Mystery Women Authors
Barbara Paul
Biography
Barbara Paul is the 1998 President of the Sisters in Crime Internet Chapter and is busily writing more stories and novels. Plus she appears to have several cats and lives in Pittsburgh PA.
I highly recommend that if you want to find out more about Barbara Paul's writings you should visit her homepage. Click here
Email address: [email protected]
Books
Marian Larch Mysteries
Click here to read more about all the Marian Larch mysteries
The Renewable Virgin
Kelly
Ingram is a rising star who has everything going for her - including a livewire
personality, enough talent to get by on, a new television series and a new lover.
She also has an agent and a producer who hate each other, but they still manage
to work together well enough to keep Kelly's career on the move.
But then a friend is murdered, a scriptwriter who should have been a threat to no one. And Marian Larch moves in to clear up the mess. What she uncovers is a tale of envy, ambition and betrayal going back fifteen years. (From The Women's Press cover)
Published Scribner, New York, 1984
He
Huffed and He Puffed
A crafty corporate raider known as the "Big Bad Wolf" plans a blackmail scheme against three shareholders, all of whom have been accused of murder
Published Scribner, New York, 1989 (out of print)
Good King Sauerkraut
The
story is about a robot-designer who is not only clumsy in his personal relationships
but physically clumsy as well. In fact, his carelessness causes the deaths of
two of his co-workers. It was pure accident both times; but instead of owning
up to his part in the mishaps, he ducks his responsibility and claims to know
nothing about it -- which declaration starts the police looking for a murderer.
The second half of the book is a cat-and-mouse game as Marian Larch and her
partner Ivan Malecki come closer and closer to the truth.
Published Scribner, New York, 1989 (out of print)
You
have the Right to Remain Silent
When four employees working on a government contract at Universal Laser Technologies are found handcuffed and shot in the eye in Manhattan, Marian Larch must find out what they were not supposed to know.
Published Scribner 1992 (out of print)
The Apostrophe Thief
This
novel begins about five or six hours after the action of You Have the Right
To Remain Silent ends.
New York police officer Marian Larch must find the murderer of a thief who had been stealing personal items from backstage at a Broadway theatre.
Published Scribner 1993 (out of stock)
Fare
Play
Newly promoted to lieutenant in the NYPD, Marian Larch must take everything that comes with the job--prestige, pay, problems and diabolical murder. As she wages private love and war with former FBI hacker Curt Holland and tackles an overzealous fan of her actress fan, Marian uncovers a murder ring that leads her to a killer--and to those willing to pay for his services. (From Amazon.com synopsis)
Published Scribener 1995
Order Fare Play from
Full Frontal Murder
Lieutenant
Marian Larch of the New York police sees her personal and private lives collide
when she is put on the case of a turbulent child custody battle, which culminates
in an attempted kidnapping and murder.
Published Scribner 1997
Order Full Frontal Murder
from
Stand Alone Mysteries by Barbara Paul
Liars and Tyrants and People Who Turn Blue
This
is a novel about a woman named Shelby Kent who sees a red aura whenever someone
tells a deliberate lie. And since everybody lies, she sees the world through
a fluctuating haze of red.
Shelby works as a consultant to various police departments around the country, even though her testimony is inadmissible in court. Then the UN puts in a call for her services: someone is shipping defective arms to trouble spots in the world. The UN learns who the three people authorising these shipments are, but it's Shelby's aura-reading that reveals why.
Published Doubleday 1980 (Out of Stock)
Your Eyelids Are Growing Heavy
Memory
loss is a terrifying phenomena...Megan Phillips was scared out of her wits when
she woke up on the fairway of an unfamiliar golf course without the faintest
idea of how she came to be there. Megan didn't drink, and lost weekends just
weren't her style. Now she had to confront a 38 hour blank in her life.
Her neighbour and psychiatrist couldn't help reconstruct the missing time. Then Megan began to get the phone calls, conversations she forgot as soon as she hung up and it became clear her blackout was no isolated event. Someone it seemed had abducted her, someone had hypnotised her to respond to a secret command.
But what was Megan programmed to do?
Published Doubleday, New York, 1981 (out of print)
The
Fourth Wall
The Fourth Wall is a front row seat tale of suspense from the very first sentence. The new play by Abigail James has opened on Broadway to delighted audiences and rave reviews. But someone is out to sabotage it - someone prepared to maim and torture, who will stop at nothing to get even. When murder takes centre stage Abigail and friends resolve to unmask the villain - and set in motion a revenge drama of their own. (From The Women's Press cover)
Published Doubleday 1979 (out of print)
A Cadenza for Caruso
Set
in the Met in 1910, a small-time impresario is murdered, and all the evidence
points to Puccini. Enrico Caruso is outraged that the composer should fall under
suspicion and sets out to prove his friend innocent.
