Her ​Last Breath

Colin Dexter - The ​Daughters of Cain
It ​was only the second time Inspector Morse had ever taken over a murder enquiry after the preliminary--invariably dramatic--discovery and sweep of the crime scene. Secretly pleased to have missed the blood and gore, Morse and the faithful Lewis go about finding the killer who stabbed Dr. Felix McClure, late of Wolsey College. In another part of Oxford, three women--a housecleaner, a schoolteacher, and a prostitute--are playing out a drama that has long been unfolding. It will take much brain work, many pints, and not a little anguish before Morse sees the startling connections between McClure's death and the daughters of Cain....

Colin Dexter - Death ​Is Now My Neighbour
The ​peaceful quadrangle of Lonsdale College seems remote from the shocks of the outside world - such as the shooting of a young woman in her North Oxford home. But things at Lonsdale are not as tranquil as they appear. The Master of the college is retiring, and two senior dons, Denis Cornford and Julian Storrs, are vying, discreetly but furiously, to succeed him. There are only two people to whom the coveted appointment means more than it does to Cornford and Storrs - their wives. Chief Inspector Morse, investigating the murder on Bloxham Drive, follows a trail that leads first to a tabloid journalist, then to the strip clubs of Soho. It soon winds back, however, to the university. For Morse and his partner, Sergeant Lewis, the question becomes: Is the Mastership of Lonsdale worth killing for?

John Layman - Rob Guillory - Chew ​1. - Taster's Choice
Tony ​Chu is a detective with a secret. A weird secret. Tony Chu is Cibopathic, which means he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. It also means he's a hell of a detective, as long as he doesn't mind nibbling on the corpse of a murder victim to figure out whodunit, and why. He's been brought on by the Special Crimes Division of the FDA, the most powerful law enforcement agency on the planet, to investigate their strangest, sickest, and most bizarre cases. This title collects "Chew, numbered 1-5".

Peter Robinson - All ​the Colours of Darkness
A ​beautiful June day in the Yorkshire Dales, and a group of children are spending the last of their half-term freedom swimming in the river near Hindswell Woods. But the idyll is shattered by their discovery of a mans body, hanging from a tree. DI Annie Cabott soon discovers he is Mark Hardcastle, the well-liked and successful set designer for the Eastvale Theatres current production of Othello. Everything points to suicide, and Annie is mystified. Why would such a man want to take his own life? Then Annies investigation leads to another shattering discovery, and DCI Alan Banks is called back from the idyllic weekend he had planned with his new girlfriend. Banks soon finds himself plunged into a shadow-world where nothing is what it seems, where secrets and deceit are the norm, and where murder is seen as the solution to a problem. The deeper he digs the more he discovers that the monster he has awakened will extend its deadly reach to his friends and family. Nobody is safe.

Colin Dexter - The ​Riddle of the Third Mile
"[Morse ​is] the most prickly, conceited, and genuinely brilliant detective since Hercule Poirot". --The New York Times Book Review Inspector Morse isn't sure what to make of the truncated body found dumped in the Oxford Canal, but he suspects it may be all that's left of an elderly Oxford don last seen boarding the London train several days before. Whatever the truth, the inspector knows it won't be simple--it never is. As he retraces Professor Browne-Smith's route through a London netherworld of topless bars and fancy bordellos, his forebodings are fulfilled. The evidence mounts; so do the bodies. So Morse downs another pint, unleashes his pit bull instincts, and solves a mystery that defies all logic. "[Dexter] is a magician with character, story construction, and the English language. . . . Colin Dexter and Morse are treasures of the genre". --Mystery News "It is a delight to watch this brilliant, quirky man deduce". --Minneapolis Star & Tribune

Lee Child - The ​Midnight Line
Jack ​Reacher takes an aimless stroll past a pawn shop in a small Midwestern town. In the window he sees a West Point class ring from 2005. It’s tiny. It’s a woman cadet’s graduation present to herself. Why would she give it up? Reacher’s a West Pointer too, and he knows what she went through to get it

Agatha Christie - Agatha ​Christie's Poirot Book One
A ​dentist's suspicious death leads Poirot to drill the good doctor's patients, partners, lovers, and friends. From the Publisher: What reason would an amiable dentist like Dr. Morely have for committing suicide? He didn't have emotional difficulties, money problems, or love trouble. What he did have was an appointment with Hercule Poirot, who is not persuaded by the suicide story and has therefore taken it upon himself to questions the good doctor's patients, partners, and friends. All he's come up with is the numbing fear that Dr. Morely wasn't an unlikely victim at all. Nor the first.

