Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Publishing" in Mystery

Several years ago, Rushmore McKenzie became an unexpected millionaire and set about doing not much of anything. Now, showing up at his doorstep is the insurance company that paid the settlement that made him rich - and they want a favor. Someone has stolen a very expensive gem from a local art museum and is willing to ransom it back. The only condition is that McKenzie has to be the go between. And this is no ordinary gem - it is a jade sculpture with a history going back to the Qing Dynasty and a reputed curse that stories claim has ruined or killed everyone who has ever owned it.

Rushmore McKenzie is a former cop, current millionaire, and an occasional unlicensed PI who does favors for friends. Yet he has reservations when his girlfriend’s daughter asks him to help her father, a man in serious trouble. En route from St. Paul to a Canadian blues festival on Highway 61, he met a girl, blacked out, and awoke hours later in a strange motel, with the girl’s murdered body on the floor. Slipping away unnoticed and heading home, he thought he’d got away - until he started getting texts with photos of the body and demands for blackmail payments he couldn’t pay.

Rushmore McKenzie is a retired cop, an unexpected millionaire, and an occasional unlicensed private investigator. So it isn't the biggest surprise in the world when he's attacked and kidnapped from his home - McKenzie has more than a few enemies out there with a grudge against him. But it is a surprise when it turns out his kidnapping is a case of mistaken identity.

Right up until they put him in jail, McKenzie thought the cops were kidding. After all, he did them a favor by stopping a rookie cop from roughing up a distraught woman at a murder scene. But the next thing he knows, he’s in jail, missing an important date with his girlfriend and reliving nightmares he thought he had left far behind him - and vowing payback for all of it. If that means sticking his nose into an ongoing murder investigation, well, he’s done it before.

Rushmore “Mac” McKenzie has a lot of old girlfriends, but only one went on to marry the current governor of the state of Minnesota. And only one is calling him with a desperate request to meet in secret. First Lady Lindsay Barrett is carrying an anonymous e-mail that contains the makings of an ugly rumor about her husband, the man about to run for higher office - perhaps even the highest office. Someone says they have evidence that Jack Barrett killed his high school sweetheart. Lindsay says it’s an outright lie, but the truth lies buried decades in the past.

Mac McKenzie is rich. So rich that he’s left his job as a Twin Cities police officer and spends his time doing favors large and small for friends. So when an old Marine buddy of his father’s calls with a request, Mac takes the time to help him out. And it is one of the stranger favors he’s ever been asked: The elderly Mr. Mosley, a beekeeper, wants Mac to find out why his bees are suddenly dying in droves. Mac does some digging and before long turns up a hornet’s nest of trouble in the person of Frank Crosetti, a new neighbor on the property abutting Mosley’s bees.

Agatha Webb and her cook are found dead in the early hours of the morning after a successful party, and it seems just about anyone could be the killer. Some suspect her aging husband; others think it a robbery gone too far. A few nosy villagers draw a connection between this murder and the deaths of her six children so many years prior: Was she truly a victim, a grieving mother? Or did she play some role in these deaths? The list of suspects grows when a certain wealthy townsmen is blackmailed by someone who believes he murdered Agatha Webb and her cook.

A railroad vice president and his chauffeur are struck with sudden and mysterious seizures on their way to work; a family in New York City suffers from a dangerous disease; the healthy American consul in the Virgin Islands collapses and dies without explanation; a Wall Street speculator is apparently stabbed to death with a rubber dagger. When facing an unsolvable mystery that defies all easy explanation, Professor Craig Kennedy, armed with his knowledge of chemistry, technology, and Freudian psychology, is just the man for the job.

Caught in the Net, the first volume of Gaboriau's Slaves of Paris, centers on two young, penniless men who become trapped in a net of corruption and deception. Andre, a painter, is in love with Sabine, but they must meet in secret for Sabine comes from a noble family and Andre most prove his worth in society before they are able to marry.

Professor Craig Kennedy and his loyal sidekick, newspaper reporter Walter Jameson, first learn of the Clutching Hand and his gang when they investigate a string of murders involving the policyholders of Taylor Dodge's insurance company. After receiving a threatening note, Dodge himself is robbed and killed, and his daughter, Elaine, turns to Kennedy for help. Using the latest advances in forensic science, the professor uncovers the exotic and deadly scheme behind the murders. But when the Clutching Hand and his band of evildoers kidnap Elaine, Kennedy must leap into action.

