Five Murder Mysteries

Five Murder Mysteries contains the following novels, all of which can be purchased separately: Blood: and Blackmail, Destroyed by Malice, The Murder of Marabeth Waters, Love Letters (Soaked in Blood), and The Fatality Game. Blood and Blackmail: Jesse Barnett is confident his girlfriend Justine didn't murder Trent, her ex-husband, because he never heard any gunshots on the night the two of them broke into Trent's house to search for obscene photos that he had taken of Justine's daughter. However, Jesse's confidence in Justine begins to waver when he is told that the murder weapon had a silencer attached to it. Justine is arrested, and after she rejects a plea deal, the prosecutor charges her with first degree murder. The trial is an odd one that leaves everyone wondering who really committed the murder. In Destroyed by Malice, the world's most famous novelist, Barker Drule, is gunned down by an unknown assailant. It isn't long before detective Jeff Willard is convinced that the murderer is a member of the Drule family. Perhaps it's Lenore, the older daughter, who was, years ago, raped by her father; perhaps it's the beautiful Raylene, who wrote a novel about a rape victim that her father managed to have the publishing industry blackball; perhaps it's Ricky, the cocaine-addicted son who is desperate to get his hands on his father's money; or perhaps it's Barker's irascible eighty-year-old father who just happens to own the murder weapon. Unfortunately, when the truth finally comes out, there will be very few left to tell the tale. The murder of a prostitute appears to be an easy case to solve. Inside Marabeth Waters' handbag, Detective Devin Driver finds a threatening note that leads him to Mark Sievers, a professor at a local college. Then, while Devin is searching Mark's car, he discovers a bloody fragment of Marabeth's blouse, and when a DNA test confirms that the blood on the fragment is Marabeth's blood, the case is essentially over. Or is it? What follows is a descent into the mind of a budding serial killer who leaves yet another body behind before he is apprehended. Kendra Thomas is found lying in a pool of blood with a fatal gunshot wound to her head. It's difficult for Brad Anderson, the lead detective in Love Letters (Soaked in Blood) to determine whether Kendra committed suicide or was murdered. But when the clues begin to point to murder, Brad finds himself with a bewildering array of suspects: Evan, the recently divorced husband; Cory, the guy who's writing her repulsive love letters; the mayor, who had threatened to "silence" Kendra because of an affair he had with her; Ryan, the twenty-three-year-old stepson, who has "feelings" for Kendra; and Sheila, the binge-drinking daughter who had recently threatened to kill her mother. So which one is the murderer? If it was a murder mystery, the murderer would be the least obvious suspect, but in this tale of a secret obsession, we're dealing with someone who's become a little too obvious. The residents of Barksdale Terrace live in an exclusive neighborhood of multimillion dollar houses where crime is something that happens to other people. But within a seven-day period, the bedrooms in two of the seven houses on the Terrace are ransacked while the occupants are away. Detective Cody Barnes is initially inclined to believe that the crimes are pranks that were committed by the owner of a strip club who lives on the Terrace, but a week after the second break-in, a woman who lives on the Terrace is shot to death in her bed. From here, everything unravels in a cascading torrent of violence that will leave two more people dead, but it isn't long before a number of clues begin to point towards a person who no one had ever suspected.