Smart Mystery Fiction

Withering and waspish, Ursula Smart (not her real name) gate-crashes her mother's book club at an isolated country house for a long weekend retreat. Much to Mother's chagrin. Joining them are Mother's best friend, Mirabelle, Aunts Charlotte and Less, and Bridget with her dog, Mr. Bojangles. It doesn't matter that they've read Gone Girl three times this year already, this retreat is their chance to escape bustling suburbia. But someone has other ideas. A body is found in the grounds.

It was supposed to be fun. A relaxing trip to a remote mountain retreat where there’s no phone reception. Three couples, friends since high school, are looking forward to a weekend of drinking, reminiscing and flirting. When someone suggests swapping partners, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. The lights will be switched off, for privacy. It’s not really cheating if you don’t know who you were with, right? But when the lights come back on, one of the men is dead. No-one can agree who was in which bedroom with whom.

When the Australian Mystery Writers' Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn't pan out. The program is a who's who of crime-writing royalty. But when one of us is murdered, six authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime. Or commit one.

When a modern home in High Peaks burns to the ground killing the family, it appears as if the tragic deaths were an accident. But a gut instinct tells Noah Sutherland otherwise. Days later, a family at another residence is found dead under bizarre circumstances. A coincidence, or are the two related? As the calculating stalker dubbed The Smart Killer stays in the shadows and continues slaughtering ordinary families in their homes, the investigation shakes the small Adirondack town to the core.

MEET LINDA. Linda lives a nice, normal life, on a nice, normal street with Terry, her perfectly ordinary husband. Linda’s not like everyone else, she keeps herself to herself. But she’s good at solving puzzles and there are times she sees things other people might have overlooked. Because nothing on Cavendish Avenue is quite as it seems. People have started to go missing in the neighbourhood and Linda will soon discover that some secrets can’t stay buried forever…

It's 1867 in the Wyoming Territory. Chance Creager and his brothers have built their small, isolated ranch in the uninhabited valley near the Greybull River. While hunting, Chance stumbles upon a decaying wagon sunk in mud, near it the grisly remains of an Indian sacrifice. Nothing about the eerie scene makes sense. The mountains have secrets. Chance finds himself pulled deeper into the mystery when he finds a beautiful fugitive named Raven while hunting a deadly mountain lion.

She's beautiful, street-smart, and hoping to leave her troubled past behind her. Makedde Vanderwall has finished her studies and is ready to start practising as a forensic psychologist. She's also starting a new life in Australia with her detective boyfriend Andy Flynn. Hoping to scrape together some extra cash, Mak begins doing part-time work for an infamous Sydney PI.

Enemy witches Iraya and Jazmyne have each achieved their darkest desires. For the former, the doyenne who killed her family is dead. For the latter, the crown has been won. For both, their treacherous alliance is over—until a hidden evil rises from their last adversary's ashes, forcing them to join forces once more to defend Aiyca and their respective orders. Laying claim to the island of Iraya's birth right and the bloody crown Jazmyne wears, this mysterious assailant is rearing monsters in the name of war. A war neither Iraya or Jazmyne are prepared to fight.

At 14, Gillis McCabe has a contentious argument with his father and angrily leaves his home, vanishing into the city. Years later, through hard work and innovative decisions he rises to become one of the wealthiest businessmen in Virginia. Feeling an urge to mend the relationship with his father, he decides to make the journey back to his childhood home. What he discovers shocks him. His father's estate is in shambles and the entire staff has been massacred.

Ursula Smart, along with her dysfunctional family, heads to Scotland for a gentle weekend of foraging and camping in the Outer Hebrides. Their boat capsizes. Washed up on an uninhabited island, the Smart women face starvation, freezing conditions, and - worse - no Wi-Fi. A fun break swiftly turns into a desperate battle for survival. Someone begins killing them off one by one.

