Tasha Alexander

Anticipating a London season of dancing and campaigning for women's rights, Lady Emily Hargreaves investigates a blackmailing vandal who splashes red paint on the homes of elite citizens before revealing their scandalous secrets.

Entreated for help by a childhood nemesis who has been wrongly accused of murder, Lady Emily launches an investigation in Venice that takes her from elegant palazzi to slums, libraries, and bordellos before she links the crime to a centuries-old puzzle.

Emily agreed to wed Philip, the Viscount Ashton, primarily to escape her overbearing mother. Philip's death while on safari soon after their wedding left Emily feeling little grief, for she barely knew the dashing stranger. But her discovery of his journals nearly two years later reveals a far different man than she imagined—a gentleman scholar and antiquities collector who apparently loved his new wife deeply. Emily's desire to learn more of her late husband leads her through the quiet corners of the British Museum and into a dangerous mystery involving rare stolen artifacts. To complicate matters, she's juggling two very prominent and wealthy suitors, one of whose intentions may go beyond matrimony into darker realms . . .

Anglemore Park is the ancestral home of Lady Emily Hargreaves' husband Colin. But the stately calm of country life is destroyed when their neighbor, the Marquess of Montagu, bursts through the French doors from the garden and falls down dead in front of the shocked gathering. But who has a motive for murdering the young aristocrat--the lovely cousin who was threatened by his engagement, the Oxford friend he falsely accused of cheating, the scheming vicar's daughter he shamelessly seduced, or the relative no one knew existed who appears to claim the Montagu title? Who is the mysterious woman seen walking with him moments before he was brutally attacked? The trail takes readers into the gilded world of a British manor house and below stairs to the servants who know all the secrets. One family's hidden past and a forbidden passion are the clues to a puzzle only Lady Emily can solve.

"After the final curtain of Swan Lake, an animated crowd exits the Mariinsky theatre brimming with excitement from the night's performance. But outside the scene is somber. A ballerina's body lies face down in the snow, blood splattered like rose petals over the costume of the Swan Queen. The crowd is silenced by a single cry-- "Nemetseva is dead!" Amongst the theatergoers is Lady Emily, accompanying her dashing husband Colin in Russia on assignment from the Crown. But it soon becomes clear that Colin isn't the only one with work to do. When the dead ballerina's aristocratic lover comes begging for justice, Emily must apply her own set of skills to discover the rising star's murderer. Her investigation takes her on a dance across the stage of Tsarist Russia, from the opulence of the Winter Palace, to the modest flats of ex-ballerinas and the locked attics of political radicals. A mysterious dancer in white follows closely behind, making waves through St. Petersburg with her surprise performances and trail of red scarves. Is it the sweet Katenka, Nemetseva's childhood friend and favorite rival? The ghost of the murdered étoile herself? Or, something even more sinister?" -- provided by publisher.

"Emily and husband Colin have come to the French Riviera for what should be a joyous occasion - the engagement party of her lifelong friend Jeremy, Duke of Bainbridge, and Amity Wells, an American heiress. But the merrymaking is cut short with the shocking death of one of the party in an apparent suicide. Not convinced by the coroner's verdict, Emily must employ all of her investigative skills to discover the truth and avert another tragedy"--

"In Uneasy Lies the Crown, the thrilling new mystery in Tasha Alexander's bestselling series, Lady Emily and her husband Colin must stop a serial killer whose sights may be set on the new king, Edward VII. On her deathbed, Queen Victoria asks to speak privately with trusted agent of the Crown Colin Hargreaves, slipping him a letter with her last, parting command: Une sanz pluis. Sapere aude. "One and no more. Dare to know." The year is 1901 and the death of Britain's longest-reigning monarch has sent all of the Empire into mourning. But for Lady Emily and her dashing husband Colin, the grieving is cut short as another royal death takes center stage. A body has been found in the Tower of London, posed to look like the murdered medieval king Henry VI. Soon after a second dead man turns up in London's exclusive Berkeley Square, his mutilated remains staged to evoke the violent demise of Edward II, it becomes evident that the individual behind the crimes plans to kill again and again. The race to find him takes Emily deep into the capital's underbelly, with its secret gangs, street children, and sleazy brothels. But the clues aren't adding up, and even more puzzling are the anonymous letters Colin has been receiving since Victoria's death. Is someone threatening her successor, Edward VII?"--

