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List: Spotlight On: Mysteries


A photo of The Four Queens of Crime

The Four Queens of Crime

In 1938 London, Detective Chief Inspector Lilian Wyles enlists Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham to unravel the mystery of a baronet's murder during a high-society gala, navigating a web of suspects with personal and political motives.

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A photo of Murder by Cheesecake

Murder by Cheesecake

When Dorothy's obnoxious date is found dead in a hotel freezer, it not only ruins a gorgeous cheesecake but threatens the elaborate St. Olaf-themed wedding Rose is hosting.

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A photo of The Maid's Secret

The Maid's Secret

Molly Gray's life is about to change in ways she could never have imagined. As the esteemed Head Maid and Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel, two good things are just around the corner--a taping of the hit antiquities TV show Hidden Treasures and, even more exciting, her wedding to Juan Manuel. When Molly brings in some old trinkets to be appraised on the show, one item is revealed to be a rare and coveted artifact worth millions. Molly becomes a rags-to-riches sensation, and a media frenzy swirls as she prepares to sell her priceless treasure. Then, on auction day, the treasure suddenly vanishes, and Molly and her friends find themselves at the center of the boldest art heist in recent memory. But the key to this mystery lies in the past, in a long-forgotten diary written by Molly's Gran. For the first time ever, Molly learns about her grandmother's secrets: how she was born into a wealthy family and fell head-over-heels in love with a young man her parents deemed below her. As fate would have it, Gran's greatest love was someone Molly knows quite well.

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A photo of A killer's code

A killer's code

"During a recent undercover sting gone bad, hit man Gustavo Toro died in the arms of FBI Special Agent Daniela 'Dani' Vega. But Toro had secrets he refused to take to the grave. In the event of his death, Toro left behind a video that promises to expose a mysterious mastermind who has been operating with impunity for decades. But there's a catch. Dani's team must follow Toro's cryptic clues on a cross-country hunt for justice, and piecing together his past is more twisted than Dani could have imagined. But as Dani and her team race to gather the evidence, it's clear this powerful adversary will stop at nothing to keep their secrets--including eliminating those who threaten to reveal them"-- Page 4 of cover.

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A photo of Nobody's Fool

Nobody's Fool

Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There's a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn't know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts--and then he runs. Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who's working off his debts by doing low-level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It's unmistakably her. As soon as Kierce makes eye contact with her, she bolts. For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day.

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A photo of How to Solve Your Own Murder

How to Solve Your Own Murder

It's 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances's life takes a hair-pin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn't happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously. Until, that is, nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered. In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances's lifelong habit of digging up secrets, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

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A photo of The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon

A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter name Joel Cairo, a fat man named Gutman, and Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett's coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted generations of readers.

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A photo of The Quiet Librarian

The Quiet Librarian

Hana Babic is a quiet middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared. Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia--until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend--the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head. Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana's care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora--and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.

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A photo of All That's Left Unsaid

All That's Left Unsaid

Just let him go. These are the words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother Denny out to celebrate his high school graduation with friends. That night, Denny--optimistic, guileless, brilliant Denny--is brutally murdered inside a busy restaurant in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, a refugee enclave facing violent crime, an indifferent police force, and the worst heroin epidemic in Australian history. Returning home to Cabramatta for the funeral, Ky learns that the police are stumped by Denny's case: a dozen people were at Lucky 8 restaurant when Denny died, but each of the bystanders claim to have seen nothing. Desperately hoping that understanding what happened might ease her suffocating guilt, Ky sets aside her grief and determines to track down the witnesses herself. With each encounter, she peels back another layer of the place that shaped her and Denny, exposing the seeds of violence that were planted well before that fateful celebration dinner: by colonialism, by the war in Vietnam, and by the choices they've all made to survive.

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A photo of The House of Silk : a Sherlock Holmes novel

The House of Silk : a Sherlock Holmes novel

It is 1890. A year after Holmes's death, Watson--now in a retirement home--narrates a tale of Sherlockian detection that could tear apart the very fabric of society. The story opens with a train robbery in Boston, and moves to the innocuous setting of Wimbledon.

