Kate Wilhelm
Long regarded as "one of the masters of psychological fiction in America" (San Francisco Chronicle), Kate Wilhelm delivers one of her most probing—and most suspenseful—novels in The Deepest Water. Abby Connor's father, Jud, was a novelist whose career finally took off after three novels and years of hard work. Jud was also the most important man in Abby's life, to the chagrin of her husband, Brice. When Jud is murdered in his Oregon
...Chaos has descended on the Valducci family. Gina Valducci's grandmother, mentor, and founder of the family's thriving nursery business, has died. Her death sets off a string of seemingly unrelated events, including two horrific murders. Gina's colleague, Jeff, stands out as an obvious suspect, with plenty of motivation, opportunity, and means. In her most unusual and complex case yet, Barbara Holloway accepts Jeff as her reluctant client. But,
...Barbara's peace at her retreat on the Oregon coast is shattered when a terrified young boy leads her to a cabin in the woods where his battered mother has clearly been left for dead. Barbara runs for help, but by the time she returns both mother and son are gone.
The puzzle deepens when...
Mitch Arno always meant bad news for Folsum, Oregon. When they ran him out of town seventeen years ago, he left behind a wife with two daughters and a family that never wanted to see him again. When he returns, he brings trouble in the form of a lot of suspicious money. As Barbara attempts to counsel Mitch's wife about the money, a second form of trouble arrives, Mitch's corpse.
6) Cold Case
When Etheridge returns to Eugene, Oregon, McCrutchen is his grudging host—until the senator is found shot dead. Now Etheridge is back where he was two decades ago—suspected of murder. Only this time, with the cold case reopened,...
Travis Morgan's case seems open-and-shut: a plot to kill his estranged father, fundamentalist preacher Arlie Morgan, goes awry and his bullet slays an innocent bookkeeper. Two eyewitnesses seal Travis' fate. But despite damning evidence, Travis staunchly maintains his innocence. Beseeched by his anguished mother, veteran defense attorney Barbara Holloway agrees to represent Travis. With the support of her father attorney Frank Holloway and crack
...Barbara Holloway has a reputation for taking on the toughest cases—and winning them. The trial involves the murder of Gus Marchand, a hard-working, God-fearing man who was found dead on his kitchen floor. Without any real evidence linking him to the crime, the locals cast their suspicions toward Alex Feldman, Marchand's hideously deformed neighbor. At the request of a fellow attorney, Barbara agrees to defend him. But another suspect is the
...9) In Between
Sam and Lori had only just met and now they are dead, the result of a car accident. Accident? Dead? No, and not exactly. In life, Sam was a successful playwright and Lori was a secretary for Ben Carnahan, a scheming movie producer who wants Sam's new script and whose negligence on a movie set twenty years earlier killed Lori's father. Now, Sam and Lori are ghosts out of sequence with the real world yet fully aware of their existence. As they work
...The large retainer offered by a client who asks for complete anonymity is not the only thing that intrigues Barbara Holloway. The defendant, Carol Fredricks, is a gifted young pianist charged with killing the manager of a piano bar. But Carol is as much of a mystery...
Since he is poised to desecrate...
12) The Hamlet Trap
Roman Cavanaugh runs a small theater company in Ashland, Oregon, one that has gained a nation-wide reputation. When a new director comes to town, bringing with him an eccentric playwright, jealousies arise and tempers flare; suddenly a man is found murdered. Ro's niece, Ginnie, is accused, and private investigators Charlie Meiklejohn and his wife, Constance Leidl, are called in to clear his name. They uncover a trail of secrets that threaten to
...Quiet—that's what the town of Spender's Ferry is. The lake, the abandoned mill, the woods behind the house—everything is so rural and peaceful, not at all like the clamor and constant street noise of the Bronx. When Charlie and Constance are brought in to investigate a murder and the poisoning of a dog, they discover that the placid woods of Spender's Ferry muffle a teeming jungle of secrets—secret vices, secret pasts, secret
...14) Whisper her name
Charlie didn't want to take this case—he hated cases involving crazy wills—but when one of the new clients mentioned that the Bainbridge men are cursed, he knew resistance was hopeless: Constance could not resist confronting a curse.
In a quiet college town in New Jersey, five million dollars in cashier's checks lies hidden in a dead man's house, and whoever finds the checks gets to keep it all. Four family members have four weeks
...16) Skeletons
Lee Donne has an eidetic memory that maintains a visual representation of everything she has ever seen. Unfortunately, this gift is useless; it certainly didn't help her in college, where she spent four years drifting from major to major with no degree in sight.
Without a job or prospects, Lee is relieved to be house-sitting at her grandfather's isolated Oregon home. But her stay soon becomes a nightmare when she is tormented by strange and
...17) Sleight of Hand
Gregarious Vegas entertainer Wally Lederer has a lucrative showbiz career, but when a childhood friend accuses him of stealing a valuable artifact, his checkered past comes back to haunt him. Wally claims he's turned his life around since spending time in the slammer for picking pockets, but will the police believe him? More important, does Barbara believe him when he pleads his case to her?
Wally swears he's innocent. But when his accuser
...Five years ago, Barbara Holloway gave up practicing law, disillusioned with a profession that put politics before justice. Then she receives a phone call, with a simple message: "I need you."
Nell Kendricks' husband disappeared seven years earlier, abandoning his young family. Nell hasn't seen him since—until the day he arrives at the edge of her property and is shot, instantly killed. Accused of his murder, Nell turns to lawyer Frank
...Barbara Holloway is a low-key attorney in Eugene, Oregon, who left her father's high-powered firm to handle small legal problems for local residents and ponder her next move. But while trying to sort out her own future, two people, desperate for help, show up on her doorstep: former pro football player Martin Owens and his wife, Binnie. Binnie, who is mute, met her husband when she sneaked aboard his boat while it was docked in Haiti and smuggled
...Constance Leidl and Charlie Meiklejohn are an unlikely pair of detectives. He is a former arson detective; she is a psychologist. Together, the husband-and-wife team has a knack for unraveling a mystery. Seven Kinds of Death is a famous sculpture, but the name takes on new meaning when bodies start turning up at the creator's art colony.
A party launching the art tour of an old friend and the opening of her husband's condominiums turns tragic
...