The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books recently updated its list of September 2013 hardcover mysteries as well as shelved new September 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 September.
And this month, because there are so many new first-in-series titles, we're splitting our post into three: hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and mass market paperbacks. This post will cover new hardcovers.
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Title: The Red Queen Dies
Author: Frankie Y. Bailey
Series Character: Hannah McCabe
Formats: Hardcover and ebook
What we know about the character: Hannah McCabe is a police detective in this fantasy crime series.
Her first case: The year is 2019, and a drug used to treat soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, nicknamed "Lullaby," has hit the streets. Swallowing a little pill erases traumatic memories, but what happens to a criminal trial when the star witness takes a pill and can't remember the crime? When two women are murdered in quick succession, biracial police detective Hannah McCabe is charged with solving the case. In spite of the advanced technology, including a city-wide surveillance program, a third woman is soon killed, and the police begin to suspect that a serial killer is on the loose. But the third victim, a Broadway actress known as "The Red Queen", doesn't fit the pattern set by the first two murders.
With the late September heat sizzling, Detective Hannah McCabe and her colleagues on the police force have to race to find the killer in a tangled web of clues that involve Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Abraham Lincoln's assassination.
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Title: The Missing Heiress
Author: Karen Charlton
Series Character: Stephen Lavender
Formats: Hardcover and ebook
What we know about the character: Stephen Lavender is a police detective in early 19th century Northumberland.
His first case: November 1809. A menacing figure stalks women through Hareshaw Woods. When Helen Carnaby, a beautiful young heiress, disappears from her locked bedchamber, everyone fears the worst. The townsfolk cry "witchcraft" and the local constabulary are baffled. Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Woods now face their toughest and most dangerous assignment.
Lavender and Woods are alarmed to discover a sinister, murderous world of madness, violence, and secrets lurking behind the heavy oak door of the ancient pele tower at Linn Hagh. Why did Helen Carnaby flee on that wintry October night? Hindered by Helen's uncooperative siblings, distracted by gypsies, rebellious farmers, highwaymen, and an attractive and feisty Spanish senora, Helen Carnaby's disappearance is to prove one of the most perplexing mysteries of Lavender's career.
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Title: The Final Cut
Author: Catherine Coulter and J. T. Ellison
Series Character: Nicholas Drummond
Formats: Hardcover and ebook
What we know about the character: A spin-off of the Coulter's FBI Suspense series, US-born, UK-raised Nicholas Drummond is a Chief Inspector with Scotland Yard.
Her first case: Nicholas Drummond is on the first flight to New York when he learns his colleague, Elaine York, the "minder" of the Crown Jewels for the "Jewel of the Lion" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was found murdered. Then the centerpiece of the exhibit, the infamous Koh-i-Noor Diamond, is stolen from the Queen Mother's crown. Drummond, American-born but raised in the UK, is a dark, dangerous, fast-rising star in the Yard who never backs down. And this case is no exception.
Special Agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich don't hesitate to help Drummond find the cunning international thief known as the Fox. Nonstop action and high stakes intensify as the chase gets deadly. The Fox will stop at nothing to deliver the Koh-i-Noor to the man who believes in its deadly prophecy. Nicholas Drummond, along with his partner, FBI Special Agent Mike Caine, lay it on the line to retrieve the diamond for Queen and country.
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Title: Matters of Doubt
Author: Warren C. Easley
Series Character: Cal Claxton
Formats: Hardcover and ebook
What we know about the character: Once a hard-charging L.A. prosecutor, Cal Claxton now lives in solitude in an old farmhouse overlooking the Oregon wine country.
His first case: Cal Claxton is determined to reinvent himself as a small town lawyer in the aftermath of his wife's suicide. When a scruffy, tattooed kid shows up asking for help in solving his mother's cold case murder, Cal wants to say no: times are tough, and he's no private eye, anyway. But the kid, who calls himself Picasso, has ridden a bike all the way from Portland in the rain, and something about his determination touches Cal.
It turns out Picasso is homeless, joining the legions of kids who are drawn to Portland's Old Town. He is also a gifted artist painting a mural on the side of a health clinic operated by an idealistic doctor named Anna. Things take an ugly turn when Picasso is charged with the murder of a prominent Portland businessman. The evidence against him is overwhelming, but, at Anna's urging, Cal steps in to defend Picasso. Suddenly Cal finds himself pitted against the police, the media and some of Portland's most powerful citizens.
Is Picasso being framed? And if so, is there a connection between the two murders? As he peels back the layers of truth, he realizes too late that he has put both himself and Anna in the crosshairs of a ruthless killer.
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Title: Japantown
Author: Barry Lancet
Series Character: Jim Brodie
Formats: Hardcover and ebook
What we know about the character: Jim Brodie is an antiques dealer in San Francisco, who has inherited a stake in his father's Tokyo-based private investigation firm.
