First Editions N-Z

The following  are a SAMPLE of some of the SIGNED FIRST EDITIONS we have for sale.  Please note that we have limited quantities of many of these books, and all are subject to prior sale, so please call soon to order (805) 374-0084 or go to our order page. Call to see what we have that's not listed!

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In 1936, the Schwarts, an immigrant family desperate to escape Nazi Germany, settle in a small town in upstate New York, where the father, a former high school teacher, is demeaned by the only job he can get – gravedigger and cemetery caretaker.  After local prejudice and the family’s own emotional frailty result in unspeakable tragedy, the gravedigger’s daughter, Rebecca, begins her astonishing pilgrimage into America – an odyssey of imaginative daring and ingenious self-invention.

Once again, the two time Edgar winner and New York Times bestseller has outdone himself with a new novel that is sure to become a classic. Outlaw by night, schoolteacher by day, Allison Murietta/Suzanne Jones has charmed the media, donating much of her bounty to charity and never hurting anyone. When she walks into a crime scene that has left ten gangsters dead and steals the half million dollars worth of diamonds that have been left behind, she kindles  a fire that sets the Southland’s most notorious killer after her and those she loves. Caught in the blaze is rookie Detective Charlie Hood who falls in love with Suzanne. Torn between honor and passion, Hood must choose between following his heart or following the law. Packed with suspense and unforgettable characters, T. Jefferson Parker proves once more that he’s one of crime fiction’s greatest stars.

The last time Jesse Stone saw Crow Cromartie, he was racing away in a speedboat after executing one of the most lucrative and deadly heists in Paradise’s history.  Ten years later Crow shows up in Jesse’s office and he’s asking for Jesse’s help by asking him to stay out of his way.  Crow’s mission is to find young Amber Francisco and bring her back to her father, Louis, in Florida, but there are complications.  Amber is mixed up with members of a Latino gang and Louis has ordered Crow to kill Amber’s mother.  Crow may be a bad guy but he doesn’t kill women so he’s going to need Jesse’s protection.

It is 1893 and a prostitute’s mutilated body is discovered in a cupboard at Buckingham Palace.  The girl was part of a special entertainment sponsored by the Prince of Wales.

Four wealthy businessmen and their wives were invited to the Palace to discuss plans to build a Pan-African railroad. After their wives retired for the evening, fun and games with the girl ensued. Thomas Pitt is assigned the difficult balancing act of solving the murder and avoiding political disaster for the monarchy. Fans of the series will relish the plot twists and turns, the vivid historical details, and the thought provoking parallels to today’s political scandals.  This 25^th entry in the series proves once again that when it comes to Victorian murder mysteries Ms. Perry has no peer.

One of the genre’s masters returns with a standout thriller. When Phil Kramer is shot dead on a deserted suburban street in the middle of the night, his wife Emily is left with an empty bank account and many questions. The killer, Jerry Hobart, has some of his own. Since he’s been rehired to take out Kramer’s widow, he figures there’s a bigger secret and maybe a bigger payoff too. As they race to find the secret Phil Kramer hid, both must question where their true loyalties lie and how much they owe to those who have been unfaithful to them.

The world’s largest supercollider particle accelerator has been constructed deep in an Arizona mountain. The creation of Nobel physicist Gregory Hazelius, the forty billion dollar machine nicknamed Isabella, was built to probe the energy levels of the Big Bang and perhaps provide new avenues for generating power. But in testing Isabella something unexpected has happened and Dr. Hazelius and his team of twelve scientists are not sharing the information with Washington.  Wyman Ford, former monk and CIA cryptologist, is sent in find out what they are hiding. No sooner has he arrived than one of the team is found dead under mysterious circumstances. This is a pulse-pounding saga that moves at a relentless pace. Douglas Preston proves once again that he is a master of scientific suspense.

When Karen Drew is found sitting in her wheelchair with her throat cut, DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to a sister precinct, draws the case.  Back home in Eastvale on the same day, DCI Alan Banks is pondering the brutal death of young Hayley Daniels, found raped and strangled in the Maze, a tangle of narrow alleys behind the market square.  While Banks finds suspects galore, Annie hits a brick wall until a breakthrough spins her case in a shocking and surprising new direction, straight toward Banks.  As Banks and Annie search for answers, the emotional baggage of their personal relationship begins to surface, complicating the already complex investigation.

One of our favorite authors makes his standalone debut with a thriller that shines with suspense and intensity. It’s New Year’s Eve and Tim Wallace is having a drink at his neighborhood pub. His wife died in a boating accident several months ago and the cops suspect Tim of murdering her - even though they have no hard evidence. Now Tim is trying to get on with his life but when a drunken stranger asks him if he can keep a secret and then tells him that he murdered a girl three months ago and walks away, Tim’s sad existence turns from bad to worse in a split second. Under renewed suspicion from the police, the only way out of the situation is for Tim to solve the murder himself.

