When a young chambermaid is found dead, bitten by a cobra concealed in the bed of notorious libertine Armand de P rigord, Inspector Jean-Paul Gautier is certain that she was not the intended victim.
The Dashkova Ballet Company - a visiting Russian troupe led by Inspector Gautier's charming Soviet mistress, Princess Sophia - is about to become the toast of Paris when the famous Judge Prudhomme is found with a bullet in his heart in a squalid hotel room.
When a homemade bomb explodes on a houseboat moored on the Seine, following two brutal stabbings in Pigalle, the Paris police receive a list of targets for assassination that includes the President of the Republic himself.
'The English should confine their murders to their own country' is the view held by Parisians when Lady Dorothy Strathy, sister of the Earl of Tain, is discovered stabbed in her hotel room.
A painter has vanished: normally an event of no importance, but Th o is the heir to a fortune, and so Inspector Gautier of the S ret is put on the case.
Two dramatically contrasting episodes face Inspector Gautier in his latest mystery: the death by stabbing of the vicar of the fashionable church of Saint Clothilde in the confessional box; and the theft of the Duchesse de Paiva's diamond necklace during the extravagant f te thrown by Armand de Saules to celebrate the eighteenth birthday of his daughter, Marie-Th r se.
A fashionable French painter is found strangled, a crime highly embarrassing for the Establishment as his wife, a lady of dubious morals, was in the news a year earlier when the President of France happened to die in her bed.
When car trouble forces private detective John Bryant to spend the night in the small village of Foxall, he is immediately struck by the antagonism and secrecy of the locals.
Inside the furnace was a seething pool of molten metal, bubbling with a heat great enough to destroy a man's body so completely it would be impossible to trace.
The night watchman at Hallams, the long-established Bond Street jewellers, is found dead with his head battered in, and a number of display cases have been rifled.
At a meeting of Quenborough Borough Council, the Mayor, Sir John Assington, is accused by Alderman Trant of wasting money and turning a blind eye to speculators on the make.
Geoffrey Hastings is doing very well for himself: having survived the Great War, he is not only working for wealthy financier Sir John Smethurst but is engaged to his daughter, Emily.
Eustace Hendel, head of the younger branch of a rich and titled family, suddenly realises that, as the result of a holiday accident, the question of the succession to the entailed estates holds more than just academic interest for him.
'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore LeonardBy day, Richard Hudson, woman-chaser and used-car salesman, works his crooked car lot with much success.
'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore LeonardAmoral, sexy and brutal, Wild Wives was written in a sleazy San Francisco hotel in the early 1950s while Willeford was on leave from the army.
'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore LeonardIn this riveting novel of psychological suspense, Charles Willeford charts a duel trajectory of alcoholic desire and destruction that is at once poignant, terrifying and utterly authentic.
'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore LeonardRussell Haxby is a ruthless used-car salesman obsessed with manipulating and cavorting with married women.
'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore LeonardSergeant Hoke Moseley is struggling: his division chief is making ominous plans for him, a man he sent to jail for murder has moved in across the street, and he's stuck on one of his toughest cold cases yet.
'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore LeonardIn a hot Florida summer, Sergeant Hoke Moseley's life is going to hell: his ex-wife just remarried, his teenage daughters want to quit school and his beat partner is eight months pregnant - and living in his house.
'No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford' Elmore LeonardIn an expensive Miami neighbourhood, Sergeant Hoke Mosely, Homicide Division, is called to investigate the lethal overdose of a young junkie.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneIn the quiet suburb of Santa Monica, eighty-eight-year-old Mabel Foster loses her husband to a stroke.
When American journalist Jon Harkness is reassigned to his paper's London office, he quickly becomes embroiled in a bizarre tale involving an ancient family curse.
A perfect collection of short stories for Dell Shannon fans and mystery lovers everywhere, featuring eight cases of her popular Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, alongside six intriguing non-series tales.
The weather in LA hasn't been living up to its sunny reputation - the murder of an unwanted newborn and the assault of a twelve-year-old girl don't make things pretty for the family-man cop, especially with a new baby at home.
September is the worst month for heat in Southern California, and LAPD lieutenant Luis Mendoza is feeling the burn as the sweltering temperatures raise tempers and violence.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneTwenty years ago the five-year-old Traxler heir was kidnapped from his Hollywood home and never seen again.
Old Vandeveer is an odd client for the famous Jesse Falkenstein; dressed head to toe in shabby clothes it seems like he can hardly afford Jesse's standard fee to draw up a will.
The Manning Company is a big business, but although it was headed by Claire Manning, the founder's widow, before her death, her son John had been running the firm for many years and was the undisputed successor.
