Mystery Notes

The mother confessed to killing her eight-year-old daughter, but there's still something about the old case that bothers Yorkshire inspector Tom Richmond in Marjorie Eccles's Echoes of Silence: A Mystery Featuring Superintendent Gil Mayo. Might the little girl's stepfather, the vicar, be concealing a deadly secret? (St. Martin's Minotaur/Dunne, $22.95 224p ISBN 0-312-30880-9)

In Natasha Cooper's A Place of Safety: A Trish Maguire Mystery, the fifth in the series after 2002's Out of the Dark, her barrister heroine looks into the loss of an art collection during WWI. What starts as an innocent investigation leads to both personal and professional strife for Trish—and to an unfortunate death. (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95 320p ISBN 0-312-31936-3)

Death threats prompt homebody Det. John Bright and girlfriend Jude to leave England for the south of France, where they find good food and pleasant weather. But their holiday sours after Jude disappears and Bright gets arrested for the murder of a guest at their hotel in Maureen O'Brien's Unauthorized Departure. (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95 288p ISBN 0-312-31600-3)

Scott Mackay, nominated for the 1998 Arthur Ellis Award for best novel (Fall Guy), brings back Toronto detectives Barry Gilbert and Joe Lombardo to investigate the murder of a music mogul in Old Scores: A Barry Gilbert Mystery. The victim had plenty of enemies, including Gilbert, who blames the guy for almost ruining his marriage. (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95 320p ISBN 0-312-30841-8)

As the latest entry in their Lost Classics series, Crippen & Landru offers The Complete Curious Mr. Tarrant, by C. Daly King (1895–1963). Edward D. Hoch provides an introduction to this collection of 12 stories, mostly locked-room mysteries written in the 1930s. (Crippen & Landru [www.crippenlandru.com], $29 172p ISBN 1-932009-04-3; $19 paper -05-1)