Jane Haddam

#2

There's no place like home for the homicide For former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian, retirement has just come to an abrupt end. What started as a mysterious summons to a Christmas Eve feast at multimillionaire Robert Hannaford's isolated country estate was now an invitation to a murder scene. Demerol and a blood-covered statue had ensured that. Red ribbon, green wreaths, and spilled blue blood... Christmas can be murder on the Philadelphia Main Line! Add the late patriarch's penchant for making enemies, seven siblings with ample reasons for wanting Daddy dead, plus a murderer with a genius for mayhem, and you've got local police begging the Bureau's aging former ace to take up society sleuthing. But as the pieces fall into place, so do the bodies. And Gregor can hear the jingle bells toll -- it's going to be a lethal Yule.

#3

13-year-old Jarrett Ross has been no more than a ghost for months, a lonely ghost crying in the darkness where no one can see or hear him. A drug dealer put moves on his mom, got her addicted, and now rules their tiny apartment in a ancient West Oakland Victorian house. Jarrett's only refuge has been his room, its door locked with a skeleton key. But one rainy night even that protection fails him when the man breaks open the door. In a fight for Jarrett's life the man falls down a stairwell. Jarrett, battered and bleeding, knows the cops will never believe the man's death was accidental and Jarrett was acting in self-defense. He has to run away! Weak from loss of blood, Jarrett stumbles through dark streets and alleys with no destination except to get away. Finally, he finds himself at the rusty iron gates of small and forgotten graveyard and collapses to wait for death. But instead of the Dark Angel, a chubby homeless boy appears... a boy who also had to run from sins the world made him commit and now dwells alone in this place of the dead. Together, they fight to restore Jarrett's life.