In a villa on the California coast, a murderer stalks a young heiress Laila Breen is a strangely na\u00efve girl. Her father Jonas is an adventurer, a robber baron who made his fortune traveling exotic climes. Laila speaks French and knows how to order fine food, but she cannot read a newspaper and can barely write her own name. Jonas settles in California, planning to get this strange eighteen-year-old tutored in the ways of practical life. He dies soon after, leaving his daughter rich, clueless, and alone.   Her only friend is Dee Allison, a cousin who tries to help Laila even after the orphan catches the eye of Dee's fianc\u00e9. Standing in Dee's way is a gang of relatives who care more about Laila's fortune than her future. When a housekeeper falls victim to poisoning, Dee fears for Laila. For a young girl with money, nothing is more dangerous than family.

A middle-aged widow makes a new life in a strange apartment house Nona Henry's husband is dead, and with him the life they spent years building in New York City. Unable to bear the Manhattan winter without him, Nona goes west to Pasadena, California, land of sun, sand, and rebirth. She finds a picture postcard advertising a boarding house called Sans Souci and, charmed by the elegant hotel's stately patio, makes a one-month reservation. Reality does not live up to the postcard.   Sans Souci is dingy, cramped, and dark, a claptrap hotel full of shabby rooms whose windows overlook a run-down neighborhood. But Nona will not give in. Sixteen other widows live in the hotel. Some are lifers, some just passing through. In this eclectic mix of women whose men have gone, Nona finds a niche, and learns that the end of her old life can't stop her from beginning again.

A New York City drama teacher risks her life to expose a potentially deadly public hoax in this "most uncommon thriller" (New York Herald Tribune). Olivia Hudson, a drama teacher at a Manhattan girl's school, refuses to let her uncle John Paul Marcus play the role of dupe in a real-life revenge story. Uncle John is a beloved war veteran, a New York institution, and a hard-working philanthropist with an unimpeachable reputation. His mistake—an honorable one, at that—was disclosing the financial chicanery of industrial heir Raymond Pankerman, and it could cost John his life. Raymond has staged the perfect crime, and the perfect frame-up, to destroy the old man. He has everything he needs: a failed and penniless playwright who'd sell his soul if the price was right, a budding television starlet looking for a breakout role, and a susceptible public suckered into believing a supernatural swindle that's making headlines.

Nine stories of revenge, compassion, love, and loathing in a collection "to be cherished" from an Edgar Award–winning author (Dorothy B. Hughes). A child is unwittingly introduced to the very meaning of terror. A teenage girl eyes her mother's lover with curiosity and caution. A nasty rumor poisons the reputation of a guarded neighbor. A schoolteacher's attempt to reach four bullying students results in a wicked sting. An elderly woman's patience begins to crack in the most unexpected ways. . . . In this suspenseful anthology, author Charlotte Armstrong illuminates the mysteries of life in tales told from perspectives ranging from infancy, childhood, and adolescence to adulthood and the deathbed. In each piece, Armstrong demonstrates how the tiniest spark of emotion—a stray whisper or the impression of a stranger—can shed light on the past, define the future, become a catalyst for tragedy, or influence fears that last a lifetime.

This MacDougal Duff Mystery launched the career of the Edgar Award–winning "American queen of suspense novelists" (New York Telegraph). Feeling unmoored since the death of her father, twenty-year-old Bessie Gibbon has left upstate New York to live with an aunt and uncle, Lina and Charles Cathcart, in their four-story Manhattan home. Bessie has heard tales about her eccentric uncle: that he was a millionaire theater magnate and the black sheep of the family, that his marriage to Lina was more of an arrangement than a matter of love, and most important, that he was an inveterate player of parlor games—but nothing prepares Bessie for the luxury in which he lives, the odd assortment of servants, or the cronies who can turn a late-night Parcheesi tournament into a blood sport. And that's precisely what happens when one of them is shot to death after a particularly cutthroat game. Now there are whispers that it was Uncle Charles who pulled the...

A madwoman holds a professor prisoner in this frightening thriller by the Edgar Award–winning "mistress of day-lit terror" (The New York Times). California University mathematics instructor Pat O'Shea is horrified to learn that a fellow faculty member is responsible for the theft of a valuable piece of lab equipment. But biology professor Everett Adams hasn't just turned thief; he's also become a stark raving madman. After a confrontation, Adams leaves his accuser for dead, badly beaten on the outside of town. Now, no one has seen either man in days. When O'Shea awakens in a dilapidated old bungalow on a deserted stretch of nowhere, he's not in the hands of a rescuer, but rather at the mercy of a captor. The watchful old woman is demented, homicidal, and taking wicked delight in keeping a hostage. Her killer hound stands guard, and if all goes according to plan, the gravely injured O'Shea will never be allowed to leave. ...

