December Publications

From the capable pen of Gwendoline Butler (A Dark Coffin) comes Coffin's Ghost, starring John Coffin, Chief Commander of the Second City of London's Police. When a package marked with Coffin's initials and full of dismembered limbs turns up outside of a battered women's shelter, Coffin doggedly pursues the investigation even as his buried past comes back to haunt him. (St. Martin's Minotaur/Dunne, $22.95 224p ISBN 0-312-27997-3)

Murder at the President's Door, written by William Harrington for the estate of Elliott Roosevelt (d. 1990), the son of FDR and Eleanor and author of an elegant but cozy historical mystery series starring his parents), entwines the stoic first lady in her 21st sleuthing adventure. This time, an assassination attempt sends her deep into D.C.'s criminal world, where, despite the efforts of the nation's top investigators, it's she who hunts down the would-be assassin. (St. Martin's Minotaur/Dunne, $23.95 240p ISBN 0-312-27499-8)

When a notorious terrorist visits Edinburgh, Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner's behind-the-desk position as acting chief suddenly becomes a lot more exciting—especially since the visit coincides with a conference of world leaders. An unrelated murder gradually grows in importance, both personally for Skinner and in light of the terrorist case, in Gallery Whispers, Quintin Jardine's (Murmuring the Judges) ninth Skinner mystery. (Headline [Trafalgar, dist.], $8.95 paper 420p ISBN 0-7472-5667-5)

Sara Fraser (The Target)—pen-name of erstwhile marine commando and foreign legionnaire Roy Clews—presents The Surgeon's Apprentice, a historical suspense novel set in the early 19th century. The chemistry between apprentice doctor James Kerr and Liddy Landser, the beautiful daughter of a down-and-out patient, is cut short when her father's debts put her at the mercy of a lecherous banker. Their story is to be continued in the forthcoming The Workhouse Doctor. (Severn, $29.99 224p ISBN 0-7278-5758-4)

Five Star presents these two novels in December: in Shamus-nominee Catherine Dain's (Angel in the Dark) Darkness at the Door: A New Age Mystery, series heroine and psychic healer Mariana Morgan at first dismisses a vision of her brother's bloody corpse but begins to take things seriously when a real corpse appears on her doorstep ($23.95 216p ISBN 0-7862-3553-5); and Edgar- and Silver Dagger— nominee Mat Coward's In and Out (Up and Down) once again features Detective Inspector Don Packham and Detective Constable Frank Mitchell, this time challenging them to solve a pub murder whose 12 suspects all have convincing motives. ($23.95 184p ISBN -3107-7)

And Five Star offers four short story collections in the same month. Check Up and Other Stories, by Wendi Lee (He Who Dies), features series heroine Angela Matelli in several stories, as well as a betrayed female PI in the witness protection program, a cat who won't die and a love affair-turned-nightmare ($23.95 248p ISBN 0-7862-3552-7).

Together We Kill: The Uncollected Stories of Mickey Spillane, edited and with an introduction by Max Allan Collins, showcases the only 1950s Mike Hammer story and several that demonstrate Spillane's know-how as a pilot ($24.95 180p ISBN -3560-3).

In two-time Shamus-winner Bill Pronzini's (Blue Lonesome) More Oddments: A Short Story Collection, a detective couple investigates a shipboard theft even as they keep some secrets of their own, and a magician working in a department store is called on to solve a murder and the theft of a valuable stamp ($24.95 180p ISBN -3557-8).

And in A Woman's Place and Other Mysterious Tales, D.R. Meredith (Murder Past Due) sends Maude and Victor on two sleuthing adventures involving a deadly kite and the dangers of bowling, and sets an angry museum curator and a latter-day mummy at odds. ($23.95 160p ISBN -3550-0).