Peter Lovesey

Monsters / Ed McBain -- The lemures / Steven Saylor -- The adventure of the dead cat / Ellery Queen -- The odstock curse / Peter Lovesey -- The theft of the Halloween pumpkin / Edward D. Hoch -- Hallowe'en for Mr. Faulkner / August Derleth -- Deceptions / Marcia Muller -- [Black Cat]( / Edgar Allan Poe -- Omjagod / James Grady -- The cloak / Robert Bloch -- What a woman wants / Michael Z. Lewin -- Yesterday's witch / Gahan Wilson -- Walpurgis night / Bram Stoker -- Trick or treat / Judith Garner -- One night at a time / Dorothy Cannell -- Night of the goblin / Talmage Powell -- Trick-or-treat / Anthony Boucher -- Pork pie hat / Peter Straub.

In trying to unravel the truth behind the murder of his ex-wife and son, Sebastian Costas has followed a ghost of a lead all the way to Sacramento. The evidence suggests a murder-suicide, but something he heard a week before the killing won't allow him to accept that. He believes her second husband - a cop - killed them and then faked his own death. But proving it isn't easy. Then he gets a call from Jane Burke, an investigator with The Last Stand.

"In the seventeenth installment in Peter Lovesey's timeless British detective series, Peter Diamond digs deep into Bath history to ferret out the secrets of one of its most famous (and scandalous) icons: Richard "Beau" Nash, who might have been the victim of a centuries-old murder. Bath, England: A wrecking crew is demolishing a row of townhouses in order to build a grocery store when they uncover a skeleton in one of the attics. The dead man is wearing authentic 1760s garb and on the floor next to it is a white tricorn hat--the ostentatious signature accessory of Beau Nash, one of Bath's most famous historical men-about-town, a fashion icon and incurable rake who, some say, ended up in a pauper's grave. Or did the Beau actually end up in a townhouse attic? The Beau Nash Society will be all in a tizzy when the truth is revealed to them. Chief Inspector Peter Diamond, who has been assigned to identify the remains, begins to fantasize about turning Nash scholarship on its ear. But one of his constables is stubbornly insisting the corpse can't be Nash's--the non-believer threatens to spoil Diamond's favorite theory, especially when he offers some pretty irrefutable evidence. Is Diamond on a historical goose chase? Should he actually be investigating a much more modern murder?"--

Shortly before Mrs Cromer's execution, the police receive a photograph that casts doubt on her confession. Even as the hangman prepares the noose, Detective Sergeant Cribb sets out to discover what really happened.

Peter Diamond, the traditionalist dinosaur of Bath CID, finds the low murder rate in the city a touch frustrating, so he decides to check whether a couple of suicides which his colleague is investigating have been accurately classified. On the outskirts of the city a woman is found unconscious in a hospital car park, but when she recovers she can't remember who she is or how she came to be there. Soon after she is released into the care of the local authority, Diamond has a 'proper' case to get his teeth into when a woman's body is found in the garden of a flat after a somewhat drunken party. None of the other guests knew her and it is not clear whether she slipped, jumped or was pushed, and with no clue as to her identity Diamond has a puzzle to satisfy his quirky talents. In a mystery of stunning complexity, Peter Lovesey amply demonstrates his gifts as the grand master of the contemporary whodunnit.

Seventeen Detection Club colleagues join together to create a surprise 80th birthday tribute to H.R.F. Keating that may be the most unusual festschrift ever assembled. Practically every contributor has chosen to memorialize a particular aspect of Inspector Ghote’s creator. Lionel Davidson focuses on his birthday celebration, Tim Heald his beard, Liza Cody his fascination with Hindu mythology, Catherine Aird a second-hand encounter with Keating in the south of France, editor Lovesey his hobby of “popping round to the post,” Len Deighton (in his first short story in 30 years) his passion for Sherlock Holmes. Robert Barnard takes off from Keating’s dislike of airports; Jonathan Gash sets a romantic triangle on a ship out of Bombay; June Thomson inscribes a dying message inspired by Keating; P.D. James traces the impact of a Ghote novel on a murder at school; and James Melville recalls Keating’s charlady/sleuth Emma Craggs. Thinly disguised versions of Keating are suspects in the stories of Reginald Hill, Colin Dexter and Michael Z. Lewin. In honor of Keating’s verse novel Jack the Lady Killer, Simon Brett supplies a short story in verse. Andrew Taylor and Michael Hartland venture further afield before Sheila Keating concludes the volume with a reprint of her husband’s “Arkady Nikolaivich.” --Kirkus review