Alanna Knight tops today’s Buffet with The Inspector’s Daughter, the first installment in her “Rose McQuinn” mystery series set in 1890s Scotland. The Times of London selected this book as one of “Best Crime Novels of the Year” when it was released in 2001.
Alanna has published more than sixty novels (including sixteen in the acclaimed Inspector Faro series, and seven featuring his daughter Rose McQuinn), as well as non-fiction, true crime, several books on Robert Louis Stevenson, numerous short stories, and two plays since her award-winning first book ‘Legend of the Loch’ debuted in 1969. A founding member and Honorary President of the Scottish Association of Writers and of the Edinburgh Writer’s Club, born and educated on Tyneside, she has two sons and two granddaughters and lives in Edinburgh.
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The Inspector’s Daughter (A Rose McQuinn Mystery No.1)
Rose McQuinn returns to Edinburgh from the American wild west of 1895. Her baby has died while her husband Danny, working with Pinkerton’s Detective Agency in Arizona goes missing. She has little time to grieve before she unwittingly takes on a new career by agreeing to investigate the strange behaviour of the husband of her childhood friend Alice.. But what appears to be an adulterous affair suggests something much more sinister, the brutal and still unsolved murder of a servant girl. Whatever heartbreak lies in store, Rose must discover the truth. From her home in Solomon’s Tower on Arthur’s Seat, aided by a wild deerhound who befriends her, her fist investigation puts her own life in deadly danger.
Thursday Nights (The Charistown Series Book 1)
Pain can leave even the strongest of people weak and hollow. But when fate brings two weak souls together, will the love they find mend the fragments that are barely holding them together, or will the weight of their past finally cause them to crumble? Max DeLucca has spent seven years trying to forget the betrayal of his past. He lives his life from day to day never looking forward and never looking back. The walls around his heart keep anyone from getting too close and prevent him from feeling too much…until he meets her.
Her entire life, Janie Silver searched for the kind of love that wouldn’t leave her broken and more importantly, wouldn’t leave her behind. She longs for a love that can heal the wounds of her past and give her the future she knows she deserves. She thought she was looking for something that just didn’t exist…until she meets him. Danny’s on Main is where their story begins. A neighborhood bar where strangers become friends, friends become family and some … become lovers … it all started on Thursday Nights
Fade to Black (The Black Trilogy Book 1)
A tale of unimaginable horror follows Piper Mitchell from adolescence to adulthood as she tries to escape the chains that hold her long after she is free. A chance meeting with one of Hollywood’s’ biggest stars, Ryan Knox, will forever change both of their lives.
Venture the unknown with beauty and the daring actor as they both are forced to endure the devastating acts of evil, yet continues fight the drowning
current that threatens to pull them both under. Full of hair pin turns you will notsoon forget.
Blackhill Ranch: A Lifetime Love
When Lexi Silverton returns back to her family ranch for the summer, she is mesmerized by her brother’s gorgeous best friend. She knows first hand how dating a sibling’s friend is dangerous, but how can she say no?
Rhet Morrison is a homegrown farm boy who has a past of horrible tragedies, but he is prepared to give Lexi a summer she will never forget.
Will these two have a summer fling or have they found their lifetime love?
In Pursuit
Eddie Neff needs space. Not the type that country stars croon about, but physical distance from her emotionally distant father and the tatters of a broken relationship. So when the opportunity to relocate her life and interior design business arises, the answer comes easily.
Adjusting to life with Claire, her gregarious new roommate, is more than simply testing comfort limits. With just one meeting, Eddie finds herself unable to resist the draw of Harris Grant, Claire’s brooding and overprotective older brother.
Harris doesn’t fit her idea of a safe relationship. He pushes Eddie to face her deepest insecurities and fears of abandonment. And Harris holds on to his own painful loss, unable to overcome personal demons.
Eddie and Harris must learn to conquer their internal struggles. But as they navigate their new love, outside forces fight to drive them apart.
Inquisitor (Witch & Wolf Book 1)
When Allison is asked to play Cinderella-turned-Fianceé at a Halloween ball, the last thing she expected was to be accused of murder on the same night. She has to find the killer or she’ll be put to death for the crimes she didn’t commit. To make matters worse, the victims are all werewolves.
On the short list of potential victims, Allison has to act fast, or the killer will have one more body to add to his little black book of corpses.