Undeterred by objectivity or patience, the tenor proceeds to make a thorough pest of himself backstage with his poking and prying and asking of impertinent questions.
Published St Martins Pr (Trade) 1984 (out of print)
Prima Donna at Large
The
story takes place in 1915, during a tense time when America had not yet joined
in on World War I. The Met snaps up a renowned French baritone who is fleeing
the struggle in Europe; but the baritone proceeds to make enemies of everyone
with whom he comes in contact. Eventually, one of his enemies eliminates him.
Enrico Caruso, warned by the police not to meddle this time, talks Geraldine
Farrar into investigating. She's reluctant at first...but once she gets going,
she's unstoppable.
Published St Martins Pr (Trade) 1985 (out of print)
First Gravedigger
The
novel is the story of a man who digs his own grave. Earl Sommers is a me-first
kind of guy. He works as a furniture specialist at a prestigious antiques gallery,
a likely heir apparent to the elderly owner of the gallery. But he's not above
cheating his benefactor or playing illicit games with the owner's young wife.
But then things start to turn sour. The owner finds out. He begins a subtle campaign to discredit Earl as a dealer before kicking him out. Earl sees it all slipping away -- the gallery, the young wife, even his profession.
That's the time a boyhood friend chooses to show up, a long-time loser whom Earl has little use for. The loser announces he's going to kill himself. Then Earl gets the idea of asking his old buddy to perform one little favor for him before he does the deed.
Published Doubleday 1980 (Out of print)
Kill Fee
This
is the story of a freelance killer, a hit man who goes into business for himself
as an independent contractor with no ties to any criminal organization. A businessman,
offering an unusual service.
The killer calls himself Pluto, and he's developed a unique way of running his operation: he kills on spec. Pluto looks for conflict between two people, kills one of them, and sends the other a bill. Would anyone be foolish enough to deny him payment? Pluto always collects.
Investigating one of Pluto's murders is Lt. James Murtaugh, whose advance on the New York police force had been blocked by an obdurate captain. Although Pluto's "clients" are afraid to talk, Murtaugh eventually sees what is happening and begins a hunt for the killer. Then Pluto starts stalking him. (From Barbara Paul)
Published Doubleday 1985 (out of print)
But He Was Already Dead When I Got There
Rich,
mean Vincent Farwell calls in an assortment of six people who owe him $1.5 million.
He bluntly informs them that the note is due in two weeks, no ifs, ands, or
buts about it. Guess who gets killed.
"Then each of the suspects enlivens this sparkling mystery by entering the scene of the crime, destroying and/or mishandling evidence in order to throw suspicion onto each other. When this operation begins, Barbara Paul shows that she has mastered the art of writing comedy-mysteries." (From a review)
Published Scribner 1986 (out of print)
A Chorus for Detectives
In
the story, the Metropolitan Opera chorus has become quarrelsome and unruly and
is in danger of falling apart. The choristers are divided into factions along
national lines; the war may be over, but the wounds haven't even begun to heal.
Then someone starts killing the members of the chorus, one by one.
Guards are posted backstage, but still the killings continue. The police don't even have a list of suspects. Horrified at what's happening, six people band together to try to get at the bottom of the trouble -- Caruso, Farrar, three other singers, and the Met's general manager. Six amateur detectives, all looking for the same killer. They literally don't have a clue.
Published St Martins Pr (Trade) 1987 (out of print)
In
Laws and Outlaws
All three siblings of the Decker family were killed as teenagers in bizarre accidents, and when their father dies too, his widow suspects that murder has become a family affair.
Published Scribner 1990 (out of stock)
Short Stories
Mystery Short Stories by Barbara Paul can be read by clicking here
Other Books by Barbara Paul
Science Fiction
An Exercise for Madmen
Published Berkeley 1978
Pillars of Salt
Published New American Library 1978
Bibblings
Published New American Library 1979
Under the Canopy
Published New American Library 1980
The Three-Minute Universe (Star Trek No 41)
Published New York Pocked Books 1988
Web site address
Barbara Paul's home page can be found at the following address.
Other sites for Barbara Paul
To read an interview with Barbara Paul click here
A listing of Barbara Paul's Writings
Sisters in Crime list of authors and the editions in which you can find their works
Page created by Leone Moffat
Last updated April 24, 2002