October Publications

In The True Crime Files of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, editor Stephen Hines presents another side of the creator of the beloved Sherlock Holmes: Doyle's interest in two criminal cases (one a murder, the other a series of animal mutilations), both of which involved innocent men wrongly accused and were given short shrift by the authorities. Here are documents of Doyle's efforts (via the legal system, the media and his personal investigations) to save the men from wrongful sentences. (Berkley Prime Crime, $22.95 304p ISBN 0-425-17952-4) Peter Lovesey's The Sedgemoor Strangler and Other Stories of Crime collects 16 recent tales by the renowned British author, winner of the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement, among many other honors. Holmes fans will be especially taken by the Sherlockian Christmas yarn, "The Four Wise Men." (Crippen & Landru [www.crippenlandru.com], $17 paper ISBN 1-885941-64-1)

The Black Coat: A 1948 Murder Mystery Comedy, by sister team Constance and Gwenyth Little (The Black Iris), is resuscitated by the Rue Morgue as part of its vintage mystery line. Persuaded to play the role of a dying old woman's granddaughter upon her arrival in New York City, Anne becomes embroiled in a madcap series of murders, thefts and martinis. (Rue Morgue [PO Box 4119, Boulder, Colo. 80306], $14 paper 160p ISBN 0-915230-40-2) Norbert Davis's (Sally's in the Alley) The Mouse in the Mountain, another '40s revival, features comic sleuthing team PI Doan and his canine pal, Carstairs. Down in Mexico trying to help a fugitive, the two risk their necks contending with murders, cads and an earthquake. (Rue Morgue, $14 paper 152p ISBN 0-915230-41-0)

A professional genealogist has his day—and nearly loses his life—as his research leads him to discoveries of crime, injustice and danger in Deadly Pedigree: A Nick Herald Genealogical Mystery, Jimmy Fox's introduction to his New Orleans—based series. With his trusty, ingenious disabled assistant Hawty Latimer, Nick seeks out relatives for an elderly Holocaust survivor and comes face to face with closets full of family skeletons, blackmail and murder. (Top [12221 Merit Dr., Dallas, Tex. 75251], $14.95 paper 267p ISBN 1-929976-08-9)

Textbook author Miranda Lewis is given temporary responsibility for her niece, who has a summer job at the recreated 17th-century Plymouth village near Miranda's home in biographer Leslie Wheeler's first novel, Murder at Plimoth Plantation. When Myles Standish's stand-in is decapitated, Miranda's responsibility suddenly becomes a lot more complicated, and her niece's relationships with her co-workers could prove deadly. (Larcom [www.larcompress.com], $23 204p ISBN 0-9678199-7-0)

Harriet returns to her South Carolina hometown to figure out her deceased aunt's will and make arrangements for her institutionalized cousin, but ends up plunged into an investigation of the past in Beverly Bracket's Sacrificed Lives. With the help of a lawyer and a PI, Harriet unravels the series of events—including miscegenation, murderous Klan activities, and a powerful senator's coercion and secrecy—that led 30 years ago to the disappearance of one cousin and the insanity of another. (Covos Day [dist. BHB International,BHBBooks@aol.com], $14.95 paper 236p ISBN 1-919-87421-6)

Five Star presents four new novels: Robert Nordan's (Death Beneath the Christmas Tree) Dead and Breakfast, fourth in his Mavis Lashley series, finds the elderly Mavis trucking into the mountains to help a friend in deadly danger ($23.95 182p ISBN 0-7862-3554-3); in Anthony winner Jan Grape's first novel, Austin City Blue, police officer Zoe Barrow's husband is in a vegetative state from a gun attack, she's under investigation for shooting the attacker eight months later and, while protecting a friend from his own murderous wife and her cop lover, she puts herself in the line of fire, too ($23.95 224p ISBN -3014-2); in Double or Nothing by Nancy Baker Jacobs (Deadly Companion), Ellen Merchant's dream vacation (involving a house exchange) in San Francisco turns out to be a frame-up for a planned murder—only the victim's also in danger of being kidnapped by somebody else ($23.95 156p ISBN -3010-X); Ralph McInerny's (Still Life) Sub Rosa, second in the Egidio Manfredi series, confronts homicide detective Manfredi with a homicidal author, her Alzheimer's-beset captive and a cast of characters with conflicting goals—some of which involve a winning lottery ticket ($24.95 200p ISBN -3559-4).

Five Star also offers four story collections: in Christine Matthews's Gentle Insanities and Other States of Mind, three stories center around slightly crazy PI Roberta Stanton—doing time in a mental institution, saving her family and serving her equally nutty clientele ($23.95 224p ISBN 0-7862-3555-1); in Little Miracles and Other Tales of Murder, Edgar nominee Kristine Kathryn Rusch imagines what would happen if New York City detectives, with no new material, reopened old murder cases ($23.95 182p ISBN -3556-X); in Edward M. Hoch's The Night People and Other Stories, mysterious strangers, aging detectives, serial killers, young reporters and a film-festival murder keep things lively ($24.95 242p ISBN -3146-7); and in Max Allan Collins's Blue Christmas and Other Holiday Homicides, three novellas star 1940s Chicago PI Richard Stone, who struggles to survive the holidays ($24.95 172p ISBN -3551-9).