David A.Crossman
WINSTON CRISP MYSTERIES
"The writing is fast-paced and full of enough twists and turns to engage the most avid of mystery readers. Crisp is a delightful, plausible sleuth. I look forward to more!" Maine Sunday Telegram
RETIRED NSA CODE-BREAKER Winston Crisp was done navigating the grotesque landscape of international statecraft, but as he settles comfortably into the tiny community on an island off the Maine coast, he quickly finds that governments don't hold the exclusive patent on dark deeds.
The First Winston Crisp Mystery
Crisp is content to write poems no magazine will publish, gossip with the locals at the hardware store, and gain weight on his landlady’s cooking. But when the body of a young woman is found frozen in ice, he just can’t refrain from asking a few questions. Before long, he's caught up in a tangled murder investigation, haunted by a red-headed ghost, and the target of a killer with a strangely twisted mind. His own grip on reality is slipping, but he’s determined not to go to his grave with this final mysterty unsolved.
The Second Winston Crisp Mystery
Reluctantly, Crisp finds himself in the thick of a murder investigation with more twists and turns than the Maine coast. Though dementia threatens, Crisp’s deductive instincts are still intact, even when faced with such baffling evidence as a weeping corpse with shriveled feet, bruised knees, and a missing shoe. With his remarkable code-breaking and sleuthing skills, octogenarian Crisp uncovers a multilayered plot with roots in two other unexplained deaths, including that of a WWI German spy.
The Third Winston Crisp Mystery
In order to save a kidnapped child, Winston Crisp must first battle a merciless and insidious enemy: senility. Where does the past end, and the present begin; and how does one untangle them? Why do the ghosts of so many dead suddenly people his dreams? Or is he dreaming?
"Crossman has clearly mastered the art of page-turning stories. His skills are evident in this book!" Bangor Daily news.
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ALBERT MYSTERIES
“…shines with comic brilliance. Crossman has a gift for creating characters…who should show up in further adventures of Albert. And there should be more.” Chicago Sun-Times
Music was all Albert knew. He had just enough sense to know he was clueless, until murder came along and tore his cocoon to shreds; but it wasn’t light that flooded in through the cracks; it was darkness. Still, things might work out all right – if only someone would explain . . . everything.
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The orbit of Albert's tiny, coffee-stained universe was elliptical and only rarely collided with the conventional world, generally in the vicinity of a Dunkin’ Donuts. He couldn’t understand why the police failed to grasp the logic of his argument: Tewksbury had just quit smoking. You don’t quit smoking if you’re planning to kill someone – even a history professor. Like a musical pinball, Albert is buffeted through the sinister underbelly of academe, in which he is an unwanted stranger.
The Third Albert Mystery
Someone had once said "You can't crawl back into the womb, can you?" In the aftermath of yet another storm of horrors, Albert did the next best thing, he retreated into his music. Once again, he let The School take over his life, plan his concerts, schedule his every waking moment. It wasn't the waking moments, though, that terrified him. It was those restless hours between waking and sleeping where the fragile barriers between past and present, light and darkness, the real and the unreal became porous, allowing for the interplay of impossibilities.
The Fourth Albert Mystery
Four years since Albert fell off the edge of the world; a world he wished would forget about him; forget he ever existed; when murder entered his life. For six months after that, one hideous death led to another, like a string of blood-red pearls, trailing Albert to the edge of the abyss; forcing him out of the womb, naked and exposed. Finally, he’d fled to a place of safety, where even Death couldn’t find him.
But it did.
The First Albert Mystery
The Second Albert Mystery
In grade school when one of Albert’s teachers had said “everybody’s special,” a classmate quipped, “Albert’s terminally special.” He was probably right. Albert had never felt at home in the world; he didn’t know why people did what they did, or thought what they thought, or were the way they were. And talking to them only made things worse. Not that he really ever noticed . . . until they started killing each other all around him. Suddenly, he had to understand, because one of the people they were trying to kill, was him.
PHOTO CLUB MYSTERY
"Crossman does a good job of writing dialog. Dead and Breakfast is well-plotted with lots of interesting characters. A thoroughly enjoyable read!" Verified Amazon reader.
“I’d lock the door on him,” said Mrs. Griffeths, “if those girls weren’t still out there somewhere. If this were a murder mystery,” she added, “that man would be found full of cutlery in the morning, with a house full of happy suspects.” She scooped a vengeful spoonful of raspberries. “I don’t suppose that’s very nice of me, is it?”
