Murder Abroad
All Bombay is buzzing with news of the murder of Anil Ajmani. It is certainly a baffling case, for the millionaire was found stabbed to death in his heavily guarded and tightly secured mansion. Every inspector in the Crime Branch hopes to be the one to nail the killer and that includes Inspector Ganesh Ghote. Unfortunately, he is not assigned to the case. Instead, he has been given the less glorious task of tracking down a cat burglar, nicknamed Yeshwant, who has been scaling apartment buildings in the dead of night to steal valuable pieces of jewelry. Aided-or perhaps hampered-by his old friend Axel Svensson, seeking Indian warmth from his troubles in winter-cold Sweden, Ghote fights to uncover Yeshwant's true identity. And in so doing, unexpectedly finds that he may be the one to solve the murder of Anil Ajmani after all.
"...Michael Dibdin, who, in Dead Lagoon, gives us a deliciously creepy new novel featuring the urbane and skeptical Aurelio Zen, a detective whose unenviable task it is to combat crime in a country where today's superiors may be tomorrow's defendants.
"Zen returns to his native Venice. He is searching for the ghostly tormentors of a half-demented contessa and a vanished American millionaire whose family is paying Zen under the table to determine his whereabouts--dead or alive. But he keeps stumbling over corpses that are distressingly concrete: from the crooked cop found drowned in one of the city's noisome 'black wells' to a brand-new skeleton that surfaces on the Isle of the Dead. The result is a mystery rich in character and deduction, and intensely informed about the history, politics, and manners of its Venetian setting."
"Art historian Vicky Bliss may be blond and beautiful, but looks can be deceiving. She also has the brain of an Einstein, the reckless courage of a test pilot--and no one's more savvy about fine works of art. For example: the gold pendant her boss at Munich's National Museum is currently dangling in front of her. It's an exquisite replica of a Charlemagne talisman--and it was found, along with a note written in hieroglyphs, sewn into the suit pocket of an unidentified man lying dead in an alley.
"There's a murderous puzzle to unravel-and Vicky will start by hunting down the master craftsperson who created the magnificent piece, even if the search carries her to the ends of the Earth. Instead, it's pointing her toward Rome, the most romantic city in the world. But it's also pulling her into a treacherous game of intrigue where the stakes could not be higher: Vicky's life!"
"The Chinese Bell Murders introduces the great Judge Dee, a magistrate of the city of Poo-yang in ancient China. In the spirit of ancient Chinese detective novels, Judge Dee is challenged by three cases. First, he must solve the mysterious murder of Pure Jade, a young girl living on Half Moon Street. All the evidence points to the guilt of her lover, but Judge Dee has his doubts. Dee also solves the mystery of a deserted temple and that of a group of monks' terrific success with a cure for barren women."
In assembling and editing this collection of essays, it was Mozart specialist Neal Zaslaw's wish to share with a broad audience some of the enjoyment and sense of discovery he has experienced in studying, teaching, writing about, and performing Mozart's music. In particular, this book will have served a worthy purpose if it encourages the reader to explore some of the riches to be discovered when one ventures off the straight and narrow path represented by the fewer than one hundred Mozart works found in the regular concert and opera repertory today.
Rei Shimura, a twentysomething part-California girl, part-Japanese antiques dealer, can't quite find her place in Tokyo society. Lately Rei's love life has fallen off the radar screen, and despite all her efforts, her new business isn't doing much better.
At her aunt's insistence, Rei enrolls in a course in ikebana, the famous Japanese art of flower arranging. Little does she realize what a cutthroat class it will be; she's hardly completed a lesson before her instructor is murdered. Rei is ready to track down the killer, but suddenly the case hits close to home. She and her aunt are battered by waves of police questioning, press attention, and mysterious warnings. Skeletons are rattling in her family's closet, and Rei must open the door to a dangerous secret.
Rei's in for the excitement she's been missing as her search for the truth takes her through twisting new corridors of intrigue, romance, and murder. It's up to Rei, the black sheep, to keep her family name clear-and her own life safe-from an enemy with an unknown agenda.
This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith's widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to help people with problems in their lives. Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors.
