The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books recently updated its list of August 2012 hardcover mysteries as well as 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 American debut in print during August.
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Title: A Spoonful of Murder
Author: Connie Archer
Series Character: Lucky Jamieson, Soup Lovers
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Lucky Jamieson is the owner of By the Spoonful, a soup shop in small town Vermont.
Her first case: When Lucky inherits her parents' soup shop she realizes it's time to take stock of her life. Should she sell her parents' house or move in herself? Does she really want to run a restaurant business? And what about her grandfather Jack, who seems to be showing signs of Alzheimer's?
But her life decisions are moved to the back burner after an icy blonde tourist is found frozen to death behind the soup shop. and Lucky is bowled over when her soup chef, Sage DuBois, is led out of the kitchen by the police. As suspicion and speculations snowball, Lucky decides that the only way to save her employee and her business is to find out herself who iced the tourist--and landed her chef in the soup …
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Title: Allergic to Death
Author: Peg Cochran
Series Character: Gigi Fitzgerald, Gourmet De-Lite
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Giovanna "Gigi" Fitzgerald is the owner of Gourmet De-Lite, a chef in Woodstone, Connecticut.
Her first case: Business is looking up, thanks to her newest client, restaurant reviewer Martha Bernhardt. Martha has the clout to put Gigi's personal meal plans on everyone's lips. But instead of dropping a few pounds, Martha drops dead from a severe peanut allergy … right after eating one of Gigi's signature dishes.
When the distractingly debonair Detective Mertz identifies traces of peanut oil in Martha's last meal, Gigi suddenly finds her diet catering business on the chopping block. Now she'll have to track down who tampered with her recipe before her own goose is cooked.
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Title: Champagne: The Farewell
Author: Janet Hubbard
Series Character: Max Maguire, Vengeance in the Vineyard
Format: Hardcover
What we know about the character: Max Maguire is an NYPD homicide detective.
Her first case: Max Maguire flies to France to attend her friend Chloe Marceau's wedding. She meets the older and more urbane Olivier Chaumont, a juge d'instruction, or examining magistrate, and experiences a fairy tale evening. But when Chloe's widowed aunt is found murdered after the wedding dinner, Max and Olivier are shocked back into their respective professional roles.
To Max's chagrin, Olivier is put in charge of the investigation and she is banned from an official investigative role. The value of vineyards and champagne companies is at an all-time high, and Olivier learns that there are several people attempting to gain control of Lea's business at the time of her death. Max, quietly using the sleuthing skills inherited from her famous detective dad, she insinuates herself into the victim's family until their long-held secrets begin to spill out like marbles from an overturned dish.
After another family member is found dead on the day of Lea's funeral, however, Max puts her career, and her tentative relationship with Olivier, in jeopardy as her determination to find the murderer-and prove herself in the process-takes over.
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Title: Coorparoo Blues and the Irish Fandango
Author: G. S. Manson
Series Character: Jack Munro
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Jack Munro is a private investigator in 1943 Brisbane (Australia).
His first case: Brisbane, 1943. A provincial Australian city has turned almost overnight into the main Allied staging post for the war in the Pacific. The social, sexual, and racial tensions stirred up by the arrival of tens of thousands of US troops provoke all kinds of mayhem, and Brisbane's once quiet streets are suddenly looking pretty mean.
Enter Jack Munro, a World War I veteran and ex-cop with a nose for trouble and a stubborn dedication to exposing the truth, however inconvenient it might be for those in charge. He's not always an especially good man, but he's the one you want on your side when things look bad.
When Jack's hired by a knockout blonde to find her no-good missing husband, he turns over a few rocks he isn't supposed to, and the questions start to pile up, along with the bodies. Not inclined to take no for an answer, he forges on through the dockside bars, black-market warehouses, and segregated brothels of his roiling city, uncovering more than a few surprises in this murky tale based on actual events in a little-known corner of the WW2 theatre.
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Title: The Colonel's Mistake
Author: Dan Mayland
Series Character: Mark Sava
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Mark Sava is a former CIA station chief ofAzerbaijan.
His first case: Mark Sava lives a quiet life as a professor at Western University in the city of Baku. But his peace is shattered by both the assassination of a high-level American during an international oil conference and the arrest of CIA operations officer Daria Buckingham for the crime.
Sava knows the Iranian American Buckingham well—he personally trained her—and doesn't believe she had anything to do with the murder, so he visits a CIA control center to discuss the situation with the new station chief. When no one answers the outside intercom, Sava overrides the security code and stumbles upon the grisliest scene of his career. Now, he can't help but wonder if he really knows Buckingham as well as he thought …
Determined to find out, Sava soon finds himself and a partner caught in the middle of the new Great Game—a deadly intelligence war over oil that has Iran, China, and the United States clawing at each other's throats. Meanwhile, Colonel Henry Amato, assistant to the US national security advisor, is keeping a close watch on the situation from Washington. His stake in the Great Game is high—and personal.
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Title: Dying to Read
Author: Lorena McCourtney
Series Character: Cate Kinkaid
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Cate Kinkaid is a newly licensed private investigator.
Her first case: Cate Kinkaid is just dipping her toe into the world of private investigating until one of the many résumés she has floating around lands her a real job. All she has to do is determine that a particular woman lives at a particular address. Simple, right? When the big and brooding house happens to contain a dead body, this routine PI job turns out to be anything but simple. Is Cate in over her head?
