<div>Edgar Award winner: A longtime bachelor finally marries&mdash;only to learn the corrosive power of jealousy For fifty-five years, Kenneth Gibson has lived in backwaters. A former army clerk, he makes a quiet living teaching poetry to indifferent undergrads. His life is happily dull until the day he meets Rosemary, a damaged girl whose frailty compels Kenneth to try to make her well. They wed, and as Rosemary recovers from her depression, Gibson falls in love, transforming his world. But his wife will never love him. She is smitten with their landlord, a dashing young chemical engineer named Paul. Gibson wants to let her go, but he cannot bear to be parted with the first love he has ever known. In Paul&rsquo;s house is a case of poison, and this love triangle can only end in death.</div>

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A Dram of Poison

<div>After his father&rsquo;s sudden death, a college student seeks revenge Ladd Cunningham never felt comfortable in his father&rsquo;s office. After high school he went to Stanford University rather than enter the family business, and he planned never to return. But then his father became ill, dying a slow, painful death, and Ladd was forced to come back. Ladd&rsquo;s new stepfather David Crown presses him, trying to learn if Ladd plans to finish college or take the reins at Cunningham Company. Ladd says nothing, and Crown gives him a box of his father&rsquo;s effects. Inside the dead man&rsquo;s planner, Ladd finds a note implicating Crown in his father&rsquo;s death. Murder is too good for a criminal. Ladd wants vengeance&mdash;slow, calculated, and irreversible.</div>

A Little Less Than Kind

<div>A professor becomes enchanted with a girl who carries a dangerous jinx History student Sarah Shepherd does not look like a killer. She is shy, but her writing so impresses Professor David Wakeley that he asks her to become his research assistant. Terrified, she begs him to stay away. For Sarah Shepherd is stalked by death, and the professor could be her next victim. For years, people close to her have died: an office colleague, a coworker&rsquo;s mother, and Sarah&rsquo;s husband, who dropped dead on their wedding day. David doesn&rsquo;t believe her until a few days later, when his parked car rolls down a hill, seemingly under its own power, and kills a stranger. Something is tormenting this young girl, and David suspects it may be her family. To Sarah&rsquo;s relatives, a group of old vaudevillians, deceit and even murder are second nature.</div>

The Better to Eat You

<div>The Edgar Award&ndash;winning author of The Unsuspected and Mischief delivers a &ldquo;highly ingenious&rdquo; novel of a high-profile kidnapping (The New York Times). Sam Lynch is not a crook, but most of his friends are. A journalist by trade, he has the inside scoop on every crime in New York City, but can&rsquo;t write a word of it for fear of his sources turning violent. This makes it impossible for him to hold a job, despite being one of the city&rsquo;s finest reporters. But when he meets Kay Salisbury, heiress to the Salisbury cookie fortune and fianc&eacute;e of one of the wealthiest bachelors in the city, Lynch stumbles on a story that&rsquo;s too juicy to keep to himself. He finds her slumming in an underworld party, where her sweetness charms the hardened reporter. Soon after, he overhears two of his thuggish contacts planning to kidnap the young girl. To save Kay Salisbury will mean walking a tightrope between good and evil. One slip, and both will die.</div>

The Black-Eyed Stranger

<div>A millionaire is in danger from his murderous family in this &ldquo;difficult to put down&rdquo; tale from the Edgar Award&ndash;winning author (The Boston Globe). Alice Brennan is going to marry a millionaire. She has caught the eye of her boss, Innes Whitlock, but before they can tie the knot she must meet his sisters: three women who are so awful that no amount of money is worth enduring their company. One is blind, one is deaf, one is missing an arm, and they all want their brother dead. The accidents begin as soon as Alice and Innes arrive at the sisters&rsquo; creaky old Michigan country house. A lamp falls from the ceiling, narrowly missing Innes&rsquo;s head. When he goes for a drive, a detour sign disappears, sending him off the road and nearly killing him. Before the sisters can finish the job, Alice contacts her old history professor, MacDougal Duff, who makes his living solving murders. He is the only one who can save Alice&rsquo;s millionaire from his murderous family.</div>

