Bøger udgivet af Level Best Books

It was a truth universally acknowledged: Marcia Deaver's untimely death elicited very little grief from her colleagues at Valerian Hills High School. Some staff members speculate the cause of death was a heart attack, or perhaps a suicide, but Liz Hopewell knows no self-respecting English teacher would kill herself without leaving behind a perfectly penned suicide note, complete with detailed footnotes and obscure literary references.After the police begin investigating the death as a murder, Liz finds Marcia's mysteriously coded lesson plans. Convinced they hold the key to the killer's identity, risk-averse Liz finds herself obsessed with the crime. Against the wishes of her husband and the handsome detective assigned to the case, she embarks upon a quest that takes her down a sordid trail of infidelity, blackmail, and Shakespeare conspiracy theories.When additional staff members are also poisoned, Liz realizes her clandestine pursuit has spooked the killer, and she is likely next on the list. Can Liz expose the murderer before she becomes the next victim?

On her nostalgic return to Tuscany, the now-widowed Leah Contarini discovers that the idyllic village where she had lived with her husband has become a quagmire of secrets. Leah is bewildered. Why is a woman screaming at a corpse? Who is the man being beaten with a bucket in the middle of the piazza? Why is another man running through the woods slobbering? Who is the new stranger in town that won't go away? Confused by this turmoil and unsuspecting, Leah walks straight into the grasp of a murderer.

In this fast-paced international suspense thriller, Nick Donahue, an American Gambler living in London, is in Venice playing Blackjack when he meets a beautiful woman in desperate need of help. Nick obliges and is soon embroiled in a whirlwind of mystery and intrigue.He is kidnapped by jewel thieves, then released and dumped in the woods outside Prague. Calling on his brother Alex, a banker at Zurich's SuisseBank, for assistance, Nick soon finds himself juggling Alex's problem: the murder of his boss and a worldwide money laundering scheme the bank has been running. When Nick blows the whistle on SuisseBank, its main client, the New York mob is none too happy with his interference and their loss of revenue. They demand revenge and restitution, which only Nick, with all of his gambling tricks, can provide.

Having discovered a knack for investigation, Stefanie joins Thomas Burkhardt in Milan, Italy, on the Black Market trail of a fabulous sapphire and emerald encrusted pendant known as the Borgia Peacock, missing since it was stolen from the Milan World Expo of 1906. Undercover as a wealthy heiress, Stefanie has no doubt she'll convince the current owner, Contessa Giuliana Bergamo, to sell to her. But when she shows up at the Contessa's crumbling Venetian palazzo to clinch the deal, it isn't only the glittering gemstones that have Stefanie seeing blue. Others are there vying for the Peacock, including Europe's most notorious jewel fence. In the cut-throat competition, one of the would-be buyers is murdered.Caught up in murder, with their cover identities and their lives on the line, Stefanie and Thomas dig for the truth and the Peacock while trying to avoid discovery themselves. Then she learns Thomas is keeping secrets of his own, secrets that threaten their happiness, and Stefanie wonders if this Borgia Peacock affair is one opportunity she shouldn't have embraced.

After a decade dominating the expat scene in Rome, Faye Masters has had enough beautiful art, delicious food, and bureaucratic nonsense to last a lifetime. She's just about decided to pack up and head home when a rival drops dead at one of Faye's famous cocktail parties. Rumors fly that Faye was the intended target, but the police think Faye might just be an attention-seeking poisoner. Faye refuses to let the cloud of suspicion stop her from completing a self-imposed 25-picture Caravaggio Challenge. Or keep her from assisting friends Maggie White and Thomas Evans on their painting tours of Rome. But when the leads fizzle out and a series of accidents hit close to home, Faye accepts her own life is on the line. She must search for a killer while keeping up appearances at some of Rome's most iconic sights.

It's 1998. Wildfires are sweeping through North Florida, burning even the peat in the drought-stricken swamps. Sheriff Jim Sheppard has his deputies covering the county, watching for fires, and trying to limit the threats to residents. When a Pentecostal preacher disappears during the night from his home, Jim takes the case himself to prevent stretching his department any further.Dr. Ryan Edwards, formerly a well-respected physician in the George Washington University Hospital's emergency room, has been hired by the only doctor in Eden County. Suffering from aphasia from an attack in a parking garage in Washington, D.C., he's no longer able to be an ER physician, but he is able to provide medical care in a rural practice, where his skills are valuable, and his halting speech is not an issue. Jim and Ryan continue to work as the fires burn closer, but dangers neither expected threaten them both.

