Showing results by author "Len Boswell" in All Categories

Murder has come once more to the seaside town of Crab Cove, testing the mettle of "almost handsome" Detective Simon Grave and his "nearly invisible" partner, Sergeant Barry Blunt, who investigate a locked-room mystery with a significant twist: the prime suspects are in the locked room, not the victim, a logic-defying situation that challenges the team at every turn.

Philadelphia Detective Eleanor Rigby Beaumont was having a hard time believing what she was seeing. When she looked up, she saw a medieval castle that just shouldn’t have been there. When she looked to her right, across the park, she saw a woman in a black Victorian evening gown, sitting quietly on a park bench, waving at her. And when she looked down, she saw a dead man in a little stone-lined pool the locals called George Washington’s Bathtub. The man staring up at her, mouth agape, was the Water Master in the town’s International Water-Tasting Competition, a man who knew everything...

"An enthralling blend of history and fantasy . . . A masterwork." –The Historical Fiction Company To some, Lily was just a beautiful little girl. To others, she was a freakish albino who ate live chickens in a freak show. Charles Darwin called her his impossible girl and tried in vain to classify her. P. T. Barnum called her his angel and tried to take advantage of her. But the creature Barnum thought to turn into a money-making feature attraction is neither girl nor angel. She is something other, a species of unimaginable abilities, with the power to destroy-or save -our world. The power...

“Bright Things holds the suspense till the end, with an absolutely satisfying conclusion.” —Reader Review “You can’t breathe until it’s over.” —Stephen Goss, Scarlett and the Finger Dragons Bird Jeffers wants to know if crows are really attracted to bright things. Some scientists say yes, some say no. So, she designs a school science project to answer the question once and for all. As she studies the crows and their bright offerings, a young woman goes missing. Two serial killers are stalking the town, pursued by her father, the town sheriff. Only Bird’s crows hold the ...

Murder has come yet again to the seaside town of Crab Cove, testing the mettle of Detective Simon Grave, his “almost invisible” partner, Sergeant Barry Blunt, and his new assistant, Charlize, a simdroid (an android lookalike of a famous person) who fancies herself a match for Sherlock Holmes, in the simulated body of Charlize Theron. When a body is discovered on a deserted beach, alongside a deactivated Betty White simdroid, the game is afoot.

“Breathless drama. Clever, inspiring, and exhilarating!” –Michael Hartnett, The Blue Rat Queen Rhynt has won the Battle of the Plain of Sorrows, but now she must deal with deceit and betrayal by her former allies, the elves, led by the mysterious and powerful Queen Daneyh, who aims to rule the known world. As Rhynt responds to this new threat, she must also deal with the gods who want to stop her and the riddle of the mysterious runes on the walls of Randall's Cave and the Cave of the Six Arrows. Do they foretell her death or something else? Only her rune meister, Orthor, can solve ...

A demon hound haunts Crab Cove, taking its victims as they come. When a mutilated corpse is found in the marshes, Detective Simon Grave rises to the challenge. Everything points to the hound, but it is quickly apparent that the body has been stabbed repeatedly, in a way that suggests serial killer Chester Clink also may be involved. Or maybe not.

Ash thinks his life is erasing itself. Friends and loved-ones have either died or run away to their own lives. Everything he's known about life is disappearing. Even the letters on the liquor store where he works are blinking out, LIQUOR becoming LIQUO becoming LIQU becoming LIQ. And now Ash's wife may be dying. The doctor says she is, but Ash is not about to let her go. No, he will not let her be erased, too. Then a neighbor asks a favor . . .

You may not believe in Santa Claus, at least not at your current age, but if you celebrate Christmas, you know there was a time when you believed with all your heart, a time when you weren’t quite sure, and a time when the truth became all too clear. The 12 stories that follow reflect a mix of those emotions and events, told by the man - then boy - who experienced them in the early 1950s.

The discovery of his father Raymond's mysterious "treasure box" forces an award-winning writer to reexamine their contentious relationship. As he opens the box and begins taking items out one by one—taking you on a treasure hunt—he is overwhelmed by memories, many funny, some poignant or sad, and a few that may send shivers up your spine. It is in those curiosities that Raymond will be revealed, piece by piece, memory by memory. Hopes, dreams, warts and all. In the end, a different unexpected father emerges. By the time the treasures are all laid out, Raymond will have earned some ...

