An Inner sanctum mystery

Lawyer Chuck Sadler may be in his 70's but his faculties and his legal knowledge are still sharp. When his favorite niece's husband dies under suspicious circumstances, suspicion falls on her and she turns to Uncle Chuck for help. There are too many questions raised when Dorrie Chenoweth's husband is found next to his wrecked car and the police suspect it was not an accident, but murder. As Sadler digs into Sargent Chenoweth’s accounting business he finds shady business deals, stock market manipulation, and a love nest with a luscious 20 year old friend of Dorrie's. When the young woman is also found dead Sadler begins to wonder if Dorrie is as innocent as she claims to be.

When Wall Street's John Putnam Thatcher and his Down East crony, Henry Morland, started hiking the Appalachian Trail, they hardly expected to stumble over a dead body. Nor did real-estate promoters Eddie Quinlan and Ralph Valenti plan to play hosts to a murderer at their luxurious, new vacation development. Now the head of the Sloan Guaranty Trust Department must again combine his financial skills and unbounded curiosity to solve the murder of a man nobody seemed to dislike enough to kill.

There was the lady who fell off the mountain. There was the body in the trunk. There was the girl who lived high up in the never-never land between Switzerland and France. And there was John Seton-Smith, on trial for the murder of the woman he loved. In its role of chase, the book introduces us to Monte Gordon, a detective with an odd sort of charm which grows out of his tenacity and his pride; and to Inspector Medford, a man of conscience, who meets a situation in which conscience cannot be satisfied. As a reportage of a murder trial, Shadow of a Lady achieves a breathless intensity without sacrificing authenticity. And on the novel level it vividly presents a group of unusual people caught in an unusual situation: a woman escaping (although she is not sure from what) who succeeds far more thoroughly than she had consciously intended; John Seton-Smith, the victim apparently of circumstances, but even more of his own reticence.

Immediately after the publication of his first novel, detailing his investigation and solution of The Roman Hat Mystery, fledgling author Ellery Queen is invited to a house party to be held over the Christmas holiday period (late 1929 and early 1930) by his publisher. The party is large and contains a number of people connected for business or social reasons with a wealthy young man who is about to come into a large inheritance on his imminent birthday. In the days leading up to his birthday, a number of strange little gifts are left anonymously for him, one, two or three daily, together with some cryptic notes describing them. The gifts are sized as for a doll's house and are things like a tiny house, a post, a camel, a fish, an eye, a fence -- seemingly without any rhyme or reason behind them. The cryptic notes become more and more threatening and ominous, and some of them have little doodles on the back that seem to represent the gift associated with them. Ellery continues to investigate, with little success, as the mysterious gifts accumulate and the wealthy young man's behaviour becomes more and more unusual. Upon the eve of his birthday, his body is discovered stabbed with an ornate dagger, and a note beside it suggests that the dagger is the final entry in the series of gifts: "the finishing stroke to end your life". Although a number of things are discovered that explain parts of the mystery, Ellery is unable to explain the meaning of the series of gifts, or conclusively identify the murderer. Decades later, he comes across his diary of that time and begins thinking about the murder again -- this time, he realizes the significance of the gifts and can thus finally solve the case.

For years Inspector Richard Queen had been outshone by his writer-detective son. Now, with Ellery away, Dick Queen, freshly retired from the NYPD, had a case all his own -- or did he? The verdict had been accidental death, and only the victim's nurse had seen the thing that made it murder. Dick Queen believed her, especially when the next lead in the case developed terminal back trouble -- from six inches of sharpened steel. Recruiting a Senior Citizen's corps of retired cops, Dick Queen tracked a murderer -- and found himself courting his only witness! What was Ellery going to say . . .

Nearly twenty years after he was wrongly convicted of setting the fire that killed his father, Lincoln Fox returns to Rebel Ridge, Kentucky. There, deep in the Appalachians, the truth of that terrible night lies buried--and he's sworn to uncover it. His plans take an unexpected turn when, in the midst of a blizzard, he rescues Meg Walker from her wrecked car. Suddenly Linc discovers another reason to clear his name. Meg, his high school sweetheart, had always believed in his innocence, and if he wants a future with her, he has to show the world proof that she was right. As the community chooses sides, those who once let a teenage boy take the fall for their crime are forced to raise the stakes. They kidnap Meg, leaving her to the mercy of the mountain. And a second rescue may be more than even Linc can manage....[back cover].

After the death of her husband, beautiful Camilla Ommanney returned to Hammerford to start a new life — only to find herself followed constantly and wordlessly by John Marquis, the survivor of the accident that had left her a widow — a man to whom skilled surgeons had given a handsome, waxlike face, but who had completely lost his memory. Was he really the John Marquis Camilla had once loved, or was he, as she had terrifying reasons to believe, her husband, come back from the dead to drive her insane...? A cryptic message brings Inspector Septimus Finch to Hammerford, to tear the mask off a monstrous murderer, and to save the life and sanity of a tortured girl.

Hanna Carpenter had entered her apartment when she was young -- a woman afraid of the people around her. Thirty-four years went by. Suddenly, one day, she came out to find a changed world. It was fascinating, frightening ... and violent. For that same evening, Hanna Carpenter became a witness to death!

Captain Jose Da Silva has the daunting task of finding a murderer. Hired by the Brazilian Foreign Office, Da Silva sets out to end these jungle killings, but doesn’t quite have all the facts. When Agent Wilson shows him one of the victims—not all of him, just his shrunken head—Da Silva realizes that this murder case isn’t as open-and-shut as it seems. Now he must investigate, evading the powerful magic and numerous mysteries of the Amazon jungle.

They were the murder league, a group dedicated to committing any murder for anyone. For the small sum of one thousand pounds the group would perform the killing for whatever the reason, love, hate, money, fun. All the client had to do was drop a line in their post box and the deal was done. The murder league, three ex-mystery writers, perform their dispatches with a cool demeanor and the utmost dignity, with only their goal of ten heads on their minds. Soon the spice has returned to their lives, but that’s until everything begins to go wrong. Join this lovable group of vigilantes as they spiral into a world where committing murder is never as easy as writing about it.