Blackstone and the balloon of death

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Barry Maitland

When one of three elderly sisters, great-granddaughters of Karl Marx, is found dead in her Jerusalem Lane house, Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla and Detective Chief Inspector Brock investigate. An atmospheric police procedural-the first in the acclaimed Brock and Kolla mysteries.Jerusalem Lane is a little piece of Dickensian London untouched by development, its inhabitants mainly refugees from pre-war central Europe. But could elderly Meredith Winterbottom really have been killed for the politics of another age?As Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla and Detective Chief Inspector Brock delve into the lane's eccentric melting pot, past and present interlink in unexpected ways. What connects Mrs. Rosenfeldt and Adam Kowalski to a smooth property developer and an American academic? And what is Meredith's son Terry up to? Not to mention the dottily Marxist sisters... Is this a recipe for murder?

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Martha Grimes

Superintendent Richard Tury of Scotland Yard spends his Christmas holiday at a colorful country inn near a vast estate inhabited by the titled, the rich, the famous, and--suddenly--the deceased.

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Josephine Tey

The young man with the tumbled black hair and the reckless eyebrows was dead in compartment B Seven on the night train from London. The only message he had left behind was a verse—a strange unfinished poem that haunted Inspector Grant—that spoke of talking beasts and singing sands guarding the way to Paradise. Even on sick leave in Scotland, Grant couldn't let the puzzle alone or relax and enjoy the heather until he had uncovered all the sinister details in one of the cleverest murders in criminal history!

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Catherine Aird

Detective Chief Inspector C.D. Sloan #22 Josephine Short was a woman with a secret or two, some that she tried to carry to her grave. When her great-nephew's wife, Janet Wakefield, gets a call from the Berebury Nursing Home, she's somewhat taken aback. Not only is she surprised to hear that her husband's estranged great-aunt has passed away, but she's stunned to learn that this great-aunt, Josephine Short, had been living nearby for years without a word. But the surprises don't stop there. Sure that her husband Bill was the last of Josepine's close family, Janet is once again stunned when a handsome young man approaches her at the funeral and introduces himself as Josephine's grandson. She is particularly stunned since there has been no word in the family of a son, much less a grandson. Meanwhile, Detective Chief Inspector Sloan and his less-than-helpful sidekick Detective Constable Crosby find themselves assigned two rather puzzling cases. First, there’s the young woman’s body which has been discovered in the River Alm. And then there’s the mysterious break-in at the Berebury Nursing Home. To be precise, it’s Josephine Short’s room at the nursing home that’s been entered, although nothing seems to be missing. What could the intruder have been after? It becomes apparent to Sloan and Crosby that the two cases are connected—but who can the killer be?