Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Women Sleuths

It's New Year's Eve, the final night of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War, and another poor soul has turned up dead. Ted Eddings, a scuba diver and investigative reporter who was a favorite at the medical examiner's office, is found 30 feet below the Elizabeth River's icy surface. Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner for the state of Virginia, can't help but wonder why she received a phone call from someone reporting the death before the police were notified.

Hanson died quickly—with a knife in his back. Carole was next—covered with acid and tortured to death. Now it's Judd's turn—a New York pschoanalyst, he'd known them both. Two faceless executioners on a murderous mission, searching for a secret which is unknown to Judd. Not safe at home or at work, Judd feels his professional grip slipping while he faces constant threat of imminent attack. To whom can he ultimately turn?

Intelligent, tough, beautiful, and sole heir to a billion-dollar fortune, Elizabeth suddenly finds herself head of an empire after her father mysteriously dies. Surrounded by cash-hungry family members, the young heiress fights to save the family business. And after narrowly escaping death, she realizes that someone is determined to kill her. Unsure of who she can trust, Elizabeth must figure out who the assassin is before it's too late.

Anna has been assigned a three-week posting on Georgia's isolated Cumberland Island. Despite the breathtaking natural setting, Anna finds time weighing heavily as she works tedious fire pre-suppression duty. Her boring routine is shattered when a sudden plane crash in the inland palmetto thickets calls her and the other members of the fire crew to action. When Anna and the crew investigate, they discover the plane was sabotaged. Suspicions smolder over the accident which killed both the pilot and his passenger, Cumberland's lone law enforcement ranger.

Brad Sterling - former Harvard football player, ne¿er-do-well, and Susan Silverman's long out-of touch ex-husband, is by all appearances a successful businessman. But when, in the course of running a vast fundraiser called Galapalooza, he is charged with sexual harassment, he turns to Susan for help.

Sunny Randall is a Boston P.I. and former cop, a college graduate, an aspiring painter, a divorcée, and the owner of a miniature bull terrier named Rosie. Hired by a wealthy family to locate their teenage daughter, Sunny is tested by the parents' preconceived notion of what a detective should be. With the help of underworld contacts, she tracks down the runaway Millicent, who has turned to prostitution. Rescuing her from a vicious pimp, Sunny finds herself the unlikely custodian of a difficult teenager when the girl refuses to return to her family.

As the world is on the brink of mutual destruction between the East and the West, Mary Ashley—a bright, young political science professor—is appointed U.S. Ambassador to an Iron Curtain country. Her husband dies in a suspicious car crash, and Mary becomes the target of a mysterious murder plot by unseen and powerful enemies. Thrust from her comforting life in Kansas, she finds herself lost amongst the political turmoil in a foreign country where she is seen as the enemy, and no one is to be trusted.

When Athena disappeared from St. Polycarp's College at Oxford, her friends assumed she had run away - to hide from her overbearing, wealthy Greek family, or even to marry some unacceptable young man. To their shock, they find out at their 10-year reunion that her body has been discovered in an excavation. Private investigator Regan Reilly, Athena's former college roommate, is determined to track down her friend's killer.

What would it take to lure a serious young newswoman from a respectable New England paper to the most notorious supermarket tabloid in America? The call of journalistic adventure? How about a promise of a salary that's triple what she's making? En route to her new job at the Weekly Galaxy, Sara Joslyn stumbles across a bloody corpse in a Buick Riviera. A big story? Not at this paper. The problem is compounded when the dead man vanishes, Buick and all.

Heroine and renowned FBI profiler Karen Vail returns in an explosive thriller set against the backdrop of California's wine country. Hoping to find solace from the demons that haunt her, Vail makes her first trip to the Napa Valley. But shortly after arriving, a victim is found in the deepest reaches of an exclusive wine cave, the work of an extraordinarily unpredictable serial killer.

A brutal serial killer known as "Dead Eyes" is lurking in the backyard of the famed Virginia FBI Profiling Unit. Despite the gifted profiling skills of Special Agent Karen Vail, the psychopath is always one step ahead with uncanny knowledge of the FBI's detailed strategy of pursuit. Threatening to derail the investigation and her career is Vail's contentious divorce from an abusive husband and an ugly custody battle. As Vail fights to find the killer before he murders more young women, she must battle forces determined to bring her down.

An adorable crackpot inventor has developed his latest idea—run-proof, snag-proof pantyhose—just in time for a Miami pantyhose convention. If he can just raise $1.1 million over the convention weekend, he can save the housing project he shares with other retirees from getting sold out from under them. But an industry queen is determined to keep his invention off the market—any way she can.

Boston P.I. Sunny Randall goes on the road to protect a best-selling author - and uncovers a world of dark secrets - in the new novel by the grand master. Sunny Randall, the beautiful blond P.I. with a yen for dogs, painting, and her ex-husband, Richie, has won over even the most hard-core of Robert B. Parker's many fans.

In Deadly Housewives, critically acclaimed mystery writer Christine Matthews has gathered 13 of the biggest names in women's mystery and suspense for an intriguing short story collection. These previously unpublished stories illuminate a different dark corner of the housewife-psyche, including sex, marriage, abandoned careers, jealousy, kids, and female friendship.

Crime just seems to follow lottery-winning couple Willy and Alvirah Meehan wherever they go. But now Alvirah can sleuth to her heart's content! In this collection of stories, the couple is targeted and pursued by ex-cons after winning the lottery in "Plumbing for Willy," they discover the body of actress Fiona Winter in their New York apartment in "The Body in the Closet," and they help Cynthia Lathem solve the murder of her stepfather in "Death at the Cape." The aura of suspense remains sky-high in two additional stories, "Stowaway" and "Milk Run."

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.

In the expert hands of two of the mystery world's top storytellers, being a housewife takes on a whole new meaning. These original stories explore the dark side of the housewife psyche and are guaranteed to delight. But be cautioned: These stories—"GDMFSOB" by Nevada Barr (author of the Anna Pigeon series) and "Acid Test" by Sara Paretsky (author of the V.I. Warshawski novels)—are meant to be listened to alone while sipping a glass of wine.

After a holiday trip to the Big Apple, Midnight Louie, a hard-boiled, hairy-chested, 19-pound black tomcat detective, returns home to death on the Nile. Two battling Egyptian barges outside the Oasis hotel cause a dead body to rise to the surface. The soggy victim is well known to Temple Barr—Louie's redheaded, high-heeled human companion—and her two best beaux both have reasons to want him dead.

Midnight Louie, the hugely popular jet-black feline sleuth who thinks he’s Sam Spade with hairballs, returns for an eleventh outing in this cozy-noir series. This time his human partner, Temple Barr, learn that the remodeling of the Crystal Phoenix Hotel is being held up by a ghost: the workmen swear its Elvis.

Regan Reilly, is a young PI who has come from L.A. to ski and celebrate with her parents and their rich Aspen friends. It ends up being a busman's holiday for Regan, who gets swept up in art theft intrigue after some multimillion-dollar paintings are stolen from her parent's friends. The thieves continue to elude capture, but Regan is on their trail. She's up agaist time, though, as the clock ticks down to Aspen's biggest party of the season—at which the town's most valuable painting of all will be unveiled.