Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only twelve detectives—known as “The Murder Squad”—to investigate countless murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own . . . one of the twelve . . .When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley. Together they track the killer, who clearly is not finished with The Murder Squad . . . but why?Filled with fascinating period detail, and real historical figures, this spectacular debut in a new series showcases the depravity of late Victorian London, the advent of criminology, and introduces a stunning new cast of characters sure to appeal to fans of The Sherlockian and The Alienist.

V Osle napadol prvý sneh. Jonas ráno vstane a zistí, že jeho matka zmizla. Ostane po nej jediná stopa – ružový šál, čo jej daroval na Vianoce. Má ho na krku snehuliak. Predošlú noc sa nečakane zjavil na dvore a jeho čierne oči hľadia priamo do domu.Prípad rieši inšpektor Harry Hole, ktorý nedávno dostal tajomný list s podpisom Snehuliak. Situácia sa ešte väčšmi zamotáva, keď Harry zistí, že tento model sa opakuje – za posledných desať rokov sa stratilo jedenásť žien, a to vždy presne v deň, keď napadol prvý sneh. Vyšetrovanie je pre Harryho o to zložitejšie, že sa týka jeho novej kolegyne, ale aj milovanej Rachel. Prípad Snehuliak ho privádza na pokraj šialenstva.Brilantne vykreslené postavy a gradujúce napätie sú zárukou napínavého príbehu, aký vie napísať len majster súčasných trilerov Jo Nesbo.

The sheriff's deputy at the front door brings hard news to Ree Dolly. Her father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date.Ree's father has disappeared before. The Dolly clan has worked the shadowy side of the law for generations, and arrests (and attempts to avoid them) are part of life in Rathlin Valley. But the house is all they have, and Ree's father would never forfeit it to the bond company unless something awful happened. With two young brothers depending on her and a mother who's entered a kind of second childhood, Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive, or else see her family turned out into the unforgiving cold.Sixteen-year-old Ree, who has grown up in the harsh poverty of the Ozarks, learns quickly that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan can be a fatal mistake. She perseveres past obstacles of every kind and finally confronts the top figures in the family's hierarchy.Along the way to a shocking revelation, Ree discovers unexpected depths in herself and in a family network that protects its own at any cost.

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to the only friend he can trust: private investigator Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is willing to help a man down on his luck, but later Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe is drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth?

