Osage oil murders, sexual assault against Native women, missing and murdered Indigenous women, the California mission system, suppression of spiritual beliefs, theft—of land, children, and cultural items—and, of course, murder. Examination of these texts shows how Native authors working with the mystery, crime, and detective fiction formats are able to entertain readers while also sending strong social, cultural, and political messages that argue for strengthened tribal sovereignty and illustrate the resilience of Indigenous peoples—all in order to promote discussions about creating a more just system for Native Nations.

The true story of Elizabeth Haysom and Jens Soering, convicted of the double murder of her parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom.