Charlotte Armstrong
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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...
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A nameless woman arrives in L.A., only to fall into a coma and be positively identified as three completely different people, in this twist-filled thriller. She arrived at Peggy Cuneen's Los Angeles boarding house with no ID. She asked for a room, fell asleep silently, and has yet to wake up. Even doctors are baffled. The only thing they know for sure is there are no signs of physical illness and no evidence of bodily trauma. In fact, she's so flawlessly...
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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...
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A dying fraternity brother draws a wealthy playboy into a bizarre conspiracy Bernie staggers off the airplane from Honolulu, a lei around his neck and blood seeping from the wound in his chest. He stumbles to the terminal gift shop, and demands the cashier point him to a payphone. As his life seeps away, Bernie calls Harry Fairchild, his old fraternity brother. Dying or not, he has a job to do. Harry is a playboy, the scion of an oil-rich family...
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This MacDougal Duff Mystery launched the career of its Edgar Award-winning author. 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...
6) Mischief
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A couple makes the mistake of trusting their child to the wrong babysitter Bunny's parents should not have brought her to New York City, but her father has an important speech to make in the city, and her mother couldn't bear to be away from the darling nine-year-old girl. When 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,...
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MacDougal Duff falls in with a strange family-and senses murder A sudden cloudburst forces MacDougal Duff to stop his car in front of the home of Mary Moriarty. The history professor turned detective is reclining in his seat, waiting out the torrential rainstorm, when Mary knocks on the car window holding a feverish child and jabbering about a dead woman. After years investigating murders, Mac Duff is not fazed by a dead body, but the sick child moves...
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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...
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In a villa on the California coast, a murderer stalks a young heiress Laila Breen is a strangely naïve 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...
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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...
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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,...
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After his father's sudden death, a college student seeks revenge Ladd Cunningham never felt comfortable in his father's office. After high school he went to Stanford University rather than enter the family business, and he planned never to return. But then his father became ill, dying a slow, painful death, and Ladd was forced to come back. Ladd's new stepfather David Crown presses him, trying to learn if Ladd plans to finish college or take the...
13) The Albatross
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From "the mistress of day-lit terror": A couple invites two indigent women into their Hollywood home-and lives to regret it (The New York Times). In a roadside Santa Clara motel, Tom and Esther Gardner wake up to an intruder lurching toward Esther's bed in the dark. No one blames Tom for taking down the stranger with a single blow to the head-least of all the victim himself, an embarrassed real estate broker from Arcadia, too drunk to realize he's...
14) Something Blue
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A shadow of doubt is cast over a California bride when dire warnings about her fiancé arise in this thriller from "the mistress of day-lit terror" (The New York Times). Johnny Simms, a young biology student from Columbia University, has just arrived in San Francisco for a wedding. The lucky bride-to-be is a childhood friend: twenty-year-old Nan Padgett. But the shy, unsure girl he used to know has suddenly blossomed into a radiant, confident, and...
15) The Turret Room
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A spurned husband confronts the family of the girl who threw him out The walk from the mental hospital takes Harold Page three days. After two years inside, he cannot start his new life until he confronts the family who put him away. He was poor when he married Wendy Whitman, and their wealth still terrifies him. When their first child was born deaf, the Whitmans tricked Harold into a divorce, saying that he assaulted Wendy. She got the baby; he got...
16) The Balloon Man
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A woman attempts to flee her abusive husband in a thriller The New York Times Book Review calls "an unforgettable reading experience." Overworked cocktail waitress Sherry Reynard doesn't expect much anymore from her husband, Ward, whom she's supported for years. A struggling writer and sometimes-junkie coddled by his wealthy parents, Ward spends his days lost in a fog of self-pity and hallucinations. Then, one morning, he attacks his wife in a sudden,...
17) The Protégé
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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...
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Three old crones plan a deadly accident for their wealthy half-brother Alice Brennan is going to marry a millionaire. She has caught the eye of her boss, Innes Whitlock, but before they can tie the knot she must meet his sisters: three women who are so awful that no amount of money is worth enduring their company. One is blind, one is deaf, one is missing an arm, and they all want their brother dead. The accidents begin as soon as Alice and Innes...
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A disaster in a Michigan mining town throws a close-knit community into chaos in this novel from an Edgar Award-winning author. The small mining town of Thor is nestled in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, near the Wisconsin border. Its only source of income is the two ore mines-one to the east, one to west-that its citizens cling to for security. Then, one calm day, the town's routine is shaken. One of the mines collapses, and five men are trapped...
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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,...