The Red Carnelian

A Chicago department store is the scene of gruesome crime in this mystery by a New York Times–bestselling Edgar Award winner.
 
Linell Wynn, copywriter for Chicago department store Cunningham’s, knows how to put a clever spin on everything. But she’s at a loss for words when, after closing time, she finds a corpse in a window display. There he is, as cold and lifeless as a mannequin, his skull pulverized with a golf club: valued store manager Michael “Monty” Montgomery. And while red might be the color for the new spring season, Linell never expected to see quite so much of it . . .
 
Linell had a history with the too-charming-to-be-believed victim—and being intimately acquainted with his cruel side has made her a suspect in his murder. But as everyone at Cunningham’s knows, finding someone who didn’t want Monty dead would be tough. When a second murder throws the store detective off track, Linell is plunged into the investigation. Now, she’s working after hours to find a killer, and she has more to lose than her job.
 
The recipient of an Agatha Award for Lifetime Achievement, “Phyllis Whitney is, and always will be, the Grand Master of her craft” (Barbara Michaels).

Born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, Phyllis A. Whitney was a prolific author of award-winning adult and children’s fiction. Her sixty-year writing career and the publication of seventy-six books, which together sold over fifty million copies worldwide, established her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century and earned her the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”
 
Whitney resided in several places, including New Jersey. She traveled to every location mentioned in her books in order to better depict the settings of her stories. She earned the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1988, the Agatha in 1990, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Midland Authors in 1995. Whitney was working on her autobiography at the time of her passing at the age of 104.