Library Loot: April 13-19

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire (The Captive Reader) and Marg (The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader) that encourages bloggers to share the books they've checked out of the library. If you'd like to participate, just write up your post, feel free to steal button, and link up using the Mr. Linky on Claire's site this week. And, of course, check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

Here's my haul for this week. It's pretty hefty (and will grow) because I'm stocking up for my recovery after surgery.

Death of a Doxy by Rex Stout: With a rich man footing the bills and a handsome lover on the side, Isabel Kerr seemed to have the perfect setup. Now the well-kept lady is stone-cold dead, and the cops have nabbed a Manhattan private eye who just happens to be an acquaintance of Nero Wolfe. Unable to refuse a friend in need, the great detective deigns to get the gumshoe off the hook. Little does Wolfe realize that in a matter of hours he'll be entertaining a party of fools and lovers connected with the doxy's death, including a mystery blackmailer, a sexy lounge singer, and a cold-blooded lady-killer....

Third Girl by Agatha Christie: From her tousled appearance to her perplexed stare, there was so much about the young girl that struck Hercule Poirot as peculiar. But it was her vague confession to a possible murder she's not even sure she committed that really threw the Belgian detective for a loop. What's more, the odd bird has suddenly gone missing. Where to? No one knows. Why? No one cares. So what's her secret? No one's talking. But Poirot suspects it's going to be a killer.

The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl: To the Gregg family, hunting is just plain fun. To the girl next door, it is just plain horrible. She tries to be polite. She tries to talk them out of it, but the Greggs only laugh at her. Then one day the Greggs go too far, and the little girl turns her Magic Finger on them.

Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner An engrossing murder mystery and an unflinching portrait of racial injustice: it is the story of Lucas Beauchamp, a black man wrongly arrested for the murder of Vinson Gowrie, a white man. Confronted by the threat of lynching, Lucas sets out to prove his innocence, aided by a white lawyer, Gavin Stevens, and his young nephew Chick Mallison.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard: The play of Hamlet seen not through the eyes of Hamlet or Claudius or Ophelia or Gertrude, but a worm's-eye view of tragedy seen through the bewildered standpoint of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer (Regency Romance) Abigail Wendover, "on the shelf" at 28, is determined to prevent Fanny, her pretty and high-spirited niece, from becoming attached to Stacy Calverleigh, a good-looking town-beau and an acknowledged fortune-hunter of shocking reputation. Miles Calverleigh, the black sheep of his family, enormously rich from a long sojourn in India, has a scandalous past, and is not at all inclined toward good manners. Could he be Abby's most important ally in keeping her niece from a most unfortunate match? But Miles turns out to be the most provoking creature Abigail has ever met--with a disconcerting ability to throw her into giggles at quite the wrong moment....

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lillian Jackson Braun: Jim Qwilleran is somewhat disgruntled when his assignment for the Daily Fluxion is to cover the art beat. For a hard-nosed crime reporter it's like being put out to pasture. Besides, he doesn't know the Venus de Milo from the Statue of Liberty. But that's the job available and Qwilleran will do just about anything to get back to work. Little does he know that this "fluff" assignment will lead down the path to murder. A stabbing in an art gallery, vandalized paintings, a fatal fall from a scaffold are not at all what he expects.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman: Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, it follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executive of an international English-language newspaper as they struggle to keep it--and themselves afloat.

From the Library Bookstore:
Playground of Death by John Buxton Hilton

And Leftover Loot:
Victorian Tales of Mystery & Detection: An Oxford Anthology by Michael Cox (ed & selected by)