Showing results by narrator "Tom Lennon" in All Categories

Small town controversies can be murder. When a newcomer to Erin, Ohio, proposes to tear down the historic Bijou Theater and erect in its place a boutique hotel, Sebastian McCabe adds “civic activist” to a long resume that already includes magician, mystery writer, professor, and amateur sleuth. With the strategic help of brother-in-law Jeff Cody, Mac launches a far-reaching campaign to “Save the Bijou.”

Here are stories and emails written from the fictional writer Robin Masters. Or is he fiction? Could he exist in another dimension? With nods and winks to stories and travel articles written for magazines, the author has included “Easter eggs” and more.

Children at Lakeview Elementary School were at work on their lessons when fifth-grader Emma Neibert noticed wisps of smoke, a discovery that led to a panicked stampede inside the school—the chaos of nine teachers trying to control and then save pupils in overcrowded classrooms. Outside, desperate parents and would-be rescuers fought to save as many children as possible, while Collinwood’s inadequate volunteer fire department—joined by members of the Cleveland fire department—fought a losing battle with the rapidly spreading blaze.

As Marshal Lofton would soon discover, not only was his new deputy deadly accurate, but he was also unbelievably fast, and with the ruthless Scorpion Hill Gang operating in Marshal Lofton's district, Oliver's skills would be tested time and again. Although the citizens of Texas revered him as a guardian angel, the members of the outlaw gang would come to fear him as the Grim Reaper. But, unlike most gunslingers, Oliver's reputation spread slowly, because by the time an outlaw learned his name, they were already dead.

This is the startling question that Jeff Cody and his wife, Lynda, hear during a wedding reception on the first night of the QueenCon mystery conference in Cincinnati. Not only are the whispered words unnerving, there is no one nearby to have spoken them.

On an unseasonably warm winter evening in Pennsylvania, 15-year-old Patty Desmond sneaked out through the basement of her house. She had a history of running away, and that, combined with an argument with her mother, gave police reason to suspect she’d come home in a week or two.

Ready to uncover the truth behind Hollywood's elite? Secrets of a Hollywood Private Eye is your ultimate source for the juiciest stories, scandals, and gossip from Tinsel Town.

Most of the successful private prospectors who’d struck it rich during the California and Nevada gold rushes during the mid- to late-1800s, had journeyed westward with a specific plan from which they never deviated. Upon achieving their pre-defined goals, they packed up and returned to their original homes in distant regions of the United States. There were also plenty of others, who’d been unable to pull the plug after striking it rich, believing their lucky streak to be a never-ending one.

Tabitha Willard was a beautiful, wealthy young woman with everything to live for, so why did she take her own life? What did powerful US Congressman Gordon “little Billy” Harper have to do with it? And then there’s Lester, “Shady” Tree, a crooked entrepreneur and a man with secrets. What about him? Harry Starke, an ex-cop turned private investigator, wants to know, and his search for the answers leads him deep into the shadows of the underworld, and the body count begins to rise. Can Starke find the answers he needs and stop the carnage?

The phone call came on a Tuesday evening in the middle of August. Harry Starke hadn’t heard from his old school friend in almost five years, and he hadn’t thought about him in almost as long. Tom Sattler wanted to meet, and it wouldn’t wait until morning. But when Harry arrived at Sattler’s home less than an hour later, he found him lying in a pool of blood with a single gunshot wound to his head and .22 revolver lying close to his hand. Was it suicide, or was Tom Sattler murdered? If so, by whom and why?

Nicknamed “the most beautiful woman in Alaska”, 31-year-old Diane Wells was bruised and bloodied when she screamed for help in the early hours of October 17, 1953. Her husband Cecil, a wealthy Fairbanks businessman, had been shot dead, and she claimed they were the victims of a brutal home invasion.

Commodore Richard Morian’s mission is to capture the Imperator, but it will take a planetary invasion on a grand scale to do so, a battle fought in space, in the air, and on the ground. And all this to a backdrop of political intrigue that threatens to bring the entire Sovereign system down.

The Investigating Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes Colloquium and donation of the third-largest private collection of Sherlockiana in the world were supposed to produce a weekend of great publicity for tiny St. Benignus College in Erin, Ohio. But when theft and murder come to campus, college Public Relations Director Jeff Cody finds himself knee-deep in Sherlockian suspects, besieged by an aggressive reporter he loves but no longer dates, and competing with his eccentric brother-in-law, Sebastian McCabe, to solve the crimes first.

When a well-known local socialite’s body is found during a round of golf with his father, Harry Starke suddenly finds himself embroiled in what quickly becomes a very thorny murder investigation. Who killed Angela Hartwell and why? The answers lie somewhere along a twisty-windy path through the patrons and morals of an exclusive golf club where the members are seldom what they seem, and their goals are infinitely more complicated than a simple round of golf. Harry Starke’s investigation takes him into a world he’s very familiar with. A world of affluence, privilege, and corruption.

Harry Starke loves a cold case, but this one is really cold, more than a hundred years cold. Family Matters is a tale that takes place on the lonely coast of Maine, where Amanda, a true believer in the paranormal, has inherited—you guessed it—a haunted house. At least that’s what the rumors say. It all begins when Amanda inherits the house, substantial assets, and a large sum of money from her grandmother. The windfall comes with a request to look into the disappearance of Elizabeth, Amanda’s great-great-grandmother, more than a hundred years ago.

Emily Johnston is GONE. She’s been GONE for more than a week. She’s also the daughter of Harry Starke’s one-time boss and nemesis, Chattanooga Police Chief Wesley Johnston. Harry and Chief Johnston haven’t seen eye-to-eye in a long time, but when Johnston needs help, he knows there’s only one man he can turn to. But Johnston’s jurisdiction ends at the city limits, and when Emily’s body is discovered in a remote part of the county, Harry has to deal with the imperious sheriff Israel Hands and two incompetent county detectives.

When a potential client turns up dead in his Peabody Hotel room, Carson finds himself in the middle of a six-month-old armored truck robbery. Seemingly unconnected, his longtime friend Sheriff Leroy Epsee has been suspended from duty and is under investigation for the murder of a political opponent.

After two years serving as a US marshal, policing the country’s newest and largest district, Oliver Blackstone’s reputation as a lawman was stellar, and those who’d originally doubted his ability to get the job done were now squarely in his corner.

When the police refuse to investigate the disappearance of Mallory Carver’s niece, Julie, her family turns to private investigator Tucker Randall and thus set off a dangerous chain of events. Julie disappeared while hiking in the beautiful yet treacherous Cherokee National Forest, and Randall, a former FBI agent with a haunted past, can’t understand why the police won’t get involved. But as he delves deeper into the forest’s secrets, he realizes that someone is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the truth buried, and he’s determined to solve the case and bring the missing girl home.

The body of a young woman is found in a spooky old farmhouse on the outskirts of Duluth. She came back to town to claim her inheritance, but that took a wrong turn. Who killed her? And whose body is buried in the barn? Police Consultant Milo Rathkey keeps saying it’s not what you see, it’s what you don’t see.