Jeff Jensen - Jonathan Case - Green ​River Killer
Throughout ​the 1980s, the highest priority of Seattle-area police was the apprehension of the Green River Killer, the man responsible for the murders of dozens of women. But in 1990, with the body count numbering at least forty-eight, the case was put in the hands of a single detective, Tom Jensen. After twenty years, when the killer was finally captured with the help of DNA technology, Jensen and fellow detectives spent 188 days interviewing Gary Leon Ridgway in an effort to learn his most closely held secrets-an epic confrontation with evil that proved as disturbing and surreal as can be imagined. Written by Jensen's own son, acclaimed entertainment journalist Jeff Jensen, Green River Killer: A True Detective Story presents the ultimate insider's account of America's most prolific serial killer. Green River Killer is bound to become a well-recognized member of the crime-genre graphic novel family, including titles like Darwyn Cooke’s The Hunter and Alan Moore’s From Hell.

Janwillem van de Wetering - The ​corpse on the dike
A ​recluse has been shot right between the eyes while standing at his bedroom window. His neighbor, a schoolteacher and pistol shot champion, admits she discovered the body and failed to report it. Is she guilty of murder? Grijpstra and de Gier will travel to whorehouses, through a shady electronics market and into the house of a very flashy potential suspect to find out.

Leigh Russell - Cold ​Sacrifice
The ​first in a new series featuring DS Ian Peterson, a supporting novel in Leigh Russell's first three DI Geraldine Steel novels When Henry's wife is stabbed to death, he pays a prostitute to give him an alibi. Her body is discovered, strangled, and the police realize they are dealing with a serial killer who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. While they are hunting for evidence, another prostitute is brutally murdered. On the track of a vicious killer, DS Ian Peterson doesn't realize he is risking the life of his young colleague, Polly. Already established as a popular character in his own right, Ian appears in a supporting role in the first three Geraldine Steel novels. Cold Sacrifice is the start of his own career as protagonist in a brand new detective series.

Linda Castillo - Pray ​for Silence
The ​Plank family moved from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to join the small Amish community of Painters Mill less than a year ago and seemed the model of the Plain Life—until on a cold October night, the entire family of seven was found slaughtered on their farm. Police Chief Kate Burkholder and her small force have few clues, no motive, and no suspect. Formerly Amish herself, Kate is no stranger to the secrets the Amish keep from the English—and each other—but this crime is horribly out of the ordinary. When she discovers a diary that belonged to one of the teenaged daughters, Kate is shocked to learn the girl kept some very dark secrets and may have been living a lurid double life. Who is the charismatic stranger who stole the young Amish girl’s heart? As Kate’s outrage grows so does her resolve to find the killer and bring him to justice—even if it means putting herself in the line of fire.

Paul D. Gilbert - The ​Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes
In ​the tradition of Holmes pastiche, travel to Baker Street to finally hear the full stories of The Baron Maupertius, The Cutter Alicia, The Remarkable Disappearance of James Phillimore, The Red Leech, The Aluminium Crutch, The Abominable Wife, and The Mumbling Duellist: Isadora Persano. What is the connection between an impoverished dowager, an attempt on Mycroft's life, and Holmes' deadliest adversary? Can Holmes discover if a ship really disappeared in a patch of mist or if his client's father is insane? Who or what is the red leech?

Donald Thomas - Sherlock ​Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly
"Have ​you ever seen a ghost, Mr. Holmes?" asks Victoria Temple, and Sherlock Holmes, at the height of his powers in 1898, must face a new challenge, one that plunges the great detective into the realm of the supernatural. Miss Temple has been found guilty—but also insane—at her trial for murdering a child under her care. She is locked away in the Broadmoor lunatic asylum, and worse still, she believes fully in her own guilt. But were the hauntings at the Elizabethan manor house of Bly a vision of the walking dead, perhaps, rather than delusions of her tormented mind? Or could it be that a criminal conspiracy is to blame for the psychic phenomena, as well as a second murder cunningly concealed in the past? In the company of Dr. Watson, the indefatiguable Holmes will track down the perpetrators through the occult underworld of Victorian London. Next, on the eve of World War I, Holmes is confronted with fraud and forgery at the Royal Naval Academy in "The Case of a Boy's Honor," while back in London, behind the scenes of the Herculaneum Theatre in the Strand, "The Case of the Matinee Idol" embroils Holmes and Watson directly in an apparent on-stage murder. How did poison get into two Shakespearean goblets when only the victim, now dead, had access to them and the most likely suspect was a mile away?

