Bibliomysteries


Book Description

Specially commissioned by the Mysterious Bookshop, the “bibliomysteries” in this unique collection feature original stories by the genre’s most distinguished authors: Ian Rankin, Thomas Perry, Joyce Carol Oates, Megan Abbott, and Elizabeth George. If you like mysteries and you like books, what could be better than combining both worlds, with mysteries set against a background involving books? This collection of crime for bibliophiles includes stories about rare books, bookshops, libraries, manuscripts, magical books, collectors—in short, the wonderful universe that makes this precious object we all love so important and priceless. Ian Rankin sets his tale of the lost original manuscript of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the legendary Paris bookshop Shakespeare & Co., while F. Paul Wilson offers a book with remarkable powers. Joyce Carol Oates portrays an overly ambitious dealer in mystery fiction, while James Grady has the “Condor” working in the Library of Congress. Ste- phen Hunter tells a previously unknown story of Alan Turing set during World War I—involving a book that could change the history of the world—and Peter Lovesey writes about a box full of Agatha Christie titles that just may be priceless. Carolyn Hart’s story is about an astonishing inscription in a book, while Megan Abbott and Denise Mina add their Edgar-nominated stories to this stellar collection. Whether your taste is for the traditional mystery, something a little more hard-boiled, or the bizarre and humorous tale, you will find exactly your cup of tea in this outstanding collection of fifteen stories by the most distinguished mystery writers working today. Including stories by: Peter Lovesey, F. Paul Wilson, Lyndsay Faye, Bradford Morrow, R. L. Stine, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Perry, Elizabeth George, Carolyn Hart, Megan Abbott, Stephen Hunter, Denise Mina, James Grady, Ian Rankin, and James W. Hall.




Bibliomysteries


Book Description

If you open your dictionary, you will discover that there is no such word as “bibliomystery.” However, most mystery readers know that the word refers to a mystery story that involves the world of books: a bookshop, a rare volume, a library, a collector, or a bookseller.The stories in this unique collection were commissioned by the Mysterious Bookshop. They were written by some of the mystery genre’s most distinguished authors. Tough guys like Ken Bruen, Reed Farrel Coleman, Loren D. Estleman, and Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. Bestsellers like Nelson DeMille, Anne Perry, and Jeffery Deaver. Edgar winners such as C. J. Box, Thomas H. Cook, and Laura Lippman.Here you will discover Sigmund Freud dealing with an unwelcome visitor; Columbo confronting a murderous bookseller; a Mexican cartel kingpin with a fatal weakness for rare books; and deadly secrets deep in the London Library; plus books with hidden messages, beguiling booksellers, crafty collectors, and a magical library that is guaranteed to enchant you. The stories have been published in seven languages—one has sold more than 250,000 copies as an e-book, and another won the Edgar Allan Poe Award as the Best Short Story of the Year.Who knew literature could be so lethal!




The Book of the Lion


Book Description

A long lost manuscript by Geoffrey Chaucer draws Professor Dominic Hallkyn through the streets of Boston and into a mysterious plot. When Professor Dominic Hallkyn receives an anonymous phone call late one night from a voice claiming to possess a priceless Chaucerian manuscript presumed lost forever, he doesn’t know how to react. He soon finds himself scrambling to meet the caller’s demands amid uncompromising suspense that culminates in a devilish plot twist. Perry takes his readers on a mad dash through the winding streets of Boston in pursuit of the unique artifact that may be doomed to disappear from history . . . this time, for good. The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.




Book Club


Book Description

When a bibliophile is murdered, it takes a bookseller to solve the crime. Good Advice, New Mexico, is a sunny town with a gloomy bookshop. The store’s eerie corridors are the province of Avery Sharecross, an ex-cop who has made the transition from chasing killers to tracking rare books. One afternoon, the local sheriff interrupts his book club meeting, and Sharecross’s old career collides with his new one. The area’s premier book collector has been found bludgeoned to death on the floor of his family library. A fifth-generation resident of Good Advice, Lloyd Fister devoted his life to books, accumulating a collection of local history that date backs to the sixteenth century. In his library, a single volume is missing: a Spanish book with a sinister past. Is the missing volume a clue, a motive, or a murder weapon? It will take a collector’s eye to decide. The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.




Reconciliation Day


Book Description

A man obsessed with Dracula pursues a legendary lost edition of the classic vampire book in this chilling story from the author of the Bryan and May Mysteries. Carter, one of the world’s leading experts on Dracula, owns many editions of Bram Stoker’s novel, maybe even as many as his well-heeled rival, Mikaela Klove. But one thing has always eluded him: the chance to examine the possibly apocryphal blue edition of Stoker’s seminal vampire tale. If it actually exists, the elusive edition is rumored to contain a different ending and a never-before-published chapter tantalizingly set in Dracula’s personal library. Determined to read it for himself, Carter travels to Transylvania, where the rumored treasure might be hidden. But once there, he’ll need to work with his nemesis to solve the mysterious puzzle—or risk an endgame neither he nor Mikaela can afford to lose. Drawing on his renowned flair for the outré, Christopher Fowler—an author “in the first rank of contemporary mystery writers”— reimagines Stoker’s lost chapter and intersperses it with an unforgettable journey through Transylvania. Reconciliation Day is a delightfully suspenseful novella perfect for fans of the Peculiar Crimes Unit novels (Publishers Weekly). The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.