A young drifter charms his way into the confidence of an older woman in this twisting novel by "a pioneer in domestic suspense" (Lisa Unger). Seventy-four-year-old widow Mrs. Moffat lives in a quiet and idyllic California town, accustomed to routine and solitude in her country home. But everything changes when she runs into a charismatic young transient in church one Sunday morning. He claims to be Simon Warren, the son of a former neighbor and the best friend of Mrs. Moffat's own grandson, who mysteriously vanished years ago. Longing to repair the emotional wounds of the past, the enchanted Mrs. Moffat welcomes Simon into her home. But he's not received nearly as well by her friends or her granddaughter, Zen, whose suspicions about Simon, and the potential threat he poses, are willfully ignored by her grandmother. Now, as the young man calmly insinuates himself into a comfortable new life, a test of wills between the stubborn old woman and her...

Investigating her mysterious birth leads a bright young artist into peril For a few hours after her birth, Amanda Garth had two fathers. One was John, the kind, forthright man who would raise her. The other was Tobias Garrison, a well-known California artist who, because of a mix-up in the hospital's nursery, briefly thought Amanda was his. The confusion was straightened out, and the misunderstanding is forgotten for twenty-three years, when questions about her birth cause Amanda to approach the Garrisons. This could prove a deadly mistake.   Someone in that poisonous family is plotting a murder, and the last thing they want is another heir to the massive Garrison fortune. The quest for truth could mean death for the girl whose birth was shrouded in secrecy.

Edgar Award winner: A longtime bachelor finally marries—only to learn the corrosive power of jealousy For fifty-five years, Kenneth Gibson has lived in backwaters. A former army clerk, he makes a quiet living teaching poetry to indifferent undergrads. His life is happily dull until the day he meets Rosemary, a damaged girl whose frailty compels Kenneth to try to make her well. They wed, and as Rosemary recovers from her depression, Gibson falls in love, transforming his world. But his wife will never love him. She is smitten with their landlord, a dashing young chemical engineer named Paul. Gibson wants to let her go, but he cannot bear to be parted with the first love he has ever known. In Paul's house is a case of poison, and this love triangle can only end in death.

A dead girl's closest friend goes undercover to unmask a killer Why did Rosaleen Wright hang herself in a soundproof room? She left an unsigned note, peppered with stiff religious references and no trace of her trademark vitality or wit. The police believe it was suicide, but Rosaleen's best friend, Jane, is suspicious. To prove Rosaleen was murdered, she takes a job with the man who killed her.   Luther Grandison, Rosaleen's boss, is a New York theatrical impresario with a lethal charm. To the world at large, he's powerful and charismatic, but Rosaleen's letters to Jane described a greedy man who stole from his adopted daughter when his bank account ran low. Jane thinks Grandison killed her to protect his secret, but to prove it she will have to face down one of the finest murderers Broadway has ever seen.

A professor becomes enchanted with a girl who carries a dangerous jinx History student Sarah Shepherd does not look like a killer. She is shy, but her writing so impresses Professor David Wakeley that he asks her to become his research assistant. Terrified, she begs him to stay away. For Sarah Shepherd is stalked by death, and the professor could be her next victim.   For years, people close to her have died: an office colleague, a coworker's mother, and Sarah's husband, who dropped dead on their wedding day. David doesn't believe her until a few days later, when his parked car rolls down a hill, seemingly under its own power, and kills a stranger. Something is tormenting this young girl, and David suspects it may be her family. To Sarah's relatives, a group of old vaudevillians, deceit and even murder are second nature.

Edgar Award Finalist: The explosive politics of the Middle East shatter a California family in this "wonderful thriller" (The New York Times). Among the Tylers of Santa Clara are a matriarch lauded as the first lady of American theater, a judicial appointee of the president, a noted fundraiser for international charities, a university vice-chancellor, and an esteemed and admired surgeon. The Tylers are, in their own words, "worthy of Paradise." Then, a violently anti-US Middle Eastern leader sends his son to California to be treated by the young Dr. Michael Tyler. The king's deal: Save his "little prince," and the lives of the twenty-eight American hostages languishing in his prison will be spared. And there's another caveat: The agreement must be kept secret. But there's one more Tyler to contend with. Rufus Tyler is the family "lemon in the basket," an underachiever who has finally found his moment in history. By exposing his...

A child is left in the care of a disturbed babysitter in "one of the finest pure terror-suspense stories ever written" (The New York Times). Bunny's parents shouldn't have brought her to New York City, but her father has an important speech to make, and her mother couldn't bear to be away from their darling nine-year-old daughter. And when her mommy and daddy leave for the speech, Bunny will stay in the hotel with a babysitter, sound asleep and perfectly safe. What could possibly go wrong? The sitter is Nell, a plain young woman from Indiana. She puts Bunny to bed and amuses herself in the other room, making prank calls and trying on Bunny's mother's jewelry. So far, all is well. But Nell's dull expression conceals madness, and something is broken inside her mind . . . From one of the greatest female crime writers of the mid-twentieth century, an Edgar Award winner and six-time finalist, Mischief is "a fine, chilly...