The Case of the Weird Sisters

<div>In a villa on the California coast, a murderer stalks a young heiress Laila Breen is a strangely na&iuml;ve girl. Her father Jonas is an adventurer, a robber baron who made his fortune traveling exotic climes. Laila speaks French and knows how to order fine food, but she cannot read a newspaper and can barely write her own name. Jonas settles in California, planning to get this strange eighteen-year-old tutored in the ways of practical life. He dies soon after, leaving his daughter rich, clueless, and alone. Her only friend is Dee Allison, a cousin who tries to help Laila even after the orphan catches the eye of Dee&rsquo;s fianc&eacute;. Standing in Dee&rsquo;s way is a gang of relatives who care more about Laila&rsquo;s fortune than her future. When a housekeeper falls victim to poisoning, Dee fears for Laila. For a young girl with money, nothing is more dangerous than family.</div>

Catch-As-Catch-Can

<div>Investigating her mysterious birth leads a bright young artist into peril For a few hours after her birth, Amanda Garth had two fathers. One was John, the kind, forthright man who would raise her. The other was Tobias Garrison, a well-known California artist who, because of a mix-up in the hospital&rsquo;s nursery, briefly thought Amanda was his. The confusion was straightened out, and the misunderstanding is forgotten for twenty-three years, when questions about her birth cause Amanda to approach the Garrisons. This could prove a deadly mistake. Someone in that poisonous family is plotting a murder, and the last thing they want is another heir to the massive Garrison fortune. The quest for truth could mean death for the girl whose birth was shrouded in secrecy.</div>

The Chocolate Cobweb

<div>This conspiracy thriller from an Edgar Award&ndash;winning author is &ldquo;jet-paced, revved up for action before the first page is flipped over&rdquo; (The Pittsburgh Press). Bernie staggers off the airplane from Honolulu, a lei around his neck and blood seeping from the wound in his chest. He stumbles to the terminal gift shop, and demands the cashier point him to a payphone. As his life seeps away, Bernie calls Harry Fairchild, his old fraternity brother. Dying or not, he has a job to do. Harry is a playboy, the scion of an oil-rich family known throughout California. Bernie was in Honolulu working for Harry&rsquo;s father, and he has a message to give the old man before he expires. Baffled, Harry races to the airport, arriving just as Bernie is being taken to the hospital, where he dies on the operating table. Somehow Harry&rsquo;s father is mixed up in the murder, and Harry is going to find out how, even if it means risking a knife to his own gut.</div>

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The Gift Shop

<div>MacDougal Duff falls in with a strange family&mdash;and senses murder A sudden cloudburst forces MacDougal Duff to stop his car in front of the home of Mary Moriarty. The history professor turned detective is reclining in his seat, waiting out the torrential rainstorm, when Mary knocks on the car window holding a feverish child and jabbering about a dead woman. After years investigating murders, Mac Duff is not fazed by a dead body, but the sick child moves his heart. He speeds to the hospital, and while the doctor is seeing to the child, he asks Mary about the dead woman. Her name was Brownie, Mary says, and she was poisoned. Unable to resist an interesting death, Mac Duff moves in with the family, pretending to be a distant relation. To his delight, he finds a home corrupted by secrets, whose residents do not hesitate to kill.</div>

The Innocent Flower

<div>A child is left in the care of a disturbed babysitter in &ldquo;surely one of the finest pure terror-suspense stories ever written&rdquo; (The New York Times). Bunny&rsquo;s parents shouldn&rsquo;t have brought her to New York City, but her father has an important speech to make, and her mother couldn&rsquo;t bear to be away from their darling nine-year-old daughter. And when her mommy and daddy leave for the speech, Bunny will stay in the hotel with a babysitter, sound asleep and perfectly safe. What could possibly go wrong? The sitter is Nell, a plain young woman from Indiana. She puts Bunny to bed and amuses herself in the other room, making prank calls and trying on Bunny&rsquo;s mother&rsquo;s jewelry. So far, all is well. But Nell&rsquo;s dull expression conceals madness, and something is broken inside her mind . . . From one of the greatest female crime writers of the mid-twentieth century, an Edgar Award winner and six-time finalist, Mischief is &ldquo;a fine, chilly combination of horror and suspense&rdquo; (The New Yorker).</div>

