Halloween Book Display: Fiction

With planning the town's annual Halloween Party, the drought wreaking havoc on her garden, and her brood of four children, Lucy Stone's got her hands full this fall. Then there's the dead body Lucy finds, way up on one of the old logging roads behind her house. The deceased is identified as Malcolm Malebranche, a seemingly harmless magician who worked at children's birthday parties. When it turns out that Diana knew the murder victim, Ike Stoughton, a prominent local businessman, starts a campaign against Diana, blaming "the witch" for everything from the unseasonal dry spell to his wife's illness and his pumpkins' lack of plumpness.

Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.

And the best performance as a skull goes to... After years of hiding in the Thackery family house, Sid the skeleton is delighted to finally have his moment in the spotlight. He's starring in a high school production of Hamlet. Well, not so much starring in as being a prop. At least part of him has a part--he's using his head to play Yorick of "Alas, poor Yorick" fame. Every day, Georgia Thackery's daughter, Madison, who's also in the play, brings in his skull, and every night, she takes him home. Until one night when he's accidentally left at school--and hears the sounds of someone being murdered. But the next day, there's no body and no one seems to be missing.

A bizarre killer nicknamed The Highwayman has turned London's blazing-hot summer into a ticking time bomb, but never fear, detectives John May and Arthur Bryant are on the case.

The intriguing new mystery featuring Tudor sleuth, Mistress Rosamond Jaffrey. When Lina Walkenden is found clutching a bloody knife over the dead body of her brother-in-law and guardian, there's only one person she can turn to for help: her childhood friend Rosamond Jaffrey. Rosamond vows to do all she can to prove Lina's innocence, but when it transpires Lina was being forced into a marriage against her will and was instead besotted by her fiance's charming yet unscrupulous nephew, her motives for murder seem overwhelming. In desperation, Rosamond seeks out the help of the Queen's spymaster himself, Sir Francis Walsingham - but when she overhears a conversation at the French Embassy, it seems Lina's plight is irrelevant in the face of potential treason. Rosamond must do all she can to save her friend - and keep herself and her family safe from a desperate killer.

"Katherine Hall Page is my favorite writer of the traditional mystery."  --Harlan Coben "Hungry readers, enjoy!" --Diana Mott Davidson Minister's wife, caterer, and amateur sleuth Faith Fairchild must solve a deadly mystery more than seventy years in the making in The Body in the Gazebo, the nineteenth ingenious whodunit in the delectable, Agatha Award-winning series by Katherine Hall Page. Faith has a lot on her plate as she attempts to solve a Depression Era murder while trying to clear her husband's name after he is accused of a heartless theft. Poignant, suspenseful, puzzling, and all-around marvelous, The Body in the Gazebo is cozy culinary mystery at its very best--complete with scrumptious recipes from Faith Fairchild's kitchen and a resolution that would make Dame Agatha Christie proud.

A decade ago, psychologist Frieda Klein was sucked into the orbit of Dean Reeve -- a killer able to impersonate almost anyone, a man who can disappear without a trace, a psychopath obsessed with Frieda herself. In the years since, Frieda has worked with -- and sometimes against -- the London police in solving their most baffling cases. But now she's in hiding, driven to isolation by Reeve. When a series of murders announces his return, Frieda must emerge from the shadows to confront her nemesis. And it's a showdown she might not survive. Criminology student Lola Hayes has tracked Frieda down with a single-minded pursuit: she wants to delve inside the mind of a woman besieged by darkness. But in following every move Frieda makes, Lola is exposing herself to the same terrors--and the same twisted fixation of a diabolical psychopath; This gripping cat-and-mouse thriller pits one of the most fascinating characters in contemporary fiction against an enemy like none other. Smart, sophisticated, and spellbinding, it's a novel to leave you breathless.

Charlotte Rowe spent the first seven years of her life in the hands of the only parents she knew--a pair of serial killers who murdered her mother and tried to shape Charlotte in their own twisted image. If only the nightmare had ended when she was rescued. Instead, her real father exploited her tabloid-ready story for fame and profit--until Charlotte finally broke free from her ghoulish past and fled. Just when she thinks she has buried her personal hell forever, Charlotte is swept into a frightening new ordeal. Secretly dosed with an experimental drug, she's endowed with a shocking new power--but pursued by a treacherous corporation desperate to control her. Except from now on, if anybody is going to control Charlotte, it's going to be Charlotte herself. She's determined to use the extraordinary ability she now possesses to fight the kind of evil that shattered her life--by drawing a serial killer out from the shadows to face the righteous fury of a victim turned avenger.

When the body of man is found in a canal, damaged by the tides, carrying no wallet, and wearing only one shoe, Brunetti has little to work with. No local has filed a missing-person report, and no hotel guests have disappeared. Where was the crime scene? And how can Brunetti identify the man when he can't show pictures of his face? The autopsy shows a way forward: it turns out the man was suffering from a rare, disfiguring disease. With Inspector Vianello, Brunetti canvasses shoe stores, and winds up on the mainland in Mestre, outside of his usual sphere. From a shopkeeper, they learn that the man had a kindly way with animals. At the same time, animal rights and meat consumption are quickly becoming preoccupying issues at the Venice Questura, and in Brunetti's home, where conversation at family meals offer a window into the joys and conflicts of Italian life. Perhaps with the help of Signorina Elettra, Brunetti and Vianello can identify the man and understand why someone wanted him dead. As subtle and engrossing as ever, Leon's Beastly Things is immensely enjoyable, intriguing, and ultimately moving.

Forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan assists in the excavation of 20-year-old mass grave of massacre victims in a Guatemalan village. Now as she pieces together the past, Tempe becomes entangled in the cases of four privileged young women who suddenly vanish from Guatemala City.

As an escalating scourge of grisly murders sweeps the globe, archaeologist Erin Granger must decipher the truth behind an immortal prophecy foretold in the Blood Gospel, a tome written by Christ and lost for centuries: The shackles of Lucifer have been loosened, and his Chalice remains lost. It will take the light of all three to forge the Chalice anew and banish him again to his eternal darkness. And now, in this epic conclusion to the Sanguines trilogy, Blood Infernal, they take us to the very pit of Hell itself, making us peer into the abyss and face our greatest fears, to answer the ultimate question: What price will we pay for true salvation?