Akron Public Library

When strange and seemingly unrelated events start to happen and a precious Vermeer painting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their talents to solve an international art scandal.

"Necktie Party" they called it-a quick and easy form of frontier justice. The hard-eyed cattleman named Price, leader of the lynch party, looked up at the hanging tree and knew it would serve his murderous purpose. He jerked the lasso tight around the boy's neck. The two other riders, younger even than the one they were about to hang, looked sick. "Get set to kick his horse out from under him," Price ordered. Then Laramie stepped out of the willows,...

Contains ten stories of war, mystery, romance, crime, and punishment, from the wide-open range of the American West to the frozen seas of the Siberian coast.

Confounded by the murder of Lochdubh writing circle's long-winded organizer, police officer Hamish Macbeth investigates the victim's writings for clues and wonders at sinister themes within an unfinished soap opera script.

In an African convent, four nuns and a unidentified fifth woman are brutally murdered--the death of the unknown woman covered up by the local police. A year later in Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, and the body of a missing florist is discovered--strangled and tied to a tree. The...

The scene of the crime is lavish but gruesome. In a luxurious mansion on the outskirts of Cleveland, a woman's body lies gutted in a pool of blood on the marble floor. The victim is Joanna Moorehouse, founder of Sterling Financial. The killer could be any one of her associates. Maggie knows that to crack the case, she and Jack will have to infiltrate the cutthroat world of high-states finance. The office of Sterling Financial seethes with potential...

After being hospitalized for insisting that her mother was murdered, not killed in an accidental fire, Grace goes to live with her grandfather for a fresh start, but when she sees her mothers murderer again, her past comes back to haunt her.

The murderous and evil Razzid Wearat and his crew of vermin are on a mission to seize Redwall Abbey for themselves, and Abbot Thibb and his Redwallers must defend their home with the help of the hares of the Longpatrol and the Rogue Crew of sea otters.

When thirteen-year-old Logan and his family move into a run-down old house in rural Virginia, he discovers that a woman was murdered there and becomes involved with his neighbor Arthur in a dangerous investigation to try to uncover the killer.

At Baskerville Hall on the grim moors of Devonshire, a legendary curse has apparently claimed one more victim. Sir Charles Baskerville has been found dead. There are no signs of violence, but his face is hideously distorted with terror. Has the spectral destroyer struck again? More important, is Sir Henry Baskerville, younger heir to the estate, now in danger? Enter Sherlock Holmes, summoned to protect Sir Henry. As Holmes and Watson begin to investigate,...