Mischief

<div>A middle-aged widow makes a new life in a strange apartment house Nona Henry&rsquo;s husband is dead, and with him the life they spent years building in New York City. Unable to bear the Manhattan winter without him, Nona goes west to Pasadena, California, land of sun, sand, and rebirth. She finds a picture postcard advertising a boarding house called Sans Souci and, charmed by the elegant hotel&rsquo;s stately patio, makes a one-month reservation. Reality does not live up to the postcard. Sans Souci is dingy, cramped, and dark, a claptrap hotel full of shabby rooms whose windows overlook a run-down neighborhood. But Nona will not give in. Sixteen other widows live in the hotel. Some are lifers, some just passing through. In this eclectic mix of women whose men have gone, Nona finds a niche, and learns that the end of her old life can&rsquo;t stop her from beginning again.</div>

The Seventeen Widows of Sans Souci

<div>In this &ldquo;chilling&rdquo; novel by an Edgar Award&ndash;winning author, a former mental patient seeks revenge against the powerful family that framed him (The New York Times). After years in a mental hospital, Harold Page has just been released. Now, he&rsquo;s looking for closure, hoping to confront those who put him away: his ex-wife&rsquo;s family. Instead, he&rsquo;s greeted at the Whitman home by a total stranger. But Edie, an empathetic visiting relative, knows all about Harold. He&rsquo;s the unfortunate soul the influential Whitman clan had institutionalized after an alleged assault. He&rsquo;s the &ldquo;madman&rdquo; police are hunting in a recent brutal crime. He&rsquo;s also an unwitting pawn in a dangerous family plot. Edie is certain of it. And there&rsquo;s only one way she can protect him: Hide Harold in the unused turret room of the Whitman mansion, only a heartbeat away from those who want to destroy him. As they collude to turn the tables on the family and unveil every secret and lie behind the Whitmans&rsquo; deception, Edie fears the sanctuary she&rsquo;s given Harold could be the ultimate trap for both of them . . . &ldquo;Chilling . . . beautifully calculated . . . with a nicely adjusted sense of exactly when and how to turn the screw.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times </div>

The Turret Room

<div>To catch a murderous theater impresario, a young woman takes a deadly new role in this mystery with &ldquo;suspense enough to spare&rdquo; (The New York Times). Why did Rosaleen Wright hang herself in a soundproof room? She left an unsigned note, peppered with stiff religious references and no trace of her trademark vitality or wit. The police believe it was suicide, but Rosaleen&rsquo;s best friend, Jane, is suspicious. To prove Rosaleen was murdered, she takes a job with the man who killed her. Luther Grandison, Rosaleen&rsquo;s boss, is a New York theatrical impresario with a lethal charm. To the world at large, he&rsquo;s powerful and charismatic, but Rosaleen&rsquo;s letters to Jane described a greedy man who stole from his adopted daughter when his bank account ran low. Jane thinks Grandison killed her to protect his secret, but to prove it she will have to face down one of the finest murderers Broadway has ever seen.</div>

The Unsuspected

<div>Making amends for a tragic accident, a couple fears their good deed is about to be punished in this suspense novel from the &ldquo;mistress of day-lit terror&rdquo; (The New York Times). In a roadside Santa Clara motel, Esther Gardner wakes up to an intruder lurching toward her. No one blames her husband, Tom, for taking him down with a single blow to the head&mdash;least of all the stranger himself, an embarrassed real estate broker from Arcadia, who had drunkenly stumbled into the wrong room. Three days later, the poor man dies of a neglected head injury, leaving his wife, Audrey, and her invalid sister penniless, desperate, and in need of a new home. Overcome with guilt, Tom and Esther invite the women to stay with them. But as the temporary stay stretches into months, Esther can&rsquo;t shake the disquieting suspicion that their grieving, freeloading guests are up to something. The sisters&rsquo; whispers are starting to sound conspiratorial. Their stories aren&rsquo;t adding up. And their smiles are beginning to curl with menace. If it&rsquo;s all in Esther&rsquo;s over-burdened imagination, that would be understandable. If it isn&rsquo;t, that could be terrifying. With eight novels and nearly two dozen short stories adapted for film and television, The Albatross demonstrates once again why Edgar Award&ndash;winning Charlotte Armstrong is considered &ldquo;the American queen of suspense novelists&rdquo; (New York Telegraph). </div>

