Murder Room
80 total works
It's Christmas, but there isn't much Christmas spirit in the Glendale Police Department. Delia Riordan's father has just died, Detective Jim Harvey's family have left for the holidays, there are power blackouts, and of course no let-up in murders, muggings, burglaries and a perplexing triple murder/suicide.
The department's mood improves with the addition of a dog and a family of kittens to the office. Some crimes even have comic outcomes, including the burglar who is given away by a trail of wool. So it turns out to be a happy Christmas after all - except for the victims.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Ronnie and Ruth, a young couple engaged to be married, are shot dead. Someone hated their guts so bad he reloaded and pumped nine shots into their car.
Maddox was stymied. Why should anyone kill two nice, respectable young people? Who was the funny man playing practical jokes all over the neighbourhood? And what was the band of American Nazis doing with an arsenal of deadly weapons?
Lieutenant Charles O'Connor of the Glendale police bureau is warned by the Feds that Conway, a crook whose brother was shot by O'Connor during a hold-up, has escaped from jail and is probably bent on vengeance.
This news could not have come at a worse time - the Glendale P.D. is currently investigating three separate violent deaths, giving O'Connor no time for special protection. He reckons that he can take care of himself and pursue romance at the same time, and all the while Conway plans his revenge . . .
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
As always, Jesse Falkenstein and Sergeant Clock have a score of cases on their hands, but Jesse is mainly interested in the murder of Margaret Brandon, a trance medium. He was her lawyer and liked her, and someone had gone to great efforts to make her death seem accidental.
But with so many suspects - the egocentric writer, the young lout, the nephew in line for an inheritance - both Falkenstein and Clock are at their wit's end until their old acquaintance Mr Walker sends his comments from Hawaii - which might be just what they need to get a lead . . .
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Jewel, a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl, has disappeared from her home in a squalid suburb of Los Angeles. A popular young salesman, Steven Wray, is found slumped over the wheel of his car, dead from an overdose. A respectable old lady left her sister's some weeks ago, but to the alarm of her daughter has still not arrived home. A petrol station is held up and its unresisting attendant needlessly shot dead.
This all leads us in the end to Steve Wray's very curious secret; to an atrocious discovery in a walled-up bathroom; and, at last, to Jewel herself . . .
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Vic Varallo is an ambitious police officer. He and his wife Laura fix up a room for a guest, Ross Duncan, who seems extremely likeable but a little odd. Ross reveals to Vic that he is flat broke, financially crippled by alimony to his ex-wife Helene. That is, until Helene is killed, and Ross charged with her murder.
But against appearances, Vic believes in Ross's innocence. So he sets to work through a tangled mass of evidence and discovers some very odd things about a certain Mr Reilly, an eccentric old mother - and the dead woman herself . . .
Jesse Falkenstein was just putting away his notes at the end of the day when he was visited by Mrs Lester, an acquaintance of his sister, who came to him claiming her husband, Glen, had been seen frequently dining with another woman.
Jesse was loath to get involved, even though Mrs Lester was his sister's friend. That was, until he received a phone call from her at police headquarters. 'They say homicide, my darling Glen!' Murder was something Jesse did know about, if it was murder . . .
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Beautiful Nell Varney was a newcomer to Contera - and to murder.
Suddenly she found herself in a strange courtroom faced with seven pairs of hate-ridden, accusing eyes. Seven witnesses had identified her as the murderer who had caused the death of two women by performing illegal abortions.
Why would anyone in this strange town believe Nell was innocent? Could anyone help her? One man, a dedicated lawyer named Jesse Falkenstein, was determined to try . . .
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Ivor Maddox and his men of the Hollywood police department face, as ever, a formidable load of tricky and puzzling cases.
An unknown woman walks into a lawyer's office and shoots him dead: who is she and what is her motive? A housewife in a reputable neighbourhood is found slaughtered. And, perhaps oddest of all, a woman uses her alleged psychic powers to reveal that a missing schoolgirl is being held captive in the Hollywood area.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
When Nonie Johnson kidnaps her daughter from the adoptive parents, Jesse Falkenstein is brought in. Something seemed wrong from the start - Nonie just wasn't the maternal type, and then she suddenly vanished from sight.