When investigative journalist Chrissie O’Brian lands a senior job at The Argus, she is desperate to escape the nightmares of her past. Her life has become a daily battle to numb the pain. But her job is something she can do better than anyone else - and the only thing that keeps the memories at bay.

When a traveling carnival arrives in Hollowbeck, it promises magic and mayhem. It's also an opportunity for Morgan to find someone who can transform her brother, Ruiner, back into a human—he's a little tired of being a talking cat, and she's a little tired of cleaning his litter box. Things look promising until the curtains rise on rehearsal night to reveal Ruiner sitting on the lifeless body of the wizard who promised to help him.

Henni, the scribe of Stella Street (also the tallest girl in her new school) tells everything that happened when the new unfriendly neighbours (from hell) moved into 45 Stella Street. From the moment the newcomers they nicknamed The Phonies cruised down friendly old Stella Street in their silver Bentley turbo, there was trouble. They were all in it together: Henni, her best friend Zev, her loopy sister Danielle, little Frank who lives at 47 and his dog Briquette (aff aff aff aff) – but Henni tells it best.

A dentist dangles from the window of a swanky Park Avenue hotel, while Toby Peters, a Los Angeles detective who's very far from home, clutches the man by his jacket, which is tearing slowly, stitch by stitch. Across the room, a dead man lies on the bed, his killer pounding on the hotel room door, which sounds like it's going to give way as quickly as the dentist's jacket. Somehow, this entire mess is Albert Einstein's fault. Two groups have been threatening the great physicist. One is a ring of blackmailers who claim to have evidence that he has been passing nuclear secrets to Russia.

Странствие по таборам и монастырям писателя и художника Павла Пепперштейна — роман, персонажи которого в декорациях детективной истории путешествуют по местам и сообществам — как вполне реальным, так и словно замкнувшимся в коконе собственной действительности. Здесь раздваиваются герои, а, перевернув страницу, можно попасть в отдельный фантасмагоричный сюжет и быть унесенным живым потоком слов, вагонетками синонимов, языковой игрой, ироничными пародиями, неожиданными отступлениями, мозаичностью литературных и культурных отсылок.

Ursula Smart and her mother are invited to a supper club at Greystone Castle on the edge of a picturesque Dartmoor village, along with their ever-adventurous book group.

When homegrown terrorists threaten to turn Blue Ridge University into a funeral pyre, Riley Reid, Director of Security, is thrown into a shadow world where old hatreds run deep, family feuds poison relationships, and death and danger spill off the college campus into mountain wilderness. To survive, the former FBI agent must decide where to place her trust. Not easy when conflicting loyalties pose ethical dilemmas and the men in her life trigger emotions that war with logic.

Nexi Ketts has reinvented herself-new name, new look, new life. She makes her living catching corporate cheats - partial atonement for dear old dad's embezzling ways. A fling with a handsome cop ends badly when he tries to kill her. She flees, naked, causing a fender bender, and making it damn hard for Detective Barry Gerton to think clearly.

Die Studentin Janine kauft ein gebrauchtes Smartphone in einem Handyshop. Kurz danach wird der Inhaber des Ladens ermordet. Die Polizei beschlagnahmt Janines Handy; sie wird verdächtigt, mit dem Mord zu tun zu haben. Dann taucht ein Mann auf, der dem Mordopfer zum Verwechseln ähnlich sieht: der Zwillingsbruder. Er behauptet, dass es bei der Tat eine Verwechslung gab und er das Opfer hätte sein sollen. Jetzt sei auch sie in Gefahr, und die Polizei könne ihr nicht helfen.

When a bloody corpse is discovered in a North London park, Detective Inspector Daniel Graves is the man tasked with finding the killer. However, with no clues and no suspects, the case seems like a dead end. Then another body turns up—and this time, it looks like it could be Graves’s fault. Has his investigation caused the murderer to strike again? As the case gets ever more complicated, a report comes in of another suspicious death—but this is nothing like any other Graves has dealt with. All involved are convinced that something supernatural is to blame: a demon.