A Lethal Lesson

Shortlisted for the 2022 BC and Yukon Book Prizes' Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award An Indigo Top 10 Best Mystery of 2021 A Globe and Mail bestseller #1 Bestselling New Release in Canada Lane Winslow trades crime solving for substitute teaching in the eighth installment of this mystery series that Kirkus Reviews calls “riveting”. Back home in the Kootenays after her Arizona honeymoon, Lane offers her assistance when neither the outgoing teacher, Rose, nor her replacement, Wendy, show up at the local schoolhouse one blizzardy Monday in December. But when she finds the teachers' cottage ransacked with Rose unconscious and bleeding, and Wendy missing, Lane delivers Rose to the hospital in Nelson and turns the case over to her exasperated husband, Inspector Darling, and his capable colleagues, Sergeant Ames and Constable Terrell. Never one to leave a post unmanned, Lane enlists as substitute teacher for the final two weeks before the Christmas holidays, during which time she discovers a threatening note in the teachers' desk and a revolver in the supply cupboard. But these clues only convolute the case further. Who has been tormenting these women, and where has Wendy gone? Meanwhile, Darling finds the body of a hit-and-run victim in a snowbank miles outside of Nelson, the residents of King's Cove are preoccupied by the possibility of a new neighbour, and Sergeant Ames is as confused as ever by the inimitable Tina Van Eyck.

Should women lead secret lives? A secret life where her scent is hidden, her predatory preference cleverly hidden by careful selection? A third outing for sixty-something teacher, Sylvia Kent. Warning: This short story of just 1,800 words contains explicit sexual content, themes which some readers may find distasteful and is unsuitable for readers under the age of 18.

They do not wear shining armor, nor do they carry colorful banners. Their names are unknown to the average citizen, but their commands carry weight over all but the king. They are the world's masters in warfare and magic. They are the Knights of Alcea. The days of warfare and Darkness were supposedly over, and the Knights of Alcea had scattered across the huge nation, returning to their private lives, their services no longer required. Unknown to them, a storm is rising over the horizon. When seemingly senseless acts of violence erupt across the breadth of Alcea, the Knights of Alcea are drawn back into action, but their enemies are shrouded in secrecy as they move forward with a diabolical plan designed to crush Alcea forever.

The 'Murder in the Heartland' series is dramatic and chilling. Harry Spiller...brings to his work the prodigious research, and narrative skill necessary to create suspense. The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Robert Vaughan. This is the third book in the reviting MURDER IN THE HEARTLAND series by author and retired sheriff Harry Spiller. His series details the many unusual murders that have occurred throughout Southern Illinois in recent decades. In Murder In The Heartland, Book 3, the author profiles 12 case files that he has researched over the past several years. Rural America isn't immune to the bizarre and unpredictable human behavior that leads to murder.""

“Michael Farquhar doesn’t write about history the way, say, Doris Kearns Goodwin does. He writes about history the way Doris Kearns Goodwin’s smart-ass, reprobate kid brother might. I, for one, prefer it.”—Gene Weingarten, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post columnist Scandal! Intrigue! Cossacks! Here the world’s most engaging royal historian chronicles the world’s most fascinating imperial dynasty: the Romanovs, whose three-hundred-year reign was remarkable for its shocking violence, spectacular excess, and unimaginable venality. In this incredibly entertaining history, Michael Farquhar collects the best, most captivating true tales of Romanov iniquity. We meet Catherine the Great, with her endless parade of virile young lovers (none of them of the equine variety); her unhinged son, Paul I, who ordered the bones of one of his mother’s paramours dug out of its grave and tossed into a gorge; and Grigori Rasputin, the “Mad Monk,” whose mesmeric domination of the last of the Romanov tsars helped lead to the monarchy’s undoing. From Peter the Great’s penchant for personally beheading his recalcitrant subjects (he kept the severed head of one of his mistresses pickled in alcohol) to Nicholas and Alexandra’s brutal demise at the hands of the Bolsheviks, Secret Lives of the Tsars captures all the splendor and infamy that was Imperial Russia. Praise for Secret Lives of the Tsars “An accessible, exciting narrative . . . Highly recommended for generalists interested in Russian history and those who enjoy the seamier side of past lives.”—Library Journal (starred review) “An excellent condensed version of Russian history . . . a fine tale of history and scandal . . . sure to please general readers and monarchy buffs alike.”—Publishers Weekly “Tales from the nasty lives of global royalty . . . an easy-reading, lightweight history lesson.”—Kirkus Reviews “Readers of this book may get a sense of why Russians are so tolerant of tyrants like Stalin and Putin. Given their history, it probably seems normal.”—The Washington Post

In a place where murder isn’t supposed to happen—rural Missouri and Southern Illinois—deputy sheriff and investigator Harry Spiller learned the hard reality: murder is all around us. It doesn’t matter whether you live in a big city or small county with farms and churches—murder is swift and can happen to anyone, anywhere, and anytime. All too often, victims fall prey in places we think are safe to raise our families, where we take walks on hot summer nights, where our children play in the park or yard without concern, and where we leave our doors unlocked at night. Murder in the Heartland, Book 3 tells the stories of innocent victims in these seemingly innocent places. From his research and investigations of twelve murder cases, Spiller recounts the gruesome details of a homicidal nurse, a murder instigated by the devil, and the “death of the machine.” Each account includes chilling mug shots, crime scene photos, and interviews from the murderers themselves. As much as we like to think we’re safe, murder can happen even in rural America—and it does. Join Spiller in the last installment of his three-book series of these horrifying murders in the heartland.

Beginning with a bang, the latest mystery in the series Publishers Weekly calls “highly entertaining” is a study in bygone promises and lingering prejudice. A warm June afternoon in King’s Cove is interrupted by an explosion. Following the sound, Lane goes to investigate. Up a steep path she discovers a secluded cabin and, hiding nearby, a young Japanese girl injured and mute, but very much alive. At the Nelson Police Station, Inspector Darling and Sergeant Ames, following up on a report of a nighttime heist at the local jeweller’s, discover the jeweller himself dead in his office, apparently bludgeoned, and a live wire hanging off the back of the building. As Lane attempts to speed the search for the girl’s family with her own lines of inquiry, Darling and his team dig deeper into a local connection between the jeweller and a fellow businessman that leads across the pond to Cornwall and north to a mining interest on the McKenzie River. Away at her police course in Vancouver, Sergeant Terrell’s favourite (former) waitress April McAvity is drawn into the case when Darling asks for her help with finding possible relatives in the city for Lane’s young charge. Meanwhile offices are being ransacked and someone is following Lane. Through the alleyways of Nelson onto the country roads and woods trails of King’s Cove, the latest Winslow mystery is a study in bygone promises and lingering prejudice.

Standards-based lessons show how vocabulary words presented in context help students learn how to use them accurately in their speech and writing.