Orania Pazoglou, Jane Haddam

Orania Pazoglou, *Once and Always Murder*, 1990
This book is just "too cute". The author is being ironic about the old families of Litchfield, Connecticut.
When the author invents Gregor Demarkian and writes about her own ethnic group, the Armenians, she has found her voice.

*Sweet, Savage Death*, 1984
This novel introduces Patricia McKenna, a free lance writer who stumbles on murders.

*Wicked Loving Murder*, 1985
Patricia McKenna is a writer who writes category romance under a pseudonym. Interesting stuff about romance writers.

Stuart Woods

Stuart Woods, *Fresh Disasters* 2007
Stone Bennington, private eye. Actually he is a lawyer. Follow the action not the plot. Mafia included.

Laurien Berenson

Laurien Berenson, *Raining Cats and Dogs*
Melanie Travis mystery. Melanie has Poodles who act like dogs and dont solve mysteries. Lots of stuff about dog shows.
Melanie starts attending a dog obedience class and going to a nursing home with the club. One of the patients is murdered while the class is visiting.

Jane Haddam

Jane Haddam, *Conspiracy Theory*
Another Gregor Demarkian novel. Haddam likes to orient her books to the real world. In this case she talks about conspiracy theories. She gives web sites.

Gregor's neighborhood Armenian church is bombed into rubble. Meanwhile a prominent banker is shot. How will Gregor connect these two events.

Jane Haddam

Jane Haddam, *The Headmaster's Wife*
Another Gregor Demarkian mystery. This novel deals with the politics of a boarding school. The son of a friend of Gregor's calls him because he (the son) thinks he may be hallucinating.
Everyone at the school thinks Mark is a druggie but Mark says he never takes drugs. Then his room mate commits suicide. Gregor does not want to investigate another murder but he wants to help mark.
It took me a few chapters to get into this book, which features a huge cast of characters any of whom can be the murderer.

Jane Haddam

Jane Haddam, *Hardscrabble Road*
Jane Haddam writes classical mysteries, calling her protagonist the Armenian American Hercule Poirot. Gregor Demarkian is a retired FBI Special Agent who often consults in murder mysteries.
In this mystery, Gregor is called in when a homeless man disappears. It's a complex story. A radio celebrity is arrested with a lot of prescription drugs he blames the homeless man as his supplier. Evrybody knows the old alkie can barely find the mens room, much less go to pharmacies to get prescriptions filled.
Then the celebrity is found dead.
Hardscrabble Road is the site of a monastery (female) which figures in the mystery.
Recommended for hard scrabble mystery fans.

More on The Great Depression

In the small town where I was raised I was of the affluent elite, because my father taught school and had a salary, altho years later I learned we lived far below the poverty line. Our neighbors had no money at all and lived in houses they did not own. we lived in a certified Ghost Town.