Sun, Sand, Murder

Sun, Sand, Murder
Author: John Keyse-Walker
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250088305

Written with a wry, witty narrative voice and a plot full of twists and turns, John Keyse-Walker’s Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut is a pure delight. As a Special Constable, Teddy Creque is the only police presence on the remote, sun-drenched island of Anegada, nestled in the heart of the British Virgin Islands. In all his years on the job, Teddy has never considered the possibility that he might have to address an actual crime on his peaceful island. That is, until he receives a hysterical call about a dead man on the beach. Indeed, Teddy is shocked to discover Paul Kelliher, a biologist who traveled to the island every winter for research, lying dead on the sands of the island’s most remote beach, killed by a single shot to the head. And when the BVI’s “real police” task Teddy with informing Kelliher’s nearest kin of his death, Teddy makes an even more surprising discovery: there’s no record that Paul Kelliher ever existed. Suddenly Teddy’s routine life is thrown into tumult as he tries to track a killer—against his boss’s wishes—while balancing his complicated family life, three other jobs, and the colorful characters populating the island around him.

Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed

Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed
Author: John Keyse-Walker
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2017-09-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250148480

“Sun, Sand, Murder by John Keyse-Walker is a winner. It is written with the coral clarity of a Caribbean atoll, and evokes an edgy rhythm that suits the protagonist, Teddy Creque, and his wholly authentic domain, the Virgin Islands.”—Randy Wayne White After barely surviving the first criminal investigation in living memory on the sun-drenched British Virgin island of Anegada, Constable Teddy Creque has spent the past six months trying to weather the aftermath, and move on with his life. Now, with a promotion and a medal of honor, he’s newly committed to the job. So when a young woman dies in a shark attack off the coast of a neighboring island, Virgin Gorda, Teddy is happy to help when Deputy Commissioner Howard Lane orders him to capture the man-eater. But when Teddy arrives on Virgin Gorda, he begins to suspect there was human foul play involved, too. After all, the sharks around the idyllic island aren’t known for attacking humans, and there are some oddities at the scene. Unfortunately, while Teddy is convinced that the woman’s death wasn’t accidental, not everyone on the island takes kindly to his meddling, and he’s forced to be creative in his pursuit of justice. In unfamiliar territory, and with his sole witness a silent child who communicates in unorthodox ways, Teddy must earn the trust of the reserved residents of the touristy island, tangle with a loquacious parrot, and follow the clues which might lead him directly into the path of a killer. John Keyse-Walker, the winner of the 2015 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award, has written another taut, witty mystery that will keep readers mesmerized from the opening page to the stunning conclusion.

Murder and Marinara

Murder and Marinara
Author: Rosie Genova
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101627093

Hit whodunit writer Victoria Rienzi is getting back to her roots by working at her family’s Italian restaurant. But now in between plating pasta and pouring vino, she’ll have to find the secret ingredient in a murder.... When Victoria takes a break from penning her popular mystery series and moves back to the Jersey shore, she imagines sun, sand, and scents of fresh basil and simmering marinara sauce at the family restaurant, the Casa Lido. But her nonna’s recipes aren’t the only things getting stirred up in this Italian kitchen. Their small town is up in arms over plans to film a new reality TV show, and when Victoria serves the show’s pushy producer his last meal, the Casa Lido staff finds itself embroiled in a murder investigation. Victoria wants to find the real killer, but there are as many suspects as tomatoes in her nonna’s garden. Now she’ll have to heat up her sleuthing skills quickly…before someone else gets a plateful of murder. First in a new series! RECIPES INCLUDED!

Palms, Paradise, Poison

Palms, Paradise, Poison
Author: John Keyse-Walker
Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2021-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1448306280

Sea, storm, superstition . . . Constable Teddy Creque investigates a death with seemingly supernatural causes in this witty, atmospheric mystery set on a Caribbean island paradise. "The battle between rational, supernatural, and criminal provides a tropical treat like no other" - Kirkus Reviews Starred Review Constable Teddy Creque, the sole police officer on the tiny, sun-soaked island of Anegada, is used to weathering storms. So when Hurricane Leatha hits the Caribbean with brutal force, his main concern is keeping the island's two hundred residents safe. Teddy expects the power to go out. He expects the phone lines to go down. But he doesn't expect the radioed message from the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force headquarters, informing him of a dangerous escaped prisoner. Queen Ya-Ya is a practitioner of ancient Afro-Cuban rites - and rumor has it she can kill with magic. Teddy doesn't believe in magic, and when he easily recaptures the dignified, imposing Queen Ya-Ya, he doesn't believe his prisoner is dangerous either. But when she mysteriously kills a man from inside her locked cell, before vanishing once more into the night, Teddy is forced to reconsider . . . This page-turning mystery from award-winning author John Keyse-Walker takes readers on an exciting journey from the storm-tossed British Virgin Islands to the heart of Cuba, and is a perfect pick for readers who like their mysteries international, atmospheric and adventurous.