When murder trends too close to home, social media influencer Coco Cline will have to swipe through a sea of trolls to tag a killer. ¿ After cracking her first case, Cordelia "Coco" Cline's life is finally getting back to normal-or as normal as life can be when you have over three million followers online. With a thriving business, a devoted boyfriend, and her two besties living right up the street, Coco is set to have the most fun summer of her life until Larry and Rosalynn Dunmer move into the condo next door. ¿ Coco and her friends do their best to avoid the confrontational duo, but when a party at a swanky new wine bar brings everyone together, things become less than neighborly faster than a celebrity-themed hashtag goes viral. Larry levels some super shady threats toward Coco and her BFF Jasper, which could have dire consequences for their multimedia empires. Just as Coco begins to wonder if she'll have to spend the rest of the summer looking over her shoulder, she gets a shocking request from police. As part of her PR gig with the Central Shores PD, they need her to come to the beach and keep the public at bay. A body has washed ashore. Thinking a poor swimmer drowned just before the Salute to Summer festival kicks off, Coco arrives to find Larry Dunmer, dead with a corkscrew sticking out of his neck. What's even more unbelievable is that Jasper quickly shoots to the top of Chief McInnis's suspect list. In full-on panic mode, Coco decides to use her tech-savvy sleuthing skills to clear her best friend's name before his rep is ruined. She soon discovers that Larry made quite a few enemies during his very short stay in town. But who hated him enough to kill him? ¿ Return to the beaches of Central Shores as Coco Cline and her squad assemble to catch a killer before they get canceled...permanently.

The town of Marysburg, Indiana, is buzzing with excitement when legendary British blues guitarist Derek Tufnell appears at Marysburg Music to sign autographs and chat with fans the afternoon before a performance at the Marysburg Center for the Performing Arts. The meet-and-greet session is a huge success and record store owner Darcy Gaughan couldn't be more pleased with how the event went.¿ Darcy's glee turns to despair when, only hours later, Derek is found murdered in his dressing room. Fingers are pointed at her, since she was the last one seen with him. In order to keep her freedom, and the record store open, Darcy begins her own investigation and soon finds the number of suspects is exceeded only by the number of hit songs in Derek's music catalog.¿

As a massive weather system barrels toward them, Vance Township Police Chief Pete Adams and his wife, County Coroner Zoe Chambers-Adams, soon learn how unprepared they really are. A 911 call reports a dead young mother, her critically injured husband, and their missing seven-year-old daughter. Pete and Zoe realize that as the storm moved north from Louisiana, a mysterious killer came with it. The wounded and trapped father is Zoe's friend and blacksmith, and he asks her to stay with him during the rescue efforts. Pete encourages her to oblige, hoping she can uncover clues that might help the investigation. But as attempts to free the victim fail and his condition worsens, Zoe's questions reveal he doesn't know why his family was targeted and child kidnapped. Yet he stays alive, hoping for one last glimpse of his little girl.Pursuing the murderer and the kidnapped child, Pete and his officers battle downed trees, massive flooding, and a widespread loss of communications. They're isolated with no backup, while facing rising water and impassable roads. The killer faces the same problems, yet somehow stays one step ahead of law enforcement. But he is becoming desperate, and more people are dying because of it. As two lives hang in the balance, can Pete win the race against time and weather to stop a savage and cunning predator? And will he and Zoe be able to reunite a family before it's too late?

Dave Beckett, a homicide detective who doesn't color within the lines, is regulated to the lowest job in the division and is known by his peers as The Bone Dick. He handles all "bag of bone" cases found in San Bernardino County's twenty thousand square miles, at present, count 256 pending unsolved. It's a boring, mundane job...until it isn't. In A Lonesome Blood-red Sun, Beckett is called to a house far out in the desert where a dog has brought a bone to the back door. Beckett investigates and discovers the victim, two years dead, is someone he knows. Beckett, with his usual verve and colorful methods, tracks the killer. The trail leads through a warren of dead ends until he discovers a most unlikely suspect hiding in plain sight.A Lonesome Blood-red Sun is fiction melded with true-life incidents that makes for a non-stop thriller of the first order.

