Mystery 
Murder by Death
The ultimate murder mystery parody? You are cordially invited to Dinner and a Murder at 22 Lola Lane Saturday evening 7 p.m. Your Host Lionel Twain What would happen if Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, and Charlie Chan teamed up to solve a mystery? Well, no one really knows, but… Read More ›
Topper Returns
Welcome to Carrington Hall, a creepy seaside mansion on a hill! Or as one character says, “If there wasn’t anybody living there, it’d be a haunted house.” Our story begins with a car accident. Oh, don’t worry! No one’s killed…yet. Anne Carrington (Carole Landis) and her dear friend Gail Richards (Joan Blondell) are on their… Read More ›
Murder in Passy
“You think life finally makes sense, then…Pouff, it turns upside down,” says Commissaire Morbier to his goddaughter, Aimée Leduc, in the opening pages of this eleventh book in the Aimée Leduc Investigation series. It’s Aimée’s first day back to work after a month’s recuperation from “the explosion that had laid her low on her last case,” Murder… Read More ›
Murder at the Lanterne Rouge
J’adore Paris. Et vous? San Francisco-based author Cara Black sets her Aimée Leduc Investigation series in Paris, which the author frequently visits. Each novel features one of Paris’ twenty arrondissements, and in this tweflth entry, it’s time for the 3rd Arrondisement—wherein lies Paris’ oldest Chinatown—to shine. Aimée Leduc accompanies her long-time business partner, René, to dinner in… Read More ›
Murder on the Blackboard II
“But I’m not a detective. I was mixed up in one murder case because I happened to be at the Aquarium when a dead body appeared in the penguin tank upside down, and in another because I was having tea with the Inspector when he heard the alarm…” So says Miss Hildegarde Withers when asked… Read More ›
Murder on the Blackboard I
The perfect casting can make or break an adaptation of any story. One successful example of superb casting is that of Edna May Oliver in the role of amateur sleuth Hildegarde Withers. Hildegarde Withers is a New York City teacher (originally from Boston) who, in Murder on the Blackboard, is described as “in the neighborhood… Read More ›
From the Co-author of The Agatha Christie Companion
Recently, The Poisoned Martini received a letter… Dear Brian Abbott, I am Len Lovallo, the co-author of the Christie Companion. This afternoon, I was on Google and happened to click on Image for myself–for no particular reason other than I had never done it before–and saw the photo of the Agatha Christie Companion –“well used”, and I… Read More ›
Floodgates
Floodgates. For some, in New Orleans, they are an obsession. From one character’s desire to end the plague of pestilence to another’s discovery of their potential failure, the floodgates holding back the water is central to this murder mystery tale. Faye Longchamp, taking a few semesters off to work a project that could help with her dissertation,… Read More ›
Death Before Bedtime
Next time you invite guests over for a dinner party, check them for explosives. It’s not like we’re talking Fourth of July firecrackers here. No, one of Senator Leander Rhodes’ guests has brought 5-X, a new type of explosive, in the hopes that the senator will help secure a government contract. Need it be said? Senator… Read More ›
Skull Duggery
As a forensic anthropologist, Gideon Oliver knows his skeletons. “He felt himself a little at loose ends if he wasn’t involved in some forensic case or another…it was never very long before one came and found him.” Where forensic science is mainly about identifying the cause of death, forensic anthropology is about identity of the remains. In this… Read More ›
The Poisoned Martini 