Kate Martinelli Books In Order

A Grave Talent

This gripping debut of the Kate Martinelli mystery series won the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery, generating wide critical acclaim and moving Laurie R. King into the upper tier of the genre. As A Grave Talent begins, the unthinkable has happened in a small community outside of San Francisco. A string of shocking murders has occurred, each victim an innocent child. For Detective Kate Martinelli, just promoted to Homicide and paired with a seasoned cop who’s less than thrilled to be handed a green partner, it’s going to be a difficult case. Then the detectives receive what appears to be a case breaking lead: it seems that one of the residents of this odd, close knit colony is Vaun Adams, arguably the century’s greatest painter of women, a man, as it turns out, with a sinister secret. For behind the brushes and canvases also stands a notorious felon once convicted of strangling a little girl. What really happened on that day of savage violence eighteen years ago? To bring a murderer to justice, Kate must delve into the artist’s dark past even if she knows it means losing everything she holds dear.

To Play the Fool

Celebrated author Laurie R. King dazzles mystery lovers once again in this, her second Kate Martinelli mystery. The story unfolds as a band of homeless people cremate a beloved dog in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. When it comes to incidents like this, the authorities are willing to overlook a few brokenregulations. But three weeks later, after the dog’s owner gets the same fiery send off, the SFPD knows it has a serious problem on its hands. Other than the fact that they’re dealing with a particularly grisly homicide, Inspector Kate Martinelli and her partner, Al Hawkin, have little else to go on. They have a homeless victim without a positive ID, a group of witnesses who have little love for the cops, and a possible suspect, known only as Brother Erasmus. Katelearns that Erasmus is well acquainted with the park’s homeless and with the rarefied atmosphere of Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union, yet he remains an enigma to all. It’s apparent that he is by no means crazy but he is a fool. Kate begins the frustrating task of interrogating a man who communicates onlythrough quotations. Trying to learn something of his history leads her along a twisting road to a disbanded cult, long buried secrets, the thirst for spirituality, and the hunger for bloody vengeance.

With Child

Adrift in mist shrouded San Francisco mornings and alcohol fogged nights, homicide detective Kate Martinelli can’t escape the void left by her departed lover, who has gone off to rethink their relationship. But when twelve year old Jules Cameron comes to Kate for a professional consultation, Kate’s not sure she’s that desperate for distraction. Jules is worried about her friend Dio, a homeless boy she met in a park. Dio has disappeared without a word of farewell, and Jules wants Kate to find him Reluctant as she is, Kate can’t say no and soon she finds herself forming a friendship with the bright, quirky girl. But the search for Dio will prove to be much more than both bargained for and it’s only the beginning. When Jules disappears while taking a trip with Kate, a desperate search begins…
and Kate knows all too well the odds of finding the child alive…

Night Work

Laurie R. King, creator of San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli, has been praised by The New York Times Book Review for her ‘taut pacing…
air of menace…
superb characters.’ Now the author of A Grave Talent winner of the top mystery awards on both sides of the Atlantic, To Play the Fool, and With Child continues the series with a crime novel as disturbing as it is riveting. After her last harrowing case Kate is more than ready for routine police work and a newfound serenity with her longtime lover, Lee, and their circle of close friends. Until one night when her pager summons her to a scene of carefully executed murder. Half hidden in a clump of bushes lies a well muscled corpse, handcuffed and strangled, a stun gun’s faint burn on his chest and candy in his pocket. The only person who might have wanted airport baggage handler James Larsen dead, it seems, is the wife he repeatedly abused who recently left him for a women’s shelter. But her alibi is airtight, her physique frail, and her attitude less than vengeful. Kate and her partner, Al Hawkin, are stumped. Then a second body turns up also zapped, cuffed, strangled…
and carrying a chocolate bar. It is that of Matthew Banderas, a software salesman convicted of one rape, suspected of many more. Yet, despite the newspaper headlines, Kate and Al can establish no personal link between the victims and cannot rule out coincidence. But in the midst of an unpromising investigation, Kate has another cause thrust upon her by her friend, feminist minister Roz Hall. Investigators have already called it an accident, but Roz is convinced the young Indian bride was actually murdered and when Roz takes up a crusade, no one can deny her. As Kate wrestles with the clash between her personal and professional lives, a third killing draws her and Al into a network of pitiless destruction that reaches far beyond San Francisco, a contemporary style hit list with shudderingly primal roots. Winner of the Best First Crime Novel Award from both the Mystery Writers of America and the British Crime Writers’ Association for the first book in the Kate Martinelli series, A Grave Talent, Laurie R. King has created a body of work that transcends genre classification and has fully broken out into the mainstream, novels which have the intensity and depth of superb literary work, spiced with harrowing suspense. Winner of the Best First Crime Novel Award from both the Mystery Writers of America and the British Crime Writers Association for the first book in the Kate Martinelli series, A Grave Talent, Laurie R. King creates novels that have the intensity and depth of superb literary work, spiced with harrowing suspense.

The Art of Detection

In this thrilling new crime novel that ingeniously bridges Laurie R. King’s Edgar and Creasey Awards-winning Kate Martinelli series and her bestselling series starring Mary Russell, San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli crosses paths with Sherlock Holmes-in a spellbinding dual mystery that could come only from the ‘intelligent, witty, and complex’ mind of New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King….

Kate Martinelli has seen her share of peculiar things as a San Francisco cop, but never anything quite like this: an ornate Victorian sitting room straight out of a Sherlock Holmes story-complete with violin, tobacco-filled Persian slipper, and gunshots in the wallpaper that spell out the initials of the late queen.

Philip Gilbert was a true Holmes fanatic, from his antiquated decor to his vintage wardrobe. And no mere fan of fiction’s great detective, but a leading expert with a collection of priceless memorabilia-a collection some would kill for.

And perhaps someone did: In his collection is a century-old manuscript purportedly written by Holmes himself-a manuscript that eerily echoes details of Gilbert’s own murder.

Now, with the help of her partner, Al Hawkin, Kate must follow the convoluted trail of a killer-one who may have trained at the feet of the greatest mind of all times.

From the Hardcover edition.