Bøger af Penny Mickelbury

This first book in the ground-breaking Mimi/Gianna mystery series introduces the protagonists and from the beginning, their natural antagonism takes center stage: Lieutenant Gianna Maglione heads the Hate Crimes Unit of the Washington, DC police department while Mimi Patterson is the city's best known, it not most well-liked, investigative news paper reporter. She sees it as her job to find the truth and tell it--because the public has a right to know. For Gianna, too much information in the public domain can drive a criminal underground, allowing him--or her--to escape justice. Reporters and cops are used to being natural enemies. They expect it. What they don't expect is

It sometimes seems to Police Lieutenant Gianna Maglione that people invent new ways to visit hate upon each other, and she should know: As head of the Washington, D.C. police department's Hate Crimes Unit, she gets a close-up look at the ugliness on a regular basis, and it's taking a toll. Montgomery "Mimi" Patterson sees her share of ugly, too. As the city's top investigative newspaper reporter, her forte is uncovering government graft and corruption at high and low levels, and those she brings down hate her for it. "I didn't tell 'em to steal the public's money," she says with a shrug. But it's getting to her. Tired of corrupt politicians, she seeks a different kind of story and runs right into a hate crime and one of HCU's investigations. It's a dance she and Gianna have done before and while they still don't like it--especially Gianna--it is something they're learning to deal with, something they must learn to deal with if their relationship is to survive, and that's something they both want. They both sense a darkness settling over the city they both love, and it's coming from the worst possible places and people: Corrupt, hate-filled cops and corrupt, hate-filled ministers. The police department and the church. No way they can let this happen in their city, so for the first time, Mimi and Gianna agree to work together. Mimi and Gianna. Once again, love wins.

In this third Mimi and Gianna outing, the pair once again find themselves searching for answers to the same questions--but this time from completely and, for them, surprising approaches. Like the cop she is, Lt. Gianna Maglione, head of the DC Police Department's Hate Crimes Unit, is looking to find who is luring 50-something women to the nation's capitol with the promise of love, only to murder them and steal their possessions. Mimi, on the other hand, wants to understand society's brutal treatment of "women of a certain age." Why would an otherwise intelligent, attractive, financially secure women move to a strange city to be with a woman met on-line with the promise of one last chance at love? Will her newspaper allow her to write about an occurrence as natural as breathing that may be leading women to their death? Every woman who lives long enough will traverse menopause. Why is it so feared and hated? And has it really made half a dozen women willing victims of a malicious hate crime?

This interracial, intergenerational saga of love, land and loss is told from the disparate perspectives of Ruth Thatcher, who is Black, and Jonas Thatcher, who is White, and spans nearly a century. The story begins in 1917 when Ruth and Jonas are farm children and ends in 2005 as their descendants struggle to unravel and understand the legacies of this star-crossed pair. During the course of their lifetimes, Ruth and Jonas-- and their respective families-- have evolved and ultimately have prospered, but it is left for their descendants to come to grips with the long-unacknowledged truth that the two families are actually one.

A follow-up to the sensational "Keeping Secrets," the book that launched the Mimi/Gianna series, "Night Songs" was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. From one alley to the next in the seamy underside of our nation's capital, the city's top investigative newspaper reporter, Mimi Patterson, chases the disappearance of two prostitutes who were leading her to a potentially huge story. Police Lieutenant Gianna Maglione is fighting mad. The murders of six women have gone cold because Homicide and Vice detectives didn't recognize the truth that Gianna did: The murders were Hate Crimes and belonged to her Unit. Just because the women are prostitutes doesn't mean they're not victims of a hate crime: The crime of being female. Night time is the right time--for hatred and murder and for love and passion. For Mimi and Gianna.

Award-winning author and journalist Penny Mickelbury returns to pre-Civil War Philadelphia to continue the powerful saga of Genie Oliver and Abigail Read.In 1857 the US Supreme Court ruled that Blacks were not--and could never be citizens. Black lives were already in peril from the hooligans who would capture and sell them South under the protection of the Runaway Slave Act, even if they weren't runaway slaves. By 1861 Southern states spoke openly of seceding from the Union to form the Confederate States and protect what they believed was their right to own slaves. If the South were to win, slavery would become the law of the land. So for many Blacks, leaving was the only option.Genie Oliver, who frequently dresses as a man to move about the city, is no longer safe in her disguise. White people find themselves just as imperiled for providing any assistance to Blacks--which means that the former Pinkerton's agent Ezra MacKaye, his fiancé Ada Lawrence, and heiress Abigail Read, are in as much danger as Genie and her friends, the Juniper family.Not knowing what to expect, Ezra, Ada, and the Juniper family join Genie and Abigail as they pack up their lives and head to Canada. Their goal is to stay at least one step ahead of the brutalities of the uncivil war, but can they outpace the dangers that cross their paths every step of the way?

No matter how hard she tries to live the quiet life, trouble has a way of grabbing Carole Ann Gibson by the throat -- and this time all her famous intuition and raw courage might not be enough to save her. In the heartbreaking aftermath of her husband's death, Carole Ann, widely known as "e;the best damn trial lawyer in D.C.,"e; left her criminal-law practice for what she hoped was a safer, saner life as a partner in her friend Jake's security firm. But when the richest man in Washington, D.C., hires her to find his daughter, she is caught up in a tangle of family relationships in which the stakes are not only money but life itself. Add to that a routine surveillance job that turns up three corpses and the kidnapping of her partner's beloved wife, Grace, and Carole Anne is -- once again -- in over her head in the kind of trouble that launches an all-out attack on her survival skills. Showcasing her rare talent for mixing the subtlety and complexity of personal relationships with the excitement and suspense of a rapid-fire plot, Penny Mickelbury's third Carole Ann Gibson novel brings something altogether unique and refreshing to the mystery genre. Filled with an unforgettable cast of emotionally authentic characters as ethnically diverse as Washington, D.C., itself; pulse-pounding action; truly surprising twists of plot; and a delightfully clever ending, The Step Between is Mickelbury at her best.