Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Crime Fiction

Prepare to be entertained by a host of Hollywood celebrities reading the finest collection of short mystery stories—many by Edgar Award-winning writers—set in the world of entertainment.

Beginning in 1982, The Adam's Round Table—a group of America's most talented and successful mystery writers—convened every month in New York to discuss their craft. When agent and author Bill Adler suggested they each write a short story located in a different section of Manhattan, their enthusiastic response resulted in Murder in Manhattan.

Lieutenant Sheila Worthy has been viciously slain, and it's up to Major Kara Guidry, the top lawyer in the Judge Advocate General's office, to track down her killer. But Guidry finds she must tread lightly. Rumors have linked the dead lieutenant to General William Beckwith, who was Kara's instructor at West Point and is now on the short list to become the Army's next Chief of Staff. Guidry must also contend with Beckwith's rivals, who would like nothing more than to see the general discredited.

Attorney Matthew Hope had hired Otto Samalson to conduct a simple marital investigation—so how does Samalson end up dead on a deserted highway? Hope's search for an answer takes him into Florida's drug underworld on the trail of a hooker—one who has the style and looks necessary to transform herself into a high-class cocaine-stealing Cinderella. What Hope uncovers is a complicated web of circumstances and a terrifying twist on a hooker's fairy tale.

After Jessica Leeds—wife of a prestigious, wealthy Florida landowner—is brutally raped, three Vietnamese immigrants are charged with the crime. After the trial results in their acquittal, Jessica's husband Stephen vows vengeance. Then, the three immigrants are found savagely murdered. When all of the evidence ties Stephen Leeds to the grisly killings, Jessica turns to Florida lawyer Matthew Hope. He takes the case—and discovers a situation far more complex and explosive than he, or his client, imagined.

A long shadow looms above the wife of filmmaker Carlton Markham. Then a hand clamps over her mouth, and a blade sinks into her back. Blood splatters on the film reel case beside her, and a young life is cut short. Lawyer Matthew Hope gets a call from Markham, who's been arrested for his wife's murder, but he says he didn't do it. Witnesses fly forward to proclaim his guilt, but Markham's not giving up on his innocence that easily. And when Hope digs deeper into the victim's business—he finds she may not have been the perfect lady that she seemed.

It's not every day a federal judge comes knocking at one's door, especially with a curious request—to review the final appeal of a murderer on Death Row. California lawyer Greg Monarch has every intention of saying no to the request—until he discovers the prisoner is his former lover. Six months from execution, Sarah Trant has turned to the one man she hopes can save her. Greg failed once before trying to rescue Sarah from her private demons. This time, however, the demons may not be just in her head.

He wants power, and she wants revenge. The Best Laid Plans is full of manipulators, dirty dealers, and dastardly rascals, all snatching at power—political, financial, and sexual, or all of the above. Against the backdrop of Washington politics and the war in Bosnia, a handsome, charismatic attorney is determined to win the presidency at all costs, while his jilted fiancée is intent on revenge and grows a media empire to destroy him. In a world of beautiful people, money, and deception, two equally determined people are headed on a collision course.

This is the story of best friends—brothers, really—Paulie and Vincent, who grew up without fathers on Chicago’s southside. Paulie learns how to be a man from TV cop shows, while Vincent's role models are the wise guys on street corners. Paulie joins the FBI with hopes to escape his past, while Vincent becomes a private investigator who works for the “family” business. When the two men reconcile, they are torn between devotion to each other and loyalty to their respective organizations.

This superb collection of nine detective stories focuses on the police procedural genre where crime investigation takes on a sense of reality.

When Robin Nevins, the son of Hawk's boyhood mentor, is denied at an exclusive university, Hawk asks Spenser to investigate. It seems the denial is tied to the suicide of a young gay activist, and as Spenser digs deeper he is nearly drowned in a multicultural swamp of politics: black, gay, academic, and feminist. At the same time, Spenser's inamorata, Susan, asks him to come to the aid of an old college friend, K.C. Roth, the victim of a stalker. Spenser solves the problem a bit too effectively when K.C. turns the tables and begins to stalk him.

In just five days, a rural college town in California is rocked by two sets of brutal double murders. When another set of bodies is found, Paul Madriani, special prosecutor, must find the killer—quickly. Physical and trace evidence lead to the arraignment of a college security guard on multiple charges of murder. While the evidence linking the suspect to the first four killings is solid, something is glaringly different with the last two, and Madriani slowly begins to realize there is another killer in their midst.

Ed McBain, author of the best-selling 87th Precinct series, takes us Downtown in this harrowing tale of a lone out-of-towner running for his life in New York CIty. Meet Michael Barnes, a Florida orange grower who finds himself in a Wall Street bar with a couple of hours to kill. It's a couple of hours that almost kill him, as he's swindled, robbed, framed for murder, and hunted down by an assassin in one of the wildest, scariest, funniest, fastest 24 hours ever packed into one novel.

This collection of the finest short story mystery fiction by the most acclaimed writers, past and present features Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Burke, Harry Kemelman, and everyone in between. Edited by multi-award-winning mystery connoisseur Otto Penzler, it offers a delightful mixture of mystery and suspense.

The hardworking single mother of young daughter, Joanna Brady still feels the acute pain of loneliness and loss, the hole that was left in her heart when her policeman husband was murdered. But Sheriff Brady is the law in Cochise County, and murder has shattered the small town's fragile peace. A local gun dealer has died violently, and his stock of high-powered weapons has been cleared out. When two more slayings follow soon after, suspicion falls upon rancher Alton Hosfield.

Alison Young seems to have it all: a brilliant career, a beautiful San Francisco townhouse, a loving husband, and a talented teenage daughter. But for 18 years, Alison has kept a terrible secret: She was the victim of a violent rape, and her daughter is the result of it. Unable to bring her attacker to trial or get a legal abortion, Alison left her hometown, reinvented her past, and built a new life for herself. Now, however, someone threatens to destroy all that Alison has achieved.

There's the Durango in Colorado, the one in Mexico, and the one in Spain; then there's the fourth one—the California town where the Franciscans forgot to fund a mission. Now, all it has going for it is the climate— and its hideout industry.

Arriving home after another failed burglary, John Dortmunder is shocked to find his apartment occupied by a notorious cellmate that everyone had supposed (and hoped) had been jailed for life. Tom Jimson needs Dortmunder's help. Thirty years before his last prison stretch, Tom had pulled a big job up near Albany, one that left a cool $700,000 in cash buried under a water reservoir near Albany, New York. Tom's plan is to blow up the dam, flood the surrounding countryside, and grab the cash.

What if you were offered a gig by some shadowy and well-financed interests to funnel five million dollars to rebels holed up in the Philippine mountains? They need to fund a revolt against the Aquino government and a resourceful and gutsy team to engineer it.

After the double murder of his wife and child, Jake Sands gave up his lucrative career recovering stolen objects and missing people. Hoping to escape his past ties to Los Angeles, he moves to Santa Barbara, spending his days avoiding past friends and future decisions. Jake is not the sort of man who can stay retired for long, though.