A Murder in Passing


Book Description

"This fascinating mystery, merging past and present, brings some little-known history to light and shows that laws change much faster than attitudes..." —Booklist Things are slow at the Blackman & Robertson Detective Agency. So when Nakayla Robertson suggests a mushroom hunt at the historic, freed-slave commune The Kingdom of the Happy Land, Sam Blackman reluctantly agrees. Hunting the elusive edible, he stumbles into a rotting log...with a skeleton hidden inside. He's intrigued, but local authorities tell him to butt out. Then Marsha Montgomery comes to Asheville asking Sam and Nakayla to investigate a 45-year-old burglary at her mother's home. Someone stole a rifle and a photograph taken in 1932 at The Kingdom of the Happy Land. Is this just a coincidence? Then Marsha's 85-year-old mother Lucille is arrested for murder, and Sam knows something is amiss. Is the skeleton that of Jimmy Lang, Lucille's lover and Martha's father, a white man who disappeared in 1967? A veil of betrayal and deceit hides a killer desperate to protect a dark secret, and not even Sam is safe from the deadly consequences of a murder in passing.




Passing


Book Description

Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen (1891 –1964) published just two novels and three short stories in her lifetime, but achieved lasting literary acclaim. Her classic novel Passing first appeared in 1926.




A Death in Harlem


Book Description

In A Death in Harlem, famed scholar Karla FC Holloway weaves a mystery in the bon vivant world of the Harlem Renaissance. Taking as her point of departure the tantalizingly ambiguous “death by misadventure” at the climax of Nella Larsen’s Passing, Holloway accompanies readers to the sunlit boulevards and shaded sidestreets of Jazz Age New York. A murder there will test the mettle, resourcefulness, and intuition of Harlem’s first “colored” policeman, Weldon Haynie Thomas. Clear glass towers rising in Manhattan belie a city where people are often not what they seem. For some here, identity is a performance of passing—passing for another race, for another class, for someone safe to trust. Thomas’s investigation illuminates the societies and secret societies, the intricate code of manners, the world of letters, and the broad social currents of 1920s Harlem. A Death in Harlem is an exquisitely crafted, briskly paced, and impeccably stylish journey back to a time still remembered as a peak of American glamour. It introduces Holloway as a fresh voice in storytelling, and Weldon Haynie Thomas as an endearing and unforgettable detective.




Generation Dead


Book Description

Stephenie Meyer meets John Green in this original supernatural romance! Love knows no boundaries . . . even death. Phoebe Kendall is just your typical goth girl with a crush. He's strong and silent . . . and dead. All over the country, a strange phenomenon is occurring. Some teenagers who die aren't staying dead. But when they come back to life, they are no longer the same. Feared and misunderstood, they are doing their best to blend into a society that doesn’t want them. The administration at Oakvale High attempts to be more welcoming of the 'differently biotic'. But the students don’t want to take classes or eat in the cafeteria next to someone who isn’t breathing. And there are no laws that exist to protect the 'living impaired' from the people who want them to disappear—for good. When Phoebe falls for Tommy Williams, the leader of the dead kids, no one can believe it; not her best friend, Margi, and especially not her neighbor, Adam, the star of the football team. Adam has feelings for Phoebe that run much deeper than just friendship; he would do anything for her. But what if protecting Tommy is the one thing that would make her happy? The first book in the bestselling Generation Dead series. Also by Daniel Waters: The Kiss of Life Passing Strange




Death by Honeymoon (Book #1 in the Caribbean Murder series)


Book Description

Cindy and Clint are enjoying their honeymoon when paradise quickly turns into hell. Clint drowns in a freak accident in the ocean. The local police are quick to insist that he was caught in a sudden riptide. But Cindy, left all alone, is not convinced. She realizes that the only way to get answers, and to save her own life, is to return to where it all began: Barbados.




A Taste for Death


Book Description

When the quiet Little Vestry of St. Matthew's Church becomes the blood-soaked scene of a double murder, Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh faces an intriguing conundrum: How did an upper-crust Minister come to lie, slit throat to slit throat, next to a neighborhood derelict of the lowest order? Challenged with the investigation of a crime that appears to have endless motives, Dalgliesh explores the sinister web spun around a half-burnt diary and a violet-eyed widow who is pregnant and full of malice--all the while hoping to fill the gap of logic that joined these two disparate men in bright red death. . . .




Death in a White Tie


Book Description

A high-society homicide is the talk of the London season . . .“Marsh’s writing is a pleasure.” —The Seattle Times It’s debutante season in London, and that means giggles and tea-dances, white dresses and inappropriate romances . . ..and much too much champagne. And, apparently, a blackmailer, which is where Inspector Roderick Alleyn comes in. The social whirl is decidedly not Alleyn’s environment, so he brings in an assistant in the form of Lord “Bunchy” Gospell, everybody’s favorite uncle. Bunchy is more than lovable; he’s also got some serious sleuthing skills. But before he can unmask the blackmailer, a murder is announced. And everyone suddenly stops giggling . . . “It’s time to start comparing Christie to Marsh instead of the other way around.” —New York Magazine “[Her] writing style and vivid characters and settings made her a mystery novelist of world renown.” —The New York Times




A Death in Texas


Book Description

In 1998, a trio of young white men chained a black man to the bumper of a truck and dragged him down a country road. From the initial investigation and through the trials and their aftermath, "A Death in Texas" follows the turns of events through the eyes of Sheriff Billy Rowles and other townspeople trying to come to grips with the killing. 16 page photo insert.




To Abolish the Death Penalty


Book Description




The Passing of Starr Faithfull


Book Description

This work, winner of the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger Award, provides an account of the international scandal and media activity surrounding the death of Starr Faithfull in 1931. Granted access to the police dossier, the author arrives at an unexpected yet credible conclusion.