Velda Johnston

The advertisement, complete with a box number, appeared in New York newspapers: "Will anyone having information about an infant abandoned in Manhattan twenty-eight years ago please communicate?"-- Katherine Derwith had placed the advertisement. In love with a very proper lawyer, she had refused to marry him until she solved the mystery of her parentage. Somehow she had to find the answers to questions that had haunted her for years; Who had left her, a young baby, in a shadowy corner of a Hudson River warehouse? Why had she been abandoned? Among those who answered her advertisement was Carl Dietrich, a television newsman. Although he disclaimed any knowledge of her origins, he offered to help her in her search. Katherine, however, had an uneasy feeling that he was not dealing straightforwardly with her. Her instinct was correct. He had his own reasons for not wanting her to learn who her parents were - reasons that involved a secret so sinister that it could mean death to anyone who stumbled on the truth. Here is an absorbing novel of conflicting loyalties and loves, which moves from Manhattan's fashionable East Side to its dangerous waterfront streets, from a bustling ski resort in the Italian Alps to a lonely valley presided over by a grim portent of evil, the rock figure of the Stone Maiden

The Rites of Fear Weird shadows danced on the walls of the vast, grotesquely ornate living room where Tara Mornette sat motionless on her throne-like chair. Beside her stood her nephew, handsome, coldly arrogant. In the doorway were the two Oriental servants, their faces barely masking icy contempt. But Carol had eyes only for the man who called himself Malon Thorne. A strange force seemed to come from his body. His words were charged with hypnotic power… …and despite all reason, against her will, Carol felt herself falling under his uncanny spell, helpless before the iron will of this man who, she knew, meant to do her harm…

The Etruscan underworld goddess held the wheat-symbol of life in one hand, and in the other, the sacrificial knife. To Samantha Develin, the ancient figure seemed sinister, and not just because of the chill, enigmatic smile on its bronze lips. The recently discovered statue, Samantha suspected, was connected in some way with her sister's disappearance two months ago. It was in search of her beautiful artist sister that Samantha had flown from New York to Italy. There she took up residence in the centuries-old farmhouse which Althea had been renting for the past several years. Almost immediately, Samantha found that the neighboring people, including an attractive young English archaeologist, seemed anxious for her to leave. What was more, she was sure the Englishman lied when he disclaimed any knowledge of where Althea might be. Then she awakened one night just in time to put out a mysteriously kindled fire that might have destroyed both her and the farmhouse. Someone was determined that she should not find out what had happened to Althea. Although she was tempted to flee back to her Manhattan apartment, Samantha persisted in her search for the reckless, warm-hearted sister she had always adored -- a search that would lead her to strange people and reveal disturbing secrets in Althea's life. Here, set in the lovely Tuscan countryside around Florence, is a dramatic story of love and murder and of a long hidden evil.

KIRKUS REVIEW Comfy, feet-up romantic suspense in two postcard settings--rural Maine and wicked old Manhattan. Orphan Catherine Mayhew is barely surviving in the Big Apple, as a walk-on actress, when she answers a mysterious ad promising an out-of-town engagement and plenty of money. The catch? An old one. Catherine, you see, is a dead ringer for Karen, the long-disappeared granddaughter of elderly, ill Josephine Andexter--whose niece and nephew, artists Eunice and Brian, hire Catherine to impersonate Karen. . .just to make the old lady's last months happy. Hmmm. So ""Karen"" arrives at Pinehaven in Maine, soon adoring ""her"" grandmother--who is overjoyed, and seems to revive. But Catherine/Karen is puzzled by the hostility of housekeeper Mrs. Brill, certain townspeople, and blue-eyed Joel Cartwright--the real Karen's old lover. (Karen, it seems, was cold, callous, and devious.) Will the new Karen convince everyone that she's now a good person? Especially Joel? Or will the resident bad guys--who have more than one murder to their credit--get rid of Catherine/Karen before she and Joel can find the real Karen and expose all the nefarious doings? More Woolworth's than L.L. Bean, but tidier than some of Johnston's others--and very serviceable for the long, time following.

While she was growing up in the peaceful Long Island village, Irene Haverly would have been appalled if she had known that someday she would have to live in the tragedy-haunted Fonsell house. But now she was caught in a trap, a cruel one for a respectable girl of the 1870's. With no husband and no proof that she ever had one, she found she was to have a child. And so she struck a bargain with stocky, ambitious Jason Fonsell, the illegitimate half-brother of the father of her unborn child. She needed a husband. As for Jason, he wanted the money Irene's aunt was pathetically eager to supply. With it he hoped to revive Sag Harbor's trade with the West Indies, and thus become rich and powerful in the town that shunned him--not just because of his illegitimacy or his father's scandalous ways, but because of the violent and unexplained death years before of Julia Fonsell, his beautiful young stepmother. Soon after Irene entered its ugly portals as Jason's unloved and unloving bride, the Fonsell house was again visited by sudden death. Who was the killer? What link could there be between this new tragedy and the mysterious murder of the past? Only as long as she did not know the answers would Irene's own life be safe. Here, set in a historic whaling village and on a colorful Caribbean island, is a spellbinding tale of Gothic horror and romance. (book cover description)

Susan Hapgood, a shy, quiet girl, cannot believe how lucky she is that rich, attractive Martin Summerslee wants to marry her. After a whirlwind courtship, Susan and Martin are married and head towards Martin's estate in Maine. But even before they get there Susan has apprehensions. She feels a shadow over her--that of Martin's first wife, Irene, killed in a plane accident. Irene had been a beautiful, accomplished woman, and Susan feels she is always being compared to the first Mrs. Summerslee. Soon Susan becomes aware of an evil presence threatening her happiness, sanity, and even her life itself. As jealousy and terror begin to control her life, Susan becomes more and more helpless, until it seems as if nothing can save her. (book cover description)

