April Publications

Five Star rolls out two novels by American pros: romance writer Juanita Coulson's Shadow over Scorpio, in which a serial killer, the Butcher Knife Murderer, haunts an Indiana community whose most eminent citizen is a renowned astrologer ($25.95 204p ISBN 1-59414-200-9); and Barbara Collins and Max Allan Collins's imaginative what-if mystery/thriller, Bombshell, in which Marilyn Monroe comes to the rescue of Nikita Khrushchev during the Russian leader's 1959 U.S. visit ($25.95 232p -202-5).

Severn House presents two novels from British crime veterans: Roderic Jeffries's latest Inspector Alvarez mystery, An Air of Murder, in which the Mallorcan policeman looks into the suspicious drowning of an English tourist ($26.99 256p ISBN 0-7278-6050-X); and Nick Oldham's Dead Heat, in which Det. Inspector Henry Christie, on suspension since his last outing, Substantial Threat, investigates some shady doings among the horse-riding set ($26.99 288p -5979-X).

In Quintin Jardine's seventh sexy, hard-hitting Oz Blackstone mystery, Unnatural Justice, Oz is enjoying the good life in his Scottish country house with his stunning wife, a successful businesswoman. Then Oz's fortunes take a sharply downward turn, starting with blackmail threats to his father, a paint-throwing episode at a movie premier and a bomb delivered to his wife's offices. (Headline [Trafalgar Sq., dist.], $24.95 256p ISBN 0-7472-6886-X)