Sorted on book title (not in series order)
The novel starts in the 1960s when 17 people die of cyanide poisoning at a party given by the owners of a prominent clinic in a town on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer's, and the physician's...Read more
When Erika, an attractive local heiress, falls to her death near her lakeside villa, the police conclude it was a tragic accident. Scholten, a longtime employee of Erika’s, isn’t so sure. He knows a thing or two about the state of her marriage and suspects an almost perfect crime. Scholten’...Read more
The morning after a group psychotherapy session in a Warsaw monastery, Henry Talek is found dead, a roasting spit stuck in one eye.
Public prosecutor Teodor Szacki, world-weary, suffering from bureaucratic exhaustion and marital ennui, feels that life has passed him by. But this...Read more
When two women are “accidentally” killed by gas leaks, Sergeant Studer investigates the thinly disguised double murder in Bern and Basel. The trail leads to a geologist dead from a tropical fever in a Moroccan Foreign Legion post and a murky oil deal involving rapacious politicians and...Read more
Antoine, a fanatic billiards player, is asked to watch over a Paris art gallery. When he scuffles with a thief a statue falls and severs his right hand. His maverick investigation leads to the discovery of a series of gruesome killings. Soon Antoine finds himself the prime suspect in the...Read more
The naked bodies of a male dancer and a young girl are found entwined backstage in the Moulin Rouge. A junkie is killed, his throat chewed open, the teeth marks human. Seemingly unconnected, these deaths form a sinister pattern involving crack dealers and shady property deals. Inspector...Read more
The brutally mutilated body of Miguel Forcade is discovered washed up on a Havana beach. Head smashed in by a baseball bat, genitals cut off by a dull knife. Forcade was once responsible for the confiscation of art works from the bourgeoisie fleeing the revolution. Had he really returned...Read more
Lieutenant Mario Conde is suffering from a terrible New Year’s Eve hangover. Though it’s the middle of a weekend, he is asked to urgently investigate the mysterious disappearance of Rafael Morin, a high-level business manager in the Cuban nomenklatura. Conde remembered Morin from their...Read more
Some favors simply cannot be refused. Tonio agrees to write a love letter for Dario, a low-rent Paris gigolo. When Dario is murdered, a single bullet to the head, Tonio finds he has been left a small vineyard near Naples. The wine is undrinkable, but an elaborate scam has been set up. The...Read more
A child-murderer escapes from a Swiss insane asylum. The stakes get higher when Detective Sergeant Studer discovers the director’s body, neck broken, in the boiler room of the madhouse. The intuitive Studer is drawn into the workings of an institution that darkly mirrors the world outside....Read more
The first in the Guido Guerrieri series.
A nine-year-old boy is found murdered at the bottom of a well near a popular beach resort in southern Italy. In what looks like a hopeless case for Guido Guerrieri, counsel for the defense, a Senegalese peddler is accused of the crime....Read more
“Know why she’s smiling?” he asked, pointing a small torch at the corpse. “Fish hooks. Two fish hooks at the corners of her mouth, a bit of nylon, pull it round the back of the head and tie a knot. Pretty straightforward, right?” Amaldi noticed the metallic glint at the corners of the taut...Read more
Leila is young, beautiful and a hustler. She robs hapless men picked up in the night clubs of Bologna. Easy money, until she ends up with a document at the center of a plot of political blackmail. In an atmosphere of intense paranoia two secret service operatives, a goon hired by the...Read more
A triumph by Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1992), the master of Japanese mystery writing. A beautifully written novel that takes on the taboo of Japanese prostitution catering to GIs during the American post-war occupation.
Tokyo 1958, Teiko marries Kenichi Uehara, ten...Read more
Albert Savelkoul, the public prosecutor of Antwerp, has power, money, an aristocratic wife, and a high-maintenance mistress. A wonderful life—until Opus Dei takes a less than benevolent interest in it. In the course of this subversive psychological thriller, the shameless, slippery Albert...Read more
While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasn't totally unexpected. But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly-spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed....Read more
Lawyer Guerrieri is asked to handle the appeal of Fabio Paolicelli, sentenced to sixteen years for smuggling drugs into Italy. Everything seems stacked against the accused, not least because he initially confessed to the crime. His past as a neo-fascist thug also adds credence to the case...Read more
Cora Bender killed a man. But why? What could have caused this quiet, lovable young mother to stab a stranger in the throat, again and again, until she was pulled off his body? For the local police it was an open-and-shut case. Cora confessed; there was no shortage of proof or witnesses....Read more
Over a drink in Paris, two men give each other three years to see which one can more radically alter his life. Blin becomes a private detective. He takes on a new identity, even a surgically altered face. Gredzinski, a self-effacing corporate executive, discovers liquor that evening and...Read more
It’s not easy being a cop in Mexico City. Meet Carlito, a police detective with a complicated life. A wife, a mistress, children by both. He resorts to money laundering and arms dealing to finance his police activity. The money for justice must be found somewhere. The corpse in the hotel...Read more
When Martina accuses her ex-boyfriend—the son of a powerful local judge—of assault and battery, no witnesses can be persuaded to testify on her behalf, and one lawyer after another refuses to represent her. Guido Guerrieri knows the case could bring his legal career to a messy end, but he...Read more