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A photo of Blacktop Wasteland : a novel

Blacktop Wasteland : a novel

Once known as the best getaway driver east of the Mississippi, Beauregard "Bug" Montage has never stopped looking over his shoulder. He knows that no matter how long he has been out of the Life, no one ever gets out completely. Now Bug is an honest mechanic, a loving husband, and a hardworking dad. But when his carefully built life begins to crumble, and a former associate comes calling with a can't-miss jewelry store heist, Bug feels he has no choice but to get back in the driver's seat. Haunted by the ghost of who he used to be and the father who disappeared when he needed him most, Bug must find a way to navigate this blacktop wasteland... or die trying.

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A photo of Honey Roasted

Honey Roasted

While struggling to find a romantic (and affordable) destination for her upcoming honeymoon, coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi whips up a honey of a drink made from honey-processed coffee. The culinary world is also abuzz about the amazing honey that Clare was lucky enough to source for her shop's new latte. Produced by Madame's old friend "Queen" Bea Hastings, the rare, prize-winning nectar from Bea's rooftop hives commands a premium price, and top chefs compete for a chance to use it in their signature seasonal dishes. One night, a swarm of escaped bees blanket the Village Blend's chimney, and Clare discovers Bea's unconscious body after she seemingly fell from her elaborate high-rise rooftop greenhouse. Like Madame, she knows this Queen would never abandon her hive. To sort out this mystery, Clare investigates a world of cutthroat chefs, culinary start-ups, and competitive urban beekeepers.

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A photo of Her Name is Knight

Her Name is Knight

Stolen from her Ghanaian village as a child, Nena Knight has plenty of motives to kill. Now an elite assassin for a powerful business syndicate called the Tribe, she gets plenty of chances. But while on assignment in Miami, Nena ends up saving a life, not taking one. She emerges from the experience a changed woman, finally hopeful for a life beyond rage and revenge. Tasked with killing a man she's come to respect, Nena struggles to reconcile her loyalty to the Tribe with her new purpose. Meanwhile, she learns a new Tribe council member is the same man who razed her village, murdered her family, and sold her into captivity. Nena can't resist the temptation of vengeance--and she doesn't want to. Before she can reclaim her life, she must leverage everything she was and everything she is to take him down and end the cycle of bloodshed for good.

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A photo of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The death of a wealthy widow is believed to be an accident until her future husband is killed. The police bring in Hercule Poirot to help with the investigation.

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A photo of The widows of Malabar Hill

The widows of Malabar Hill

"Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's legal rights. Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen is going through the paperwork, she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their full inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forfeit what their husband left them? The Farid widows live in full purdah--in strict seclusion, never leaving the women's quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate, and realizes her instincts about the will were correct when tensions escalate to murder."-- Provided by publisher.

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A photo of The Hunter

The Hunter

It's a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the west of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die. Cal Hooper took early retirement from the Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He's found it, more or less: he's built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he's gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey's long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn't want protecting. What she wants is revenge.

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A photo of Feline Fatale

Feline Fatale

Spring flowers may be about to bloom in Crozet, Virginia, but Harry is thinking about snow. Her dear friend Ned Tucker is in the House of Delegates, advocating for a bill to improve road clearing during bad weather, and Harry and Ned's wife, Susan, have gone down to the statehouse to support him. Tensions are high between political parties, and no one can agree on anything for long enough to get something done. The bill's chief detractor is the glamorous Amanda Fields, a former newscaster turned delegate whose flair for the dramatic has earned her a formidable reputation--and made her more than a few enemies. Amanda's claws-out approach to politics might have some of her colleagues wishing she was dead, but the statehouse is rocked when one of the young pages who assists the delegates dies under mysterious circumstances. Could his death be related to the political infighting? Or is something even more sinister threatening the lives of Virginia's finest representatives? With help from her feline sidekicks, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, as well as Tee Tucker the corgi and Irish Greyhound Pirate, Harry is determined to find the answers and restore order once more to the Capitol.