Caroline Graham - Written ​in Blood
The ​Midsomer Worthy's Writers' Circle has never had much luck in attracting guest speakers: They invite famous authors but usually have to content themselves with a local fellow who publishes the occasional article in Practical Woodworking. Consequently, there is much surprise -- and, in the case of the Circle's secretary, Gerald Hadleigh, a furious, inexplicable objection -- when bestselling novelist Max Jennings accepts their invitation. Surprise turns into a variety of responses when Hadleigh is found dead the morning after Jennings' visitation. Chief Inspector Barnaby, called in to investigate, is intrigued by the range of reactions, but soon determines that the key to solving the murder will lie with the illustrious Jennings. There's only one problem: He seems to have disappeared.

Karin Fossum - The ​Indian Bride
When ​perpetual bachelor Gunder Jomann goes to India for two weeks and comes home married, the town of Elvestad is stunned. On the day the Indian bride is supposed to arrive, the battered body of a woman is found in a meadow on the outskirts of town. None of the "good people of Elvestad" can believe that anyone among them would be capable of such a brutal murder. But in his quiet, formal way, Inspector Konrad Sejer understands that good people can commit atrocious deeds, and that no one is altogether innocent - including the café owner who knows too much, the girl who wants to be a chief witness, and the bodybuilder with no outlet for his terrible strength. Another brilliantly conceived, dark novel from one of Europe’s most successful crime writers.

G. K. Chesterton - The ​Innocence of Father Brown
The ​Innocence of Father Brown (1911) is the first of five collections of mystery stories by G. K. Chesterton starring an unimposing but surprisingly capable Roman Catholic priest. Father Browns ability to uncover the truth behind the mystery continually surpasses that of the experts around him, who are fooled into underestimation by the priests unimpressive outward appearance and, often, by their own prejudices about Christianity.

G. K. Chesterton - The ​Wisdom of Father Brown
"And ​the young woman of the house," asked Dr. Hood, with huge and silent amusement, "what does she want?" "Why, she wants to marry him," cried Father Brown, sitting up eagerly. "That is just the awful complication." "It is indeed a hideous enigma," said Dr. Hood. "This young James Todhunter," continued the cleric, "is a very decent man so far as I know; but then nobody knows very much. He is a bright, brownish little fellow, agile like a monkey, clean-shaven like an actor, and obliging like a born courtier. He seems to have quite a pocketful of money, but nobody knows what his trade is. Mrs. MacNab, therefore (being of a pessimistic turn), is quite sure it is something dreadful, and probably connected with dynamite.

Kerry Greenwood - Murder ​in Montparnasse
Always ​enticing in divine twenties fashion, Phryne, one of the most exciting and likeable heroines in crime writing today, leads us through a tightly plotted maze of thrilling adventure set in 1920s Australia. The divine Phryne Fisher returns to lead another dance of intrigue. Seven Australian soldiers, carousing in Paris in 1918, unknowingly witness a murder and their presence has devastating consequences. Ten years later, two are dead ... under very suspicious circumstances. Phryne's wharfie mates, Bert and Cec, appeal to her for help. They were part of this group of soldiers in 1918 and they fear for their lives and for those of the other three men. It's only as Phryne delves into the investigation that she, too, remembers being in Montparnasse on that very same day. While Phryne is occupied with memories of Montparnasse past and the race to outpace the murderer, she finds troubles of a different kind at home. Her lover, Lin Chung, is about to be married. And the effect this is having on her own usually peaceful household is disastrous.

Kerry Greenwood - Urn ​Burial
The ​redoubtable Phryne Fisher is holidaying at Cave House, a Gothic mansion in the heart of Australias Victorian mountain country. But the peaceful surroundings mask danger. Her host is receiving death threats, lethal traps are set without explanation, and the parlour maid is found strangled to death. What with the reappearance of mysterious funerary urns, a pair of young lovers, an extremely eccentric swagman, an angry outcast heir, and the luscious Lin Chung, Phrynes attention has definitely been caught. Her search for answers takes her deep into the dungeons of the house and into the limestone Buchan caves. What will she find this time? Kerry Greenwood, winner of the Australian Crime Writers Asso-ciation Lifetime Achievement Award, began her Phryne Fisher series in 1989 with Cocaine Blues. She has written 16 books in this series with no sign yet that Miss Fisher is hanging up her pearl-handled pistol. Ms. Greenwood lives and writes in Australia.

Kerry Greenwood - Cocaine ​Blues
The ​London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honourable Phryne Fisher-she of the green-gray eyes, diamant garters, and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of nervous dispositions-is rapidly tiring of the tedium of arranging flowers, making polite conversations with retired colonels, and dancing with weak-chinned men. Instead, Phryne decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia. Almost immediately after she books into the Windsor Hotel, Phryne is embroiled in mystery: poisoned wives, cocaine smuggling rings, corrupt cops, and communism-not to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse. Will Phryne meet her steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street?