The Albatross

<div>A woman attempts to flee her abusive husband in a thriller The New York Times Book Review calls &ldquo;an unforgettable reading experience.&rdquo; Overworked cocktail waitress Sherry Reynard doesn&rsquo;t expect much anymore from her husband, Ward, whom she&rsquo;s supported for years. A struggling writer and sometimes-junkie coddled by his wealthy parents, Ward spends his days lost in a fog of self-pity and hallucinations. Then, one morning, he attacks his wife in a sudden, unprovoked, violent fit of rage. When he turns on their three-year-old son, Johnny, Sherry bashes Ward into submission, grabs her boy, and runs. As Johnny recuperates in the hospital, Sherry rents a room in a boarding house&mdash;among a group of outcasts&mdash;anxious to escape her marriage and her memories. But when her vindictive in-laws file a suit for custody of Johnny, Sherry&rsquo;s oppressive world starts closing in. She needs someone on her side. When new boarder Clifford Stone arrives, he&rsquo;s just what Sherry&rsquo;s looking for. Charming and sympathetic, he&rsquo;s promised to be there should Sherry ever need him&mdash;he&rsquo;s also been hired by Ward&rsquo;s calculating father to insinuate himself into her life. Clifford has been paid well to love Sherry, manipulate her, destroy her reputation, and, if need be, even worse. The Balloon Man was made into Claude Chabrol&rsquo;s classic 1970 film, La Rupture (The Breach). A gripping suspense novel, it will have you &ldquo;flipping your wig all the way to the last page&rdquo; (Kirkus Reviews). &ldquo;Old fashioned suspense has given way to contemporary trauma and you&rsquo;ll be flipping your wig all the way to the last page. . . . You won&rsquo;t want to finish it.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews </div>

The Balloon Man

<div>A nameless woman arrives in L.A., only to fall into a coma and be positively identified as three completely different people, in this twist-filled thriller. She arrived at Peggy Cuneen&rsquo;s Los Angeles boarding house with no ID. She asked for a room, fell asleep silently, and has yet to wake up. Even doctors are baffled. The only thing they know for sure is there are no signs of physical illness and no evidence of bodily trauma. In fact, she&rsquo;s so flawlessly perfect it&rsquo;s as if she&rsquo;s been wrapped in cellophane her entire life. When her picture hits the newspapers, she&rsquo;s positively identified&mdash;by three claimants who all have different stories. One swears she&rsquo;s his niece, a runaway heiress. Another, that she&rsquo;s a renowned mystic popular in religious circles. And the third, a frantic mother insisting the Jane Doe&rsquo;s her daughter, who came to Hollywood looking for fame and subsequently disappeared. Are they lying? Mistaken? In denial? Or is it something more insidious? As a protective infatuation turns to obsession, Peggy&rsquo;s son, Matt, is desperate to find out, but his investigation only yields a stunning new piece of the puzzle. From the Edgar Award&ndash;winning novelist who &ldquo;registers the cold blue shadow cast by Southern California&rsquo;s sunny promise,&rdquo; Dream of Fair Woman is a brilliant and chilling suspense novel (L.A. Weekly).</div>

