Gregor Demarkian Books

On Christmas Eve, Gregor Demarkian, a former CIA agent who has taken up private investigation, is summoned to the estate of a nasty, very dead multimillionaire, and finds that the only suspects are the man's wife and five children, all of whom had good re

When a young woman in a Colchester, N.Y., parish is murdered and a priest seems to be the most likely to have wanted her dead, former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian uncovers strange and damning links to the past

Presidential hopeful Stephen Fox--a candidate with as many enemies as friends--experiences odd psychological disturbances on the campaign trail and soon discovers that there is someone who does not want him to inhabit the White House

Invited to present a lecture on murder at a small liberal arts college, former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian discovers that someone has been poisoned with lye in the school cafeteria

On the eve of St. Patrick's Day in a small upstate New York town, a young nun in training is murdered, and former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian must investigate the crime. Original.

Invited on Wall Street wizard Jonathan Baird's boat to help celebrate Baird's release from prison for insider trading, former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian is shocked to discover that strychnine is on the ship's menu

As the residents of Bethlehem, Vermont, prepare to stage the town's annual Nativity play, local outsider Tisha Verek is gunned down with a .22 rifle. By the author of Mother Superior. Reprint.

The Order of the Sisters of Divine Grace is  holding a convention on the Philadelphia campus of St.  Elizabeth's College--and the list of invitees is  studded with unlikely Main Line luminaries like  charmless coronation king Henry Hare and fat,  foul-mouthed Norm Kevic, the most-talked-about radio talk  show host in Philly. Also on hand is guest speaker  and retired FBI agent Gregor Demarkian. The  festivities include a reception and buffet dinner. .  .which turns into a Last Supper for the nun who keels  over due to a fatal case of pate poisoning. It's  murder for mother's day--Who stuffed the ice  sculpture with fugu, a foul-smelling, potentially lethal  Japanese food fish? And why kill a nice nun like  Sister Joan Esther when it's the truly evil Mother  Mary Bellarmine whom everyone despised? Demarkian  has to sort through an ever-shifting maze of facts  and suspects--including a Society Hill matron who's  no saint and a minor celebrity with a very bad  habit-before he can crack a case in dire need of  divine deliverance. . .from death.

Former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian is called in to investigate the bizarre demise of media tycoon Charles van Straadt and becomes caught in the disputes over the mogul's wealth, a Harlem gang war, and a power struggle at an uptown health center. Original.

A killer stalks an outrageous talk show host and Gregor Demarkian agrees to appear on the show, but soon finds himself drawn into backstage politics and off-camera malice as he struggles to outbluff a murderer. Original.

Former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian races against time to prevent a Valentine's Day murder that would keep the perpetrator of a long-unsolved crime secret forever. Reprint.

When the naked and poisoned body of an aerobics instructor is discovered at the Fountain of Youth Workout Studio, former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian struggles to find the culprit before the killer spoils the local New Year's celebrations. Original.

A gloomy Victorian manse, set on an island off the coast of Maine, seems an unlikely place for silent screen star Tasheba Kent's 100th birthday party. Controversy has always surrounded the mysterious megastar, so when Bennis Hannaford, bestselling author and distant cousin of Tasheba's lover, is invited to the soiree, she gladly invites her best friend, former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian. Death, it seems, requires no invitation to the festivities, for before Tasheba can blow out her candles, a crack on the skull cheats her of her centenary. The fete grows ever grimmer as Gregor investigates slashed telephone wires, suspicious revelers, and a second body among the birthday balloons. When a mammoth storm blows up, trapping them all on the island, only Demarkian can stop a killer whose dearest wish is to kill again.

When an infant is found murdered at a controversial women's retreat located in the small community of Bellerton, North Carolina, rumored to be a den of Satan worship, former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian pursues the truth and learns that are many with an ungodly motive for murder. Original.

Down the aisle--to death Armies on the eve of invasion could learn a thing or two about preparation from the denizens of Cavanaugh Street, who never do anything halfway. This time it's a wedding that's taking over the collective consciousness of the street...and bringing up painful memories for Gregor Demarkian. So when he's consulted on a murder in exclusive Fox Run Hill, the ex-FBI special agent is grateful for the diversion. Why did country-club matron Patsy MacLaren Willis coldly shoot her husband in his sleep? Why did she remove every trace of her existence from the home they'd shared, pipe bomb her own car--and then disappear? The police think it's another marriage gone bad, but Demarkian thinks there's more to the case. And it soon looks like he's right: a second pipe bomb explodes, with devastating results, and Gregor knows that he must find a killer wedded to an explosive secret--before more victims take that final walk down the aisle.

