Harlequin.com has released the list of February 2012 titles for its Worldwide Mystery imprint, your partner in crime. Amateur sleuths, traditional cozies, police procedurals and private-eye fiction, written by award-winning authors.
For more information about the book from Harlequin.com, click on the title or cover.
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Grey Matters
by Clea Simon
A Dulcie Schwartz Mystery (2nd in series)
For Harvard doctoral candidate Dulcie Schwartz, the pressure to finish her thesis is murder — and so is the body she discovers on the steps of her professor's office. The male victim, a fellow grad student, was a brilliant linguist and charmer who had stolen more than a few ladies' hearts. But now he's dead, and Dulcie's quiet world of academia is rife with mystery, manipulation … and danger.
The clues soon lead Dulcie deeper into her professor's obsessive world and produce an odd list of suspects, at the top of which is the strange man himself. Adding to the puzzle is the curious behavior of his two assistants and a suspicious rare book dealer. With the ghost of her beloved cat, Mr. Grey, offering cryptic messages, Dulcie attempts to piece together the events that led to murder, all the while fighting to keep a grip on her grant money, sanity and life.
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The Drowning Pool by Jacqueline Seewald
A Kim Reynolds Mystery (2nd in series)
A romantic evening with her favorite police lieutenant is shattered for librarian Kim Reynolds when a body is found floating in the pool of her apartment complex. Everyone at La Reine Gardens knew the victim — he was a player, womanizer and user who made a lot of women, and their husbands, very angry. Someone stabbed him then tossed him in the pool, and for detective Mike Gardner and a very intuitive Kim, there is no shortage of suspects.
Adding to the mystery are thefts involving high-grade pharmaceuticals, a woman suspiciously pushed down a flight of stairs and another deadly discovery in a ravine. Seems there might be more at stake here than a crime of passion. As Gardner and Kim get closer to the truth, they discover a tangle of greed, duplicity and twisted motives. But the most shocking revelation of all may be the identity of the killer …
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The Shoeless Kid by Marcelle Dubé
Non-Series
A former big-city cop haunted by past tragedy, Kate Williams accepts the job of police chief for the rural Canadian town of Mendenhall. But instead of the low-key troubles typical of a smaller force, she finds a station divided by rivalries — and very few supporters. The pressure only increases when a crazy old man shows up with a child's red running shoe, insisting he witnessed a kidnapping.
Is six-year-old Josh Hollister in jeopardy — or just staying with his grandmother, as his mother calmly insists? Rallying her factional force into a collective unit to investigate proves less difficult once they determine there is no grandmother. But there is a missing father who desperately wants to protect his son, and a mother with dangerous associates. Finding Josh quickly becomes a race against time … to stop a tragedy Kate vowed would never happen on her watch again.
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Cry Baby by Fay Cunningham
A Gina Cross Mystery (2nd in series)
A forensic sketch artist with an uncanny ability to reanimate the deceased through her drawings, Gina Cross is troubled by a new case. It concerns a murdered teenager who recently gave birth. But who is she and where is her baby? Police get a break in the case when Gina's likeness produces the girl's mother. But now another pregnant young woman has gone missing — and Gina has a bad feeling.
Then the clues lead to an upscale fertility doctor and his private clinic, Gina's assistant, Megan, goes undercover, posing as a lost and vulnerable girl "in trouble." And Gina's worst fears are confirmed — something terrible is happening in the clinic's back rooms. With time running out to find the missing girl and Megan's safety also in jeopardy, Gina races to expose the clinic's sinister secret before more innocent lives are taken.
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