Earl Derr Biggers (1884 – 1933), the creator of Charlie Chan, tops today’s Buffet with his classic mystery Seven Keys to Baldpate. Hoping for peace and quiet, a novelist checks in to a secluded hotel and becomes part of a noisy conspiracy.
Seven Keys to Baldpate was popular in 1913, and George M. Cohan quickly adapted the novel as a hit Broadway stage play of the same name. Cohan starred in the 1917 film version, one of seven film versions of the play, and a 1935 revival.
Earl Derr Biggers was born in Warren, Ohio, and graduated from Harvard University in 1907. He worked as a journalist for The Plain Dealer before turning to fiction.
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Seven Keys to Baldpate
Hoping for peace and quiet, a novelist checks in to a secluded hotel and becomes part of a noisy conspiracy in this classic mystery from the creator of Charlie Chan.
After years of churning out potboilers, novelist Billy Magee decides that he needs just two months of solitude to produce a work of true literary merit. New York is too crowded with distractions, so he embarks on a journey to the loneliest place he knows: a rambling summer resort that has been closed for the winter. He plans to live by candlelight and firewood for the next eight weeks, with nothing to do but write.
On his very first night at Baldpate Inn, however, Magee receives an unwelcome visitor. For some reason, the man is very nervous. Could it have something to do with the revolver clutched in his hand?
Magee was promised the only key to the hotel, but five more peculiar interlopers arrive, each with a key. It is clear that the author is caught up in a strange and baffling plot. The question is, who’s pulling the strings? Magee hopes to find out soon, lest he turn up dead before he can start his book.
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All I Want – Part One
For two years, Sidney Miller ran from life, working one menial job after another to keep herself so busy she would never have to think or feel—or remember the tragedies she’s faced. Her careful plans are abruptly changed when she meets Gavin at the temporary job she’s taken to keep herself busy through the holidays.
Gavin Rogers is only in San Francisco to help his brother’s struggling law firm. With no time—or desire—for relationships, his world is turned upside down when he finds something in his heart for a woman he’s sure he could never be interested in.
Last Call (A Ridley Brone Mystery Book 1)
Running a karaoke bar is no way for an ex-PI to make a living.
Just ask Ridley Brone, a California private investigator who returns to his Michigan hometown when he inherits his estranged parents’ multimillion dollar estate. The songs his mom and dad wrote made them rich, but their popular karaoke bar, the High Note, made them famous. Now Ridley owns a bar he doesn’t have a clue how to manage, and his every effort seems only to further tarnish his parents’ legacy.
But when Ridley’s old high school love shows up asking for help, and her husband ends up murdered, the karaoke bar feels like vacation compared to the hard job of proving her innocence.
Marriage by Law
What happens when an unsuspecting girl and guy are thrown into a marriage they don’t want? That’s exactly the case of Ivory and Darius, born into different families whose marriage serves to prevent competition between their businesses.
No matter how they oppose the idea, their parents are hell-bent on marrying them to each other to honor a five-generation-old deal that took place between their ancestors.
For Ivory, whose heart has just been broken, her marriage to the handsome but cold Darius Quartz fails to provide her the happy life she wants. Instead, she finds herself in endless boredom and doing the same things she’d been doing the past six months.
That is, until Darius arrives home from his training and her ex returns in the picture. Thrown in her loyal best friend, Rose, and Darius’s insane cousin, Adrian. Her life suddenly turns upside down and becomes exciting and a whole lot crazier!
A Unique Kind of Love
Lena Rose Winter was a typical seventeen year old girl, or so everyone thought. She had a hated secret and she knew what love was, but she dreaded it.
Liam Christopher Black was far from your typical bad boy. He was a good guy, the one who would sit at the back of the class, not making a sound. His family dying in a car crash cost him his voice.
Lena knew becoming friends with someone was a great risk because you could always end up caring too much. But still, she fought for the boy and his friendship but they ended up falling for each other. Hard.
It seemed as if the world didn’t want them together as they faced struggle after struggle to beat the odds. But will the risks be enough for their relationship to survive?
Amidst the trials and bad experiences, will both of them learn to truly love again?
103 Puzzle Quizzes HD (Interactive Puzzlebook for Tablets)
Discover the 4th volume of the Top Rated Puzzlebook: Puzzle Quizzes series, HD version for tablets. In this brand-new puzzle collection you will find 103 pictorial, hand-crafted puzzle quizzes in different themes: logic, visual, spatial, counting, geometry, matchstick, coins, searching, and much more.
The Spice of Life: Book 1: The Transformation
The Spice of Life (or TSOL, to fans) follows Jake Furie Lapin, a 37-year-old sexaholic and loving Dom. As the first book in a three-part series, TSOL explores Jake’s transformation from a submissive, out-of-shape man, stuck in a sexless marriage, to a strong, successful, fit, loving Dom. This first book follows Jake as he describes his many sexual adventures, in great detail, to Kelli, his sex therapist.
