"One of popular music’s most prolific and creative composers, Elvis Costello has written songs in every conceivable genre: pop, reggae, rock, country, funk, soul and jazz, but also for full orchestras and string quartets. What you may not have noticed is that a surprising number of these songs are crime stories—not mere nods toward unsavory events featuring questionable characters, but complete tales of murder and violence told in verse. Costello’s...

"The blood at the scene belies any suggestion of an 'honorable death.' Yet, to the eyes of the Seattle police, a successful Japanese software magnate died exactly as he wished—and by his own hand, according to the ancient rite of seppuku. Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont can’t dismiss what he sees as an elaborate suicide, however, not when something about it makes his flesh crawl. Because small errors in the ritual suggest something darker: a...

It's time to work her crime-solving magic again . . . Kailyn Wilde enjoys running her shop, Abracadabra, in the quaint New York hamlet of New Camel, where she lives with her six cats. Her family's been here for centuries, and she'd like to keep up the tradition. But the place may never be the same if a big hotel gets built, so she does her civic duty and attends a town meeting along with her aunt Tilly . . . and Merlin. Yes, that Merlin-though he...

Christmas Eve, 1814. Jane Austen has been invited to spend the holiday with family and friends at the Vyne, the gorgeous ancestral home of the wealthy and politically prominent Chute family. As the year fades and friends begin to gather beneath the mistletoe for the twelve days of Christmas festivities, Jane and her circle are in a celebratory mood: Mansfield Park is selling nicely; Napoleon has been banished to Elba; British forces have seized Washington,...

"The road to hell is paved with all sorts of intentions, as Oxford private investigator Zö Boehm discovers when a straightforward jewelry store robbery turns out to be anything but. When Tim Whitby checks into a hotel in Oxford, he doesn't intend to check out again--but then he meets Katrina Blake, a woman in dire need of help. When Arkle, Baxter and Trent inherit the family business, they aren't planning to keep it running; there are quicker ways...

"From 1733 Italy to Edinburgh in 1831 to a series of chilling murders in 1870 London and a lethal game of revenge decades later, the watch touches lives with misfortune. The character are irrevocably linked by fate, each playing a key role in breaking the curse, until the watch finally comes to one young woman who might be able to stop it for good..."--back cover.

"Lucy has a kind and adoring husband, a job she loves as a teacher, and a house on Mulberry Avenue with floaty curtains and the softest bed linen. After her troubled childhood, she knows life will never be perfect, but it's pretty close. She's also got Amber, right next door. They never run out of things to talk about. Even if Amber's life - with her high-profile job and handsome, wealthy boyfriend - is more glamorous than Lucy's, they share a down-to-earth...