The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books recently updated its list of August 2010 hardcover mysteries as well shelved new August 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 debut during August.
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Title: Beneath the Dark Ice
Author: Greig Beck
Series Character: Alex Hunter
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Captain Alex Hunter leads a group of highly trained commandos.
His first assingment: When a plane crashes into the Antarctic ice, exposing an enormous cave system, a rescue and research team is dispatched. Twenty-four hours later, all contact is lost.
Captain Hunter and his team, along with a group of scientists, are fast tracked to the hot zone to find out what went wrong. Meanwhile, the alluring petrobiologist Aimee Weir is sent to follow up on the detection of a vast underground reservoir. If the unidentified substance proves to be oil, every country in the world will want to know about it—even wage war over it. Or worse.
Once suspended into the caves, Alex, Aimee, and the others can’t locate a single survivor—or even a trace of their remains. Nor is there a energy source, only specters of the dead haunting the tunnels. But soon they will discover that something very much alive is brewing beneath the surface. It is a force that dates back to the very dawn of time—an ancient terror that hunts and kills to survive …
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Title: Bridger
Author: James Patrick Hunt
Series Character: Daniel Bridger
Format: Hardcover
What we know about the character: Daniel Bridger is a thief who works high dollar scores.
His first "case": Bridger is a disciplined professional and he has kept out of prison by sticking to a certain set of rules. Rule 1: never work with a partner. Rule 2: never, under any circumstances, work with the mob. But when Maggie Chan, his beautiful ex-girlfriend, comes along and talks him into stealing a four million-dollar coin collection, Bridger gets a little careless and forgets one of the most important rules: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Before the job barely begins, he is beaten unconscious and framed for the murder of a corrupt judge and his mistress.
Now he's on the run from the mob and the police. Someone has set him up. And Bridger's going to make sure that someone's going to pay for it.
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Title: Treachery in the Yard
Author: Adimchinma Ibe
Series Character: Tamunoemi Peterside
Format: Hardcover
What we know about the character: Tamunoemi Peterside is a homicide detective in Nigeria.
His first case: Detective Peterside is drawn into the politics of Nigeria when a bomb goes off at Mr. Pius Okpara’s home. Mr. Okpara is locked in a conflict with a political rival, as both men are seeking their party’s nomination prior to the general election.
As Detective Peterside investigates, one murder leads to another and soon events appear to be spiraling out of control. The more he digs, the more corruption surfaces. Soon he is not sure whom to trust, including even his own mentor.
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Title: Murder Past Due
Author: Miranda James
Series Character: Charlie Harris
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Charlie Harris is a librarian in Mississippi.
His first case: Everyone in Athena, Mississippi, knows Charlie and his Maine coon cat named Diesel that he walks on a leash. They also know his former classmate-turned-famous bestselling novelist, Godfrey Priest.
But someone in Athena took Godfrey off the bestseller lists -- permanently, and with extreme prejudice. Now, Charlie and Diesel must browse through the history section of the town's past to find a killer.
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Title: The Quick and the Thread
Author: Amanda Lee
Series Character: Marcy Singer
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Marcy Singer is a 30-something entrepreneur who owns an embroidery shop in a small town on the Oregon coast.
Her first case: When Marcy opens an embroidery specialty shop in quaint Tallulah Falls, she throws a soiree and a Stitch-In. Soon, Marcy's sign-up sheet for embroidery classes fills up and everyone in town seems willing to raise a glass -- or a needle -- to support the newly-opened Seven Year Stitch.
Then Marcy finds the shop's previous tenant dead in the store-room, a message scratched with a tapestry needle on the wall beside him. Now Marcy's shop has become a crime scene, and she's the prime suspect. She'll have to find the killer before someone puts a final stitch in her.
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Title: A Bad Day's Work
Author: Nora McFarland
Series Character: Lilly McFarland
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Lilly Hawkins is a TV news camerawoman.
Her first case: Nothing seems to be going Lilly’s way. She’s one of the hardest working "shooters" at her hometown television station, but her pit-bull personality and a series of unlucky blunders have put her job in jeopardy.
So when an urgent story breaks in the middle of the night, Lilly is determined to turn her bad luck around and get the respect she deserves. But the pressure is on; either she delivers amazing video or she’s fired. After busting her butt and dodging the cops, Lilly has what could be the biggest scoop of her career—exclusive video of a murder scene. Or does she have it? Lilly is stunned when the tape played in front of the entire newsroom is nothing but dead air.
Soon she’s on the run from criminals and police, both of whom claim Lilly’s video is the key to solving the murder and think she pocketed the real tape. Can she escape her pursuers long enough to catch the killer, or will she end the day as the next victim?
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Title: Mirror Image
Author: Dennis Palumbo
Series Character: Daniel Rinaldi
Format: Hardcover
What we know about the character: Daniel Rinaldi is a trauma expert who specializes in treating victims of violent crime. He works with the Pittsburgh Police Department.
His first case: A fragile, troubled college kid desperate for a role model, a sense of identity, Kevin Merrick has begun dressing like Rinaldi, acting like him, mirroring his appearance. Before Daniel has a chance to work this through with his patient, he finds Kevin brutally murdered. Stunned, he and the police suspect that he, not Kevin, had been the intended target.
Feeling responsible, Rinaldi is determined to help find the killer, who’s begun leaving death threats for the psychologist. His journey takes him through a labyrinth of friends and colleagues, any one of whom may be the killer. It also includes an affair with a beautiful, free-spirited Assistant DA with secrets of her own. And when Kevin’s identity as the estranged son of a Bill Gates-like biotech giant is revealed, the investigation of his murder turns into a national story … even as another person turns up dead.
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Title: Sketch Me If You Can
Author: Sharon Pape
Series Character: Rory McCain
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Rory McCain is a police sketch artist.
Her first case: When her uncle dies, Rory gets a list of clients from his private detective business and a beautiful, old house with a ghostly inhabitant: Federal Marshal Ezekiel Drummond, aka Zeke.
Having a ghost as a housemate is bad enough, but as Rory's drawn into one of her uncle's unsolved cases and faces a cold-blooded killer, she may need the marshal's supernatural help to stay alive.
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Title: The Death of an Ambitious Woman
Author: Barbara Ross
Series Character: Ruth Murphy
Format: Hardcover
What we know about the character: Ruth Murphy is the acting police chief in a suburb of Boston.
Her first case: It's the first warm day of spring, and Ruth Murphy is in a terrific mood. She's just made the final cut in the selection process for permanent chief of police in New Derby, a large, economically divided suburb of Boston.
Then Tracey Kendall, a prominent New Derby businesswoman, slams her luxury SUV into a scenic New England stonewall. Because Tracey was talking on her cell phone with her young son seconds before impact, obvious causes like heart attack, falling asleep, and suicide are ruled out. When the handsome mechanic who worked on Tracey Kendall's car disappears, a world of suspects opens up, including Tracey's unfaithful artist husband, her greedy business partner, a jealous best friend, and the husband's desperate art dealer.
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For a list of more mysteries scheduled for publication during August, 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 August 2010 releases.
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.
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