Kelli Lemberg is a successful sex therapist who has an office-based practice in Manhattan. Like Jake, Kelli finds herself trapped in a marriage that is lacking heat and passion. Through her sex therapy sessions with Jake, Kelli begins to undergo an amazing transformation of her own, as she uncovers and explores the depths of her own inner sexuality and sensual fire.
Non-Compliance: The Sector
Shea Kelly had a brilliant career in technology, but after refusing to implant an invasive government device in her body she was sent to a modern day reservation: a Non-Compliance Sector, a lawless community run by thugs and organized crime. She’s made a life for herself as a resourceful barkeep, and hacks for goods on the black market with her best friend Wynne, a computer genius and part-time stripper. Life is pretty quiet under the reigning Boss, apart from run-ins with his right hand man, the mighty Quinn: until Danny Rose threatens to take over the sector. Pushed to the edge, Shea decides to fight back …
The Dry Grass of August
On a scorching day in August 1954, thirteen-year-old Jubie Watts leaves Charlotte, North Carolina, with her family for a Florida vacation. Crammed into the Packard along with Jubie are her three siblings, her mother, and the family’s black maid, Mary Luther. For as long as Jubie can remember, Mary has been there–cooking, cleaning, compensating for her father’s rages and her mother’s benign neglect, and loving Jubie unconditionally.
Bright and curious, Jubie takes note of the anti-integration signs they pass, and of the racial tension that builds as they journey further south. But she could never have predicted the shocking turn their trip will take. Now, in the wake of tragedy, Jubie must confront her parents’ failings and limitations, decide where her own convictions lie, and make the tumultuous leap to independence. . .
The Frozen Sky: The Novel
Something is alive inside Jupiter’s ice moon Europa. Robot probes find an ancient tunnel beneath the surface, its walls carved with strange hieroglyphics. Led by elite engineer Alexis Vonderach, a team of scientists descends into the dark… where they confront a savage race older than mankind…
The Battle of the Bridges: The 504 Parachute Infantry Regiment in Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden has been recorded as a complete Allied failure in World War II, an overreach that resulted in an entire airborne division being destroyed at its apex. However, within that operation were episodes of heroism that still remain unsung.
On September, 17, 1944, the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, floated down across the Dutch countryside, in the midst of German forces, and proceeded to fight their way to vital bridges to enable the Allied offensive to go forward. The 101st Airborne was behind them; the British 1st Airbourne was far advanced. In the 82nd’s sector the crucial conduits needed to be seized.
The Germans knew the importance of the bridge over the Waal River at Nijmegen as well as James Gavin and his 82nd troopers did. Thus began a desperate fight for the Americans to seize it, no matter what the cost. The Germans would not give, however, and fought tenaciously in the town and fortified the bridge. On September 20 Gavin turned his paratroopers into sailors and conducted a deadly daylight amphibious assault in small plywood and canvas craft across the Waal River to secure the north end of the highway bridge in Nijmegen. German machine guns and mortars boiled the water on the crossing, but somehow a number of paratroopers made it to the far bank. Their ferocity thence rolled up the German defenses, and by the end of day the bridge had fallen.
House of Blades (The Traveler’s Gate Trilogy Book 1)
Simon can only watch, helpless, as his family is killed and his friends captured by enemy Travelers—men and women who can summon mystical powers from otherworldly Territories. To top it off, another young man from Simon’s village discovers that he’s a savior prophesied to destroy evil and save the realm.
Prophecy has nothing to say about Simon. He has no special powers, no magical weapons, and no guarantee that he’ll survive. But he sets off anyway, alone, to gain the power he needs to oppose the Travelers and topple their ruthless Overlord. It may not be his destiny, but Simon’s determined to rescue his fellow villagers from certain death.
Because who cares about prophecy, really?
Strikers
One hundred and twelve years after the fall, the Republic of Texas is built on two foundations: total freedom and total responsibility. A law broken means a strike against the lawbreaker. Five strikes means execution. The only hope for the law breaker is to escape Texas—to go Striker—before justice comes for them.
Sixteen-year-old Karas Quick has never had it easy. The daughter of a Striker and an alcoholic mother, she’s gotten everything she has the hard way — even the strike on her neck. Yet try as Karas might to stay above-board with the authorities, there are some things you just can’t plan for.
Like seeing the face of her long-lost father paraded through the town square in chains.
In the blink of an eye, Karas’s life changes forever. Potential strikes be damned, she has to see her father one last time. What she discovers propels her upon an unimaginable journey, one she can only hope she’ll survive.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2