Showing results by narrator "Tom Lennon" in All Categories

Harry Starke loves a cold case, but this one is really cold, more than a hundred years cold. Family Matters is a tale that takes place on the lonely coast of Maine, where Amanda, a true believer in the paranormal, has inherited—you guessed it—a haunted house. At least that’s what the rumors say. It all begins when Amanda inherits the house, substantial assets, and a large sum of money from her grandmother. The windfall comes with a request to look into the disappearance of Elizabeth, Amanda’s great-great-grandmother, more than a hundred years ago.

These gruesome stories have peppered the pages of newspapers and history books over the centuries. Some are well-known. Some aren’t. They rest in that murky place between true crime and horror. All will make your blood run cold.

This is the startling question that Jeff Cody and his wife, Lynda, hear during a wedding reception on the first night of the QueenCon mystery conference in Cincinnati. Not only are the whispered words unnerving, there is no one nearby to have spoken them.

Who was she? Who put her there? Why did she have to die? Harry Starke vows to find the answers to those questions. But the trail has gone cold and Hill House is a desolate ruin with many secrets. To find the answers, Harry must embark upon an investigation that will put him and those close to him in deadly danger, take him to the lost and long-forgotten streets buried under the city, and deep into the Dark Web where he comes face to face with murder, organized crime, prostitution, and human trafficking.

It takes only one phone call to turn Harry Starke into a monster. It begins when Harry’s kid brother is brutally murdered, his body thrown into the murky waters of the Tennessee River. That alone would be enough to set Harry on the warpath, but less than 24 hours after the body is found, Harry finds out there’s a bounty on his head, too. $25,000. His answer? Strike first and strike hard. And so it begins. Harry and his army of three must go up against old enemies, but they face almost insurmountable odds when they go looking for retribution.

Popular mystery writer Sebastian McCabe is about to conquer a new world with his Sherlock Holmes play 1895. On opening night, however, his Erin, Ohio, theatrical debut as both playwright and actor is upstaged by a murder in the back of the newly renovated theater.

Celine Sutherland is dead - her body half-hidden under the Atlantic City Boardwalk - and Damien Dickens, P.I. killed her. Detective Lt. James Holmes found Damien's gun and wallet near the crime scene, and discovered Celine's cash-filled, emerald-studded evening bag hidden in Damien's apartment. Sylvia Sutherland, Celine's older sister and CEO of the family's tobacco empire, insists that Dickens pulled the trigger. And the Sutherlands carry a lot of influence in Atlantic City.

It began when an FBI informant was brutally gunned down outside a soccer stadium. A tactical nuclear weapon has gone missing somewhere in the Middle East and is thought to have been smuggled into the United States by a small group of Iranian terrorists intent on chaos and destruction. The target? Unknown, but the FBI’s local director is convinced that it’s the Sequoya nuclear plant and that the clock is ticking. Convinced that the threat is real and that his only link to the terrorists is Harry Starke’s nemesis, Shady Tree, he turns to Harry for help.

The best men I've known have been cowmen. There's a code they live by - it's their way of life. It starts with an abiding reverence for the good Lord. They're taught to honor and respect their parents and to share both blanket and bread. Their words are their bond, a handshake their contract. They're good stewards of his creation, the land. They believe the words in his book.

A mortally wounded Miss America entrusts a mysterious Russian coin to Damien Dickens, PI, before she dies. After Damien disappears while researching the significance of the coin, Millie tracks her husband's abductor to Florida. When his captor falls to his death from the balcony of a seventh floor apartment, Damien escapes; then he and Millie join forces to unravel the web of intrigue surrounding the Russian coin and its connection to the murder of Miss America.

When a well-known local socialite’s body is found during a round of golf with his father, Harry Starke suddenly finds himself embroiled in what quickly becomes a very thorny murder investigation. Who killed Angela Hartwell and why? The answers lie somewhere along a twisty-windy path through the patrons and morals of an exclusive golf club where the members are seldom what they seem, and their goals are infinitely more complicated than a simple round of golf. Harry Starke’s investigation takes him into a world he’s very familiar with. A world of affluence, privilege, and corruption.

Pages Gone By is more than just the only used book store in Erin, Ohio. It’s also a favorite meeting place for writers and readers. And early one morning, it becomes the scene of a murder, when a body is found in the romance section. As polymath mystery writer Sebastian McCabe and sardonic sidekick Jeff Cody try to unmask the murderer of a friend, they get more help than they need from a talk-show psychologist and a group of would-be mystery writers with more imagination than deductive skills.

When popular mystery writer Sebastian McCabe agreed to take part in a literary debate in London, he had no clue that he would wind up as both investigator and suspect in the strangest case of his amateur sleuthing career. Arthur James Phillimore, investment guru to the stars and member of an elite Sherlock Holmes society, steps back into his home to fetch an umbrella one rainy day and is never seen alive again. The mystery is eerily evocative of one of Dr. Watson’s most famous untold tales, the disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore. But this Phillimore soon reappears - dead.

When Erin, Ohio native Jamie Ellicott returns home as best-selling author James Ivanhoe after a 13-year absence, it’s like the return of the Prodigal Son. His ill and aging father welcomes him with open arms. Ivanhoe’s two brothers, however, are less forgiving. The whole town gets drawn into the family drama when Ivanhoe seeks to march in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade under the banner of an anti-technology group called the Ned Ludd Society. That’s a thumb in the collective eye of his siblings, who own a company that makes microcircuits.

It was April 1, 1998, when the bodies of two teenagers, a young fella and his girlfriend - both high school seniors - were found among the trees on a lonely road just inside the city limits. The bodies had been stripped and left for the wild animals to...well, you get the idea. The cops had a good idea who the killer was, but they never could prove it, so the case went cold until April 1, 2012, when local DA, Larry Spruce, asked me to take a look at it.

Cassie Morgan was just 17 years old when she died at the hands of a sadistic killer. Homicide Detective Harry Starke caught the case, and he knew right from the beginning that it was going to be a bad one, and he was right. Too many clues, too many suspects, too many bodies, and a police chief more interested in his career than justice for the victims. For Harry, it was the last straw, and it had been a long time coming.

Secret plots to exterminate most of the world’s population to bring peace to the world. Two old enemies must work together to foil the peacemakers.

When Silas investigates a case of intellectual property theft, he has too much of everything. Too many suspects. Too many distractions. Too many feelings.

As Marshal Lofton would soon discover, not only was his new deputy deadly accurate, but he was also unbelievably fast, and with the ruthless Scorpion Hill Gang operating in Marshal Lofton's district, Oliver's skills would be tested time and again. Although the citizens of Texas revered him as a guardian angel, the members of the outlaw gang would come to fear him as the Grim Reaper. But, unlike most gunslingers, Oliver's reputation spread slowly, because by the time an outlaw learned his name, they were already dead.

Edward Jennings grew up during the turbulent years after the Texas Revolution. While still a teenager, he found himself responsible for two enormous tracts of land and the well-being of two families. And then came secession. Ed, like many in central Texas, voted against the ordinance only to be overruled by east Texas cotton-growers. The resistance led to a declaration of martial law, followed by an order that every able-bodied male must join the Confederate Army. Will he obey the law? Or will he risk everything rather than betray his principles? What will Ed do?