Dream of Fair Woman

<div>A New York City drama teacher risks her life to expose a potentially deadly public hoax in this &ldquo;most uncommon thriller&rdquo; (New York Herald Tribune). Olivia Hudson, a drama teacher at a Manhattan girl&rsquo;s school, refuses to let her uncle John Paul Marcus play the role of dupe in a real-life revenge story. Uncle John is a beloved war veteran, a New York institution, and a hard-working philanthropist with an unimpeachable reputation. His mistake&mdash;an honorable one, at that&mdash;was disclosing the financial chicanery of industrial heir Raymond Pankerman, and it could cost John his life. Raymond has staged the perfect crime, and the perfect frame-up, to destroy the old man. He has everything he needs: a failed and penniless playwright who&rsquo;d sell his soul if the price was right, a budding television starlet looking for a breakout role, and a susceptible public suckered into believing a supernatural swindle that&rsquo;s making headlines. As a good man is taken down by the outlandish claims of an &ldquo;otherworldly&rdquo; publicity-seeking beauty nicknamed the Dream Walker, Olivia refuses to stand idly by&mdash;especially since she has the talent to outwit and outplay an actress at her own duplicitous game. Inspired by the mob mentality of the postwar McCarthy hearings, Charlotte Armstrong&rsquo;s The Dream Walker (also published as Alibi for Murder) is both an ingeniously clever mystery of double-crosses and triple-twists, and a still-relevant cautionary tale about the irreversible consequences of tabloid journalism and the gullibility of the masses.</div>

The Dream Walker

<div>Nine stories of revenge, compassion, love, and loathing in a collection &ldquo;to be cherished&rdquo; from an Edgar Award&ndash;winning author (Dorothy B. Hughes). A child is unwittingly introduced to the very meaning of terror. A teenage girl eyes her mother&rsquo;s lover with curiosity and caution. A nasty rumor poisons the reputation of a guarded neighbor. A schoolteacher&rsquo;s attempt to reach four bullying students results in a wicked sting. An elderly woman&rsquo;s patience begins to crack in the most unexpected ways. . . . In this suspenseful anthology, author Charlotte Armstrong illuminates the mysteries of life in tales told from perspectives ranging from infancy, childhood, and adolescence to adulthood and the deathbed. In each piece, Armstrong demonstrates how the tiniest spark of emotion&mdash;a stray whisper or the impression of a stranger&mdash;can shed light on the past, define the future, become a catalyst for tragedy, or influence fears that last a lifetime. Along with Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine First Prize Winner for Best Detective Story &ldquo;The Enemy&rdquo;&mdash;a story that was made into the 1952 MGM film noir Talk About a Stranger&mdash;this gripping anthology also includes &ldquo;At the Circus,&rdquo; &ldquo;The World Turned Upside Down,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Enemy,&rdquo; &ldquo;Miss Murphy,&rdquo; &ldquo;Motto Day,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Weight of the World,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Conformers,&rdquo; &ldquo;How They Met,&rdquo; and &ldquo;I See You.&rdquo; &ldquo;I tend to become inarticulate in reviewing Armstrong, largely because the method by which she achieves her magical effect defies critical analysis. You are simply caught up, as you might be by a collaboration of Cornell Woolrich and Shirley Jackson.&rdquo; &mdash;Anthony Boucher, The New York Times </div>

I See You

<div>This MacDougal Duff Mystery launched the career of the Edgar Award&ndash;winning &ldquo;American queen of suspense novelists&rdquo; (New York Telegraph). Feeling unmoored since the death of her father, twenty-year-old Bessie Gibbon has left upstate New York to live with an aunt and uncle, Lina and Charles Cathcart, in their four-story Manhattan home. Bessie has heard tales about her eccentric uncle: that he was a millionaire theater magnate and the black sheep of the family, that his marriage to Lina was more of an arrangement than a matter of love, and most important, that he was an inveterate player of parlor games&mdash;but nothing prepares Bessie for the luxury in which he lives, the odd assortment of servants, or the cronies who can turn a late-night Parcheesi tournament into a blood sport. And that&rsquo;s precisely what happens when one of them is shot to death after a particularly cutthroat game. Now there are whispers that it was Uncle Charles who pulled the trigger, and no one is all that surprised. Detective MacDougal Duff wants to know why. When Duff&rsquo;s investigation yields more secrets about the family than Bessie is comfortable with, she starts to fear for her safety. Especially when another of her uncle&rsquo;s acquaintances is murdered&mdash;stabbed with a carving knife. If this is another one of her uncle&rsquo;s games, Bessie can&rsquo;t help but wonder who might be the next to lose. Lay On, Mac Duff! is the 1st book in the MacDougal Duff Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.</div>

Lay On, Mac Duff!