Alyssa Austin, a wealthy widow, returns to her home to find blood on the walls and her daughter missing. When the police fail to locate the Goth college girl, Alyssa begs Weather Davenport to persuade her husband Lucas to pursue the case.  Trying to piece together a jigsaw of clues and faced with the additional problem of another young Goth who keeps appearing and disappearing, Lucas instinctively knows that following this trail will lead to answers. 

Surgeon Dafydd Woodruff’s life is blown apart by the arrival of shocking news.  Deep in the remote, sub-Arctic wilderness of Canada, where he lived and worked fifteen years before, he’s told he fathered twins.  Dafydd knows it cannot be true, but DNA tests don’t lie.  The news threatens to unravel his marriage and career, and he’ll have to return to the frozen North to confront demons he thought he’d left behind years ago.  This is a riveting debut!

The last person Mary DiNunzio expects to walk into her law office is Trish Gambone, her high school rival.  Back then, while Mary was becoming the straight-A president of the Latin Club, Trish was the head Mean Girl who flunked religion and excelled at smoking in the bathroom.  Trish’s life has taken a horrifying turn – she’s terrified of her live-in boyfriend, a gun-toting drug dealer for the South Philly mob.  Trish vanishes.  Then a dead body turns up in an alley, and Mary is plunged into a nightmare, one that threatens her job, her family, and her life.

Motorcycle-riding, female ex-army bodyguard Charlie Fox, whom we met in last year’s riveting First Drop, returns and we’re delighted!  Second Shot starts with a bang – Charlie, shot twice, lies injured in a frozen forest.  Charlie has come to a wintery New England to protect the beautiful Simone and her equally adorable little girl while searching for Simone’s long lost father.  But the stakes are high and Charlie’s foes are deadly.  Tough women rock!

Twin boys are kidnapped from their Chicago home on their second birthday. There is no ransom note left behind, no phone call is ever made.  As the first anniversary approaches, Jase Deering, freelance journalist, plunges into an investigation of this cold case. His efforts to find the twins take him on a long dangerous journey into a world of grisly deeds, satanic evil and magic. 

 Called in at the last moment to try and prevent the execution of Nathan Fineman, a former mob lawyer convicted of killing 3 people in the backroom of a restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Mike and Rosie must race the clock to prove their client’s innocence in only ten days with overwhelming forensic evidence that points directly to Fineman’s guilt.  Equally disturbing, Mike must revisit the past when the reputation of his dead father, one of the first police officers at the scene the night of the murders, is called into question. Judgment day is here - don’t miss it!!!

Taking on an unusual assignment, Rita Farmer, like so many in Hollywood, is doing everything she can just to stay financially afloat until her big break comes along. She is hired by a famous defense attorney to coach his client, a woman charged with the murder of her own little girl.  The lawyer wants Rita to make Eileen, the accused, more sympathetic and vulnerable in her speech and demeanor in front of the jury. Rita is confident she can do it, and it does pay $1,000 a day. But what Rita doesn’t know is that in her quest to know what really happened, she will place her life in jeopardy. This is the debut of a new series by the author of the award winning Lillian Byrd mysteries.

To help her new chocolate shop flourish, gourmande Helen Taggart has hired Tucker Sinclair and Associates.  Then one night, Tucker finds the shop open, truffles strewn across the floor and the body of cleaning woman Lupe Ortiz lying next to a bloody green feather.  The Baltimore Sun has described Patricia’s writing as “a breezy, good-humored voice that’s tremendously enjoyable” and we couldn’t agree more.

FBI Special Agent Ana Grey, first introduced in NORTH OF MONTANA, returns in a thriller where she must go deep undercover to infiltrate an Oregon animal rights group planning a horrendous act of domestic terrorism. Posing as a horse lover trying to save the wild mustangs, Ana is plunged into a psychological pressure cooker of living a lie 24/7 as she tries to work her way into the inner circle to avenge the death of a fellow agent and to prevent a future disaster.

When a Mexican farmhand stumbles over a Latino man killed with a single shot to the back of his head, Clare Fergusson is drawn into the investigation through her involvement with the migrant community.  The discovery of two more bodies executed in the same way ignites fears that a serial killer is loose in Millers Kill.  Police chief Russ van Alstyne is plagued by media hysteria, conflicts within his police department and a series of baffling assaults, not to mention the escalating tensions and roiling emotions between himself and Clare, separated by a wall of guilt and grief after the death of Russ’ wife.  (June) 

A renegade terrorist with a bottomless personal grudge against all things American targets the most visible symbol of American prestige and power one clear morning in Florida as NASA prepares to launch the Space Shuttle.  The Shuttle is carrying a high profile payload and a high-paying visitor on board, and astronaut Kenai Munro, FBI special agent Patrick Chisholm and U.S. Coast Guard Captain Cal Schyler are doing everything they can to help the launch go off without a hitch.  Once again Dana has delivered an action-driven thriller with an ingenious and frightening plot that is garnering rave reviews.

