Firsts on the 1st: New Series Characters Being Introduced in November 2011 Mysteries

The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books recently updated its list of November 2011 hardcover mysteries as well as shelved new November paperbacks on The Mystery Bookshelf.

In this series of monthly posts, which we call Firsts on the 1st, we're introducing readers to new series characters who will make their mysterious American debut in print during November. (Purchase options include Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble, and the iTunes iBookstore, which are indicated by icons under the cover image.)

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Title: National Security
Author: Marc Cameron
Series Character: Jericho Quinn
Format: Mass Market Paperback

What we know about the character: Jericho Quinn is an Air Force OSI agent.

His first case: They can strike anytime, anywhere. A public landmark. A suburban shopping mall. And now, the human body itself. Three Middle Eastern terrorists have been injected with a biological weapon, human time bombs unleashed on American soil. They are prepared to die. To spread their disease. To annihilate millions. If America hopes to fight this enemy from within, we need a new kind of weapon.

Meet Special Agent Jericho Quinn. Air Force veteran. Champion boxer. Trained assassin. Hand-picked for a new global task force that, officially, does not exist, Quinn answers only to the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. President himself. His methods are as simple, and as brutal, as his codename: The Hammer.

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Title: Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure
Author: Diane Kelly
Series Character: Tara Holloway
Format: Mass Market Paperback

What we know about the character: CPA Tara Holloway is a special agent with the Treasury’s Criminal Investigations Division.

Her first case: Tax cheats, beware: The Treasury’s CID has a new special agent on its payroll. A recovering tomboy with a head for numbers, Tara’s fast becoming the Annie Oakley of the IRS—kicking ass, taking social security numbers, and keeping the world safe for honest taxpayers. Or else.

Tara’s latest mission finds her in hot pursuit of ice-cream vendor Joseph “Joe Cool” Cullen. Along with frozen treats he’s selling narcotics—and failing to report his ill-gotten gains on his tax returns. Over Tara’s dead body. Then there’s Michael Gryder, who appears to be operating a Ponzi scheme … with banker Stan Shelton … whose lake house is being landscaped by Brett Ellington … who happens to be dating Tara. If following that money trail isn’t tough enough, now Tara must face a new conundrum: Should she invest her trust in Brett—or put him behind bars? New love always comes at a cost but justice? Priceless.

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Title: Acquainted With the Night
Author: Piper Maitland
Series Character: The Night Series
Format: Mass Market Paperback

What we know about the series: The pages of history are written in the blood of the undead …

London tour guide Caroline Clifford has never believe in vampires- until her uncle is brutally murdered at a Bulgarian archaeological site, and a vampire hunter who corresponded with him seeks her out.

Strange anagrams on her uncle's passport lead them to a cliff-top monastery in Greece, where a shattering revelation connects a relic Caro inherited to an age-old text on immortality-and an enigmatic prophecy that pits the forces of darkness and light in a showdown that could destroy all they know …

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Title: Assassin of Secrets
Author: Q. R. Markham
Series Character: Jonathan Chase
Format: Trade Paperback

What we know about the character: Jonathan Chase is the CIA's top field agent.

His first case: Chase is sworn to protect and serve the United States at all costs. But after a brutal period of captivity during the Korean War, Chase developed an agenda of his own: to use his mastery of war to create peace.

His new target: the Zero Directorate, a cabal of rogue assassins who have embarked on a campaign to systematically interrogate and kill seasoned secret agents from across the globe.

But the Directorate has set an elaborate trap, and for Chase the whole mission involves an inescapable paradox. As the world's preeminent operative, the closer he gets to the cabal, the closer the cabal gets to their primary target.

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Title: Well-Offed in Vermont
Author: Amy Patricia Meade
Series Characters: Stella and Nick Thornton Buckley
Format: Trade Paperback

What we know about the characters: Stella and Nick Thornton Buckley are Manhattanites, who have moved to Vermont.

Their first case: In bucolic small-town Vermont, Stella feels out of her element—and not just because she's fresh from Manhattan. Mere hours after moving to maple syrup country, she and her husband, Nick, find a dead man, Allen Weston, in their well. The police investigation forces the couple out of their lovely farmhouse and—since the motels are packed with leafpeepers—into a less than luxurius deer camp. Instead of mourning the loss of electricity and running water, Stella and Nick drive their Smart Car all over the Vermont hamlet to question the quirky locals about Weston, a shrewd businessman who rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way.

Stella and Nick may never shed their flatlander reputation, but they just might be able to make a few friends and help Sheriff Mills solve a murder.

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Title: Trueman Bradley: Aspie Detective
Author: Alexei Maxim Russell
Series Character: Trueman Bradley
Format: Trade Paperback

What we know about the character: Trueman Bradley is a private investigator with Asperger's Syndrome.

His first case: Trueman Bradley is a genius detective with a difference: he has Asperger's Syndrome (AS). Trueman leaves his hometown of Heartville, Illinois, and arrives in New York City, hoping to fulfil his dream of becoming a private detective, like his comic book heroes. He is soon told that a guy with AS could not possibly succeed as a detective. Undeterred, Trueman uses his exceptional mathematical skills to invent a crime-fighting equation, and with the help of his new friends and some amazing inventions, sets out to test his skills against the criminal world of New York. He is determined to show the police, his friends, and himself, that a guy with AS can become as good a detective as anyone else, maybe, even, one of the best.

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Title: Who Do, Voodoo?
Author: Rochelle Staab
Series Characters: Liz Cooper and Nick Garfield
Format: Mass Market Paperback

What we know about the characters: Liz Cooper is a pragmatic Los Angeles psychologist; Nick Garfield, PhD is a professor of religious philosophy.