His first case: Jim Brodie, the single father of six-year-old Jenny, is living a busy intercontinental life, traveling to Japan to acquire art and artifacts for his store and consulting on Brodie Security's caseload at home and abroad.
One night, an entire family is gunned down in San Francisco's bustling Japantown neighborhood, and Brodie is called on by the SFPD to decipher the lone clue left at the crime scene: a unique Japanese character printed on a slip of paper drenched in blood.
Brodie can't read the clue. But he may have seen it before — at the scene of his wife's death in a house fire four years ago.
With his deep array of Asian connections and fluency in Japanese, Brodie sets out to solve a seemingly perfect crime and at the same time learn whether his wife's tragic death was more than just an accident. And as he unravels a web of intrigue stretching back centuries and connected to the murders in San Francisco, the Japantown killer retaliates with a new target: Brodie's daughter.
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Title: Alex
Author: Pierre Lemaitre
Series Character: Camille Verhoeven
Formats: Hardcover and ebook
What we know about the character: Camille Verhoeven is a police commandant in Paris.
Her first case: Alex Prévost — kidnapped, savagely beaten, suspended from the ceiling of an abandoned warehouse in a tiny wooden cage — is running out of time. Her abductor appears to want only to watch her die. Will hunger, thirst, or the rats get her first?
Apart from a shaky eyewitness report of the abduction, Police Commandant Camille Verhoeven has nothing to go on: no suspect, no leads, and no family or friends anxious to find a missing loved one. The diminutive and brilliant detective knows from bitter experience the urgency of finding the missing woman as quickly as possible — but first he must understand more about her.
As he uncovers the details of the young woman's singular history, Camille is forced to acknowledge that the person he seeks is no ordinary victim. She is beautiful, yes, but also extremely tough and resourceful. Before long, saving Alex's life will be the least of Commandant Verhoeven's considerable challenges.
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Title: The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees
Author: Serge Quadruppani
Series Character: Simona Tavianello
Formats: Hardcover and ebook
What we know about the character: Simona Tavianello is a police inspector in Italy.
Her first* case: On vacation with her husband in an idyllic Italian valley, Police Inspector Simona Tavianello stops at the local beekeeper's shop to buy some honey, where she finds a body lying in the entrance. Simona tries to avoid involvement — she is, after all, off-duty. But when she realizes that the murder weapon is her own gun, what can she do but take charge?
The victim was an engineer at the controversial agricultural research center for Sacropiano, a biotechnology company accused of developing pesticides that are making the bees in the region disappear. At the same time Simona found the body, the local beekeepers were nearby organizing a militant sit-in to protest the company's practices. And found on the floor near the corpse was a tract entitled, "The Bee Revolution". Simona Tavianello's investigation gets her caught between the radical environmentalists and the powerful industrialists who are allied with the police. That would be complication enough, but she also needs to deal with the wounded ego of Cacabonda, the local police officer, who is officially in charge of the investigation.
With her sharp humor and spot-on observations of current events in Italy, can Tavianello not only solve the murder, but also discover the intriguing reason behind the disappearance of the bees?
* This isn't, strictly speaking, the first book in this series, but is the first to be translated into English.
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Title: Cold Tuscan Stone
Author: David P. Wagner
Series Character: Rick Montoya
Formats: Hardcover and ebook
What we know about the character: New Mexico native Rick Montoya is a translator in Rome.
His first case: Rick Montoya has just moved from Santa Fe to Rome, embracing the life of a translator. He's beginning to embrace la dolce vita when school friend Beppo, now senior in the Italian Art Squad, recruits Rick for an unofficial undercover role. Armed with a list of galleries, suspects, and an expense account, Rick would arrive in Tuscany posing as a buyer for a Santa Fe gallery and flush out traffickers in priceless burial urns.
But, before sunset on his first day in Volterra, the challenge intensifies. Rick has one quick conversation with a gallery employee who dies minutes later in a brutal fall from a high cliff. Has the trade in fraudulent artifacts upgraded to murder? Are the traffickers already on to Rick?
The local Commissario and his team consider Rick an amateur, and worse, a foreigner. Plus Rick is a suspect in what proves to be the dead man's murder. While the Volterra squad pursues its leads, Rick and the Volterra museum director continue to interview his list: a top gallery owner, a low-profile import/export businessman and his enterprising color-coordinated assistant, a sensuous heiress with a private art specialty and clientele. When Rick's lover Erica, an art history professor, arrives from Rome to visit him, she rekindles a friendship with an alluring, maybe dangerous, heiress. Has Rick's role made him the target of both?
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For a list of more hardcover mysteries scheduled for publication during September, 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 September 2013 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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