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A photo of Head Cases

Head Cases

Gardner Camden is a walking analytical brain with an affinity for riddles, puzzles, and codes. It makes him the perfect fit for the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit of the FBI, a team of five brilliant but misfit agents tasked with solving cold cases. Gardner's smart, but he's all business--except for his seven-year-old daughter and occasional visits to his elderly mother, he prioritizes his work and justice over everything else, no matter the cost. With rumors of PAR about to be disbanded, the team can't afford to make any mistakes. A serial killer from one of Gardner's solved cases, presumed to be dead for over a decade, is found murdered, and then soon after, another body with a similar story. The mastermind murderer has left clues and riddles for Gardner and his team--a mathematician, a sniper and weapons expert, a computer analytics specialist, and their leader, a career agent - as they track him across the country. With the threat of PAR dissolving, Gardner must work to solve the riddles before it's too late.

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A photo of The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. He's willing to help a man down on his luck, but later, Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty.

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A photo of Missing White Woman

Missing White Woman

For their romantic getaway to New York City, Breanna's new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything--the train tickets, the dinner reservations, the luxury row house where they stayed. But on the final morning, when Breanna came downstairs, she found a dead white woman in the foyer, and Ty was gone. The woman is Janelle Beckett, a missing person with a social media following, #Justice4Janelle. Breanna's only hope for staying out of jail is her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a complicated past. Bree realizes that the only way she can help Ty--or herself--is to figure out what really happened that last night. But when people only see what they want to see, can she uncover the truth hiding in plain sight?

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A photo of Farewell, Amethystine

Farewell, Amethystine

January 1970 finds Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, LA's premier Black detective, at 50 years of age despite all expectations. He has a loving family, a beautiful home, and a thriving investigation agency. All is right with the world... and then Amethystine Stoller, his own personal Helen of Troy, arrives. Her ex-husband is missing. A simple enough case. But even as Easy takes his first step in the investigation he trips. He falls into the memory of things past. Little things, like loss, love, a world war, and a hunger that has eaten at him since he was a Black boy on his own on the streets of Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas. The missing ex, a young white man named Curt Fields, is found dead. Easy's only real friend in the LAPD, Melvin Suggs, has gone into hiding rather than allow his femme fatale wife to go to the gas chamber. And that's only the beginning. Easy finds himself pressed into a reckoning. All of his success cannot succor his heart. The 1970's have ushered in new expectations of men and women, Black and White, and Easy has to make a choice that will almost certainly hasten a permanent descent, one that might sunder his soul.

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A photo of Listen for the Lie

Listen for the Lie

What would you do if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thinks so too? What if the truth doesn't matter? As Lucy Chase's Texas hometown begins to tell versions of what happened and who Lucy is to a nationwide, true crime obsessed audience, at the bequest of her grandmother, she returns to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend's murder, even if she is the one that did it.

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A photo of Guide Me Home

Guide Me Home

In this ... culmination of the award-winning Highway 59 trilogy, Detective Darren Mathews is pulled out of an early retirement to investigate the case of a missing Black college student from an all-white sorority and soon finds a town that will stop at nothing to keep its secrets hidden.

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A photo of This Is Why We Lied

This Is Why We Lied

For GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, McAlpine Lodge seems like the ideal getaway to celebrate their honeymoon. Set on a gorgeous, off-the-grid mountaintop property, it's the perfect place to unplug and reconnect. Until a bone-chilling scream cuts through the night. Mercy McAlpine, the manager of the Lodge, is dead. With a vicious storm raging and the one access road to the property washed out, the murderer must be someone on the mountain. But as Will and Sara investigate the McAlpine family and the other guests, they realize that everyone here is lying.... Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves. It soon becomes clear that normal rules don't apply at McAlpine Lodge, and Will and Sara are going to have to watch their step at every turn. Trapped on the resort, they must untangle a decades-old web of secrets to discover what happened to Mercy. And with the killer poised to strike again, the trip of a lifetime becomes a race against the clock.

