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.