July Publications

Swedish maid and sometime South Bend, Ind., sleuth Hilda Johansson has a personal stake in solving her latest mystery: her brother Erik is having trouble getting used to their adopted country, and he may be hiding a deadly secret. Tackling Protestant/Catholic conflicts, rich/poor dynamics and a criminal act that's in the headlines today, a century later, with equal alacrity, the Agatha Award—winning author of the Dorothy Martin series, Jeanne M. Dams, offers up another one of her mysteries with a social conscience in Silence Is Golden. (Walker, $23.95 240p ISBN 0-8027-3373-5)

Talk about a cabernet with body: when the Rubenesque Josephine Fuller pays a friendly visit to porn-producing Napa Valley vintner Wolf Lambert, she discovers a murder victim in one of his wine barrels in Lynne Murray's A Ton of Trouble. Keeping her day job for philanthropist Alicia Madrone but accepting a bit of remuneration from Wolf for her troubles, Josephine embarks on a quest to find the killer and uncovers drugs, snipers, winery feuds, fetish films and an anti-abortion "baby mill" with typical good humor and panache. (St. Martin's Minotaur, $21.95 204p ISBN 0-312-30077-8)

When suspected arsonist and serial killer Bobby Alto commits suicide in his cell and it doesn't end the Twin Cities murders, Jane Lawless begins to wonder whether a "psycho [has] declared open season" on everyone involved in the case—or if the dreaded Midnight Man is still on the loose. Jane's father, who was Bobby's defense attorney, is in danger, and so is Jane herself, as it seems the Alto family contains more than one seriously disturbed member in Immaculate Midnight, Ellen Hart's 11th mystery starring the lesbian restaurateur and amateur detective. (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95 384p ISBN 0-312-26676-6)

In A Crossword to Die For, the pseudonymous Nero Blanc (The Crossword Connection) serves up six actual puzzles and one solid mystery featuring Belle Graham, crossword editor, and Rosco Polycrates, private investigator, as the newlyweds search for clues about Belle's father's odd (though ostensibly natural) death and his odder, more secret life. Surprising revelations and $10 words abound as another body turns up, a mysterious French woman causes problems and the couple begins to receive hints via puzzles faxed from Belize. (Berkley Prime Crime, $13 paper 304p ISBN 0-425-18479-X)

Sal Kilkenny has a lot on her plate: she's a "single mum" of two with a brand new beau, juggling parenting duties with two new cases for her private investigation practice—and to make matters more complicated, Christmas is just around the corner. On one end of Manchester, a family refuses to believe the coroner's report establishing their mother's cause of death as suicide, while on the other, a mother fears her son has a double life; only one case will lead to real danger, but both will deeply move Sal in Cath Staincliffe's (Looking for Trouble) Towers of Silence. (Allison & Busby [IPM, dist.], $25.95 256p ISBN 0-74900-537-8)

When Shane King, a Hollywood "baby mogul" and the son of one of Hollywood Star reporter Quinn Collins's former lovers, is found dead of a heroin overdose—after vowing never to touch the stuff—Quinn grudgingly agrees to play amateur detective. Nobody's talking, though, and when one of Shane's friends dies in a suspicious car crash, Quinn begins to suspect a larger plot, which might include the cover-up of a long-ago crime and the scions of prominent local families in Nancy Baker Jacobs's Star Struck: A Quinn Collins Mystery, the first installment in a new series. (Five Star, $25.95 237p ISBN 0-7862-4171-3)

Spunky PI Sydney Bryant returns to solve a 15-year-old murder case with the able help of retired cop and partner-in-crime-investigation Xavier Walker in August Nights: A Sydney Bryant Mystery, by the Shamus Award—nominated Patricia Wallace. In 1985, Xavier found a young bride dead on the side of the road, and everything about the case has continued to haunt him—so when the missing suspect turns out to have been killed that day, too, the duo decide to find out the truth, even as the killer comes closer and begins to threaten them as well. (Five Star, $25.95 274p 0-7862-4180-2)

Thomas Aquinas scholar and author of the Father Dowling mystery series, Ralph McInerny turns his attentions to the seedier side of life with As Good As Dead, in which a hit man hired by a dying woman finds his job complicated by two unwelcome understudies. Double-crossing, second-guessing and regrets abound as the novel jump-cuts between the conniving woman and the sparring criminals on its path to a bloody conclusion. (Five Star, $25.95 205p ISBN 0-7862-4179-9)