Mr. Piper seemed about to say something, but instead just smiled.
The idea for a mystery centered around a peripatetic photographer and the classes of well-heeled would-be’s she escorts to exotic locals came from a visit to Chateau d’Arnac in the Dordogne region of France, where my wife and I met such a person, Barbara van Zanten by name, who conducted such a class. During our first breakfast there the owner of the chateau, a lovely woman named Jill, conducted what she called a “go-round” in which everyone at the table would tell about themselves. When it came to me, I mentioned that I was a mystery writer to which one of the other guests – the student upon whom I patterned Mr. Piper in Dead and Breakfast – suggested I should write a story based upon, well, them. That ignited everyone’s inner Agatha Christie and, before the croissants arrived we’d killed off half the guests and much of the native population!
BEAN & AB MYSTERIES
“Crossman’s Keeping Secrets is a gripping and well-imagined adventure mystery.” The Horn Book
Ab spent summers with her family on Penobscot Island, Maine – far from the sun-baked streets of New York – and every year, she and her best friend, Bean, imagined themselves in all kind of dangers. This year, though, the pretending stopped.
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Bean tells Ab that the House where she's staying is haunted, and the two friends become immersed in the history of the house and solving a mystery involving missing treasure, stolen paintings, a wailing apparition, and a tragic shipwreck. The discovery of certain ancient devices leads them deeper and deeper through a web of secrets, and closer and closer to the chilling truth of the missing grave.
The First Bean and Ab Mystery
The Second Bean and Ab Mystery
Bean, Ab, and their friend Spooky are looking for stolen treasure and learn about the somewhat checkered life of Abnezar Twing, a pirate who lived on Penobscot Island many years ago. In the course of the investigation, Ab is kidnapped, and the youngsters soon figure out that some of the guests at the local bed-and-breakfast know more than they’re saying. Adding to the mystery, is that appearance of a legendary spector from the island’s dark past: the Black Moriah.
The Third Bean and Ab Mystery
Ab and Bean has become astranged, and it's fault. She follows Bean and his friend Spooky, quickly realizing that the two boys are hiding a big secret. As the adventure unfolds, the kids are forced through a harrowing series of narrow escapes by boat, ultralight, and mini-submarine. To complicate matters, bizarre occurrences indicate that the legends surrounding nearby Burial Island – site of a tragedy during the French and Indian Wars – might not be simply folktales after all.
A TERRIBLE MERCY
This is not light reading, but something you can delve into, giving your brain, and emotions, a total workout. I, for one, cannot wait to read more. Verified Amazon Reviewer
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International Thriller
A mismatched quartet of ordinary people are unwillingly stitched together by events over which they have no control, and propelled toward battle with an unseen horror that threatens to cast the world into an Kitumian darkness in which only Ebola thrives. As the world crumbles about them, one thing becomes certain: trust no one – especially those you trust the most.
It is Christmas Eve in Rome, and the Pope is dying. Among millions of faithful who have come to share in his final Mass, is an American doctor on a mission; to bring the world to an end.
STORYTELLER
Compelling. Awesome. Riveting. Haunting. BUY this book. Don't just read it. Buy it because you will need, want to read it again! Verified Amazon Reviewer
Fantasy
A private plane crashes in the south Pacific. The lone survivor, rap star Rat Badger Junkmouth Flash, washes up on a desert island where he is confronted by a most unexpected resident.
The island’s only habitation is a magnificent mansion in which are twenty-two rooms. In each of these he will encounter a dimension of existence – and of himself – that he never imagined.
The Free Press of Rockland, Maine, challenged best-selling mystery novelist David Crossman to write an original short story every week for 24 weeks. Here, in book form, is the result; unlike anything.
SILENCE THE DEAD
A stunning tale of a family’s journey from Ireland to New Mexico... Bravo! Well done! This book is truly remarkable in its depth of research, and description of life and times past. Verified Amazon Reviewer
A quartet of orphans is forced to flee from Ireland at the height of the famine, to America - a wild and lawless land they were forced to face with nothing but their wits, a dead man's boots, an empty gun, and an unwanted fellow-traveler.
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Father O'Shield's knees creaked in painful complaint as he stooped over the man who lay crushed and bleeding on the rocks at the foot of the cliff. Flanagan threw his arms around the priest's neck, jerked him close, and pressed his lips close to the ear of his confessor. "Forgive me Father, for I 'ave sinned. I've sinned like hell."