When writer and ex-deb Bennis Hannaford discovers the body of super-heiress Kayla Anson in the family garage, her visit to Litchfield County, Connecticut, is reluctantly extended. Bennis's hostess, Margaret Anson, presents an icy version of the grieving mother, cut out her late husband's will--until now. And when Gregor Demarkian, ex-FBI man and Bennis's lover, arrives from Philadelphia to consult with local police, a media blitz storms in as more suspects crawl out of the woods. Kayla may have been too blindingly rich for her wild, private school chum; her older, socially ambitious entrepreneur boyfriend; and a divorced, downsized bookeeper selling her furniture to survive. As Gregor maps out distances, location, and motives, Halloween descends on the dark, silent hills. From a skeleton sprawled on the cemetery caretakers' porch to more deadly mischief and mayhem, the countryside is brimming with secrets. And a killer is about to strike again...

There's hell to pay in Philadelphia when Marty Kelly commits suicide over his wife's body in the sacristy of St. Anselm's Church. Everyone assumes that Bernadette Kelly, a diabetic, died of natural causes--until the autopsy reveals death by arsenic. But one of the nuns a St. Anselm's, certain of Marty innocence, recruits retired director of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit Gregor Demarkian to investigate for the new Cardinal Archbishop. His Eminence, dispatched to Philadelphia to clean up a scandal, expects Demarkian to act with discretion. But when a third death by arsenic is revealed in the neighboring Episcopal Church, not even God's grace can help the priest who becomes a prime suspect--and the murderer's next victim. Moving among three combustible parishes--Catholic, Episcopalian, and rabble-rousing fundmentalist--Demarkian must negotiate his way through holy hell to find the diabolically clever killer. Only then may God's will--and a homicidal reign of terror--be done...

Every school class has a target. It was just the way the world worked . A long time ago, in the small town of Hollman, Pennsylvania, it was Liz Toliver, once too smart and too shy for her own good. Today, she's a popular author, and an esteemed CNN panelist engaged to a rock star. She has everything-including nightmares about the dreadful summer night when she was seventeen. It was a practical joke by six female classmates that ended with Liz in a coma, a young boy with his throat slit, and unshakeable memories that she's never forgotten. Or forgiven. Now, thirty years later, she's coming home to visit old haunts, and play catch-up with old friends. The curious homecoming has captured the attention of Gregor Demarkian, retired chief of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit. Doggedly pursuing the truth, he has his own questions about what really happened that night. But as a diabolical chain of events is triggered by Liz's return, no one will be prepared for the answers-or the final outcome...

Cavanaugh Street is a mostly quiet Armenian neighborhood in downtown Philadelphia where nearly everyone knows everyone else and certainly knows their business. But that quiet is destroyed when the Armenian Orthodox church is destroyed by a bomb and its cleric, Father Tibor Kasparian, is hospitalized as a result. What would normally be a front-page event, however, is overshadowed by another event across town-when Philadelphia Main Line society is shocked by the murder of one of their own. Anthony van Wyck Ross-the head of one of the major investment banks and a cornerstone of Main Line society-is murdered at the Around the World Harvest Ball being hosted at his mansion. Now former head of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit Gregor Demarkian must see through the conspiratorial haze-a task that takes on personal resonance since Gregor's girlfriend, Bennis Hannaford, serves as Vice Chairman of the Ball. Soon, Gregor finds himself caught up in a spiral of fear and murder that takes him to the very edge of evil.

Windsor Academy ranks as one of the best New England prep schools money can buy. From its Gothic arches to its ethnic diversity, it looks picture perfect...as long as nobody notices that the headmaster's wife has a student lover and drugs are as available as candy. And when freshman Mark DeAvecca looks out a faux medieval window and sees a body across the campus, he wonders if he's hallucinating―especially when no corpse is found. Since everyone thinks that Mark is a druggie, they all ignore him―until he returns to his dorm room to discover his roommate dead, hanged by the neck from the ceiling. Desperate, Mark calls his mother's friend Gregor Demarkian, former FBI agent and the one person Mark knows will listen. Demarkian is world-weary and ready to retire from his investigative career, yet he can't turn down a plea from a scared kid. And it doesn't take long before Gregor knows something is very wrong at Windsor Academy...something like manipulation, dirty tricks, and murder.

