Showing results by publisher "Wordwooze Publishing" in Mystery

When the severed head of a Wall Street stock analyst turns up spiked on a horn of the Wall Street Bull, Detective Louis Martelli of the NYPD is assigned to track down the murderer. But why were this victim and the victims of two similar murders that followed singled out for execution? Martelli eventually learns the answer to this question and tracks down the killer, but not before uncovering some of Wall Street's and the US government's darkest secrets pertaining to the US financial markets and the nation's health care practices.

Columbine Pepper Drugget's background wasn't one that equipped a young woman to manage a motel worth a million dollars, or cope with rude guests, jewel thieves, an unscrupulous competitor - or even the attentions of a brassy but oddly attractive lawyer. She had spent her life so far as an assistant to her aunt at Miss Cordwainer’s School for Girls from 5-to-10. What she knew about the world was limited to the novels of Jane Austen and such bits of knowledge as the pupils possessed.

Barker, the mysterious homeless detective with no memory of his past, returns in the wild, third installment of the Barker Mysteries. Sequestered in a thrown-together shack beneath the soggy planks of California’s Old Fisherman’s Wharf, Barker and his gaggle of street dogs have kept largely to themselves since the events of Monterey Pulp.

It’s 1993—a year of optimism, change, and killer music—when Kees VanSpyker, a penniless Gulf War veteran and would-be guitar hero, takes a job with the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) to infiltrate a Wisconsin mink ranch and find out what happened to the last guy they sent there who subsequently vanished. Kees just wants to earn enough cash to take his guitar and follow the stampede to Seattle, but finding out what happened proves hairier than he bargained for. Sinister doings and suspects abound on the ranch, in Madison, and among the ALF members themselves. 

George Barrett is a detective in the Sioux Bend Police Department. For the first time in six years, George and his family are going on vacation to the most exclusive resort in the west—Moonlight Cove Resort in Wild River, Wyoming. The first morning there, George and his daughter, Karen, go for a run. Near the end of the trail, Karen hears music. When she follows the sound, she discovers two young people tied to pine trees, with arrows in their stomachs. One victim was the son of the Lakota County sheriff and the other was the daughter of the executive director of Moonlight Cove.

Lanie Anders has a perfectly ordered life. From her half-foam morning latte to her high-powered executive job—she controls every outcome. But when her house burns to the ground in mysterious circumstances, her life is thrown into confusion. Searching for some kind of purpose, she stumbles across a century-old mystery and flees to Piney Falls, Oregon, an oceanside hamlet with a curious past. But something isn’t quite right in the picturesque town. Her neighbor speaks in riddles, the death rate is alarmingly high, and the impossibly handsome town baker is hiding something.

Heart on Her Sleeve is the story of a patriotic American college girl who steps up to run her father’s war plant when he is hospitalized by saboteurs. Not long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and US entry into the Second World War, the government realized the draft would seriously deplete the country’s entire workforce, including entry-level labor, skilled trades, office staff, and management. The only possible replacement was to be found in the ranks of the nation’s women. But for women to join the workforce, major changes would have to occur.

The Cardiff Giant Affair is set in 1869 Syracuse and features a happy mélange of medicine shows, con games, "brawling canawlers", high society, and murder, with two highly spirited women and incidental glimpses of P. T. Barnum. All this is interwoven with the splendid true story of the Cardiff Giant hoax.

Gloria Morris is a scholarly, vehement, and hard-boiled private detective, a force of nature who doesn’t suffer fools. She’s also a lover, and her inamorata understands her swagger and quest for justice. Gloria must locate the runaway heiress to an industrial empire, a volatile young woman who is happy being on the lam in San Francisco, free of her family’s dark secrets and business responsibilities. She feels she can protect herself, and perhaps she can, but people connected to her are dying, and someone is pulling the strings.

In one of the first crime novels ever set behind the scenes of big-time television, Clarence Budington Kelland has plotted a thrilling adventure of danger and death which climaxes in a series of fast-moving surprises. Peter Mortain, one of the youngest directors in this very young medium, was beleaguered enough, directing the first episode of the most expensive variety show ever produced. He had a cast whose first appearance on television made them skittish, a thousand technical details to handle, and a star…who was also his boss!

