The famous lexical semanticist Professor Edgar Nettleston had been found dead, a gunshot wound to the head.

Paulo’s muted tongue was as dry as the arctic air, and his heart just as cold. The blood from the knife dripped carelessly onto the pavement.

A game of Scrabble has serious consequences.

When Chuck Walaach enters the Elvis Look-Alike Competition, something has to give.

Deacon Park is where they bury the bodies. For a cold-blooded killer, a huge tract of wild land in the middle of the city can be an indispensable resource.

“It’s all going to be just fine,” she said. “We’re going home soon, I promise.”

It was the early evening in the small farming community of Sunlight County when the stranger came knocking.

Outwardly Seth didn’t react as he watched Mrs. Hatfield misplay the four spade contract, but inwardly he groaned. True, she made it, but most of the other pairs would make it with an overtrick.

An investigator is put on the case when a mad philologist steals a new weapon.

He steals with swift, simple hands in the yellow Roman sun. The crowds are bulging, swollen, and he bobs amongst them as silent as a jellyfish.

If I can just keep walking, I can burn off some of this nervous energy. I need to walk until I’m exhausted, until I can convince myself that this rapid, stuttering heartbeat of mine is the result of exercise.

“I’m having a problem with something I did. I mean something I didn’t do but should’ve. And I can’t make it right. It was really bad."

“This is it,” he said. “This is the big one. After years of carrying crap, we’ve finally got us a job that’s going to change our bank accounts and bloat our pensions.

“It’s all right for you; you’re not meeting a brother you didn’t know you had. And I’ll tell you this - I’ve got a bad feeling about him already.

Ed runs an errand for Mr. Rollo.