In the spring of 1920, a body is discovered in the cloisters of Yorkshire’s Fountains Abbey, an unidentified man wrapped in a hooded cloak with his face hidden by a gas mask.  Scotland Yard dispatches Inspector Ian Rutledge to take control of the sensitive case, but prying answers from anyone who might have known the victim is proving difficult.  The truth is concealed in a dangerous, challenging puzzle no one want Rutledge to solve, least of all a killer in hiding.  This is a remarkable series, one we can’t recommend highly enough.

Shamus-winner Louise Ure blazes new creative trails in her second novel. Meet Candace Moran - she’s a blind auto mechanic who pinpoints problems by sound. After nearly being run down by a speeding car, Candace first believes her close call was the result of either road rage or bad driving. In this she is mistaken, for this was a deliberate act by a killer seeking to eliminate the only witness to the murder of Candace’s elderly neighbor. It is an odyssey of determination and courage as Candace quests to stop a killer she cannot see.  Well-written and full of excitement, don’t overlook this fast-paced Southwestern mystery from an emerging new talent.

Fresh on the heels of last year’s triumphant return to crime fiction comes a gripping new novel about the men and women of the LAPD. In Hollywood, nothing is ever what it seems so when LAPD cops Hollywood Nate and Bix Rumstead find themselves caught up with bombshell Margot Aziz, they get more than they bargained for. Seemingly a harmless socialite caught in the middle of an ugly divorce from nefarious nightclub owner Ali Aziz, Margot’s no helpless victim. She’s setting them both up so she can pull off the perfect murder and walk away with her husband’s fortune… But Ms. Aziz isn’t the only one with a deadly plan… Tightly plotted and darkly funny, this is a ride-along with the LAPD you don’t want to miss!

When Doc Ford’s goddaughter, Shanay, asked for his help in delivering money to retrieve a videotape of her bachelor party, Ford knew it was a mistake to give in to the extortion.  The blackmailer took the money and released the tape on the Internet and one of the panicked bridesmaids took an overdose of pills.  Fueled by guilt and an overpowering rage, Ford and his buddy Tomlinson swear to destroy the person responsible, but she has other ideas.  An agent of corruption like no one they have ever met, the black widow is just getting started…

Winner of the PWA/SMP Best 1^st Private Eye Novel Contest, Wiley delivers a thrilling tale with twists and turns in all the right places.  Chicago P.I. Joe Kazmarski is burnt out from his work so when Judge Rifkin, the man who double crossed his father, asks him to go fishing, Joe agrees; he’s curious and has nothing to lose. Turns out the Judge has problems, his assistant Bob Piedras is accused of killing his beautiful Vietnamese lover and soon Joe is investigating with the unwanted help of the victim’s two thug brothers and his own eleven year old nephew. Then the Judge is murdered and Bob Piedras disappears. Nothing’s ever easy! An impressive debut.

From a writer who has written about organized crime (The Winter of Frankie Machine), the drug wars (The Power of the Dog), and arson (California Fire and Life), comes the ultimate page-turning surfer novel and perfect summer read.  PI Boone Daniels lives to surf every morning with the Dawn Patrol, a group of friends as single minded about surfing as he is, and works enough just to keep himself in fish tacos and wetsuits. But, when a gorgeous bossy lawyer insists on his help in uncovering an insurance scam, Boone ends up on a wilder, more unpredictable ride than any wave he could have imagined.

In her fifth outing, Maisie Dobbs leaves post WWI London for a picturesque village in Kent during the hop picking season to investigate matters concerning a land purchase. But beneath the pastoral surface of the town, something is wrong and Maisie grows increasingly suspicious of a strange secrecy that shrouds the village. Ultimately, it will take all of Maisie’s special skills of detection to solve one of her most intriguing cases. Always a delight, Jacqueline Winspear and Maisie Dobbs are charming and irresistible!

When Bruce Kohler wakes up in detox on the Bowery on Christmas Day, he knows it’s time to change his life.  When a fellow drunk dies in his bed that night, Bruce is concerned that on one is interested in the cause of his death.  With the help of an old friend and his wife, the world’s best addiction counselor, Bruce starts to dig into the dead man’s wealthy society background and finds more than he expected.  This is a debut that will keep mystery fans hooked!

Click here for A-E

Click here for F-M