Piper Moonlight is tired of constantly looking over her shoulder, afraid of the remaining Fallen Branch cult members. She decides the best place to land is in Piney Falls, Oregon, where the cult originated. At least everyone there knows her story and she'll be safe. When she arrives, she finds employment under the watchful eye of Cosmo Hill, also a former Fallen Branch member, at his bakery. Cosmo doesn't trust Piper or her story. He enlists the help of his fiancée, marketing wonder and super sleuth Lanie Anders, to uncover the truth of Piper's past.

One frightened blonde, eight chorus girls, a singer and three strippers... Hundreds of rancorous Reenactors itching to fight the Civil War all over again... Harry Horne hot on the trail of a stolen million somewhere on the battlefield.... A dozen big-city mobsters with .45s in Civil War regalia hot on Harry’s trail... It’s a recipe for excitement, sex, and lots of action.

Wisecracking Jane Teach had pirate blood, a take-charge attitude, and a penchant for sticking her nose in the wrong places. Sober-minded Bill Popple was from one of Long Island's first families, a conservative-minded young man who walked the straight and narrow. When they met it was loathing at first sight, definitely not a match made in heaven. But with six people trying to kill them over a dead bootlegger's lost fortune and a pirate's treasure secretly buried 300 years ago, they both needed each other.

What happens when a Korean War vet recovering from serious injuries wins a ghost town in a contest, meets a hard-riding, gun-toting cowgirl, and is threatened by three dangerous people all within a few days? Answer: cock-eyed characters, pixilated dialogue, zany romance, and heart-stopping suspense. Thus begins one of Clarence Budington Kelland's finest and rarest novels, previously only published as a seven-part serial in the legendary and best-selling magazine of its era, The Saturday Evening Post.

Following hot on the heels of his rescue of Carmel's mayor from the ship Wicked Joe in Monterey Noir, Barker once again finds himself in a hot mess of danger and intrigue. From an encounter with the disturbing Easter Bunny Man at Pacific Grove's famous Lover's Point to a diabolical plot by the homeless denizens of Deadrent Kingdom, trouble is never very far from Barker and his collection of loyal canines. And mystery has a way of following this strange man who deliberately chooses to live in the margins of society.

Mike Lanson was the ace crime reporter for the Gazette, so it was natural that he heard about the kookie wino who had reported eavesdropping on two men plotting a murder. So, it was also natural that he got on the case after one of the two plotters was found dead. Mike, like all reporters, was looking for an answer. But when he filled in the five W's on the next victim, he came up with this: Who: Mike Lanson. What: His own murder. When: As soon as that fire reached the explosives. Where: In a deserted storehouse. Why: Because he knew too much. 

Only a few months earlier, the young woman now known as Jane Smith had lived a life of luxury and privilege as the ruler of a small Balkan kingdom. She lived a life of glittering balls, the finest furnishings, the most handsome men, the most exquisite of foods. Her only friends were four bearded old men who served as her cabinet, and worshiped the ground she walked on. Then the Germans had marched in, and she and her four councilors barely escaped with their lives. 

In the fourth book of the Piney Falls Mysteries Series, the wedding event of the decade is about to take place in Piney Falls. From the decorations to the cake and music, every single citizen has contributed in some way to make this day perfect. Until Cosmo and Lanie begin their lives together, everyone is on their best behavior, trying to assure no mystery disrupts the one thing they’ve all worked in unison to achieve.

When Maggie McTigg's brother Michael went off to fight in World War II, he left his taxicab company in her hands. As the only member of the family with a lick of business sense, he asked her to keep it running while he was gone. Maggie took it as a sacred trust, her own contribution to the war efforts, and resolved that it would still be operating when the conflict was over and he finally returned home—no matter what it took and what she had to do. Just how far will a woman go to keep her soldier brother's heritage alive for him until a war is over? 

Archibald Cloyd was an ubergeek and as pedantic as it is possible to be. Hollywood hired him at thousands of dollars a week as the technical director on a movie about Napoleon. Wilson Page, Archibald's secretary, figured he didn't deserve anything better than being nursemaid to a strutting egomaniac.