When Philadelphia's right-wing-ranting radio host Drew Harrigan is arrested for possession of illegal pain killers, he implicates a homeless man, Sherman Markey, in the drug buys, and is soon checked into a locked rehabilitation facility. While Harrigan is away, beyond the reach of the media and the court, Markey sues him for libel and slander. With the help of a legal advocacy group, Markey is due to have his day in court…until he disappears into the city streets. The nuns at the shelter haven't seen him. The civil lawyers can't find him. Now it's time for retired FBI agent Gregor Demarkian to step into the case―one that will lead Demarkian down a slippery slope of dark deeds and chilling revelation…with a killer lying in wait for anyone who dares to cross his path.

For over a year, Philadelphia has been plagued by a serial killer dubbed the Plate Glass Killer by the media. But finally, the police think they've caught a break - a man has been arrested at the site of the most recent murder, covered in the victim's blood. The man taken into custody is Henry Tyder, the scion of one of the most socially prominent families on Philadelphia's Main Line, a family that possesses the largest tracts of real estate in the city. He's also a hopeless alcoholic, frequently homeless and often estranged from his family. Although Tyder has apparently confessed to the crime, his attorney believes him to be too disordered to be capable of actually committing the crimes and asks Gregor Demarkian, retired head of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, to look into the case. Gregor, however, has other things on his mind - after having been away for nearly a year without a word to him, his live-in girlfriend, Bennis Hannaford, has returned to Cavanaugh Street. And everyone seems to have seen her but Gregor. While he waits for Bennis to finally appear, Gregor finds himself enmeshed in complex case of the Plate Glass Killer. Specifically, what would have drive Tyder to confess to crimes he was seemingly incapable of committing and, more importantly, if Tyder isn't the killer, then who really is behind the murders of the Plate Glass Killer.

The small, exclusive Massachusetts island of Margaret’s Harbor gets its fifteen minutes of fame when aging teen stars Arrow Normand and Marcey Mandret pay a visit to local celebrity heiress, Kendra Rhode. The girls’ drunken, disorderly behavior is being eaten up by the press…until an even bigger media storm erupts. During a blizzard, Arrrow finds herself staggering around town, covered in blood and incoherently drunk. Meanwhile, her actor-boyfriend has been found shot dead in the front seat of a crashed truck. Now Arrow is cast as the only suspect in the crime—and she can’t remember a thing about the night in question. Enter former F.B.I. agent Gregor Demarkian, who’s flown in from Philadelphia to review the charges against Arrow. What he finds is a case with little evidence, an insatiable paparazzi, and a mare’s nest of motives in what may be the most confusing, twisted role of Demarkian’s lifetime.

In her 91 years, Ann-Victoria Hadley has often been the most hated person in Snow Hill, Pennsylvania. But now, it’s worse than ever. After a new school board inserted “intelligent design” into the curriculum, they were sued by a coalition including Hadley, the one member of the board who wouldn’t go along with the rest. With the trial about to start and the town a national laughing stock, Annie-Vic is found clubbed into unconsciousness and not expected to survive. The local police chief, one of the school board members, can’t investigate it himself and doesn’t trust the state police. So he brings in Gregor Demarkian. Gregor Demarkian, former FBI agent, is happy to help—his wedding is coming up and he’s desperate for a bit of time away from his too-involved neighbors on Cavanaugh Street in Philadelphia. Even if it is to investigate a brutal crime in a powder-keg of a small town.

“Haddam manages to produce each time a layered, richly peopled, and dryly witty book with a plot of mind-bending complexity.” —Houston Chronicle on Glass Houses Sheila Dunham is a gossip columnist’s dream—she’s famous, loud and, to most who meet or see her, deeply offensive. As a result, she’s been fired from every job on television she’s ever had—first as a serious journalist, then as a personality, finally as a reality show judge. Now she’s producing and hosting her own reality show, “America’s Next Top Anchor,” shot in her hometown of New Fenwick, Connecticut. Everyone she employs is terrified of her; everyone one else hates her. And everybody seems to want Sheila dead. Finally it seems someone has decided to try. After millions of dollars of jewels are stolen from her home, she is found beaten into unconciousness, next to the murdered body of a local girl. If nothing else, her show’s ratings are going to improve. Gregor Demarkian, a retired FBI agent, is already scheduled to appear on her show but he’s going to consult on the biggest murder case to hit that part of Connecticut since the Revolutionary War. But how do you narrow down the suspects when the victim was hated by everyone?

Flowering Judas Jane Haddam Twelve years ago, Chester Morton disappeared from his hometown with barely a trace and was never heard from again. For the past twelve years, his mother has kept the search for her son alive—paying for a billboard overlooking the local community college, putting up fliers around town every week, hounding law enforcement agencies. Mrs. Morton’s determination has not only made Chester’s disappearance very high profile, it’s also been damaging to her marriage, her remaining children, and herself. Now, long after everyone else has given up hope, Chester’s body is finally found—hanging from the very billboard that has been advertising his disappearance. Chester’s corpse, however, is fresh—meaning that he had been alive, somewhere, until very recently. Under pressure and with limited resources, the local police turn to Gregor Demarkian, a former FBI agent and a frequent consultant, to find out once and for all what really happened all those years ago…and to unravel the truth buried within this very complex and tragic case.