There’s only one problem: One of the deaths has struck too close to home, and Allison’s desire for self-preservation may transform into a quest for vengeance…
Digitus 233 (Digitus Series Book 1)
Digitus, the world’s dominant corporation, has studied human nature for centuries. They are experts who expand on a human’s natural gifts and talents to create supreme world leaders in all major areas of science, art, religion, music and leadership. A select few young adults are handpicked each year to join the elite.
As a final test of induction into Digitus, Zander’s team finds themselves ejected from a Learjet and land on a barren arctic island. They come together in an effort to survive and escape. Unfortunately, escape is short-lived when a nuclear powered, ballistic missile submarine rescues them, and a computer malfunction threatens an all-out nuclear attack on North America.
Time is running out as Zander’s brother Zeph struggles to uncover the truth behind the corrupt organization that holds the future of the world in its grasp. Tick Tock.
The 1st Female King: The Beginning
While most young girls are dreaming of fairy tales and flowers, Brianna was dreaming of an escape from the hell she called life. Nothing came easy for her and everything she had, she had to fight for. The battles seem endless until she meets Sincere, who seems to be the perfect man for her; but once again life gets in the way of her being happy. Join Brianna as she weaves her way through life and be there for her triumphs and her downfalls as she tries to play the hand that life has dealt her.
Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties
America in the 1920s was a country alive with the wild fun of jazz, speakeasies, and a new kind of woman—the flapper.
Vera Abramowitz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles, doing the Charleston in nightclubs and earning the nickname “Dollface.”
As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing jazz, and money to burn. She thinks her biggest problem is choosing between them until the truth comes out. Her two lovers are really mobsters from rival gangs during Chicago’s infamous Beer Wars, a battle Al Capone refuses to lose.
The heady life she’s living is an illusion resting on a bedrock of crime and violence unlike anything the country has ever seen before. When the good times come to an end, Vera becomes entangled in everything from bootlegging to murder. And as men from both gangs fall around her, Vera must put together the pieces of her shattered life, as Chicago hurtles toward one of the most infamous days in its history, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
One Rogue Too Many (Rival Rogues Book 1)
Lady Gabrielle is thrilled when Anthony Keaton, earl of Ellis, asks for her hand in marriage. She’s not so pleased when he then leaves the country and four months pass without a word. Clearly, the scoundrel has changed his mind and is too cowardly to tell her. There’s nothing to do but go back on the marriage mart…
When Anthony returns to town and finds his ultimate rival has set sights on Gabby, his continual battle of one-upmanship with Sebastian Thorne ceases to be a game. Anthony is determined to win back the woman who holds his heart–but he’s not expecting Gabby herself to up the stakes…
Lethal Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller)
America’s worst nightmare has come true: a “cyber–Pearl Harbor” attack by unknown terrorists has crippled the nation’s power grid—and brought the land of the free to its knees. As widespread panic and violence ravage the country, its ruthless captors issue their ultimatums…and vow an apocalyptic reckoning.
A defenseless nation scrambles to fight an invisible invasion. Chief among America’s last line of defense is Lana Elkins, head of a major cyber-security company—and former top NSA operative—who returns to her roots to spearhead the Agency’s frantic efforts to combat the enemy’s onslaught on its own terms. While she and her superiors take action to infiltrate a terrorist hotbed overseas, much closer to home ruthless jihadists with a nuclear bomb hijack a busload of schoolchildren—including Lana’s daughter—and race toward a rendezvous with Armageddon in America’s greatest city.
The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook: Cookies, Cakes, Candies, and More
Food blogger Lindsay Landis has invented the perfect cookie dough. It tastes great. It’s egg free (and thus safe to eat raw). You can whip it up in minutes. And, best of all, you can use it to make dozens of delicious cookie dough creations, from cakes, custards, and pies to candies, brownies, and even granola bars. Included are recipes for indulgent breakfasts (cookie dough doughnuts!), frozen treats (cookie dough popsicles!), outrageous snacks (cookie dough wontons! cookie dough fudge! cookie dough pizza!), and more.
The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook features clear instructions and dozens of decadent full-color photographs. If you’ve ever been caught with a finger in the mixing bowl, then this is the book for you!
Blood & Roses (Beatrix Rose Book 3)
Beatrix Rose has worked her way through her Kill List. Four are dead and just two remain. But now her enemies know she has them in her sights. The hunter becomes the hunted.
In a thrilling conclusion to the breakneck trilogy, Beatrix and her daughter must fight them in North Africa, New York and finally in the swamps of North Carolina. It’s a lightning-paced roller-coaster of action that pits a deadly assassin against the might of the most powerful private army on the planet.
It’s long odds for Beatrix. And that’s just how she likes it.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2