At her friend Ivy's behest, Emily reluctantly agrees to attend a party at the sprawling English country estate of Lord Fortescue, a man she finds as odious as he is powerful. But if Emily is expecting Lord Fortescue to be the greatest of her problems, she is wrong. Her host has also invited Kristiana von Lange, an Austrian countess who was once linked romantically with Emily's fiance, the debonair Colin Hargreaves. What Emily believes will be a tedious evening turns deadly when Fortescue is found murdered, and his protege, Robert Brandon—Ivy's husband—is arrested for the crime.Determined to right this terrible wrong and clear Robert's name, Emily begins to dig for answers, a quest that will lead her from London's glittering ballrooms to Vienna's sordid backstreets. Not until she engages a notorious anarchist in a game of wits does the shocking truth begin to emerge: the price of exonerating Robert can be paid only by placing Colin in deadly peril. To save her fiance, Emily must do the unthinkable: bargain with her nemesis, the Countess von Lange.

Heir to the philosophical-fantastical tradition of Borges, Calvino, and Perec, The Golden Age is Michal Ajvaz’s greatest and most ambitious work. The Golden Age is a fantastical travelogue in which a modern-day Gulliver writes a book about a civilization he once encountered on a tiny island in the Atlantic. The islanders seem at first to do nothing but sit and observe the world, and indeed draw no distinction between reality and representation, so that a mirror image seems as substantial to them as a person (and vice versa); but the center of their culture is revealed to be “The Book,” a handwritten, collective novel filled with feuding royal families, murderous sorcerers, and narrow escapes. Anyone is free to write in “The Book,” adding their own stories, crossing out others, or even appending “footnotes” in the form of little paper pouches full of extra text—but of course there are pouches within pouches, so that the story is impossible to read “in order,” and soon begins to overwhelm the narrator’s orderly treatise.

London's social season is in full swing, and Victorian aristocracy can't stop whispering about a certain gentleman who claims to be the direct descendant of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. But he's not the only topic of wagging tongues. Drawing rooms, boudoirs, and ballrooms are abuzz with the latest news of an audacious cat burglar who has been systematically stealing valuable items that once belonged to the ill-fated queen. Light gossip turns serious when the owner of one of the pilfered treasures is found murdered, and the mysterious thief develops a twisted obsession with Lady Emily Ashton. It will take all of Emily's wit and perseverance to unmask her stalker and ferret out the murderer, while faced with a brewing scandal that threatens both her reputation and her romance with her late husband's best friend, the dashing Colin Hargreaves.

Holmes on the range / by John Connolly -- Irregular / by Meg Gardiner -- Where there is honey / by Dana Cameron -- Before a Bohemian scandal / by Tasha Alexander -- The spiritualist / by David Morrell -- Mrs. Hudson investigates / by Tony Lee and Bevis Musson -- The adventure of the dancing women / by Hand Phillippi Ryan -- Raffa / by Anne Perry -- The crown jewel affair / by Michael Scott -- Understudy in scarlet / by Hallie Ephron -- Martn X / by Gary Phillips -- The painted smile / by William Kent Krueger -- The first Mrs. Coulter / by Catriona McPherson -- The case of the speckled Trout / by Deborah Crombie -- The adventure of the empty grave / by Jonathan Maberry -- Limited resources / by Denise Mina -- The adventure of the extraordinary rendition / by Cory Doctorow.

"After an odd encounter at a grand masquerade ball, Lady Emily becomes embroiled in the murder investigation of one of the guests, a sometime actress trying to pass herself off as the mysterious heiress and world traveler Estella Lamar. Each small discovery, however, leads to more questions. Was the intended victim Miss Lamar or the imposter? And who would want either of them dead? As Emily and Colin try to make sense of all this, a larger puzzle begins to emerge: No one has actually seen Estella Lamar in years, since her only contact has been through letters and the occasional blurry news photograph. Is she even alive? Emily and Colin's investigation of this double mystery takes them from London to Paris, where, along with their friend Cécile, they must scour the darkest corners of the city in search of the truth"--