Women Authors I've Been Enjoying

This is not my drawing of course

A quick and dirty post on a gloomy, rainy Saturday afternoon. We're supposed to have rain for the next couple of weeks. I'd start building an ark but it's too wet outside. Hmm? Maybe I'm not understanding this whole ark thing, eh?

Women Authors Whose Work I've Been Enjoying - Jane Haddam

Jane Haddam

It's been a month since I last posted on this topic. Today's author is mystery writer Jane Haddam, author of the Gregor Demarkian mystery series. Haddam, born Orania Papazoglou in Connecticut, lived from 1951 - 2019. Over the course of her life she wrote over 30 novels, the majority featuring ex-FBI profiler cum Private Investigator, Armenian - American Gregor Demarkian. I discovered the series back in early 2000 and have enjoyed 12 books in the series thus far. I like Gregor, his community of friends in Philadelphia PA, especially Father Tibor Kasparian and girlfriend, wealthy socialite Bennis Hannaford. I have another 7 books in this series sitting on my bookshelves. Let's take a look at a few of them.

1. Glass Houses (Demarkian #22 / 2007).

"For over a year, Philadelphia has been plagued by a serial killer dubbed the Plate Glass Killer by the media.  But finally, the police think they've caught a break - a man has been arrested at the site of the most recent murder, covered in the victim's blood.  The man taken into custody is Henry Tyder, the scion of one of the most socially prominent families on Philadelphia's Main Line, a family that possesses the largest tracts of real estate in the city.  He's also a hopeless alcoholic, frequently homeless and often estranged from his family.

Although Tyder has apparently confessed to the crime, his attorney believes him to be too disordered to be capable of actually committing the crimes and asks Gregor Demarkian, retired head of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, to look into the case.  Gregor, however, has other things on his mind - after having been away for nearly a year without a word to him, his live-in girlfriend, Bennis Hannaford, has returned to Cavanaugh Street. And everyone seems to have seen her but Gregor. While he waits for Bennis to finally appear, Gregor finds himself enmeshed in complex case of the Plate Glass Killer.  Specifically, what would have drive Tyder to confess to crimes he was seemingly incapable of committing and, more importantly, if Tyder isn't the killer, then who really is behind the murders of the Plate Glass Killer."

2. Festival of Deaths (Demarkian #10 / 1994).

"Eight nights of murder! That's what Hanukkah is shaping up to be in Philadelphia, where a killer is stalking America's most outrageous TV talk show host. Ex-FBI agent Gregor Demarkian discovers that behind-the-camera politics and off-the-set malice contribute to a very unfestive atmosphere in this new holiday mystery by the Edgar-nominated author of Not a Creature Was Stirring"

3. And One To Die On (Demarkian #13 / 1996).

"Not even five and a half decades of self-imposed exile on a rocky island off the coast of Maine can erase Tasheba Kent's fame. Her smoldering sexuality on the silver screen is as potent a symbol of movie glamour today as it was in her silent-film heyday. The love-hate rivalry she shared with her sister Lilith Brayne - a leading lady whose image was as wholesome as Tasheba's was otherwise - is the stuff of Hollywood legend. But what truly makes Tasheba Kent immortal is the way that sibling rivalry ended - with a very public battle for the love of Lilith's husband, handsome leading man Cavender Marsh. One night in 1938, Lilith fell from her terrace down a rocky cliff into the sea. Under suspicion but never formally charged, Cavender Marsh headed for Maine. Amid all the rhinestone-studded trappings of long-ago glamour, a killer stalks the island. And when death strikes, with a storm raging and power and communication out, Gregor must search the darkness - and Tasheba's past - to find and stop the murderer... or none of them will celebrate their next birthday."

4. Skeleton Key (Demarkian #16 / 2000).

"When writer and ex-deb Bennis Hannaford discovers the body of super-heiress Kayla Anson in the family garage, her visit to Litchfield County, Connecticut, is reluctantly extended. Bennis's hostess, Margaret Anson, presents an icy version of the grieving mother, cut out her late husband's will--until now. And when Gregor Demarkian, ex-FBI man and Bennis's lover, arrives from Philadelphia to consult with local police, a media blitz storms in as more suspects crawl out of the woods.

Kayla may have been too blindingly rich for her wild, private school chum; her older, socially ambitious entrepreneur boyfriend; and a divorced, downsized bookkeeper selling her furniture to survive. As Gregor maps out distances, location, and motives, Halloween descends on the dark, silent hills. From a skeleton sprawled on the cemetery caretakers' porch to more deadly mischief and mayhem, the countryside is brimming with secrets. And a killer is about to strike again..."

5. Deadly Beloved (Demarkian #15 / 1997).

"Down the aisle--to death

Armies on the eve of invasion could learn a thing or two about preparation from the denizens of Cavanaugh Street, who never do anything halfway. This time it's a wedding that's taking over the collective consciousness of the street...and bringing up painful memories for Gregor Demarkian. So when he's consulted on a murder in exclusive Fox Run Hill, the ex-FBI special agent is grateful for the diversion.

Why did country-club matron Patsy MacLaren Willis coldly shoot her husband in his sleep? Why did she remove every trace of her existence from the home they'd shared, pipe bomb her own car--and then disappear? The police think it's another marriage gone bad, but Demarkian thinks there's more to the case. And it soon looks like he's right: a second pipe bomb explodes, with devastating results, and Gregor knows that he must find a killer wedded to an explosive secret--before more victims take that final walk down the aisle."

I also have -

a. The Headmaster's Wife (Demarkian #20)

b. Living Witness (Demarkian #24)

c. Flowering Judas (Demarkian #26). 

I do need to get back to this series. It's been sitting idle for too long. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.