<div>Edgar Award Finalist: The explosive politics of the Middle East shatter a California family in this &ldquo;wonderful thriller&rdquo; (The New York Times). Among the Tylers of Santa Clara are a matriarch lauded as the first lady of American theater, a judicial appointee of the president, a noted fundraiser for international charities, a university vice-chancellor, and an esteemed and admired surgeon. The Tylers are, in their own words, &ldquo;worthy of Paradise.&rdquo; Then, a violently anti-US Middle Eastern leader sends his son to California to be treated by the young Dr. Michael Tyler. The king&rsquo;s deal: Save his &ldquo;little prince,&rdquo; and the lives of the twenty-eight American hostages languishing in his prison will be spared. And there&rsquo;s another caveat: The agreement must be kept secret. But there&rsquo;s one more Tyler to contend with. Rufus Tyler is the family &ldquo;lemon in the basket,&rdquo; an underachiever who has finally found his moment in history. By exposing his family to the press as conspirators in a terrorist&rsquo;s negotiation, Rufus will do more than breach the walls of privacy. He will plunge his family into the dangerous waters of international politics. As unfounded fears and dreadful rumors take hold, an inevitable and shocking act of violence will threaten not only the Tylers, but also the fate of the entire country. Upon the original publication of Lemon in the Basket, an Edgar Award finalist for Best Novel, Dorothy B. Hughes wrote that Charlotte Armstrong should stand &ldquo;with the immortal ladies of suspense&mdash;Rinehart and Sayers, Marsh and Tey&rdquo; (Los Angeles Times). </div>

Lemon in the Basket

<div>A young drifter charms his way into the confidence of an older woman in this twisting novel by &ldquo;a pioneer in domestic suspense&rdquo; (Lisa Unger). Seventy-four-year-old widow Mrs. Moffat lives in a quiet and idyllic California town, accustomed to routine and solitude in her country home. But everything changes when she runs into a charismatic young transient in church one Sunday morning. He claims to be Simon Warren, the son of a former neighbor and the best friend of Mrs. Moffat&rsquo;s own grandson, who mysteriously vanished years ago. Longing to repair the emotional wounds of the past, the enchanted Mrs. Moffat welcomes Simon into her home. But he&rsquo;s not received nearly as well by her friends or her granddaughter, Zen, whose suspicions about Simon, and the potential threat he poses, are willfully ignored by her grandmother. Now, as the young man calmly insinuates himself into a comfortable new life, a test of wills between the stubborn old woman and her increasingly apprehensive granddaughter begins. What no one understands is that Mrs. Moffat isn&rsquo;t a silly woman: She knows precisely what she wants from her unlikely &ldquo;friendship&rdquo; with the untrustworthy Simon. But as a dawning fear arises, Mrs. Moffat, Zen, and perhaps even Simon will find themselves in an inescapable trap of their own making.</div>

The Protégé

<div>A government secret about the end of the world will change what&rsquo;s left of a man&rsquo;s suburban life in this thriller by an Edgar Award&ndash;winning author. California businessman J. Middleton Little is on company assignment in Chicago when he&rsquo;s caught eavesdropping on a top-secret confab between high-level government officials. J. knows he isn&rsquo;t just hearing things; they actually referred to the coming Armageddon. To ensure his silence, J.&rsquo;s been offered the chance of a lifetime: seven seats on an &ldquo;ark&rdquo; scheduled to carry the last vestiges of the human race from Earth before the apocalypse. In a matter of minutes, J. has gone from a self-described &ldquo;middle-class, middle-income, middlebrow man-of-the-street&rdquo; to one of the most privileged men in the universe. The only stipulation: He can&rsquo;t tell a single soul until the proper time. For now, it&rsquo;s back to life in Burbank with his dutiful, intuitive wife; an underhanded and scheming son; his impossibly spoiled daughter; his unhinged father; and a mother-in-law whose religious fanaticism is making J. think twice about his role as savior&mdash;especially when he finds himself shadowed by an insidious pack of secret agents, counterspies, and a lone madman on a terrifying mission. Soon enough, J.&rsquo;s once-ordinary world will be ripped apart by threats, deceit, cover-ups, secrets, and shifting family loyalties. It will also leave J. wondering what he really does know, what he doesn&rsquo;t, what he&rsquo;s been led to believe, and above all, why. J. Middleton Little has a lot to learn before the end. This smart, inventive thriller by &ldquo;the American queen of suspense novelists&rdquo; is impossible to put down (New York Telegraph).</div>

