January Publications

In Susan Rogers Cooper's (Home Again, Home Again) winning Lying Wonders: A Sheriff Milt Kovak Mystery, the Prophesy County, Okla., sheriff, last seen in Doctors and Lawyers and Such (1995), is pushing 60 and the father of a two-year-old boy. When the body of a teenage girl turns up on the property of a local religious sect, the Seven Trumpets, Milt has to track down the dead girl's missing boyfriend before his niece becomes the next victim. Agent, Vicky Bijur. (St. Martin's Minotaur/Dunne, $22.95 224p ISBN 0-312-29056-X)

St. Louis police detective Jack Jones thinks he has a stalking case but it soon turns to murder in The Offer, by Robert J. Randisi (Alone with the Dead), an homage to the late Lawrence Sanders. A one-night stand with a married couple leads to a lot more than wild sex for museum curator Robin Lobianco. (Five Star, $25.95 225p ISBN 0-7862-4865-3)

In Bone Dry, a medical thriller not for the squeamish by Bette Golden Lamb and J.J. Lamb, an avaricious lab technician is holding cancer patients' bone marrow for ransom. Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini provide a blurb testifying to the authors' storytelling skills. (Five Star, $25.95 256p ISBN 0-7862-4912-9)

Do the World a Favour and Other Stories collects 14 crime tales by British author Mat Coward, including "History Repeats Itself, and It Doesn't Even Say Pardon," which was shortlisted for a CWA Dagger award. Ian Rankin provides an introduction. (Five Star, $25.95 208p ISBN 0-7862-4313-9)

In association with Black Mask Press, Crippen & Landru presents the first title in a new series, Tales from the Black Mask Morgue. Jo Gar's Casebook, by Raoul Whitfield and edited by Keith Alan Deutsch, collects 18 uncollected stories by this undeservedly forgotten hardboiled author. E.R. Hagemann explains in his two introductory essays why Whitfield (1897-1945) ranks near the top of the class in the Hammett-Chandler school. (Crippen & Landru [www.crippenlandru.com], $45 288p ISBN 1-885941-76-5; $20 paper -77-3)