Book Collector Mystery

Jordan Kelly needs a new job and a new place to live. Enter the perfect job, a research position that includes room and board, which will allow her to spend her days hunting down rare mysteries. The problem is, her employer, Vera Van Alst is the most hated citizen in town. Jordan's first assignment is to track down a rumored Agatha Christie play. Jordan soon finds out that someone is willing to murder to keep the play away from Vera. Jordan's new job is good, but is it worth her life?

When Jordan manages to locate her boss's missing books, they are in the possession of Randolph Adams, an elderly man in a nearby town. Offering a valuable Hemingway first edition as an incentive, Jordan thinks she's about to seal the deal, but some of Randolph's relatives think he should hold out for more. Then the entire family disappears and a dead body shows up. It's up to Jordan to collect the clues and make sure a killer gets booked.

Jordan is grateful for her job researching rare books for Vera Van Alst. Vera agrees to see the uninvited and imperious Muriel Delgado upon arrival. Shortly thereafter, Jordan is told that her position is being terminated. Jordan is determined to find out what hold Muriel has over Vera. It seems Muriel has designs on Vera's holdings, and her collection of Nero Wolfe first editions. When Jordan discovers a deadly connection between Muriel and the Van Alst family, it's up to her to stop a killer.

Jordan Bingham works hard to improve Vera Van Alst's collection of classic detective stories. So when Chadwick Kauffman-heir to the Kauffman fortune-offers a very good price on a fine collection of Ngaio Marsh first editions owned by his recently deceased stepfather, she is thrilled to meet with him at his fabled summer estate, Summerlea. The next day, Jordan and Vera are shocked to read that Chadwick has died in a fall from the grand staircase at Summerlea. But when the picture in the paper is of a different man, it becomes clear that the ladies are victims of a scam. And they'll have to unmask the imposter fast, because someone is trying to frame them for murder

On a getaway to the City by the Bay, book collector Jordan Bingham becomes entangled in a mystery with more twists than Lombard Street... Jordan has been able to swing a romantic trip with Officer Tyler "Smiley" Dekker on one condition-she must return with a rare copy of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest for her irascible employer, Vera Van Alst. For his own part, Smiley is full of surprises. He's a Dashiell devotee himself-excited to be in the city of Hammett's hard-boiled heroes like Sam Spade and the Continental Op-and also announces he plans to visit his previously unmentioned estranged grandmother, who lives in an old Victorian on Telegraph Hill. But the trip goes downhill fast when Jordan is pushed from a cable car and barely escapes death. And when a dark sedan tries to run the couple down, it's clear someone's after them-but who? Just like in Hammett's world, nothing is quite what it seems...