The MacDougal Duff Mysteries
3 primary works • 4 total works
Book 1
Feeling unmoored since the death of her father, twenty-year-old Bessie Gibbon has left upstate New York to live with an aunt and uncle, Lina and Charles Cathcart, in their four-story Manhattan home. Bessie has heard tales about her eccentric uncle: that he was a millionaire theater magnate and the black sheep of the family, that his marriage to Lina was more of an arrangement than a matter of love, and most important, that he was an inveterate player of parlor games - but nothing prepares Bessie for the luxury in which he lives, the odd assortment of servants, or the cronies who can turn a late-night Parcheesi tournament into a blood sport. And that's precisely what happens when one of them is shot to death after a particularly cutthroat game. Now there are whispers that it was Uncle Charles who pulled the trigger, and no one is all that surprised. Detective MacDougal Duff wants to know why. When Duff's investigation yields more secrets about the family than Bessie is comfortable with, she starts to fear for her safety. Especially when another of her uncle's acquaintances is murdered - stabbed with a carving knife. If this is another one of her uncle's games, Bessie can't help but wonder who might be the next to lose. Lay On, Mac Duff! is the 1st book in the MacDougal Duff Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Book 2
Book 3
California businessman J. Middleton Little is on company assignment in Chicago when he's caught eavesdropping on a top-secret confab between high-level government officials. J. knows he isn't just hearing things; they actually referred to the coming Armageddon. To ensure his silence, J.'s been offered the chance of a lifetime: seven seats on an "ark" scheduled to carry the last vestiges of the human race from Earth before the apocalypse. In a matter of minutes, J. has gone from a self-described "middle-class, middle-income, middlebrow man-of-the-street" to one of the most privileged men in the universe. The only stipulation: He can't tell a single soul until the proper time. For now, it's back to life in Burbank with his dutiful, intuitive wife; an underhanded and scheming son; his impossibly spoiled daughter; his unhinged father; and a mother-in-law whose religious fanaticism is making J. think twice about his role as savior – especially when he finds himself shadowed by an insidious pack of secret agents, counterspies, and a lone madman on a terrifying mission. Soon enough, J.'s once-ordinary world will be ripped apart by threats, deceit, cover-ups, secrets, and shifting family loyalties. It will also leave J. wondering what he really does know, what he doesn't, what he's been led to believe, and above all, why. J. Middleton Little has a lot to learn before the end. This smart, inventive thriller by "the American queen of suspense novelists" is impossible to put down (New York Telegraph).