Frank Carlson Library

When a member of the Walmsley Parva upper crust, Constance Maitland, seeks to hire Beryl and Edwina for a sham investigation into an alleged dalliance by her sister-in-law Ursula to quell potentially scandalous accusations by an unstable cousin, it is with mixed feelings that they agree to pose as guests at her home, Maitland Park. Edwina is uncomfortable with the ruse, but Beryl is eager to escape tension with their feisty housekeeper and hobnob...

Reluctantly agreeing to help when an old boyfriend asks her to exonerate his mother for the murder of his sister, V. I. Warshawski is forced to confront ugly politics and violent elements in her hometown. Twenty-five years ago, Stella Guzzo beat her daughter to death and then walked up the street to play bingo at her parish church. Chicago detective V.I. Warshawski grew up with the Guzzo family. She dated Frank Guzzo when they were teens and knew...

On the wild Oregon coast, tucked between the mountains and the sea, stands Siren Song, home to a group of women known as The Colony. Their aunt hoped the isolated lodge would be a sanctuary, a place where she could protect them and their special gifts. But nowhere is safe from the man who has marked them for death. The note pinned to the dead body found on the remote beach has no name, just Ravinia Rutledge's phone number and the words Next of Kin....

"The stylish, charming next novel in Ashley Weaver's Edgar-nominated Amory Ames mystery series, set in 1930s England, A Deception at Thornecrest Amory Ames is alone at her country house Thornecrest, enjoying her last few weeks of peace and quiet as she prepares for the imminent arrival of her baby. Her husband, Milo, is in London on business, and Amory is content to catch up on her correspondence, organize the nursery, and avoid the well-meaning if...

When Stephanie's beloved Grandma Mazur's new husband died on their wedding night, the only thing he left her was a beat-up old easy chair ... and the keys to a life-changing fortune. But as Stephanie and Grandma Mazur search for Jimmy Rosolli's treasure, they discover that they're not the only ones on the hunt. Two dangerous enemies from the past stand in their way - along with a new adversary who's even more formidable: Gabriela Rose, a dark-eyed...

Kinsey and Me has two parts: The nine Kinsey stories (1986-93), each a gem of detection; and the And Me stories, written in the decade after Grafton's mother died. Together, they show just how much of Kinsey is a distillation of her creator's past even as they reveal a child who, free of parental interventions, read everything and roamed everywhere. But the dark side of such freedom was that very parental distance.The same feisty voice and witty apercus...

"London, 1881. Lily Raynor, owner of the World's End Investigation Bureau, is growing increasingly worried. Work is drying up, finances are tight and she cannot find enough for her sole employee, Felix Wilbraham, to do. So when schoolteacher Georgiana Long arrives, with a worrying tale of runaway pupils, it seems like the answer to her prayers. The case is an interesting one, and what could be less perilous than a trip to a girls' boarding school,...

Beloved heroine Maisie Dobbs, "one of the great fictional heroines" (Parade), investigates the mysterious murder of an American war correspondent in London during the Blitz in a page-turning tale of love and war, terror and survival. When Catherine Saxon, an American correspondent reporting on the war in Europe, is found murdered in her London digs, news of her death is concealed by British authorities. Serving as a linchpin between Scotland Yard...

"When two women are brutally murdered in northern California, their deaths are the latest atrocities in a surge of violence targeting Indigenous women in the area. Despite all evidence to the contrary, local officials rule the deaths isolated incidents, and they soon join the ranks of other unsolved homicides, quickly forgotten by law enforcement. Private Investigator Sharon McCone knows better, and so does the organization known as Crimes Against...

Mma "Precious" Ramotswe is now engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, the kind owner of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. This new development provokes a hostile reaction from Mr. Matekoni's unscrupulous maid, who quickly begins plotting the disintegration of the engagement. Despite all this, duty calls, and Mma Ramotswe is asked to help find an American woman's son who has been missing in Africa for 10 years.