We found a table. Nora said: "She's pretty.""If you like them like that."She grinned at me. "You got types?""Only you, darling - lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.""And how about the red-head you wandered off with at Quinns' last night?""That's silly," I said. "She just wanted to show me some French etchings.”\
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It is almost impossible for me to separate the book from the movies. When I decided to reread this classic that spawned six great movies, Nick Charles was of course William Powell, and Nora Charles was of course Myrna Loy. Those actors are forever Nick and Nora for me. The book is famous for the witty exchanges between Nora and Nick, but the book is somewhat overshadowed by the wonderful repartee between Powell and Loy over the course of the six movies. The scintillating, amusing conversations are punctuated by Loy’s uptilted nose and impish smile and Powell’s infectious grin as he takes pleasure in toying with his wife’s state of mind. We must not forget the Charles’s dog Asta. ”That afternoon I took Asta for a walk, explained to two people that she was a Schnauzer and not a cross between a Scottie and an Irish terrier….” The dog, Skippy, who was cast in the movie was a Wire Fox Terrier. I have a six month old Scottish Terrier, whose name is Astra after the state motto of Kansas, ad astra per aspera. Astra in Latin means stars. For those who know us and how much we love The Thin Man movies, they always assume that it is also a nod to Asta...and they would be right. Asta doesn’t provide the comic relief in the book that he does in the movie, but he is a presence for most of the book. There are usually some light hearted moments with Asta in every movie where they are chasing him around the room trying to retrieve a vital clue from between his jaws or other scenes where he is just doing something terminally adorable that brings a bit more lightheartedness to the script. Dashiell Hammett based the Charles’s off his own tempestuous on-again and off-again relationship with Lillian Hellman. From what I’ve read, he definitely must have focused on the sunnier side of the relationship because one of the most enjoyable things about this dynamic couple is their friendly, jocular interactions, highlighted with the rich overtones of how much they admire and like one another. Hellman and Hammett fought like Siamese Fighting Fish. The fights that Nick and Nora get into are playful, funny, and foreplay that provides Nick with an opportunity to grab Nora and plant a kiss on her that will shake her fillings. There really aren’t a lot of happy married couples in noir literature. Hardboiled mystery writers seem to focus on characters as singular individuals. They are usually divorced or single, and if they are married, they certainly aren’t happily married. Nick and Nora are best together, and as the investigation in the story moves forward, they seem a bit unmoored when they are apart. They drink heavily, mirroring the Hellman and Hammett relationship in that aspect. \
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”She sat on the sofa beside me. ‘Now out with it. If you skip a single word, I’ll---’‘I’d have to have a drink before I could do any talking.’She cursed me and brought me a drink.”Nick doesn’t want to investigate crime. He is perfectly happy spending his days drinking martinis and looking after Nora’s money, but Nora is obsessed with his previous life as a private investigator and certainly has a rosy, unrealistic view of the profession. So the way the stories go in the book and the movies is that invariably Nora drags Nick into an investigation. He reluctantly agrees to see what he can do, which is to cleverly solve the crime and wrap up the criminals for the bungling cops to haul off to jail. In this book, he is investigating the murder of a mistress of the mad scientist Clyde Wynant, and in the course of his investigation, he and Nora have to contend with the whole Wynant clan, each as loony as the next. The ex-wife Mimi is a real piece of work, a combination of curves and cunning. She tries to use both assets on Nick, and needless to say, things get out of hand. ”’Tell me something, Nick. Tell me the truth: when you were wrestling with Mimi, didn’t you have an erection?’‘Oh, a little.’She laughed and got up from the floor. ‘If you aren’t a disgusting old lecher,’ she said.”Did she just say erection? My, my goodness sakes, Nora. Do you kiss Nick with that mouth? Why yes, she does. \
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If you take a drink every time Nick orders an alcoholic beverage, you will be plowed by the time you get 30 pages into the book or thirty minutes into the movie. The heavy drinking in this book and the movies might be more than a hint to Dashiell Hammett’s own struggle with alcohol. It might also be the key to why he stuck with Hellman so long. She was a heavy drinker too, and as happens sometimes, couples bond over drinking. Their drinking escalates with dual encouragement, and they become caught in a cycle of maladaptive drinking. I certainly can feel jealous of Nick and Nora’s lifestyle. They can leave a city at the drop of the hat and go to any other city in the world. Money is not an issue, and time is something they have in abundance. They are about as free as two people can ever hope to be. Oh, and they are hopelessly, head over heels in love with one another. Freedom, plenty of money, and someone who loves us, what more could anyone wish for? I highly recommend the book and the movies paired with a few vodka martinis shaken not stirred. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.comI also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid....He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. This is the Code of the Private Eye as defined by Raymond Chandler in his 1944 essay 'The Simple Act of Murder.' Such a man was Philip Marlowe, private eye, an educated, heroic, streetwise, rugged individualist and the hero of Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep. This work established Chandler as the master of the 'hard-boiled' detective novel, and his articulate and literary style of writing won him a large audience, which ranged from the man in the street to the most sophisticated intellectual.

