The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books recently updated its list of January 2012 hardcover mysteries as well as shelved new January 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 January. (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: Stay At Home Dead
Author: Jeffrey Allen
Series Character: Deuce Winters
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Deuce Winters is a stay-at-home dad in sleepy Rose Petal, Texas.
His first mystery: When Deuce discovers a dead body in his mini-van, it quickly throws his quiet life into disarray. It doesn't help that the victim ruined Deuce's high school football career and married his ex-girlfriend. As the number one suspect in the court of public opinion, Deuce is determined to clear his name, with a little help from his wife, Julianne, a high-powered attorney. His search for the killer leads him to a business plan gone awry and a gaggle of jilted lovers.
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Title: The Golden Scales
Author: Parker Bilal
Series Character: Makana
Format: Hardcover
What we know about the character: Makana is an exiled Sudanese police inspector, now a private investigator living in Cairo (Egypt).
His first mystery: Struggling to make ends meet Makana takes a case from the notoriously corrupt mogul Saad Hanafi, owner of a Cairo soccer team, whose star player, Adil Romario, has gone missing. Soon, Makana is caught up in a mystery that takes him into the treacherous underbelly of his adopted city, encountering Muslim extremists, Russian gangsters, vengeful women, and a desperate mother hunting for her missing daughter-a trail that leads him back into his own story, stirring up painful personal memories and bringing him face-to-face with an old enemy from his past …
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Title: It Takes a Witch
Author: Heather Blake
Series Character: Darcy Merriweather
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Darcy Merriweather hails from a long line of Wishcrafters — witches with the power to cast spells by making a wish.
Her first mystery: Darcy's come to Enchanted Village to learn her trade but finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation …
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Title: An Appetite For Murder
Author: Lucy Burdette
Series Character: Hayley Snow
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Hayley Snow is a food critic for a Key West style magazine.
Her first mystery: Hayley's life always revolved around food. But when she applies to be a food critic for a Key West style magazine, she discovers that her new boss would be Kristen Faulkner-the woman Hayley caught in bed with her boyfriend! Hayley thinks things are as bad as they can get — until the police pull her in as a suspect in Kristen's murder. Kristen was killed by a poisoned key lime pie. Now Hayley must find out who used meringue to murder before she takes all the blame.
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Title: Terlingua Heat
Author: John DeMers
Series Character: Danny Morales
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Danny Morales is a Big Bend river guide.
His first mystery: Danny is a former newspaper photographer from San Antonio, making a life under an assumed name in the funky, chili-crazed, end-of-the-road watering hole of Terlingua. He lives one day at a time with an oddball collection of aging losers, dropouts, and runaways, who gather to swap tall tales and lubricate away their troubles. As part of an investigation of a new expansion of San Antonio's convention center, Danny uncovered a web of shadows weaving together the 1963 JFK assassination in Dallas and the back-room politics behind the 1968 HemisFair. Until Danny can return to San Antonio and face his deepest fears, all he can do is run. In the end, his life, and the truth behind one of America's greatest mysteries, will hang by a single cable seven hundred feet above the floodlit trees of HemisFair Park.
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Title: The Anatomist's Apprentice
Author: Tessa Harris
Series Character: Thomas Silkstone
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Thomas Silkstone is an expert in the study of the human anatomy.
His first mystery: In eighteenth-century England, the murder of Sir Edward Crick sends a torrent of gossip breezing through Oxfordshire; although, aside from his sister, Lady Lydia Farrell, few mourn the young man. When Lady Farrell's husband becomes the prime suspect in the murder, she enlists the help of Dr. Thomas Silkstone — an anatomist and pioneering forensic detective — to solve the murder and prove his innocence.
Though Dr. Silkstone studied medicine in England under the foremost surgeon in the region, his unconventional methods and unfamiliar field of study have made him an outsider. Still, he agrees to examine Sir Edward's corpse, but the keenest blade he will use is his intellect. He must determine both the cause and motive of this suspicious death in what will be the first of many cases.
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Title: The First Rule of Ten
Author: Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay
Series Character: Tenzing "Ten" Norbu
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Tenzing "Ten" Norbu is a Tibetan-Buddhist private investigator in Los Angeles.
His first mystery: Growing up in a Tibetan Monastery, Ten dreamed of becoming a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. So when he was sent to Los Angeles to teach meditation, he joined the LAPD instead. But as the Buddha says, change is inevitable; and ten years later, everything is about to change — big-time — for Ten. One resignation from the police force, two bullet-wounds, three suspicious deaths, and a beautiful woman later, he quickly learns that whenever he breaks his first rule, mayhem follows.
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Title: Love, Honour, and O'Brien
Author: Jennifer Rowe
Series Character: Holly Love
Format: Hardcover
What we know about the character: Holly Love is a private investigator in Australia's Blue Mountain region.
Her first mystery: How could Holly, the apple of her parents' eye, competent manipulator of invoices in Gorgon Office Supplies, have ended up alone and starving in a dead man's flat?
How indeed? Most reluctant heroines would throw in the towel at this point. But Holly Love is made of sterner stuff. She's sworn to track down the cheating swine who ripped her life apart, and make him pay. But as she tries to keep her head in the face of a bizarre mystery, a gloomy old house, a hearse-driving Elvis impersonator and a gang of vengeful thugs — not to mention a garrulous and possibly possessed parrot — Holly is forced to come to terms with a great truth. However bad things seem, they can always get worse.
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Title: If Fried Chicken Could Fly
Author: Paige Shelton
Series Character: Gram's Country Cooking School
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the characters: The Gram's Country Cooking School mysteries are set in rural Missouri.
Their first mystery: At Gram's Country Cooking School, Betts and Gram are helping students prepare the perfect dishes for the Southern Missouri Show-Down, the cook-off that draws the first of the summer visitors. Everything is going smoothly until they discover the body of local theater owner Everett Morningside in the school's supply closet, and Everett's widow points an accusatory finger at Gram. Now, Betts has to dig deep into Broken Rope's history to find the modern-day killer — before the last piece of chicken is served …
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Title: The China Gambit
Author: Allan Topol
Series Character: Craig Page
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Craig Page is a former CIA agent.
His first mystery: In Canada, Francesca, a young American reporter, is brutally murdered to stop her from publishing an explosive story. She has learned that Chinese General Zhou has orchestrated a conspiracy with Iran to stop the flow of imported oil to the United States. General Zhou’s goal: To leapfrog China over the United States for world economic and military supremacy. And the ruthless General will do anything to accomplish that goal.
Craig is determined to find out who killed his daughter, Francesca. Joined by the gutsy Elizabeth Crowder, Francesca’s editor, Craig peels back the conspiracy layer by layer, ultimately learning that General Zhou has a partner in the scheming CIA director, Kirby, who forced Craig out of the Agency.
The action moves from Canada to Tehran, Beijing and Washington, and finally to Aspen, with Craig and Elizabeth narrowly escaping repeated attacks in their attempt to prevent a catastrophe for the United States. At the same time, Craig must bury his personal loss, as he confronts his adversaries trying to kill him.
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For a list of more hardcover mysteries scheduled for publication during January, 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 January 2012 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.
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