Love and Death in the Sunshine State

Love and Death in the Sunshine State
Author: Cutter Wood
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2019-04-09
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 161620933X

"Gripping . . . Cutter Wood subverts all our expectations for the true crime genre.” —Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering When a stolen car is recovered on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it sets off a search for a missing woman, local motel owner Sabine Musil-Buehler. Three men are named persons of interest—her husband, her boyfriend, and the man who stole the car. Then the motel is set on fire; her boyfriend flees the county; and detectives begin digging on the beach of Anna Maria Island. Author Cutter Wood was a guest at Musil-Buehler’s motel as the search for her gained momentum. Driven by his own need to understand how a relationship could spin to pieces in such a fatal fashion, he began to talk with many of the people living on Anna Maria, and then with the detectives, and finally with the man presumed to be the murderer. But there was only so much that interviews and transcripts could reveal. In trying to understand how we treat those we love, this book, like Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood, tells a story that exists outside documentary evidence. Wood carries the investigation of Sabine’s murder beyond the facts of the case and into his own life, crafting a tale about the dark conflicts at the heart of every relationship.

The Naked Sun

The Naked Sun
Author: Isaac Asimov
Publisher: Spectra
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2011-04-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307792404

A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots--unthinkable under the laws of Robotics--or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!

Every Breath You Take

Every Breath You Take
Author: Ann Rule
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2002-01-14
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0743229274

America’s #1 true-crime writer fulfills a murder victim’s desperate plea with this shattering New York Times bestseller. “If anything ever happens to me…find Ann Rule and ask her to write my story.” In perhaps the first true-crime book written at the victim's request, Ann Rule untangles a web of lies and brutality that culminated in the murder of Sheila Blackthorne Bellush—a woman Rule never met, but whose shocking story she now chronicles with compassion, exacting detail, and unvarnished candor. Although happily ensconced in a loving second marriage, and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila never truly escaped the vicious enslavement of her ex-husband, multi-millionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer— and a violent, controlling sociopath who subjected Sheila to unthinkable abuse in their marriage, and terrorized her for a decade after their divorce. When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge.

The Night and Its Moon

The Night and Its Moon
Author: Piper CJ
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2022-09-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1728270693

An addictive fantasy romance from TikTok sensation Piper CJ, now newly revised and edited. Two orphans grow into powerful young women as they face countless threats to find their way back to each other. Farleigh is just an orphanage. At least, that's what the church would have the people believe, but beautiful orphans Nox and fae-touched Amaris know better. They are commodities for sale, available for purchase by the highest bidder. So when the madame of a notorious brothel in a far-off city offers a king's ransom to purchase Amaris, Nox ends up taking her place — while Amaris is drawn away to the mountains, home of mysterious assassins. Even as they take up new lives and identities, Nox and Amaris never forget one thing: they will stop at nothing to reunite. But the threat of war looms overhead, and the two are inevitably swept into a conflict between human and fae, magic and mundane. With strange new alliances, untested powers, and a bond that neither time nor distance could possibly break, the fate of the realms lies in the hands of two orphans — and the love they hold for each other.

Murder Down the Shore

Murder Down the Shore
Author: Beth Sherman
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2016-06-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

It seemed like a good idea at the time to Anne Hardaway: a jolly family reunion in the sun and sand of Oceanside Heights on the Jersey Shore. But it turns out to be the last gathering of any kind for wealthy Great-aunt Hannah, who is discovered on the beach viciously stabbed to death … by a knife taken from Anne's own kitchen! With a $50 million inheritance at stake, any one of her kin could be the culprit, but it's Anne whom the evidence accuses. A killer isn't satisfied yet, however. As the professional ghostwriter/amateur sleuth intensifies her hunt for the blood relative with a taste for blood, Anne realizes her options are growing frighteningly limited. She can spend the rest of her life in prison … or lose it right now!

Paradise Cove

Paradise Cove
Author: Davin Goodwin
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2022-04-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1608094863

Every day is paradise on Bonaire—until something unexpected washes ashore On the laid-back island of Bonaire, every day is paradise until a seaweed-entangled human leg washes ashore. Combing the beach, retired cop Roscoe Conklin examines the scene and quickly determines that the leg belongs to the nephew of a close friend. The island police launch an investigation, but with little evidence and no suspects, their progress comes to a frustrating halt. Then, thanks to a unique barter with the lead detective, Conklin finds himself in possession of the case file. He can now aggressively probe for his own answers. Sifting through the scant clues, eager to bring the killer to justice, Conklin struggles to maintain forward momentum. He has all the pieces. He can feel it. But he'd better get them snapped together soon. Otherwise, the body count will continue to rise. For fans of John Sandford's Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers—Only substitute sun and sand for snow and ice While the novels in the Roscoe Conklin Mystery Series stand on their own and can be read in any order, the publication sequence is: Diver's Paradise Paradise Cove