1845. New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever. Timothy Wilde tends bar near the Exchange, fantasizing about the day he has enough money to win the girl of his dreams. But when his dreams literally incinerate in a fire devastating downtown Manhattan, he finds himself disfigured, unemployed, and homeless. His older brother obtains Timothy a job in the newly minted NYPD, but he is highly skeptical of this new "police force." And he is less than thrilled that his new beat is the notoriously down-and-out Sixth Ward - at the border of Five Points, the world's most notorious slum. One night while making his rounds, Wilde literally runs into a little slip of a girl - a girl not more than ten years old - dashing through the dark in her nightshirt... covered head to toe in blood. Timothy knows he should take the girl to the House of Refuge, yet he can't bring himself to abandon her. Instead, he takes her home, where she spins wild stories, claiming that dozens of bodies are buried in the forest north of 23rd Street. Timothy isn't sure whether to believe her or not, but, as the truth unfolds, the reluctant copper star finds himself engaged in a battle for justice that nearly costs him his brother, his romantic obsession, and his own life.

"I was the Miracle Boy, once upon a time. Later on, the Milford Mute. The Golden Boy. The Young Ghost. The Kid. The Boxman. The Lock Artist. That was all me.But you can call me Mike."Marked by tragedy, traumatized at the age of eight, Michael, now eighteen, is no ordinary young man. Besides not uttering a single word in ten years, he discovers the one thing he can somehow do better than anyone else. Whether it's a locked door without a key, a padlock with no combination, or even an eight-hundred pound safe ... he can open them all.  It's an unforgivable talent. A talent that will make young Michael a hot commodity with the wrong people and, whether he likes it or not, push him ever close to a life of crime. Until he finally sees his chance to escape, and with one desperate gamble risks everything to come back home to the only person he ever loved, and to unlock the secret that has kept him silent for so long. Steve Hamilton steps away from his Edgar Award-winning Alex McKnight series to introduce a unique new character, unlike anyone you've ever seen in the world of crime fiction.

A stunning debut reminiscent of the beloved novels of John Hart and Tom Franklin, A Land More Kind Than Home is a mesmerizing literary thriller about the bond between two brothers and the evil they face in a small western North Carolina townFor a curious boy like Jess Hall, growing up in Marshall means trouble when your mother catches you spying on grown-ups. Adventurous and precocious, Jess is enormously protective of his older brother, Christopher, a mute whom everyone calls Stump. Though their mother has warned them not to snoop, Stump can't help sneaking a look at something he's not supposed to — an act that will have catastrophic repercussions, shattering both his world and Jess's. It's a wrenching event that thrusts Jess into an adulthood for which he's not prepared. While there is much about the world that still confuses him, he now knows that a new understanding can bring not only a growing danger and evil — but also the possibility of freedom and deliverance as well.Told by three resonant and evocative characters — Jess; Adelaide Lyle, the town midwife and moral conscience; and Clem Barefield, a sheriff with his own painful past — A Land More Kind Than Home is a haunting tale of courage in the face of cruelty and the power of love to overcome the darkness that lives in us all. These are masterful portrayals, written with assurance and truth, and they show us the extraordinary promise of this remarkable.

The Rocky Mountains have cast their spell over the Courtlands, a young family from the plains taking a last summer vacation before their daughter begins college. For eighteen-year-old Caitlin, the mountains loom as the ultimate test of her runner’s heart, while her parents hope that so much beauty, so much grandeur, will somehow repair a damaged marriage. But when Caitlin and her younger brother, Sean, go out for an early morning run and only Sean returns, the mountains become as terrifying as they are majestic, as suddenly this family find themselves living the kind of nightmare they’ve only read about in headlines or seen on TV. As their world comes undone, the Courtlands are drawn into a vortex of dread and recrimination. Why weren’t they more careful? What has happened to their daughter? Is she alive? Will they ever know? Caitlin’s disappearance, all the more devastating for its mystery, is the beginning of the family’s harrowing journey down increasingly divergent and solitary paths until all that continues to bind them together are the questions they can never bring themselves to ask: At what point does a family stop searching? At what point will a girl stop fighting for her life? Written with a precision that captures every emotion, every moment of fear, as each member of the family searches for answers, Descent is a perfectly crafted thriller that races like an avalanche toward its heart-pounding conclusion, and heralds the arrival of a master storyteller.

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