Musically talented, but not the prodigy her doting mother believes her to be, twenty-year-old Sara Hargeaves is content to pick up extra money playing cocktail piano at a local San Jimenez hotel lounge--and even happier when she attracts the attention of handsome Dr. Manuelo Covarrubias. When attraction quickens into passion, Sara goes to play for Manuelo's plastic surgery patients at his fashionable California sanatorium. Cherished, looking forward to marrying her sophisticated lover, Sara is stunned when her world falls apart overnight. Manuelo jilts her--and then he is murdered. Dubbed by journalists a "young Jean Harris," Sara is wrongfully jailed for Manuelo's murder. Now, four years later, she escapes from prison to be with her dying mother--only to arrive too late. Befriended by an attractive young law student, Mike Rolfe, Sara must risk her new chance at love and happiness by returning to the sanatorium. Hunted by the police, hounded by memories of the past and present regrets, Sara knows her only hope of lasting freedom lies in uncovering the truth about who really killed Manuelo four years ago, while avoiding an all-too likely reunion with her dead ex-lover. (book cover description)

It was in the 1880s that Laura Harmon, adopted daughter of a Brooklyn Evangelist, eloped with a young Englishman, Richard Parrington. Richard was handsome, high-spirited, and charming. He was a "remittance man," paid a monthly sum by his rich London parents to stay out of England. He told Laura his family had lost all patience with him because of his periodic gambling--a weakness that, he felt sure, he could conquer for her sake. As much as she loved him, Laura gradually sensed that some unnamed evil--something far worse than a compulsion to gamble--hovered over him and their otherwise happy marriage. And when Richard died in a mysterious plunge from the tracks of an elevated Manhattan railway, she felt that the shadowy evil finally had claimed him. Alone in the world and unable to find a safe place to leave her six-year-old daughter Lily, while she worked at whatever low-paying jobs were open to her, Laura turned to her little daughter's rich grandparents for at least temporary refuge, even though they had never acknowledged Laura's existence. From her meager funds she booked third-class passage for herself and Lily, and sent a telegram to Sir Joseph Parrington announcing their arrival. She was unwanted and unwelcome, but she was determined to survive in spite of her enemies. Here in London she could search for the reason that lay behind her husband's exile and suicide--the secret that had marked her for murder. (book cover description)

"You'd better stay away from me," the little girl whispered to Ellen Stacey, "or they'll get you like they did Amy. She was my friend. So they killed her." The little girl's voice held such hushed horror that Ellen felt a chill of fear. Who were they? Did the dazed child have real enemies, or were they the shadowy figures of her imagination? The young actress had found Cecily Vandering huddled on the terrace of the Cloisters Museum, half-unconscious from drugs. She wore the uniform of one of New York's most exclusive schools and in her bag were identification cards with a Fifth Avenue address and three packets of heroin. Her divorced parents had tried vainly to discover who was giving drugs to their carefully guarded daughter, but they dismissed her tale of shadowy figures as fantasy. Yet Ellen's interest in the pathetic child aroused someone's anger. There was an anonymous warning, a nearly fatal "accident." Ellen began to wonder if Amy Thornhill, Howard Vanderling's gentle fiancée, had really been murdered by thieves who broke into her apartment, or if she had been killed by an enemy who was determined to keep Cecily lonely, confiding in no one. Here is an enthralling novel of romance and suspense about a girl whose friendship with a frightened child brings her into the world of the rich and the successful, a sunlit world, but one that for Ellen and Cecily was surrounded by dark shadows where a killer waited. (book cover description)

In an attempt to escape her life in New England, Sara Randall journeys to Venice to stay with her great-aunt

KIRKUS REVIEW Judith Dunne, a dull little American illustrator, returns to her decadent cousin Cee Cee's carriage house near Hampton Court the year after C. has been brutally murdered in her next-door mansion. In no time at all, the murderer is after Judith, sending her threats in iambic pentameter. Is he Cee Cee's super-straight widower Steven Grenville? One of her onetime lovers, such as bureaucrat George Sherill or rock star Zack Reeve? Or handsome Kyle Hodge, who lives and works at Hampton Court?

Diana was drawn instantly to the charming old beach house in the Hamptons, even though it was David's former mistress who had found it for her. Alone one night, Diana was startled from her sleep by soft laughter, voices, eerie piano music--and the Woodhull ghosts: mother, teenage daughter and, Derek, strikingly handsome in his army uniform. They had come back because of Diana. And because their "boating accident" had not been an accident at all--but murder! (book cover description)

Joan escorts the President's widow to France, where they met Paul, a French courier. What they did not know was that Paul had been ordered to kidnap the widow. (cover)

Tempted by thoughts of a vacation in an exotic Spanish locale, governess Dinah Haversham comes to the ancient Castle Estillio as the guest of rich scientist Max Hind and his vapid sister, the Contessa Julia Ascoli. But when their entourage arrives at their destination, Dinah is inexplicably spooked. Why would Julia leave her friends and her seaside villa for this desolate place, with only her eccentric brother, two boisterous little nephews, her lover and a handful of servants? Dinah will soon learn that her instincts don't lie. There's the bizarre tower turned into a modern laboratory, a sinister dungeon full of macabre instruments, and the handsome stranger Dinah is afraid to trust. All would become essential to a madman's plan for a self-styled apocalypse . . .

Martha Hathaway resolves to remain in the war-torn Paris of 1870 in order to solve a tragic crime. ''A Glittering, Turbulent Novel of Passion & Deadly Danger...A Romantic Thriller''---Bk Cvr