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Title: The Shadow of the Rock
Author: Thomas Mogford
Series Character: Spike Sanguinetti
Format: Hardcover
What we know about the character: Spike Sanguinetti is an attorney in Gibraltar.
His first case: On a humid summer night, Spike finds Solomon Hassan, an old school friend, waiting on his doorstep. Accused of murdering a Spanish girl in Tangiers, Solomon swears his innocence. He has managed to skip across the Straits, but the Moroccan authorities demand his return.
Spike travels to Tangiers in the hope of delaying the extradition. Solomon's boss, Nadeer — the founder of a renewable-energy company called Dunetech that is on the verge of financing an enormous solar-powered site in the Sahara — suggests that if Spike can delay Solomon's trial until after the deal is signed, he will persuade the governor of Tangiers to bury the extradition demand. Complicating this offer, Spike encounters a Bedouin girl who insists that Dunetech is engaged in a nefarious scheme linked to the disappearance of her father.
As Spike uncovers the truth, he finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a world of secrets, corruption, and murderous lies.
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Title: Summon Up The Blood
Author: R. N. Morris
Series Character: Silas Quinn
Format: Hardcover
What we know about the character: Silas Quinn a Detective Inspector with Scotland Yard in this early 20th century historical series.
His first case: London, 1914. A killer is at liberty in the dark alleys of the city. The cadavers of his victims all have one thing in common: there is no blood in their bodies. As the killer's reign of terror continues, DI Silas Quinn finds his suspicions focusing on the members of an exclusive gentleman's club …
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Title: The Session Man
Author: Robert J. Randisi
Series Character: Augusto "Auggie" Velez-Colon, Music City
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Augusto "Auggie" Velez-Colon is a private investigator in Nashville.
His first case: Auggie is an Afghan vet who learned how to play the guitar during his military stint. After returning home he pursued his music and eventually turned up in Nashville, where he is now — eight years later — an in demand session musician. He plays and sings on other people's recordings, does occasional show and tour work while waiting for a chance to record his own songs.
In the meantime he does private eye work, which usually consists of serving paper, taking photos and tailing suspects. But now he's been hired by record exec Corky Barnes to deliver an attaché case to an unknown man. He is paid $5,000 and also offered a chance to record. When the man turns up murdered Auggie must find the item he delivered--difficult because he doesn't even know what it was--and clear himself of a possible murder charge.
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Title: Blood Bath & Beyond
Author: Michelle Rowen
Series Character: Sarah Dearly, Immortality Bites
Format: Mass Market Paperback
What we know about the character: Sarah Dearly is a fledgling vampire and amateur sleuth.
Her first case: Being engaged to a centuries-old master vampire can be challenging—especially when he takes a job with the Ring, the secret council in charge of keeping vampires in line. Thierry's in for fifty years of nonstop travel and deadly risk. It's enough to make any woman reconsider the wedding … any woman except Sarah, that is!
Traveling with him to Las Vegas for his first assignment, they encounter a child beauty pageant contestant from hell, as well as a vampire serial killer leaving victims drained of blood, potentially exposing the existence of vampires to the whole world. But when Thierry's truly ancient history comes back to haunt him, and he's accused of a crime he didn't commit, it's up to Sarah to clear his name before their immortal lives come to an end.
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Title: Deadly Politics
Author: Maggie Sefton
Series Character: Molly Malone
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Molly Malone works in the office of a US Senator.
Her first case: Molly Malone was driven from Washington, D.C., by political back-stabbing, scandals, and personal heartbreak. But now she's starting a new life in the one place she swore she'd never come back to.
When Molly's only Washington job prospect falls through, her politico niece, Karen, sets her up with a position in the office of a freshman senator. As the former wife of a congressman, Molly is alarmed to hear that Karen is having an affair with her boss, congressional chief of staff Jed Molinoff. Just days later, Molly finds Karen shot to death. Discovering that Molinoff has ransacked Karen's apartment, Molly investigates further … and finds herself in the crosshairs of a shadowy political group that's killing anyone who gets in its way.
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Title: Death of a Schoolgirl
Author: Joanna Campbell Slan
Series Character: Jane Eyre Chronicles
Format: Trade Paperback
What we know about the character: Jane Eyre is the heroine of the classic novel by Charlotte Brontë.
Her first case: Jane can't help but fret when a letter arrives from Adèle Varens — Rochester's ward, currently at boarding school — warning that the girl's life is in jeopardy. Although it means leaving her young son and invalid husband, and despite never having been to a city of any size, Jane feels strongly compelled to go to London to ensure Adèle's safety.
But almost from the beginning, Jane's travels don't go as planned — she is knocked about and robbed, and no one believes that the plain, unassuming Jane could indeed be the wife of a gentleman; even the school superintendent takes her for an errant new teacher. But most shocking to Jane is the discovery that Adèle's schoolmate has recently passed away under very suspicious circumstances, yet no one appears overly concerned. Taking advantage of the situation, Jane decides to pose as the missing instructor — and soon uncovers several unsavory secrets, which may very well make her the killer's next target …
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For a list of more hardcover 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 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.
