Tito Amato

"A well-crafted novel that will appeal to readers of mysteries, historical fiction, and genre westerns."-Booklist The railroad is coming to Leadville and its rich Rocky Mountain mines. Among those who will be on hand to celebrate the arrival of the Denver & Rio Grande is Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States and former commander of the Union armies. Like other residents in the Colorado boomtown this summer of 1880, Inez Stannert regards the news as mixed. With her business partnership in the Silver Queen Saloon shaky and the bonds of family slipping (her husband is still missing and her young son is still back East), Inez doesn't need the lawlessness of Leadville to turn, once again, into murder. But Inez isn't the only one with iron ties to the past. Some folks have wicked memories of the war, others have a stake in the competing railroad lines. And photographer Susan Carothers, Inez's friend, is caught in the deadly crossfire…. Silver Rush Mysteries: Silver Lies (Book 1) Iron Ties (Book 2) Leaden Skies (Book 3) Mercury's Rise (Book 4) What Gold Buys (Book 5) A Dying Note (Book 6) Mortal Music (Book 7) Praise for the Silver Rush Mysteries: "Plenty of convincing action bodes well for a long and successful series."-Publishers Weekly STARRED review for Iron Ties "Meticulously researched and full of rich period details…her characters will stay will you long after you've finished the last page. Highly recommended."-TASHA ALEXANDER, New York Times bestselling author for Mortal Music "One of the most authentic and evocative historical series around. Long live Inez!"-RHYS BOWEN, New York Times bestselling author for What Gold Buys Winner of the Colorado Book Award for Best Genre Fiction Arizona Book Award Honorable Mention for Best Mystery/Suspense Novel

Tito Amato returns from an operatic tour expecting to relax with his family. Instead he finds his merchant brother Alessandro imprisoned on a trumped-up smuggling charge, a capital crime in 1740 Venice. The senator who controls Alessandro's fate is determined to have a Venetian as the next pope. He forces Tito to Rome to sing at the villa of a powerful, music-loving cardinal who will control the coming papal election. Spying as he serenades Cardinal Fabiani and his guests, Tito peers into the dark mirror of Roman politics. Pope Clement XII is sinking fast, and two candidates emerge as leading contenders for St. Peter's throne. Will Fabiani support the highborn Venetian whose secret passion is tinkering with electrical experiments? Or the humble cardinal with the gift of healing and a mysterious past? The discovery of a beautiful corpse in Fabiani's garden complicates Tito's mission. Fabiani believes that a member of his household killed the young maid in a fit of madness, but Tito follows clues that indicate a more complex motive, assisted by his irrepressible manservant Benito and Englishman Gussie Rumbolt. From the heights of the Janiculum Hill to the muddy waters of the Tiber, from a cozy Trastevere cookshop to the chilly corridors of the Quirinal Palace, the trio wrestles with events that could change the course of history. Can Tito stop the killer and affect the election before Pope Clement takes his last breath? Or will Alessandro face the scaffold?

Jon Talton staked out the Southwest in his award-winning David Mapstone mysteries. The Washington Post called Concrete Desert, "more intelligent and rewarding than most contemporary mysteries." And author John Lescroart labeled Arizona Dreams, "a pure delight," saying that Mapstone is "one of the most compelling characters in the mystery scene in several years." Now Jon Talton turns to a gritty hospital in a Midwestern city seething with racial tension for The Pain Nurse. Cheryl Beth Wilson is an elite nurse at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital who finds a doctor brutally murdered in a secluded office. Wilson had been having an affair with the doctor's husband, a surgeon, and this makes her a "person of interest" to the police, if not at outright suspect. Yet someone is following and watching Cheryl Beth, and it's not the cops. The killing comes as former homicide detective Will Borders is just hours out of surgery. But as his stretcher is wheeled past the crime scene, he knows this is no random act of violence. Instead, it has all the marks of a serial killer case he supposedly solved years before. Rebuked by his former partner and unable even to walk, Borders starts to investigate. He teams up with Cheryl Beth, who is desperate to clear her name. But as the city teeters on the edge of violence and a killer grows closer, the two are running out of time to unlock the secrets of the murder and the brooding, old hospital.

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder "This British Library Crime Classics reissue features richly evocative settings, an appealing romantic subplot, and sly nods to other fiction, including that of the author's illustrious ancestor." -Publishers Weekly Prince's College, Cambridge, is a peaceful and scholarly community, enlivened by Prudence Pinsent, the Master's daughter. Spirited, beautiful, and thoroughly unconventional, Prudence is a remarkable young woman. One fine morning she sets out for Suffolk to join her cousin Lord Wellende for a few days' hunting. On the way Prudence encounters Captain Studde of the coastguard-who is pursuing a quarry of his own. Studde is on the trail of a drug smuggling ring that connects Wellende Hall with the cloistered world of Cambridge. It falls to Prudence to unravel the identity of the smugglers-who may be forced to kill, to protect their secret. This witty and entertaining crime novel has not been republished since the 1930s. This new edition includes an introduction by Kirsten T. Saxton, professor of English at Mills College, California.

"If you can only read one book this year, Hell with the Lid Blown Off should be that one." -NY Journal of Books In the summer of 1916, a big twister cuts a swath of destruction through Boynton, Oklahoma. Alafair Tucker's family and neighbors are not spared the ruin and grief spread by the storm. But no one will mourn for dead Jubal Beldon, who'd made it his business to know everyone's ugly secrets. It never mattered if Jubal's insinuations were true or not since in a small town like Boynton, rumor could be as ruinous as fact. Then Mr. Lee, the undertaker, discovers that Jubal was already dead when the tornado swept his body away. Had he died in an accident or had he been murdered by someone whose secret he had threatened to expose? Dozens of people would have been happy to do the deed, some of them members of Jubal's own family. As Sheriff Scott Tucker and his deputy Trenton Calder look into Jubal's demise, it begins to look like the prime suspect may be someone very dear to the widow Beckie MacKenzie, mentor of Alafair's daughter Ruth. Ruth fears that the secrets exposed by the investigation are going to cause more damage to Beckie's life than the tornado. Alafair, coping with injuries to her own, still has time for suspicions about how Jubal Beldon came to die. What if the truth of it hits very close to home?

"Kies's sequel to the Sue Grafton Award nominee Shadow Hill is a compelling story for readers who want to follow investigative reporters into the crime scenes."- Library Journal Geneva encounters a deceptive cast of suspects who pull her into a high-speed chase into the Whisper Room, a dating app for only the most elite members of society-where affairs, blackmail, and murder are all on the menu. When wealthy men crave no-strings attached encounters, the Whisper Room promises to deliver. Escorts are turning up dead, and Geneva Chase is ready to dive into the exclusive dating ring and catch the killer. But then one of The Whisper Room's escorts turns up murdered-and she looks a lot like the blond in the blackmail video. The more Genie digs, the more blackmail victims and potential suspects she finds-and the more people she angers. Dangerous people, with links to organized crime and human trafficking. Will this story of a lifetime put a premature end to her own?