Their first case: Liz doesn't believe in ghosts. But when her best friend finds a tarot card tacked to her front door — and is then accused of murder — Liz will have to find a way to embrace the occult if she wants to outwit the real killer …

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For a list of more hardcover mysteries scheduled for publication during November, please visit our New Mysteries home page. If you're interested in new paperbacks, visit The Mystery Bookshelf, where you can discover a library of new mysteries, also updated with November 2011 releases. See also our regularly updated eBook site for new mysteries, suspense novels and thrillers, MysterEbooks.com.

Please also visit the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books where we are committed to providing readers and collectors of mystery books with the best and most current information about their favorite authors, titles, and series.

Harlequin Mira Mystery and Suspense Titles for November 2011

eHarlequin.com has released the list of November 2011 titles for their Mira imprint, the brightest stars in women's fiction. From all titles available, we've only listed those that are mystery, thriller, or suspense on this page.

For more information about the book from eHarlequin.com, click on the title or cover; other purchase options (see icons below cover) are also provided.

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The Heart of a Killer by Jaci Burton
The Killer Series (1st in series)

Before the Special Forces hero has even unpacked his bags from twelve years of active duty, he's embroiled in murder—corpses bearing the brutal trademark he's seen only once before—on the worst night of his life.

The last time Detective Anna Pallino saw Dante Renaldi, they were in love. Now, he's part of the connection to a string of fresh homicides and a horrible assault Anna only survived thanks to him.

More than anything, Anna wants to trust Dante. But as the bodies and the coincidences stack up, Anna will have to decide, and fast: Is the man she owes her life to the very same one who wants her dead?

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In Close by Brenda Novak
The Bulletproof Trilogy (3rd in series)

Claire O'Toole's mother, Alana, went missing fifteen years ago. That was big news in Pineview, Montana, the kind of town where nothing much ever happens. Then, last year, Claire's husband, David, died in a freak accident—after launching his own investigation into Alana's disappearance.

Is Alana dead? Or did she simply abandon her husband and daughters? Claire is determined to find out—and her former boyfriend, Isaac Morgan, wants to help. Although their relationship didn't end well, he still has feelings for her. And yet it isn't until he starts to suspect David's death wasn't an accident that he's drawn back into her life.

Together, Claire and Isaac search for answers to the questions that have haunted Pineview all this time. But as they soon discover, someone's prepared to kill so those answers won't be found …

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Against the Storm by Kat Martin
The Raines of Wind Canyon (4th in series)

Redheads like Maggie O'Connell are nothing but trouble. But Trace Rawlins, a former army ranger turned private investigator, takes the case anyway. After all, he knows a thing or two about women.

Trace can sense that something is wrong—Maggie isn't telling him everything. If these menacing calls and messages are real, why won't the police help her? And if they aren't real, what is she hiding?

As Trace digs deeper to find the source of Maggie's threats, he discovers a secret that no one was meant to uncover. And the only puzzle left to be solved is whether the danger comes from an unknown stalker … or from the woman he's trying his hardest not to fall for.

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Anthony Horowitz's Ten Rules for Writing a Sherlock Holmes Novel

The first Sherlock Holmes story officially sanctioned by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle is published today: The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. Also posted today on the publisher's website is a list of ten rules suggested by the author for writing a Sherlock Holmes novel.

"If you were to ask what has made Sherlock Holmes the most successful and best loved detective of all time," says Horowitz, "I would argue that it is not in fact the crimes or the mysteries. It seems to me that the appeal of the books has much more to do with character, the friendship of Holmes and Watson, the extraordinary and very rich world they inhabit and the genuine and often under-rated excellence of Conan Doyle's writing, a touch melodramatic at times but still very much in the tradition of gothic romance."

Most of the rules have been broken time and again by other writers as they have expanded on that world, but we think Horowitz has succinctly defined what makes for a good Holmes story by simply listing the guidelines he used when writing The House of Silk. Of course our favorite is "the most important rule of all … When publicizing the book, never, ever be seen wearing a deerstalker hat or smoking a pipe."

Read Horowitz's most entertaining guest post on the Mulholland Books website.

Chili Con Corpses by J. B. Stanley is Today's Featured Free MystereBook

MystereBooks is pleased to feature Chili Con Corpses by J. B. Stanley as today's free mystery ebook. We don't know how long it will be offered at this special price (typically only until a certain number of downloads have been completed), so we urge you to download it while it is still available for free.

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Chili Con Corpses by J. B. Stanley
A James Henry Mystery
Midnight Ink

This is the third entry in the Supper Club mystery series set in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. In our review of the book from 2008, we called it a "palatable concoction to satisfy the appetites of even the most discerning."

About Chili Con Corpses (from the publisher): Things are chugging merrily along for librarian James Henry. He has a closet filled with new clothes, a trimmer waistline, and a closer bond with his father. His only real problem is that his girlfriend Lucy's interest in him seems to have inexplicably cooled. When schoolteacher Lindy suggests the club members join a Mexican cooking class, James jumps at the idea. Over cervezas and black bean dip, the supper club members warm to their new adventure. The class heats up even more when a reporter and her friends, twin sisters with supermodel physiques, enroll. But when people start turning up dead, and the evidence points toward Lindy, things become hotter than a jalapeo. James, who was looking to add a little more spice to his life, gets much more than he bargained for.

Read our review of Chili Con Corpses by J. B. Stanley.

Important Note: Prices can and do change without prior notice, so please confirm the price of the book before completing your purchase.

Download Link(s):

Amazon Free Kindle Edition Download Link.

B&N Free Nook Book Download Link.

For more free mystery ebooks, visit our Free MystereBooks page.