Four Poisoned Pen Cover Reveals!

Coming in March, April, and May, from Poisoned Pen Press!

Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years: Japan
by Vasudev Murthy

It’s 1893. King Kamehameha III of Hawaii declares Sovereignty Restoration Day ... Tension grows between China and Japan over Korea ... The Bengal Famine worsens ... A brilliant scientist in Calcutta challenges the system … The senior priest at Kyoto’s Kinkaku-ji temple is found dead in mysterious circumstances.

Dr John H. Watson receives a strange letter from Yokohama. Then the quiet, distinguished Mr. Hashimoto is murdered inside a closed room on a voyage from Liverpool to Bombay. In the opium dens of Shanghai and in the back alleys of Tokyo, sinister men hatch evil plots. Professor Moriarty stalks the world, drawing up a map for worldwide dominion.

Only one man can outwit the diabolical Professor Moriarty. Only one man can save the world. Has Sherlock Holmes survived the Reichenbach Falls?

In a seriocomic novel that radically ups the ante, Sherlock Holmes and Watson find their match in more than one man (or indeed, woman) as a clock inexorably ticks. History, mystery, romance, conspiracies, knife-edge tension; a train in Russia, roadside crime in Alexandria, an upset stomach in Bombay, careening through Cambodia, nasty people in China, monks in Japan–here’s a thrilling global chase that will leave you breathless (occasionally with laughter) as the Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years series begins.

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About the Author

Vasudev Murthy was born in Delhi and has meandered around the world with lengthy stopovers in Tallahassee and Dallas. His books span a variety of interests, from Indian classical music to crime fiction, humor, and business management. A violinist and animal rights activist, Vasudev lives with his family and five snoring dogs in Bangalore, India where he runs a consulting firm.

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False Tongues
by Kate Charles

The Reverend Callie Anson should have learned her lesson by now: revisiting the past is seldom a good idea. But she succumbs to peer pressure and attends a reunion at her theological college in Cambridge, where she is forced to confront painful memories – and the presence of her clueless ex, Adam.

Margaret Phillips, the Principal of the college, has a chance for happiness but before she can grasp it she has to deal with her own ghosts – as well as corrosive, intrusive gossip. Both Margaret and Callie learn something about themselves, and about forgiveness, from wise retired priest John Kingsley.

Meanwhile, in London, police officers Neville Stewart and Mark Lombardi are involved with the latest stabbing of a teenager. Was the victim – gifted, popular schoolboy Sebastian Frost – all he seemed to be, or was there something in his life that led inevitably to his death? The police find themselves plunged into the queasy world of cyber-bullying, where nothing may be as it seems.

While they're apart, Callie and Mark's relationship is on hold, and his Italian family continues to be an issue. Will Mark realize, before it's too late, that while his family will always be important to him, he is entitled to something for himself?

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About the Author

Kate Charles, a past Chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Barbara Pym Society, is a Midwest native who has lived in England for more than twenty years. Her involvement in the Church of England has provided both backdrop and inspiration for her novels. 

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Collar Robber

by Hillary Bell Locke

How can you make money from a painting that you don't own, can't steal, and couldn't fence even if you succeeded? What if you convince people you already had stolen it? 

An assortment of shady and brutal players in Collar Robber think that—leaving a corpse or two along the way—they can use that bright idea to gouge fifty-million dollars from Jay Davidovich's employer, Transoxana Insurance Company.  Davidovich, first met in 2012's Jail Coach, is a Loss Prevention Specialist. Fifty million would be a good loss to prevent.

Cynthia Jakubek from But Remember Their Names has jumped from the gilded drudgery of lawyering with a big Wall Street firm to the terrifying adventure of starting her own solo practice in Pittsburgh. One of her clients wants to help Davidovich—for a hefty price—and stay alive in the process.  Another wants to get married in the Catholic Church to a fiancée who was briefly wed years before to someone who now has an interest in the painting. An annulment is needed.

As Davidovich and Jakubek face brawls on street corners and in court rooms, confrontations in brothels, confessionals, and Yankee Stadium luxury suites, and Tasers, machine guns, and religious vestments used as weapons, they have to remember that “take no prisoners” isn’t always a metaphor…

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About the Author

Hillary Bell Locke graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, worked for a prominent New York law firm, and now practices law in a city far from New York, but not under that name.

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Beyond Suspicion

by Catherine A. Winn

Shelby is an average girl with the normal desires of a fifteen year old and possessed of a generosity of spirit that used to be called sweet. Shelby’s average life is rocked when her divorced Mom remarries Roger, another average man, but one who knows nothing about parenting, and treats Shelby as if she were a girl half her age living in the previous century.

Dashed expectations, some gut-wrenchingly bad parenting, a major blow-up, and the kidnapping of Shelby’s little brother Josh while under her care rock the family to breaking point.  Shelby tells the police she’s seen a white van cruising the neighborhood lately, and she thinks she saw it just before Josh disappeared as well. But to her horror, the police are not interested: Pointing to angry texts to her girlfriends about getting back at Roger for his refusal to let her attend a party, they accuse her of murdering Josh. The police focus on the woods around the park, driving Shelby wild with fear and anger that the kidnappers will get away. With TV reporters all over the front yard, Shelby sneaks out the back to find her brother, any way she can.

So begins Shelby’s race against time—and against a world that has turned on her, particularly via social media, where kids she thought were her friends call her a freak and a murderer. But Shelby finds deeper friends along the way. There’s mysterious Matt, who helps her search. And there’s Jess, who watches out for Shelby as she tracks down the kidnappers down even as they pull up stakes to leave town.

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About the Author

Catherine A. Winn, a former art and elementary school teacher, lives and writes in Texas. An avid reader of all types of mysteries from cozies to thrillers, she’s found writing them to be equally thrilling. She is currently working on her next Whispering Springs mystery.