The search for Nonie Johnson yielded nothing but a series of wild goose chases. Fortunately, Jesse had two aces up his sleeve: a brother-in-law in the police, and a number of unorthodox psychic acquaintances who had their own way of seeking clues.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
The bodies of three young children, abandoned on a bleak hillside, are discovered by Lieutenant O'Connor's Afghan hound, and so begins another long and tough investigation for the Glendale Police Department.
Vic Varallo, O'Connor and team are also tasked with a serial rapist, the murder of a respectable accountant, and a baby kidnapped during an armed robbery gone wrong. With both their wives expecting a baby soon, it's a wonder Varallo and O'Connor have any time for murder.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Lawyer Jesse Falkenstein thought his secretary Miss Williams was a remarkably efficient typist, but he felt she had drawbacks as a legal secretary. She had an earnest face, unfashionable tight curls and she irritated him very much. Jesse wished he could fire her.
But she'd been his secretary for nine years, so even when, on a particularly busy day, she called to say that an urgent matter would keep her away from the office, Jesse didn't fire her. He also didn't realise how urgent the matter was until it was almost too late . . .
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
The Glendale Police Department are as busy as usual; crime, unlike the weather, is not seasonal. Detective Delia Riordan has moved into a new apartment with her parrot Harry after her father's death, but her colleagues feel it is time she found a new man.
She won't have much time for romance, though, with a killer on the run who shot an LAPD cop and is heading for Glendale, and a crazed AWOL soldier who has also arrived with the announced intention of killing a girlfriend who has now married someone else.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
'The best American police procedural of the year' Anthony Boucher
Sergeant Ivor Maddox and the Wilcox Street precinct do not have time to rest on their laurels. Currently there is a curious wave of shoplifting among teenagers, an elderly pensioner has been shot dead from the window of a passing car, a six-month-old baby has disappeared from his pram and a pregnant fifteen-year-old has died of an overdose of an unusual drug - a terrible accident or murder?
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Sergeant Ivor Maddox of the Wilcox Street precinct has more crime on his hands than even he is accustomed to: murders, con-men, a dismembered corpse, runaway teenagers and a multiple rapist.
To catch the rapist, whose victims are always attractive and respectable women, Maddox persuades his true love, policewoman Sue Carstairs, to bait the trap . . .
It was strictly a duty call and Pat Carroll wasn't looking forward to it one bit. But she was in Wales and her fiance's family lived nearby. He was dead now, killed in an accident, and Pat felt that since she was so close to his family's home she should pay her respects to the woman who would have been her mother-in-law. It would be a bore, but it was the least she could do. And, besides, it was only for a day or two. But the day or two dragged on and Pat found herself the helpless prisoner of a fanatic madwoman. Locked in a hideous room, she was trapped in an infinite eternity of a waking nightmare . . .
'A great suspense shocker in the icy horror tradition of Psycho' Boston Herald
'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
Lieutenant Luis Mendoza is laid low with measles and the Homicide Squad of Los Angeles Police Department has to manage without its Chief of Detectives.
There are several off-beat cases to occupy them, like the man tied to a railway and decapitated by a passing train. But, Mendoza does not take his convalescence lying down and he is soon unofficially investigating a case that his colleagues are already pursuing...
Lieutenant Luis Mendoza is faced with a crime close to home when his four-year-old twins are kidnapped. Not even Mendoza's crystal ball can help him while his colleagues explore every possible theory and lead.
Are the twins being held for ransom? Or is the kidnapping a form of revenge? Mendoza has never been more human as a husband and father and more severely taxed as a detective . . .
'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
With a brief note to her employer, Dorrie Mayo left her job - and another note taped to a neighbour's door claimed she was taking her baby to live with her in-laws on the other side of the U.S. A natural enough thing for a young widow with a fifteen-month-old daughter to do.
Only why didn't Dorrie tell any of her friends where she was going? And why were her notes typewritten when Dorrie didn't own a typewriter? For Maddox and his colleagues of the Wilcox Street precinct, this is a conundrum that will take all their skill and resources to solve.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Charles O'Connor of the Glendale police and Vic Varallo are having dinner with their wives when they are interrupted by a call informing them of murder. The victim is an old, nearly blind woman, killed in her daughter's flat.
This is the first of a spate of crimes including a serial dog thief, the hit-and-run killing of a young mother and her two children, a knife fight and a row of flower pots - growing marijuana. All in a day's work for the Glendale P. D.