Urquhart & MacDonald Murder Mysteries

Barrachois overlooks the cold, watery edge of the world. It’s a small city crooked by necessity, but an oddly safe place–joyous, even. Until two little kids witness the death of the limping man. With an unerring eye for period atmosphere, crime fiction writer D.E. Ring builds a layered, mesmeric portrait of a town thriving in the years after WW2. It's pragmatic and unconcerned about its crooked tendencies. It's a smuggler's paradise, and the Mafia has long been involved.

Newlyweds Jimmy Urquhart and Sandy (Notepad) MacDonald head to New York for a Manhattan honeymoon. The new Mrs. Urquhart knows the city very well, perhaps too well. Her surprising friendships with some notable people re-awakens some of Jimmy's concern about her past, but Notepad makes it clear she will not talk about it.

It’s a sunny, lazy day in autumn. A new bronze plaque, with the names of Barrachois’ Second World War dead, is being mounted on the side of the city cenotaph. A chain gives way; the heavy plaque swings wildly and strikes the cenotaph, piercing its stone wall. Standing inside the monument is a mummified corpse, dressed in a lawyer’s gown. Inside the pockets of the victim are newspaper clippings, clues the murderer has left twenty years earlier. Why?

A pleasant middle-aged woman dies on the Barrachois army base. The army insists it was an accident, but the woman was working on a project no one will discuss. When a second middle-aged woman from the base is murdered, husband and wife Jimmy and Notepad Urquhart are summoned to investigate a situation with dire international implications.

Jimmy and Sandy Urquhart are exhausted new parents, juggling work while trying to enjoy their baby boy on a particularly beautiful summer morning. The explosion that morning was heard for miles. Everything stopped. The blast was meant to conceal a murder–a truly senseless death that confounds Jimmy and his team. But the tragedy does not stop there.

It's a summer long weekend and all that brings in Barrachois -- families at the park, a regatta, races, picnics, and fireworks. Connie's new hotel is also having its grand opening, featuring a great band hired for the occasion. The musicians are arriving on the sleeper train early in the morning. But there's something terribly wrong. No one is at the controls. The passengers are all asleep. Nothing, nothing can stop the crash. One person will soonl be dead. This won't be a holiday for Urquhart and MacDonald.