by Donna Leon (1999)
The Venice commissioner, Guido Brunetti, investigates the murder of a museum director who was involved in the traffic of Chinese antiques. Suspicion falls on a wealthy collector.
Ilsa Mayr
Singer Merrilee Ingram returns to her roots in the Appalachian town of Browne's Station, Kentucky, determined to recover memories of the fire that killed her mother when Merrilee was four. But Merrilee's not welcome in town, and evidence of that escalates from a warning note to a copperhead on her front porch. Despite that, Merrilee presses on, uncovering long-buried secrets and making her past more dangerous in the present than ever before.
Archer Mayor
Hiding the rookie inexperience that rendered a homicide case from the beginning of his career unsolvable, Joe Gunther discovers the case's murder weapon and begins tracking a killer who possesses a nature more brutal than anticipated.
Tricia Fields
"At the end of State Road 170 and just past a ghost town lies Artemis, population 2,500. The townspeople had sought out this remote corner of Western Texas in hopes of living lives of solitude and independence. None of them realized that their small town would become a hot spot for Mexican drug runners, whose turf battles have turned both sides of the Rio Grande into a war zone. Still, many of the locals would rather take the law into their own hands than get help from police chief Josie Gray, even when they're up against a cartel's private army. After arresting one of the cartel's hit men and killing another, Josie finds her life at risk for doing a job that many people would rather see her quit. And when the town's self-appointed protector of the Second Amendment is murdered and his cache of weapons disappears, it's clear that she doesn't have to pick sides in this war. She's battling them both."--from cover, p. [2]
Garry Disher
Inspector Hal Challis is called in to investigate when social psychologist Janine McQuarrie is killed, and his investigation takes a surprising turn when Hal learns the victim's husband had been pressuring her to attend spouse-swapping parties, leading Hal to suspect the husband may know more about the murder than he is letting on.