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A photo of Open Season

Open Season

The body of an aspiring actress is found, another victim is shot by a sniper, and then more bodies pile up, and psychologist Alex Delaware and homicide detective Milo Sturgis must face a highly complex killer that will require all their skills to decipher.

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A photo of Bonded in Death

Bonded in Death

His passport read Giovanni Rossi. But decades ago, during the Urban Wars, he was part of a small, secret organization called The Twelve. Responding to an urgent summons from an old compatriot, he landed in New York and eased into the waiting car. And died within minutes. Lieutenant Eve Dallas finds the Rossi case frustrating. She's got an elderly victim who'd just arrived from Rome, a widow who knows nothing about why he'd left, an as-yet unidentifiable weapon, and zero results on facial recognition. But when she finds a connection to the Urban Wars of the 2020s, she thinks Summerset--her fiercely loyal, if somewhat grouchy, major-domo and the man who'd rescued her husband from the Dublin streets--may know something from his stint as a medic in Europe back then. When Summerset learns of the crime, his shock and grief are clear--because, as he eventually reveals, he himself was one of The Twelve. It's not a part of his past he likes to revisit. But now he must not only to assist Eve's investigation, but because a cryptic message from the killer has boasted that others of The Twelve have also died. Summerset is one of those who remain--and the murderous mission is yet to be fully accomplished.

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A photo of Ward D

Ward D

Medical student Amy Brenner is spending the night on a locked psychiatric ward. Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital's inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out. And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger. Amy's worst nightmare was spending the night on Ward D. And now she might never escape.

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A photo of Battle Mountain

Battle Mountain

The campaign of destruction that Axel Soledad and Dallas Cates wreaked on Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett left both men in tatters, especially Nate, who lost almost everything. Wondering if the civilized life left him vulnerable to attack, Nate dropped off the grid with his falcons in tow to prepare for vengeance. When Joe gets a call from the governor asking for help finding his son-in-law, who has gone missing in the Sierra Madre mountain range, he enlists the help of a local, a rookie game warden named Susan Kany. As Nate and fellow falconer Geronimo Jones circle closer to their prey, Joe and Susan follow the nearly cold trail to Warm Springs. Little do Nate and Joe know that their separate journeys are about to converge ... at Battle Mountain.

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A photo of The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles

When Sir Charles Baskerville is found mysteriously dead in the grounds of Baskerville Hall, everyone remembers the legend of the monstrous creature that haunts the moor, but Sherlock Holmes knows there must be a more rational explanation.

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A photo of Overkill

Overkill

Chuck Brewster, the former business partner of Ali Reynolds’s husband B. Simpson, once carried on an affair with Clarice, B.’s first wife. So when he’s found murdered with Clarice standing nearby covered in blood, it seems an open and shut case. But Clarice swears she’s innocent and begs for Ali’s help. At the same time, someone is targeting Camille Lee while she’s on the road for High Noon. Ali is swiftly running out of time to find the real killer and keep her employee safe in this high-octane thrill ride.

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A photo of Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone

Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. With two young brothers depending on her, 16-year-old Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive. Living in the harsh poverty of the Ozarks, Ree learns quickly that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan can be a fatal mistake. But, as an unsettling revelation lurks, Ree discovers unforeseen depths in herself and in a family network that protects its own at any cost.

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A photo of Midnight black

Midnight black

With his lover imprisoned in a Russian gulag, the Gray Man will stop at nothing to free her. A winter sunrise over the great plains of Russia is no cause for celebration. The temperature barely rises above zero, and the guards at Penal Colony IK-2 Yavas are determined to take their misery out on the prisoners--chief among them, one Zoya Zakharova. Once a master spy for Russian foreign intelligence, then the partner and lover of the Gray Man, she has information the Kremlin wants, and they don't care what they have to do to get it. But if they think a thousand miles of frozen wasteland and the combined power of the Russian police state is enough to protect them, they don't know the Gray Man. He's coming, and no one's safe.

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