Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Publishing" in Amateur Sleuths

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.

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.

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”.

From the author of the John J. Malone Mysteries: An estranged relative becomes heir to a Chesapeake Bay fortune - and his family’s ghostly history. If it hadn’t been for his great-uncle Philip, David Telefair would’ve grown up unwanted, forlorn, and poverty stricken in a New England parsonage. But for 20 years, David’s generous benefactor paid for his education, yearly summer camps, living expenses as he grew older, and any amenities he ever needed.

Former con-artist photographers Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak are en route from the grit of New York City to the glitter of Sunset Boulevard when their dreams are waylaid in a tragic roadside accident with an errant turkey. But getting stuck in the off-the-map community of Thursday County, Iowa, has an upside: a blushing farmer’s daughter with a promising sob story. To help her ailing grandma, the Halvorsen family turkey farm is up for grabs. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Bingo and Handsome plan to make a bundle off the gobbling herd.

Resourceful Bingo Riggs and his partner, Handsome Kusak, are in the sucker-bait business, snapping candid pics of tourists off Central Park. Their fly-by-night enterprise can be irresistible to souvenir lovers, but with one camera in a pawnshop and their developing room in the bathtub of a two-room dump near Hell’s Kitchen, their venture is wretchedly underexposed - until they stumble upon an insurance fraud scheme between the allegedly dead eccentric Mr. S. S. Pigeon and his business partner and beneficiary.

Defense attorney John J. Malone may be a habitué of Windy City dive bars, but he's never lost his balance - until now. Not only is he shaken by the contract killing of his latest client, but one of his best friends, socialite Helene Justus, is turning into a complete stranger.

In this 10-story collection of murder most offbeat, a wedding anniversary party turns deadly for an unlucky housewife, a client’s supposed innocence hangs by a thread after a suicide attempt, a forlorn ballad may contain the key to a mystery, a relatively harmless lady wrestler gets pinned for cracking her husband’s skull, an old flame’s diary reveals a poisonous past, and a surprising obituary forces Malone to investigate his own suspicious death.

There has never been a woman as beautiful as top model Delora Deanne. But Delora Deanne doesn’t really exist. Unknown to the panting public, Delora is a composite of many women. Her face is played by Gertrude Bragg. Torso and legs by Eula Stolz. Hands, Eva Lou Strauss. Brains, Hazel Swackhammer. But now, Delora is coming apart. Hazel Swackhammer receives the first in what is to be a series of beautifully wrapped presents. Inside, she is surprised to find a pair of pale lavender gloves...containing the hands of Delora Deanne.

Attorney John J. Malone, steadfast, barfly, and proud defender of the guilty, has a lot of enemies, but few more formidable than Chicago financier and anti-vice crusader Leonard Estapole. So it doesn’t look good when Estapole’s corpse turns up in Malone’s office, liberated from this life by a bronze Buddha to the skull. But when the stiff’s stepdaughter is kidnapped and Malone is implicated, it’s a frame job gone too far. Especially when Malone is suddenly saddled with the obnoxious abductee - a dimpled little extortionist who refuses to go home.

Anna Marie St. Clair was a normal Wisconsin-farm-girl-turned-mistress when she was framed for the murder of her racketeer boyfriend, one of Chicago’s sleaziest politicians. Sentenced to death, and only hours from getting fried, a lucky hitch sets Anna Marie free, but she blackmails the corrupt warden into informing the tabloids that she took her volts like a real trouper. What better payback than to haunt the lives of those who tried to steal hers? As the shapeliest ghost in the Windy City, she’s going to prove that dying well is the best revenge.

On a break from the Windy City, aspiring crime novelist Jake Justus and his wife, Helene, are acquainting themselves with Manhattan’s finest cocktail lounges when they befriend Dennis Morrison, a blind-drunk groom. The handsome former male escort thought he’d found his bounty in homely heiress Bertha Lutts, but while their wedding night may have been a bust, the morning after turned out to be the real horror. It seems Bertha has vanished from their bridal suite and in her place is an unidentified beheaded woman.

It’s 11:59 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, and criminal lawyer John J. Malone is nursing his blues in a Chicago dive bar. He’s been two-timed by his inamorata and abandoned by his favorite gumshoe partners, crime reporter Jake Justus and socialite Helene Brand, for their Bermuda honeymoon. But Malone’s not lonely for long. Suddenly, a stranger staggers into the bar, calls out the attorney’s name, and drops dead - stabbed in the back. In his possession is a key that could unlock the cold heart of Mona McClane, a wealthy and beautiful thrill-seeker.

Press agent Jake Justus doesn’t care if all of Chicago drops dead. He’s just tied the knot with debutante Helene Brand, and a Bermuda honeymoon is only three in-flight martinis away. But the shooting death of a man in broad daylight, on the busiest shopping day of the year, with plenty of witnesses, is particularly ill-timed. Jake’s pal, attorney John J. Malone, agrees. Only a day before, wedding guest Mona McClane, notorious jet-setter and tipsy big-game hunter, bet the two men she could bag an innocent stranger and they’d never be able to prove a thing.

Radio star Nelle Brown is known coast-to-coast for her sweet and sultry voice. But her press agent and manager, Jake Justus, is familiar with another side of the darling of the airwaves: her crackpot marriage to a penniless tycoon, disastrous string of lovers, and propensity for flying into spectacular fits of rage. Now, it appears she’s being burned by an ex-flame who’s holding her scandalous love letters for ransom. The missives could ruin Nelle’s career, but so could the scoundrel’s murder.

Professor Emily Cavanaugh has left Windy Corner behind and is back at Bede College on her sabbatical, determined to finish writing her book on Dostoevsky. She is soon reunited with one of her promising students, Daniel Razumov, as well as familiar faces on the teaching staff - her friend, Marguerite Grenier; her half-brother, Oscar Lansing; the abrasive division chair, Richard McClintock; and the predatory Taylor Curzon, known for her relentless pursuit of young male students - and Taylor now has Daniel firmly in her sights.

A familiar name piques Willie Black’s interest on a slow news day: Scuffletown Park. He and the first of his four wives lived next to the pocket park when they were young and still on speaking terms. Now, Scuffletown is the site of a crime scene, one that doesn’t fit the usual modus operandi for Richmond. For one thing, there’s plenty of blood but no body. Also, it seems that a knife was involved - a rarity in Willie’s gun-happy city. And Scuffletown is in the heart of the Fan, where violence is a blessedly rare occurrence.