The Hanged Man: A Joshua Croft Mystery (Joshua Croft Mysteries)
by Walter Satterthwait
from University of New Mexico Press
At a meeting of thirteen of Santa Fe's leading New Age healers, Quentin Bouvier, a magician and possibly a reincarnated Egyptian pharaoh, has been hanged from the rafters. He outbid Leonard Quarry for astrologer Eliza Remington's antique tarot card and now he's dead and the tarot card is missing. The police quickly arrest Giacamo Bernardi, a tarot reader, and charge him with the murder and theft. Bernardi's court-appointed attorney hires private investigator Joshua Croft to prove Bernardi's innocence. Suspects from the meeting and the community abound, including astrologers and psychics, a young hermit immersed in "Spiritual Alchemy," an aging movie star who acts as a medium for an entity from Alpha Centauri, a Native American shaman who gets accountants in touch with their warrior within, and a mysterious Asian woman whose equally mysterious brother displays a near-lethal familiarity with martial arts.
"Satterthwait thrills our eyes with the wonders of the Southwest."--The New York Times Book Review
"Satterthwait offers local color, detail, and intriguing action along with an appealingly sensitive, slightly cynical series hero."--Publishers Weekly
A Flower in the Desert: A Joshua Croft Mystery
by Walter Satterthwait
from University of New Mexico Press
When television star Roy Alonzo is accused by his ex-wife of sexually abusing their young daughter, Roy hires Santa Fe private investigator Joshua Croft to find mother and daughter, clear his name, and save his career. The trail leads from Beverly Hills to a commune in northern New Mexico, with mysteries proliferating as the journey goes on.
“Probes a currently trendy subject with sensitivity; vivid characters; suspenseful plotting; and some surprises reserved for the windup—in another satisfying Joshua Croft adventure.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Takes Satterthwait instantly and deservedly into the major league. . . . Chandler and Macdonald used to spray California in the same sort of irony, but Satterthwait does it with a style and conviction that’s all his own.”—Literary Review
“A fine addition to one of the best new series in years. . . Satterthwait turns a cliché-ridden old plot into fresh and frequently compelling material.”—Robin Winks, Boston Globe
Flower In The Desert (Joshua Croft Mystery)
Miss Lizzie: A Psychoanalytic Study
by Walter Satterthwait
from AuthorHouse
When her neighbor is brutally hacked to death, the infamous Lizzie Borden becomes the prime suspect. In her search for the real killer, she uncovers not only the secrets that lie beneath the sleepy surface of a small seaside town, but finally the truth of what happened thirty years before, when her own parents were viciously murdered.
The Sunken Sailor (A Serial Novel)
from Berkley Hardcover
During a weekend house party in a proper English village, a body is discovered at the bottom of a pond tied to a submerged statue of Neptune.
And the weekend has only just begun.
So has this ingenious mystery-a literary game of round robin in which fourteen master crime writers have each contributed a chapter of their own. What they deliver is a wildly entertaining whodunit with as many dizzying twists, turnabouts, double-crosses, and divergent styles as there are solutions and suspects.
Featuring the bestselling and multiple award-winning talents of:
Simon Brett
Jan Burke
Dorothy Cannell
Maragaret Coel
Deborah Crombie
Eileen Dreyer
Carolyn Hart
Edward Marston
Francine Mathews
Sharan Newman
Alexandra Ripley
Walter Satterthwait
Sarah Smith
Carolyn Whe
Perfection
by Walter Satterthwait
from St. Martin's Minotaur
Now Satterthwait turns his hand to this terrific thriller, Perfection, with a pair of true-to-life police detectives for us to root for. In a small Florida city, a most baffling killer insists that his victims meet very specific criteria. Satterthwait teases the reader---and police detectives Sophia Tregaskis and Jim Fallon too; he shows us the killer in his own home, reliving the satisfaction of his latest murder. We watch him scouting his neighboring supermarket for the next person who will require “perfection.”
Cavalcade (Pinkerton Det. Phil Beaumont &)
by Walter Satterthwait
from St. Martin's Minotaur
Their first surprise is a pleasant one---the Nazi big shot assigned to be their guide, Ernst (Putzi) Hanfstaengl, is a huge, jovial man who amazes his guests immediately; his English is almost without any accent! Hanfstaengl has learned American ways during his student days at Harvard. He is a talented pianist and as friendly as a puppy. Jane and Phil have no reason to think his fellow Nazis are not just as personable. This isn't going to be so bad.
Everything starts to go downhill after that, however, although a handsome Nazi almost turns Jane's head with his attentions. Their job becomes a questionable one as the agents see more and more of the new party's dreadful face. A woman who gives them some information is found murdered. There are other deaths, all clearly connected to the Nazi Party. By the time Jane and Phil meet Hitler, they are not only horrified and puzzled about why the Pinkerton agency accepted the job, they are very aware that they are in danger themselves.
Walter Satterthwait has uncannily taken his readers to the Germany of 1923, introducing them to characters from the actual front pages of the period's newspapers---Hanfstaengl, Rudolf Hess, and many others. As in the previous two books of this series, the crimes that Turner and Beaumont encounter are committed against a genuinely historical background. It all adds up to a suspenseful story of two likable people at risk in the treacherous atmosphere of Germany's postwar nightmare.
Escapade
by Walter Satterthwait
from St. Martin's Press
Accustomed to the Dark: A Joshua Croft Mystery (Joshua Croft Mysteries)
by Walter Satterthwait
from University of New Mexico Press
Santa Fe private detectives Joshua Croft and Rita Mondragon have recently become much more than friends and business partners. When Rita is shot and wounded, perhaps mortally, by the same vicious psychopath who tried to kill her once before, Joshua sets out to find the man. His pursuit takes him from the mountains of New Mexico to a posh Denver suburb, from the bleak plains of Kansas to the sweltering depths of the Florida Everglades. Along the way, he meets a sleazy former prison inmate, an eighty-year-old computer expert, a brutal drug dealer, a somber homicide cop, and a hardened mercenary with a very peculiar hobby.
As Joshua races across the length of the United States toward a final confrontation with a savage killer, he also travels back through his own past, to the beginning of his relationship with the woman who now lies near death.
Often lyrical, frequently funny, always intelligent, Accustomed to the Dark is an unforgettable addition to what Robin Winks of The Boston Globe has described as “one of the best new series in years.”
The gold of Mayani: The African stories of Walter Satterthwait
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