Pellegrino Artusi, the great gastronome and amateur detective, is back.It is 1900 and Pellegrino's famed cookbook is in its fifth edition. Flushed from his fortune and success, our hero joins a weekend party at the Tuscan castle of the wealthy agricultural entrepreneur, Secondo Gazzolo.In this castle of winding corridors, secret passageways and clandestine meetings, Pellegrino finds a curious collection of guests, each with their own purpose for being there...

When a Japanese scientist dies in a Tuscan resort town, four old card players and their favorite bartender investigate in this comic Italian mystery.In the Italian resort town of Pineta, along the Tuscan coast, one might find the sleepy Bar Lume inhabited by its owner Massimo and its elderly regulars engaged in a game of cards. But this is merely a cover for the true activities of this senile squad. In truth, they are at work analyzing, postulating, gossiping, and ...

Third in "a superb historical series set in Fascist Italy . . . and featuring one of the most melancholy detectives in European noir crime fiction ( The New York Times Book Review).Commissario Ricciardi has visions. He sees and hears the final seconds in the lives of victims of violent deaths. It is both a gift and a curse. It has helped him become one of the most acute and successful homicide detectives in the Naples police force. But the horror and suffer...

The KGB grooms a long-lost Kennedy for an explosive assignment in this thriller by an ex-CIA agent and New York Times–bestselling spy novelist.Although in the mid-1940s no one had ever heard of JFK, Jack Adams's mother insisted her new son be christened John Fitzgerald. Years after his parents' death, Jack learns the reason for his name: a packet of photos showing his mother in bed with young John Kennedy. As a student at Columbia University, Jack demonstr...

Promoted to Detective Inspector, Patrick Petrella now finds himself in a London borough close to the Thames. In these short stories he has to deal with arson, blackmail, fraud, forgery and murder. The Thames is a focus for some of the stories, as it is convenient for the dumping of a body and also for arrivals from abroad. Written with Michael Gilbert’s eye for detail and knowledge of police procedures, along with the suspense which is his hallmark, this is a fitting accompaniment to the s...

A small-town kidnapping presents a major problem for Commissario Trotti—and draws us into CWA Award winner Timothy Williams' debut, set against the rich backdrop of a provincial Italian city.Northern Italy, 1978: Commissario Piero Trotti, trusted senior police investigator in an anonymous provincial city off the River Po, has two difficult cases to solve. A dismembered body has been found in the river, and it’s up to Trotti to figure out who the murder victim is. A...

'Murder most enjoyable' Colin DexterEx-Princess Etheline, daughter of the exiled king of Mitteleuropia, has been kidnapped during a visit to Tawcester Towers, ancestral seat of the Dukes of Tawcester, and ducal family honour demands that she should be rescued.The Dowager Duchess entrusts the task to her son, the Right Hon. Devereux Lyminster, known universally as 'Blotto'. He is, of course, terribly handsome, honourable and brave, but as sadly deficient in ...

An acclaimed Chinese writer makes his English language debut with this heart-stopping literary noir, a richly atmospheric tale of espionage and international intrigue, set in Shanghai in 1931—an electrifying, decadent world of love, violence, and betrayal filled with femme fatales, criminals, revolutionaries, and spies.A boat from Hong Kong arrives in Shanghai harbor, carrying an important official in the Nationalist Party and his striking wife, Leng. Amid the raucous sound of fire...

"This first unabridged appearance of two Nick and Nora Charles 'novellas' by Hammett should be an occasion for delight, and it is." — The Wall Street JournalDashiell Hammett was a crime writer who elevated the genre to true literature, and The Thin Man was Hammett's last—and most successful—novel. Following the enormous success of The Thin Man movie in 1934, Hammett was commissioned to write stories for additional films. He wrote two full...

As London braces for WWII, a string of murdered rabbis draws Inspector Troy into a mystery that " sets pulses racing and the jaded responses tingling" ( The Irish Times).One of today's top historical espionage writers, considered "as good as Le Carré" ( Chicago Tribune) and "a master," John Lawton adds another spellbinding thriller to his Inspector Troy series with Second Violin ( Rocky Mountain News).The...

**“Like Richard Russo’s Straight Man this book has a lot to say about the humanities in American colleges and universities…. Very funny and also moving.” —Tom Perrotta, New York PostA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR and Boston Globe**Finally a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary."Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts ...

Introducing Commissario Soneri - Italy's answer to Inspector Maigret - and shortlisted for the C.W.A. International Dagger, River of Shadows is a brooding, visceral crime novel packed with atmosphere and tension."A master storyteller" Barry Forshaw, IndependentA relentless deluge lashes the Po Valley, and the river itself swells beyond its limits. A barge breaks free of its moorings and drifts erratically downstream; when ...