Ready for a zany, irreverent, and sexy mystery that will have you turning pages into the wee hours? Well, here it is: SKELETON: A Bare Bones Mystery THE PLOT A Blockbuster employee on a smoke break discovers a human skull in an overflow pond, setting off speculation that the skull may belong to a graduate student at the local college who mysteriously disappeared the year before. Inspector Jeremy Wolf, a widower, wine lover, would-be author, and long-time detective, takes on the case, assisted by Jack Mathers, a curmudgeonly medical examiner with a fondness for jelly donuts, and Kate ...

Flicker is a modern-day ghost story set in a haunted diner. When Charlie Brace buys, refurbishes, and opens a diner that’s been up on blocks for many years, he gets much more than he bargained for.

Bruce Cargo, a scientist at the British Geological Survey, is stunned when he discovers a journal purportedly written by Charles Darwin. But is the fantastical story it contains real, or is the journal just a hoax? Bruce and his girlfriend Luna set out to determine the journal's authenticity, but as soon as they begin, someone-or some thing-kills the Darwin expert they have just consulted and ransacks Luna's apartment. A witness claims a "flying monster" was responsible, but the police are incredulous. Meanwhile, Lily (Barnum's Angel) in flashbacks to 1882, searches for a series of journals...

Having survived a fight-to-the-death ceremony that elevated her to Queen of Enturia, 15-year-old Rhynt must now face the Mystrosians, a formidable force intent on conquering Enturia and enslaving her and her people. As hundreds of Mystrosian ships approach the Enturian harbor, she turns to Baron Bookins, the former fool to the king, for help. He says he has a plan to defeat the Mystrosians, a gambit that will assure victory. Maybe. There's just one problem. Whelan the Wanderer, Randall himself, God of Gods has other ideas. He wants the Mystrosians to win and sets his own gambits in motion. ...

The discovery of a dead body is nothing new for Detective Simon Grave, but when the body and the murderer are both invisible, well, that's another matter entirely, even in the futuristic town of Crab Cove. The question is whether he and his human and android team are up for the challenge, which also remains to be seen. Making his job even more difficult is the sudden retirement of Captain Henry Morgan, who taps Grave as acting chief.

Murder has come to Crab Cove once more—this time a triple murder. Three young women, one a professional tennis star, are found dead within hours of each other. All have died by lethal injection, and each has the same crab tattoo. Grave and his team set out to investigate the murders, quickly learning that they will be assisted by a young woman from Mars, Kismet Salamander, who has come to Earth as part of an exchange program between Crab Cove and the Mars Colony.

Detective Simon Grave's tour of a local winery turns sour when a body is discovered in the fermentation tank for his favorite wine, Duct Tape Chardonnay. To solve the murder, he and his team of fellow detectives will have to question strangers, a long-lost love, and his choice in wines.

When the head of a hovercycle club inexplicably calls in news of his own murder, Detective Simon Grave and his team are drawn in to Crab Cove's hovercycle underworld, a world of loyalty, betrayal, greed, and-yes-irony. As if murder weren't enough, the bombing of an election debate stage has the mayor pressing for a quick resolution to both crimes. It becomes increasingly clear that the crimes are connected, and that the solution will require the unraveling of an elaborate criminal scheme-and more.

It’s the year 2054 and Mrs. Wiggle’s elephant figurines are disappearing from every shelf and table, but then magically reappearing the next day. The police think she’s crazy, “crying wolf,” they say. Every time they come to investigate a disappearance all they find is a reappearance. So eventually they stop coming. In a last-ditch effort to find out what’s really happening with her figurines, she calls detective after detective to find someone willing to take the case. Eventually she works her way down the alphabet to Red Owl Investigations, and that’s when everything changes...

When 15-year-old Rhynt, a disabled but fierce girl with magic skills, decides to run away from a powerful, demanding monk, the last thing she expects is to be taken under the wing of a legendary warrior. There’s just one problem. The warrior, Calax Halfhand, is being pursued by assassins. Worse, he's now on a mission to find the man behind the assassins.