Virginia Baxter is the only witness still living who can vouch for the authenticity of Lauretta Trent's will. Lauretta Trent, a wealthy widow, is also still living. But for how long? Someone has been peppering the spicy food Lauretta loves with arsenic. Could it be the same someone who tried framing Virginia Baxter for drug smuggling?

Lauretta doesn't trust her greedy heirs. But could a scheming servant be behind a master plan to fleece her estate? It all seems to fit. But when Lauretta is murdered on the highway, all the evidence places Virginia Baxter squarely in the driver's seat....

To anyone who has followed his career, Ray Schindler was the greatest detective of the mid-twentieth century. He was a pioneer in scientific detection before modern forensic science, and he handled more than 10,000 cases covering almost every crime recorded on the police blotter. Rupert Hughes acts as a faithful Dr. Watson to Schindler's Holmes, and guides us from case to case, watching a man who can't be excited, can't be stampeded , and can't be frightened; a man who matches ingenuity of crime with an even greater mental resourcefulness; a man who has a dogged determination and a big...

Lost for more than 75 years, The Knife Slipped was meant to be the second book in the series, but shelved when Gardner's publisher objected to (among other things) Bertha Cool's tendency to "talk tough, swear, smoke cigarettes, and try to gyp people." But this tale of adultery and corruption, of double-crosses and triple identities--however shocking for 1939--shines today as a glorious present from the past, a return to the heyday of private eyes and shady dames, of powerful criminals, crooked cops, blazing dialogue, and delicious plot twists.

Donald Lam has never been cooler--not...