murder

"When a New York banker is discovered dead from an apparent morphine overdose in a Chicago hotel, the circumstances surrounding his untimely end are suspicious to say the least. The dead man had switched rooms the night before with a stranger he met and drank with in the hotel bar. And before that, he'd registered under a fake name at the hotel, told his drinking companion a fake story about his visit to the Windy City, and seemingly made no effort to contact the actress, performing in a local show, to whom he was married. All of which is more than enough to raise eyebrows among those who discovered the body. Enter theatre critic and amateur sleuth Riley Blackwood, a friend of the hotel's owner, who endeavors to untangle this puzzling tale as discreetly as possible. But when another detective working the case, whose patron is unknown, is thrown from a yacht deck during a party by an equally unknown assailant, the investigation makes a splash among Chicago society. And then several of the possible suspects skip town, leaving Blackwood struggling to determine their guilt or innocence--and their whereabouts"--OCLC.

"It's the middle of the pandemic and Hawai'i has been virtually closed to tourists. So when Leilani Santiago and her young sisters save a mysterious woman wearing a lei from drowning in Waimea Bay in Kaua'i questions abound: who is she and where did she come from? The lei, which is made of mokihana berries, the official flower of Kaua'i, is traced back to Leilani's best friend, the very pregnant Courtney Kahuakai, and her family's flower business. While the woman is in a medically induced coma in a local hospital, Leilani languishes as her shave ice shack is temporarily shuttered due to the pandemic. Leilani becomes obsessed with the woman and even breaks into her Airbnb to discover her identity. She finds that the woman, a travel agent who has a Japanese passport, has information about a local attorney on the island, Garvin Washburne. When Washburne shoots and kills a hospital nurse who, armed with a machete, had trespassed into the attorney's home, Leilani is further drawn into this mystery. As residents protest the reopening of tourism, do Garvin and the travel agent from Japan represent the opposition? Soon the future of Leilani's family member is threatened and Leilani realizes the serious repercussions of her amateur investigation. The survival of Leilani, her family and friends will depend on her sense of ingenuity and the strength of her island community"--Provided by publisher.

"When will the world end? With massive comet Foxworth hurtling toward Earth, humanity now knows the exact date. Simon wants to spend his last weeks with the people he cares about most, especially his ex-girlfriend, Tilda, who dumped him shortly after the news broke. Since Lucinda was diagnosed with cancer she's retreated into herself, preparing for the inevitable. Suddenly facing down a death that makes her the same as everyone else, she longs to connect again, but doesn't know where to start. Reaching out to her former best friend seems like a good first step. Then Tilda's found dead and accusations start circling that Simon is the killer. With the days slipping away, Simon and Lucinda race to find answers, but the truth is they may never have known Tilda at all"--Provided by publisher.

Seventeen-year-old Shae and her friends journey to the mysterious land of Gondal in search of a dangerous magical book that could alter the fabric of the world, but as they cross the borders, they discover a world ruled not by magic but technology and industry--one fraught with perils of its own.

"Brynn Cadence . . . discovers the dead body of a classmate on the football field one Friday night. When she tells the police she saw a masked figure fleeing up the bleachers, they dismiss her and label the death accidental. With no one believing what she saw, Brynn's internal walls start to go up. But there's one wall she has no control over--the one that separates her and Kyler Fellan's gym lockers. . . . While not an unwelcome surprise, Brynn knows she should leave her fluttering feelings for Kyler on the locker room floor in order to focus on exposing the truth of her classmate's death. But Kyler's top jock status has made him privy to some potentially useful gossip. . . . As two find themselves delving deeper into the case, they are inevitably drawn closer to each other--even if that isn't safe for either of them"--Provided by publisher.

After her family moves to Los Angeles, Delilah Rollins, already a minor Internet celebrity, plunges into the competitive and glamorous world of social media influencers, but can cosmetics and good lighting conceal cheating, manipulation, blackmail, and murder?.

A writer goes deep into the heart of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that blends the suspenseful twists of Making a Murderer and the emotional insight of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels.Since childhood, Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy, she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way.

"Juniper Baker had just graduated from high school and was deep in the throes of a summer romance when Cal and Beth Murphy, a childless couple who lived on a neighboring farm, were brutally murdered. When her younger brother became the prime suspect, June's world collapsed and everything she loved that summer fell away. She left, promising never to return to tiny Jericho, Iowa. Until now. Officially, she's back in town to help an ill friend manage the local library. But really, she's returned to repair her relationship with her teenage daughter, who's been raised by Juniper's mother and step-father since birth--and to solve the infamous Murphy murders once and for all. She knows the key to both lies in the darkest secret of that long-ago summer night, one that's haunted her for nearly fifteen years. As history begins to repeat itself and a dogged local true crime podcaster starts delving into the murders, the race to the truth puts past and present on a dangerous collision course"--Provided by publisher.

"A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance. Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek's father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys"--Provided by publisher.

"When Violeta Graceling and her younger brother Arien arrive at the haunted Lakesedge estate, they expect to find a monster. Leta knows the terrifying rumors about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy...As Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake...Now, to save Rowan--and herself--Leta must confront the darkness in her past, including unraveling the mystery of her connection to the Lord Under"--Provided by publisher.