Five-minute Mysteries 2. Ken Weber

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      Table of Contents

       Memorandum

       1. Safety Inspection

       2. The Best-laid Plans ...

       3. Recovery at Dusk

       4. Closing In on the Hacker

       5. A Safe Shelter?

       6. Mule Train

       7. Why Granny Doesn't Retire

       8. Transcript: Crown vs. Jergens

       9. "Odd Billy" and the Backpack

       10. The Identikit Decision

       11. Waiting for Sahdeen

       12. Just a Dead Battery

       13. An Excerpt from Scene Three

       14. The New Deputy Takes a Wrong Step

       15. Taggert's Turf

       16. I Saw Him Do It!

       17. A Logical Suspect

       18. Tiverton vs. Capelli

       19. Trevor Wilkey's Journal

       20. Next Door to the Chief

       21. A Columbo Case

       22. The Chase

       23. The Key to the Code

       24. One Clear Shot

       25. Blank Witness

       26. "For Want of a Nail ... "

       27. One Way to Break Up a Gloomy Day

       28. A Perfect Witness

       29. Accidental Death?

       30. It's Elementary

       31. A Second Investigation at Bedside Manor

       32. Was Lawrence Really There?

       33. Personal Effects

       34. The Rankled Brothers

       35. A Clear Case of Arson

       36. The Irish Problem

       37. Choosing the Right Client

       38. Somewhere in the Desert

       39. J.T.C. Kapchek's Opening Lecture

       40. The Chain of the People

       Solutions

      Published by Firefly Books Ltd., 2003

      Copyright © 2002, 2003 K.J. Weber Limited

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      ISBN: 9781770850651

      Published in Canada in 2003 by

       Firefly Books Ltd.

       50 Staples Avenue, Unit 1

       Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 0A7

      All characters and events in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

      For Matthew,

       with the hope that this book

       is still around when you are

       old enough to read it

      Memorandum

      To: ALL MYSTERY BUFFS

      From: the author

      Mystery buffs know there are only two kinds of people in the world: those that love mysteries and, well, that other kind. A tiny majority, the latter are, and that’s a good thing because they are missing something unique. For only in mysteries can a reader get a charge out of winning or losing.

      It works like this. Nothing gives mystery buffs more satisfaction than getting ahead in a story and beating the writer to the punch. They get a special charge out of combining logic, analysis, intuition and insight so that before they turn the last page, they already have the problem solved. Yet – and this is what sets mystery lovers apart – nothing thrills them more than when the mystery defeats them, when they turn the last page and find a surprise waiting, something they’d missed.

      Here, mystery lovers get no less than forty shots at the fun of winning or losing, in a set of wildly different stories. Every mystery in the book is set up for the reader to solve. At the end of each one there is a question: Who did…? or What did…? or It seems the thief made a mistake. How could…? Like that.

      There’s great variety. The settings range from city to country, from swamp to desert, and from movie set to chic inn to a forensics classroom. There are terrorists and con artists, frauds and murderers, kidnappers and bank robbers, hackers and arsonists. You’ll encounter veteran detectives, medical examiners, special agents, and crime-scene investigators.

      There’s