Gregor Demarkian returns in a mindbending case of death and disappearance amongst the wealthy suburban elite. In Waldorf Pines, a very rich, gated suburb of Philadelphia, ostentation and pretension are the order of the day. But even by the local standards, Martha Heydrich is a stone cold pain. She's the stay-at-home wife of a very rich husband, drives a pink sports car everywhere and is on all the prominent local committees. She's fake, into everybody's business and is rumored to be having an affair with a local teenager, Michael Platte. One morning she seemingly vanishes from her house and later that night her husband Arthur returns home to find the pool house ablaze. Once the fire is extinguished, the police discover two bodies--one is Michael Platte and the other, too damaged to be recognizable, is presumed to be Martha Heydrich. The police think they know what happened--that Arthur killed his wife and her lover over the affair. But then the DNA results come back and the second body isn't Martha's at all, it is an unknown man. With their theory in tatters, and Martha nowhere to be found, the police to turn to ex-FBI agent Gregor Demarkian to help them unravel this most puzzling of cases.

"Haddam manages to produce each time a...plot of mind-bending complexity." - Houston Chronicle In Hearts of Sand , Alwych, Connecticut, is the stereotypical old money beach town-the best families live in mini-mansions on Beach Drive, their children go to Alwych Country Day School, and the parents have memberships to the Atlantic Club. And Chapin Waring is the worst thing that ever happened to this town. She was a well turned-out debutante from one of the richest families in Alwych until thirty years ago when Chapin, destined to attend the right school, marry the right man, and have the right life, was revealed to be a bank robber and a murderer. She disappeared, never to be heard from again. "Haddam [is] America's P.D. James."- Baltimore Sun But Alwych has never forgotten her, or let her friends and family forget. So when, after a day of being spotted around town, Chapin turns up dead-stabbed to death in her family's old home-it's baffling. To learn why she died-and to end the rampant speculation and media coverage-Gregor Demarkian, retired profiler for the FBI, is brought in to finally solve the mysteries surrounding Chapin Waring. Not just how and why she died where she did, but where she'd been and what happened that night thirty years ago that set everything in motion. "[Readers] will enjoy watching the clever and occasionally cantankerous Gregor put the pieces of the puzzle together."- Booklist

Gregor Demarkian grew up in the Armenian-American enclave in Philadelphia known as Cavanaugh Street. Even though he left to go to college, and then went on to a storied career in the famous Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI, he eventually returned to Cavanaugh Street after an early retirement. There he finds himself in a rapidly gentrifying urban neighborhood that still retains some of the friends, institutions, and flavor of the immigrant neighborhood he grew up in. Among them is his best friend, Father Tibor Kasparian, the parish priest of the local Armenian-Orthodox church, probably the most genuinely gentle soul that Demarkian has ever met. When Father Tibor is then arrested on murder charges, it tears at the very foundation of Demarkian's world. While Gregor has very strict rules about for whom and under what conditions he will consult, all those rules go by the wayside. In Fighting Chance , from award-winning author Jane Haddam, Demarkian is now a man possessed, and his one goal is to find out what really happened and who is really responsible for the murder Father Tibor is charged with.

In Jane Haddam's One of Our Own , Gregor Demarkian, former FBI agent and police consultant, returns for his final case―a surprising murder and an attempted murder, which threaten the safety of his Philadelphia neighborhood. A mysterious black van is spotted by several people at various times in the area around Cavanaugh Street, Philadelphia's Armenian-American enclave. Presumed by some to be related to the increasing ICE raids around the area, the mystery deepens one night when a body falls out of the back of the van when speeding through the neighborhood. Marta Warkowski, a reclusive older woman, is found bound up in a garbage bag after it falls out of the van. In a coma, Warkowski is unable to tell police how she ended up as she did. When they go to search her apartment, the police find the dead body of her building's super, a man with whom she has a history of conflict. How did she end up in garbage bag in the back of a mysterious van? How did he end up dead in her locked apartment? What does all of this have to do with the real estate holdings of infamous local developer, Cary Alder? Gregor Demarkian, former FBI agent and consultant, is ready to retire. He and his wife Bennis have agreed to foster a child, Javier, with a mysterious past and limited language skills. But he is pulled in once again, for a final case, to uncover the truth about the murder―and attempted murder―on Cavanaugh Street.