A man named Adolphe visits Leroux at his office at the Morning Journal and delivers to him a chest that was bequeathed to him by his friend Theophraste Longuet. Leroux begins investigating its contents and relates the very strange experience of Longuet. While visiting a famous prison, Theophraste Longuet, a retired rubber stamp manufacturer, is possessed by the spirit of Cartouche, a criminal who plagued Paris in the 18th century.

Set primarily in a series of small towns on the Seine that are now suburbs of Paris, The Mystery of Orcival revolves around a love triangle consisting of the wealthy Clement Sauvresy; his beautiful but modestly born wife, Bertha; and his old college friend, Count Hector de Tremorel. Stricken with a sudden illness, Sauvresy begs the other two to marry after his death, which they do. The couple live happily until the body of the Countess is found floating in the Seine by a poacher named Bertaud and, a short time later, the Count’s body is also found.

Sometimes called "the American Sherlock Holmes", Professor Craig Kennedy is a scientist detective based at Columbia University, where he applies his extensive knowledge of chemistry and psychology to the mysteries that come his way, and utilizes such cutting-edge devices as lie detectors and portable seismographs.

It’s springtime, and septuagenarian librarian Cleo Watkins is celebrating new blooms and old books. To her delight, the Georgia Antiquarian Book Society has brought its annual fair to Catalpa Springs in honor of Cleo’s gentleman friend, respected antiquarian bookseller and restorer, Henry Lafayette. But trouble rolls in with the fair when a flirtatious book scout makes the rounds, charming ladies of a certain age out of prized books.

Septuagenarian librarian Cleo Watkins believes in gracious manners, sweet tea, and justice - library justice. For over 40 years, Cleo has tried every trick in the book to get delinquent patron Dixie Huddleston to return the most overdue volume in Catalpa Springs, Georgia. When Dixie says she’ll finally relinquish the book, Cleo is shocked. She’s even more startled by the reason: superstitious Dixie says she’s seen the signs - she’s about to die and is setting her affairs in order.

Septuagenarian librarian Cleo Watkins won’t be shushed when an upstart young mayor threatens to permanently shelve her tiny town’s storm-damaged library. She takes to her bookmobile, Words on Wheels, to collect allies and rally library support throughout Catalpa Springs, GA. However, Cleo soon rolls into trouble. A major benefactor known for his eccentric DIY projects requests all available books on getting away with murder. He’s no Georgia peach, and Cleo wonders if she should be worried. She knows she should when she finds him murdered - and evidence points to her best friend.

Where the cream of humanity has left for the outworlds, leaving the rest behind; where genetically redesigned T-rexes have supplanted pit bulls; population control measures have created an underclass of Urchins, unlicensed children who have no rights - not even the right to exist; where wireheads with chips in their brains live vicariously through the downloaded experiences of others; and where the UN has been turned into a brothel known as Dydeetown, peopled by clones of famous personalities from history and entertainment.

The Osage Indians lost their ancestral freedom on a windswept reservation in Oklahoma. Now, in the Roaring Twenties, the land is spewing black gold; oil has been found, and every Osage owns a share of the rights. Soon Osage tribal members are being killed for their oil royalties while a corrupt sheriff turns his back on the murders, Special Agent Frank Gordon organizes and undercover operation while working openly with frontier legend US marshal Will Proctor.

Amanda Baron died in a boating accident on the Ohio River in 1953. Or did she? While it was generally accepted that she had died when a coal barge rammed the pleasure boat she was sharing with her lover, her body was never found. Travis Baron was an infant when his mother disappeared. After the accident and the subsequent publicity, Travis’ father scoured the house of all evidence that Amanda Baron had ever lived, and her name was never to be uttered around him. Now in high school, Travis yearns to know more about his mother.

A local basketball star in a small Ohio town tries to remake his life in middle age, but instead must confront a murderer and the prospect of leaving his hometown and giving up everything that once gave his life meaning. Nicholas “Duke” Ducheski is the most important man in the eastern Ohio steel town of Mingo Junction. Nearly two decades after he made the winning shot in the state championship basketball game, he remains much adored and the focal point of community pride. Hardly a day passes when someone doesn’t want to talk about “the game”.