Seven Seats to the Moon

<div>A shadow of doubt is cast over a California bride when dire warnings about her fianc&eacute; arise in this thriller from &ldquo;the mistress of day-lit terror&rdquo; (The New York Times). Johnny Simms, a young biology student from Columbia University, has just arrived in San Francisco for a wedding. The lucky bride-to-be is a childhood friend: twenty-year-old Nan Padgett. But the shy, unsure girl he used to know has suddenly blossomed into a radiant, confident, and ecstatically happy young woman. And why wouldn&rsquo;t she? Richardson Bartee, a handsome vintner from Southern California, swept her off her feet during a whirlwind courtship. Then comes the call from Nan&rsquo;s aunt Emily, her beloved childhood guardian, with a stinging warning: &ldquo;You must not marry this man.&rdquo; Johnny fears that Emily is not just being overprotective. And when Aunt Emily suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances, Johnny begins an investigation into the past that draws him into the nightmare of the Padgett family tree&mdash;one so tangled with murder, lies, greed, and deception, it has kept Nan in the dark for twenty years, and so dangerous, it has yet to claim its last victim. Filled with twists, Something Blue is a riveting tale from the Edgar Award&ndash;winning author who has been called &ldquo;the American queen of suspense novelists&rdquo; (New York Telegraph).</div>

Something Blue

<div>A disaster in a Michigan mining town throws a close-knit community into chaos in this novel from an Edgar Award&ndash;winning author. The small mining town of Thor is nestled in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, near the Wisconsin border. Its only source of income is the two ore mines&mdash;one to the east, one to west&mdash;that its citizens cling to for security. Then, one calm day, the town&rsquo;s routine is shaken. One of the mines collapses, and five men are trapped underground. They are the only survivors in the wake of the tragic accident. But as the good people of Thor wait and pray, they know that the catastrophe has already changed them forever. Some are coming together in fear and dread, others in grief and resounding faith. For a few, the tragedy will shatter what little is left of their struggling and vulnerable lives. In her most personal novel of suspense, and of human behavior under the most trying conditions, Charlotte Armstrong lends her formidable talents to what the New York Times hailed as her knack for &ldquo;day-lit terror.&rdquo; The Trouble in Thor is inspired by the very real landscape of Armstrong&rsquo;s own childhood on Hanbury Lake. It is a testament to how life in a mining town can define, smother, and confound its people, in particular the wives, daughters, and sisters often left to their own resources and resilience. The Trouble in Thor was adapted for the stage in 2008. It debuted in Norway, Michigan, only miles from the town of Vulcan, where Armstrong was born and raised.</div>

The Trouble in Thor

<div>A madwoman holds a professor prisoner in this frightening thriller by the Edgar Award&ndash;winning &ldquo;mistress of day-lit terror&rdquo; (The New York Times). California University mathematics instructor Pat O&rsquo;Shea is horrified to learn that a fellow faculty member is responsible for the theft of a valuable piece of lab equipment. But biology professor Everett Adams hasn&rsquo;t just turned thief; he&rsquo;s also become a stark raving madman. After a confrontation, Adams leaves his accuser for dead, badly beaten on the outside of town. Now, no one has seen either man in days. When O&rsquo;Shea awakens in a dilapidated old bungalow on a deserted stretch of nowhere, he&rsquo;s not in the hands of a rescuer, but rather at the mercy of a captor. The watchful old woman is demented, homicidal, and taking wicked delight in keeping a hostage. Her killer hound stands guard, and if all goes according to plan, the gravely injured O&rsquo;Shea will never be allowed to leave. Frustrated by the ineffective work of the authorities, O&rsquo;Shea&rsquo;s wife, Anabel, is committed to conducting her own investigation into her husband&rsquo;s disappearance. Amassing a trail of evidence, she follows a strange path of baffling clues, family skeletons, and fatal secrets. One by one, they will lead Anabel to a house on the dark side of a dead-end road.</div>

Charlotte Armstrong

Books By Charlotte Armstrong (25 Books)