Twenty years after a high school student's bullying driven suicide, former students at Landen Creek High are being systematically shot to death in the town of Landen Creek, Oregon.Homicide detectives Paige Lombard and Garrison Stanton investigate the crimes and search for the killers or a possible serial killer. The case becomes personal for Paige as she attended the high school and knew the victims, including being once romantically involved with the first victim, Ben Huxley.One of the chief suspects in the case is Ben Huxley's widow, Rachel Huxley. Garrison finds himself falling for the medical director of a women's health center who could be a cold-blooded killer or accomplice in her husband's murder.Quinn Vogel, a real estate developer, returns to Landen Creek for Ben's funeral, and finds himself attracted to Paige and vice versa; as Quinn harbors secrets about his high school years as a bully that may catch up to him.Lily Aberdeen is Paige's best friend and a bestselling author, who is leading a double life. Having been the victim of high school bullying that escalated into a sexual assault, Lily is out to settle some scores and no one will stop her till she made them all pay.The spinetingling twists and turns leads up to the Landen Creek High twenty-year class reunion and a never saw coming conclusion in this psychological thriller.

A missing surf legend. Waterlogged clues. Can he trust his gut instincts to end the wave of murder? Sheriff Jax Turner is learning to live again. Holding tight to the hope of reconciling with his FBI agent ex-wife, the wary man is determined to keep his focus on his coastal Oregon community. And after a concerned brother requests a welfare check, Jax is troubled to find the absent surf shop owner's tracks lead to a pool of blood. Now investigating a potential homicide, Turner chases a tip from his former spouse about a severed foot found on the beach. But when a torrent of leads links the victim to a politician's son, a jealous competitor, and a get-straight program for youth, the steadfast lawman fears layers of lies and secret agendas will keep him from stopping a vicious killer. Can he unravel the fatal agenda before he's the next corpse to wash ashore? If you like flawed heroes, gritty crimes, and dark twists and turns, then you'll love Deadly Tides, the chilling second book in Mary Keliikoa's Misty Pines Mystery Series.

The life of a cat groomer isn't just pampering purring felines, it's murder. Mobile Cat Groomer Molly Stewart loves her job. Until she finds the dead body of one of her pet parents stabbed with a garden implement in his back yard. When Molly's uncle Russ becomes the prime suspect in the murder and the sheriff won't consider anyone else, Molly claws through obstacles as she prowls for clues. With help from handsome veterinarian Hank Chenowith and Molly's two cats, Percival and Jasper, will Molly succeed in proving her uncle's innocence before the real murderer pounces on her?

Everyone wants to make money off of insurance. In In$ured to the Hilt this includes a greedy claimant and her voluptuous daughter, an ambitious administrative assistant, a desperate insurance agent, and a man obsessed with maintaining his reputation. In the end, they are all "insured to the hilt," some more literally than others.

"Suicide was all the rage in L.A. the summer of '39." When an oddball sister and brother hire him to find out if their father's suicide was suicide, private investigator Nate Ross figures he's in for an easy job. That is, until he discovers that the evidence doesn't add up and the cops - who are strangely cooperative - have rubber-stamped the case and filed it away. Soon Nate's dealing with crooks on the lam, dodging local bigwigs and shady lawyers, and chasing a clear-cut case of murder. Meanwhile, he wrestles with a conflict of interest as he's forced to investigate his own client. The more threads he pulls, the more things threaten to unravel completely. But with the help of old sidekicks, and a couple of new ones, Nate may get to the truth first. If he doesn't die trying.

For Detective Ebony Jones, crime is always personal. But this time, it strikes too close to home.A pop-up thunderstorm marched its way across the Hudson River, ambushing a young couple's kayaking trip. The woman miraculously made it back to shore, but her fiancé remains missing. Ebony and her partner are the first responders who rush to the river to assist in rescuing the capsized boater.The victim's identity shocks Ebony to the core. Kyle Emory, the ex-boyfriend of her estranged best friend, attorney Jessie Martin, is the man who never made it out of the water. The accident ignites a firestorm between the two friends, pitting them against each other in a race to discover whether Kyle survived or whether he met his untimely demise. Under pressure from the chief and the DA, Ebony needs to solve the mystery, while Jessie seeks justice for the sake of the daughter she shares with Kyle. The investigation leads them through the dark worlds of social media, online sports betting, and extreme sports. Along the way, they uncover lies and betrayals, and gather a list of dangerous suspects who are all linked to the accident survivor, Kyle's mysterious fiancée. Even more, the discovery that Kyle possessed his own life-shattering secrets has trapped Ebony between her career and her lifelong friendship with Jessie. Yet neither Ebony nor Jessie will stop until they discover the truth about the drowning. Even if it destroys their friendship and their lives.But the evidence is as murky as the secretive Hudson River. Only the river knows whether Kyle's tragic death was an accident, a suicide, or something more sinister.

