What’s an eight-letter word for killjoy? Find out in this devilishly clever crossword mystery featuring husband-and-wife sleuth team Belle Graham and Rosco Polycrates Belle Graham hears it first from the gossip columnist for the Evening Crier, where Belle is resident crossword editor. Fire has destroyed one of the stables at King Wenstarin Farms, the multimillion-dollar corporation owned by the notorious Collins clan, and the barn manager lies in a coma. Did someone torch the place? That’s what Belle’s PI husband, Rosco Polycrates has been hired to find out. Former Prohibition–era bootleggers, the Collinses live in a mansion that is more Newport, Rhode Island, than Newcastle, Massachusetts. Todd Collins, the seventy-four-year-old patriarch, is currently married to much-younger wife number three, his three children’s horsey stepmom from hell. But the family’s infamous infighting is about to morph into a nasty case of murder. With a media circus heating up, a second homicide rocks the New England town. Now Belle has to solve some cryptic brainteasers before she becomes the next victim of a killer ready to ride off into the sunset . . . after burying Belle six feet down—and three across. This ebook includes six crossword puzzles that can be downloaded as PDFs, with answers in the back of the book. Death on the Diagonal is the 8th book in the Crossword Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Robin Vaughan, the equestrienne star of Murder Well-Bred, returns in her fourth puzzler, which finds her scouring her Texas backwater for the key to the hit-and-run death of the editor of the local paper. Original.

More than a neighbourhood, the fittingly titled Diagonal Lane is a circus of characters with the most comically absurdist approaches to life. But even for a locality that has come to expect the unexpected, the death of the local gossip, Mr Reddy, comes as a complete shock. Friendly neighbour, Mr Murthy, attempts to keep the police out of it. But another friendly neighbour, Mr Shetty, bungles it up. Not only do the police get involved, but they also declare Mr Reddy's death a homicide. To top it all, the police officer in charge of the investigation turns out to be Mr Murthy's old school chum: Sub-Inspector Rathindranath 'Ratty' Gowda. A stroke of good fortune? Not really. Eager to earn a promotion by any means possible, Ratty proceeds to put the denizens of Diagonal Lane through the wringer. It takes all of Mr Murthy's tact and diplomacy to prevent his childhood buddy from putting all the leading lights of the lane behind bars. But meddling in murky police affairs can sometimes backfire, and it does not take Mr Murthy long to recognise the veracity of the old adage: policemen have no friends. In this dark comedy on contemporary middle-class India, Pashupati Chatterji delivers a charming whodunnit guaranteed to have you laughing all the way to the end.

Poetry. Fiction. California Interest. Translated from the Spanish by David Shook. This mystery novel in verse won Mexico's highest literary honor in 2009, the Xavier Villaurutia Prize. Here, it is translated by Bolaño's translator, Dylan Thomas Prize shortlisted poet David Shook. The novel centers around Mr. Gordon, who, after being let go from his job due to his unstable behaviour, experiences the unfolding of his spirit in an artificial Californian Eden. In the shade of a thousand-leaved tree, very near a pool's edge, Gordon transcribes his thoughts, memories and questions while he tries to cope with abuse from his wife and his best friend, and battle dialogues emanating from an interior voice reminding us of Berryman's Mr. Bones. DEATH ON RUA AUGUSTA is the diary of a person who cannibalizes themselves. In this important narrative poem, Tedi López Mills dives magisterially into the machine of the mind to locate the fine line that keeps us tied to the world. A chapter-based novel in poetry form, Tedi López Mills has written DEATH ON RUA AUGUSTA in the magical realist tradition, drawing on film noir and West Coast thrillers--making this a cinematically surreal and strange delight for all readers.