The Compendium of Srem


Book Description

The most evil book ever conceived falls into the hands of the leader of the Spanish Inquisition in this ingenious bibliomystery from the bestselling creator of Repairman Jack. In the fifteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition spreads terror throughout the land, with Prior Tomás de Torquemada serving as the ultimate judge of who will live and who will be consigned to the purifying flames. Never has Torquemada questioned his own faith or his sacred duty to rid the world of heretics, blasphemers, and nonbelievers. Now, however, an extraordinary volume has come into his possession—an ancient book that radiates pure evil. The prior realizes this abomination must be destroyed along with anyone who has come into contact with it, for it is surely the devil’s work, corrupting and possessing all those who touch it. But whom can Torquemada trust to help him achieve his mission now that The Compendium of Srem has passed through numerous hands . . . including his own? F. Paul Wilson is a writer who is at home working in many different genres, from medical thriller to science fiction to mystery to urban fantasy to horror. Now he travels back centuries in time to explore the secret history of a book of great and terrible power, an ancient volume of eldritch lore that plays a substantial role in the author’s popular Repairman Jack series of novels: The Compendium of Srem. The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.




The Little Men


Book Description

In 1950s Hollywood, an actress is haunted by a bookseller’s death: A novella from the Edgar Award-winning author of Give Me Your Hand. In 1953, Penny is just another washed-up, wannabe Hollywood actress who is past her prime. She has settled in to a quiet lifestyle, and when she finds a low-rent bungalow in Canyon Arms, it’s a dream come true; Penny takes to the place instantly. But the dream cottage with its French doors and tiled courtyard may not be as perfect as it seems. Penny’s new neighbors start filling her head with stories about past tenants, whispering voices, and a suicide that may not have been a suicide at all. Soon enough, Penny starts hearing strange noises and she can’t help but wonder about the true fate of the bookseller who died in her home a dozen years earlier. Her suspicions are only fueled by the ominous inscription that she discovers in a book that’s closely guarded by her landlord . . . From the national bestselling author of Dare Me and other thrillers, this is a spooky mystery set on the dark fringes of glamorous Los Angeles. The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.




What's in a Name?


Book Description

Five decades after war’s end, a rare-books dealer receives a strange visitor. The guns went silent on November 11, 1918, never to fire again. Throughout the 1920s, unrest seethed across Europe, and Fascists battled Communists in the streets of Berlin, but democracy won out. For years, peace has prevailed around the world. But there is a part of Franklin Altman that misses the war. A rare-books dealer living in New York City, Altman has devoted his life to studying the history of the Weimar Republic, when all of Europe hung in the balance and it seemed it would take but a single spark to set the world ablaze. Why did that spark never come? Altman is musing on these questions one evening when a man comes into his shop. An aged German veteran with a limp and the faint shakes of Parkinson’s, he is about to teach Altman that in history, the devil is in the details. The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.




The Haze


Book Description

An aging mobster finds trouble in a nursing home in the latest caper from an Edgar Award–winning author. Back in the day, Little Mo Connor was a hired gun for Slick Dickey Scalini, taking down opponents without discretion, always with the same signature kill: three shots to the head, one shot to the heart. Now he’s living out his last days hidden away in an anonymous facility, surrounded by other seniors. Haunted by his past, his dementia comes as something of a blessing . . . though he can’t always remember what it is he wants to forget—he’s always mixing up the memories from his own life with those from books he’s read and movies he’s seen. A lover of crime novels from the pulp paperback era, Little Mo relishes lurid tales—the more violent the better. Take, for example, his most recent acquisition: a novel in which he and his trusty .38 snubnose are the stars. It tells the story of a former hit man in love with Varla, a geriatric serial killer who convinces him that murdering his grown daughter is the only way to escape the captivity of their nursing home. But as the plot of the novel begins to play out in Little Mo’s waking life, he must struggle to separate fact from fiction before they meet in a deadly conclusion. Hailed a “master of suspense” by the New York Times Book Review, author of the Thorn Mysteries James W. Hall now presents one of the most unusual and enthralling novellas in the Bibliomystery series. The Haze is a treat for book lovers and mystery buffs alike. The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.




Pronghorns of the Third Reich


Book Description

Lyle and Juan wait outside the lawyer's house in ski masks, pistols hidden behind their backs. Shortly after dawn, Paul Parker, an aged lawyer, and his old dog step into the cold. The thugs kill the dog, and take the lawyer hostage. Parker's day has started badly and is going to get much worse. Once a fine lawyer, Parker's enthusiasm has slipped with age, and criminals like Lyle are part of the reason for his disillusionment. Years after they last saw each other in court, Lyle is convinced that Parker owes him something. At gunpoint, Lyle and Juan make Parker lead them to the old ranch, to open up a hidden library whose volumes hold the secret to forgotten riches, and the strangest war profiteering scheme to ever come out of the Great Plains.