Josie Ashbury was a successful Hollywood actress with a booming career-until an on-set breakdown sends her back to her small Ohio hometown to recover. Taking a job teaching at her old high school, Josie is beginning to put the pieces of her life back together when one of her students dies under suspicious circumstances. The police close the case quickly, without any real answers. Josie is determined to find the truth behind the girl's death. At the same time, Josie is battling demons of her own. As she faces debilitating insomnia that leaves her with gaps in her memory, she dives into the tangled secrets surrounding the investigation. When she finally unravels the web, she discovers that the truth lies much closer to home than she could have ever imagined.

Journalist Lisa Jamison wants to blow off some steam after an argument with her boyfriend, so she heads to her friend Ricky's kickboxing studio for an early morning workout. She expects to find Ricky alone, setting up for his first class of the day, but someone was there before Lisa, uninvited. Ricky is dead, shot only moments before she arrived, and now Lisa is a suspect in his murder. Lisa wants two things: to clear her name and seek justice for Ricky. But the deeper she digs, the more the danger mounts. Can she find Ricky's killer before the killer eliminates the last obstacle, silencing Lisa for good?

When U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Nick Tanner targets a prolific trafficker in endangered reptiles, what begins as a simple buy-and-bust operation takes a sudden, violent turn, and launches Tanner on a dangerous quest deep into the treacherous backwaters of Mississippi swampland.

Mysterious fires. A haunting past. A secret file.Three years ago, Olivia Callahan endured an assault that resulted in a devastating brain injury. She survived, but she couldn't remember anything about her life or who she was. Now, she's determined to build a bridge between the past she lost and the life she must reclaim. When Olivia crosses paths with Private Investigator Tom Stark, she is drawn to the investigative field, and becomes his intern. She finds a heavily redacted, forty-five-year-old file locked in his desk drawer that mentions her mother as a young woman. Why had her mentor hidden the file from her, and why had he never mentioned a case involving her mother? As Olivia moves forward with her fledgling career, a string of mysterious fires moves through the community, puzzling the Baltimore Arson Investigative Unit. One of the fires strikes Olivia's beloved farmhouse in rural Maryland. Now, in addition to uncovering the secrets bound within the redacted file, she becomes convinced that the fires happening around the area are disturbing calling cards...and they're meant for her.

An African American U.S. Senator from Wisconsin gives a rousing speech at his party's national convention held in his hometown. When he's gunned down on a quiet Milwaukee street the following morning, Eric Rhodes survives what looks like a simple, yet high-profile hate crime. But nothing is simple in FBI agent Cole Huebsch's life, not his relationships and certainly not the cases he works. Cole, FBI analyst Li Song, and reporter Michele Fields won't stop searching for the truth, even when the most sinister and powerful forces in the country align to shut them down.When Cole faces and defeats several cold and calculated attacks on his life and the lives of others he cares about, it only strengthens his resolve. But how far are Cole and his team willing to go when the evil they face is above the law?

How far would you go to get justice against the person who stole your deceased childhood friend's identity? If you're Isaiah Funderburke, vengeance will become an obsession. On the cusp of adolescence, Funderburke's best friend Bertie was killed in a convenience store robbery. The crime was never solved. A decade and a half later, Funderburke is a private detective specializing in divorce work-but thanks to a wealthy benefactor, he only works for the children involved, as he helps expose embezzling divorce lawyers, corrupt judges, and other sinister forces that exploit young people. Every once in a while, he solves other serious crimes. With the assistance of his girlfriend and fellow investigator Nerissa Kaiming, a high school history teacher and former teen mother who now runs a program mentoring girls in similar situations, Funderburke dedicates his life to saving kids who can't save themselves.When identity thieves steal Bertie's name for a credit card fraud, Funderburke's enraged, and he decides to track down the criminals behind the "ghosting." Along the way, Funderburke turns up clues connected to Bertie's murder and tries to find out who killed his friend all those years ago...but digging into the past may threaten his future.

A Rupert Wilde Golden Age Murder Mystery. It is the 1920s and Ambrose De Lacy is the doyen of mystery writers and founder of The Murder Club, an exclusive social club for successful authors of crime fiction. He receives death threats by post and so consults private detective Rupert Wilde and his Indian assistant Kishen Chabra to get to the bottom of this sinister matter. However, the case proves to be more complex than it first appears. Wilde discovers that the killer is on a vengeful mission to eliminate various members of the club. And what is the dark secret from the past that De Lacy is harbouring? Wilde's investigations place him in personal danger before leading him and Kishen to the mysterious isolated cottage on the south coast where horror awaits. However, there are more clues to follow before Wilde is able to unmask the murderer.

