Recollection began to come back. It wasn’t a lumpy mattress he was lying on, it was a dead man—a man called Midnight Mike. ... His pain-filled mind curled in terror. It threw him two years back in time—before he was sent to jail—to another black night. Only that time the body had belonged to a little boy, crushed and broken beneath Jim’s car. And Jim had been behind the wheel. He’d been told about that first killing so often that he could almost see himself doing it. But Mike’s body beside him convinced Jim that he hadn’t killed the little boy. He hadn’t killed Mike tonight, either. It was only a matter of time before he remembered the crucial detail that would clear him of both murders. But time, like the blood that poured from his wounded head, was fast running out. …

The bestselling author of The Hot House once again combines the facts, the real people, and the location itself into this true story, a wide-ranging portrait of the interplay of race, sex, and justice in the American South, made all the more real because it takes place in the same small Alabama town that was the fictional "Maycomb" in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Optioned for film by MGM. Photos.

"With it's tight plot, well-crafted and believable characters, and complex mystery, It's Murder, My Son is a thoroughly enjoyable read. I look forward to many more Mac Faraday mysteries." John J. Lamb, author of the Bear Collector Mysteries"A most unusual and surprising plot, intriguing characters, snappy dialogue, great settings and a dog named Gnarly are the prime ingredients in Lauren Carr's terrific new mystery, It's Murder, My Son."F.M. Meredith, author of An Axe to GrindWhat started out as the worst day of Mac Faraday's life would end up being a new beginning. After a messy divorce hearing, the last person that Mac wanted to see was another lawyer. Yet, this lawyer wore the expression of a child bursting to tell his secret. This covert would reveal Mac as heir to undreamed of fortunes, and lead him to the birthplace of America's Queen of Mystery and an investigation that will unfold like one of her famous mystery novels. Soon after she moves to her new lakefront home in Spencer, Maryland, multi-millionaire Katrina Singleton learns that life in an exclusive community is not all good. For some unknown reason, a strange man calling himself "Pay Back" begins stalking her. When Katrina is found strangled all evidence points to her terrorist, who is nowhere to be found. Three months later the file on her murder is still open with only vague speculations from the local police department when Mac Faraday, sole heir to his unknown birth mother's home and fortune, moves into the estate next door. Little does he know as he drives up to Spencer Manor that he is driving into a closed gate community that is hiding more suspicious deaths than his DC workload as a homicide detective. With the help of his late mother's journal, this retired cop puts all his detective skills to work to pick up where the local investigators have left off to follow the clues to Katrina's killer.

First in a new series! Nora Charles doesn’t believe in fate, even if she is a crime reporter who shares a name with a character from The Thin Man. In fact, she’s moving back to Cruz, California, to have a quieter life. But after finding an online magazine eager for material, and a stray cat named Nick with a talent for detection, Nora’s not just reporting crimes again. She’s uncovering them… Back in her hometown, Nora reconnects with old friends and makes some new ones, like Nick, the charming feline who seems determined to be her cat. But not everything about Cruz is friendly. Writing for a local online magazine, Nora investigates the curious death of socialite Lola Grainger. Though it was deemed an accident, Nora suspects foul play. And it seems that her cat does too. Apparently, Nick used to belong to a P.I. who disappeared while investigating Lola Grainger’s death. The coincidence is spooky, but not as spooky as the clues Nick spells out for her with Scrabble letters—clues that lead her down an increasingly dangerous path. Whether fate put her on this case or not, solving it will take all of Nora’s wits, and maybe a few of Nick’s nine lives.

Filled with his trademark humor and warmth, Jon Hassler’s The Staggerford Murders and The Life and Death of Nancy Clancy’s Nephew offer a welcome return to the town that has captivated readers for years. In The Staggerford Murders, residents of the Ransford Hotel "solve" the nine- year-old murder of esteemed Staggerford citizen Neddy Nichols and the disappearance of his widow, Blanche. Hassler’s wry humor is in full force as this wonderful tale unfolds. In the more poignant and bittersweetThe Life and Death of Nancy Clancy’s Nephew, elderly W.D. Nestor finds his loneliness dispelled by his friendship with a young Staggerford boy, but it is a sudden visit to his one hundred-year-old Aunt Nancy that provides the peace he has always been looking for.

Pat and Jean Abbott, visiting relatives in a rich oil town, are called on to clear a pretty air-line hostess, Sally Carroll, who is suspected of having murdered her old beau. By the time the Abbotts arrive on the scene, there has been a curious change of policy: nobody wants them on the case, not the cousin and heir of the dead man, not his widow, and especially not the sheriff. Perversely, they decide to stay. Pat is shot at by a man who is supposed to be helping them, and Jean is buried in an abandoned well by a woman who claims to be on their side. Then a car they think is a friend’s crashes them into a ditch. Nevertheless they stick with the job until they come up with a solution that is both surprising and satisfying—but they cannot prevent the killer from claiming a second victim. “Pro Handling”—The Saturday Review “Congenial and confiding.”—Kirkus

A People Best Book of Summer A New York Times Most Anticipated Book of the Summer A riveting investigation into a cold case asks how much control women have over their bodies and the direction of their lives. July 1970. Eighteen-year-old Paula Oberbroeckling left her house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Four months later, her remains were discovered just beyond the mouth of a culvert overlooking the Cedar River. Her homicide has never been solved. Fifty years cold, Paula’s case had been mostly forgotten when journalist Katherine Dykstra began looking for answers. A woman was dead. Why had no one been held responsible? How could the powers that be, how could a community, have given up? Tracing Paula’s final days, Dykstra uncovers a girl whose exultant personality was at odds with the Midwest norms of the late 1960s. A girl who was caught between independence and youthful naivete, between a love that defied racially segregated Cedar Rapids and her complicated but enduring love for her mother, and between a possible pregnancy and the freedoms that had been promised by the women’s liberation movement but that still had little practical bearing on actual lives. The more Dykstra learned about the circumstances of Paula’s life, the more parallels she saw in the lives of the women who knew Paula and the women in Paula’s family, in the lives of the women in Dykstra’s own family, and even in her own life. Captivating and expertly crafted from interviews with Paula’s family and friends, police reports, and on-the-scene investigation, What Happened to Paula is part true crime story, part memoir, a timely and powerful look at gender, autonomy, and the cost of being a woman.