A new job, a brutal murder, and Camelot has ended.In 1963, Dot Morgan's life was changed forever. She witnessed the assassination of John F Kennedy through the lens of her boxy Kodak Instamatic camera, bringing traumatic aftereffects of the brutality that happened as they stood on the parade route in Dallas.She starts her first real secretarial job with a boss who has no sympathy for her trauma. When Dot's only work friend has a mysterious accident at a demolition site, she digs around on her own only to find very little love between two brothers and no one hammering out justice to find a murderer. The suspects are all around Dot and as she tries to sift through their motives, her cousin Ellie is going through PTSD on her own, losing interest in work, and her fiancé all the while quoting some of JFK's finest speeches.With so much change in her world, can Dot still tell the difference between good and evil?

May 1943. Betty Ahern is studying for her private investigator's license when a new client-Edward Kettle-hires her to clear his name after he was dismissed from his job at the American Shipbuilding Company. When Edward is brutally murdered, the dead man's sister hires Betty to finish the original job and find the killer.The job hurls Betty back into the world of wartime espionage, but with a twist: Edward Kettle was a homosexual. Did he know something about underhanded activities at American Shipbuilding? Or was his secret life the motive for murder?Once again, Betty must unravel the mystery, which requires uncovering truths that others would prefer to keep hidden-a job that threatens not only her morals and beliefs, but also her life.

Death hits close to home in One of Ours when Chicago detective Joe Erickson is called to the scene of a fatal shooting. The victim, a police captain Joe knows well, had been working on his own time to solve a cold case before he retired. Determining he was silenced for getting too close to the truth, Joe picks up the trail and finds it teeming with corruption, executions, and a conspiracy involving a powerful city official. Can Joe crack the cold case and solve the murder while avoiding the wrath of the conspirators?

When twin teenage sisters go missing at the height of tourist season, Laurel, Maine Police Chief Tim Nichols' summer of patrolling beaches and leading parades comes to an abrupt end. A desperate search for the girls takes him from seaside bars and abandoned farms to million dollar estates and cobbled-together shacks.¿ As Nichols doggedly unearths scraps of information and deciphers a steady flow of half-truths, he finds a darkness coursing through ts Laurel's sunny, tree-lined streets. He races to piece together the girls' disappearance, knowing that doing so may tear the façade off his postcard-perfect town.

TV producer Kate Zoë Thomas, fleeing an abduction in Afghanistan and heartbreak in Boston, accepts the first job that gives her a fresh start: station manager at a tiny community channel on Wynter Island in the Canadian Gulf Islands. ¿ But, try as she may, Kate cannot outrun her bad luck. On a moonlit walk to a local beach, Kate spots a body bobbing in the surf. In shock, she recognizes the lifeless face and realizes there is only one person on the island with a motive for his murder. ¿ Herself. ¿ Will she manage to solve the mystery before the murderer stops her?

Boston might be white with snow, but there's nothing but a winter's darkness for Shane Cleary, a former cop, veteran, and reluctant PI. There's an international war within the mafia over drugs, and he has been asked to find the nephew of the local crime boss. When federal agencies descend on the city and order the police department to stand down on a homicide, the BPD reaches out to Shane for answers.Shane's past in Vietnam comes to haunt him when the corpse of a veteran is found on Boston Common, frozen to death in front of the State House. Then, a former army buddy comes to town looking for justice. His presence endangers all that Shane holds dear.Shane must come to terms with a side of himself he thought he had left behind. The mounting body count and circumstances compel him to play a game of Liar's Dice. Can he deceive and detect deception around him? Protect those he loves, while he solves the cases?

The Icarus Club is one of London's most prestigious gentlemen's clubs, counting amongst its members the very elite of society. Beneath the veneer of respectability, however, there swarm dark secrets, tense rivalries, blackmail, and murder. Jacob Erskine is a man who can count many of the Icarus Club's members as his enemy. When Erskine is found shot dead in one of the reading rooms of the club, the police are baffled. Why was the dead man's body covered in bank notes? What is the relevance of a single feather found beside the body? Who had the opportunity to steal the revolver used to commit the crime from a locked desk? And who amongst them is a liar and a thief? Everett Carr, retired judge and reluctant amateur sleuth, thinks he knows the answers to some of those questions. But as Carr digs deeper into the mystery of Jacob Erskine's death, it becomes apparent that more than one person had a motive for wishing him dead. When a second murder occurs, Carr comes to realise that the killer is someone far more deadly than even he had anticipated. If Carr is to solve the murder, not only will he have to brave the very real dangers of the night, but he will also have to delve into the dark secrets of the past...