The Mark Manning Mysteries

A masterpiece of mystery and suspense, this is the moving story of a man struggling to come to terms with his sexuality. Investigative journalist Mark Manning is on the trail of a story that could make his career. Airline heiress Helena Carter, who vanished seven years ago, is about to be declared legally dead. Her fortune, valued at over one hundred million dollars, will go to the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and the Federated Cat Clubs of America. Manning is the only one who believes that the missing Chicago socialite is still alive.

Chicago Journal reporter Mark Manning has been called in to replace a colleague on a big story. Famed Swiss astrophysicist Pavo Zarnik has just stunned the science world with his announcement that he’s discovered a 10th planet in our solar system. Manning is skeptical of Zarnik’s claims and believes he’s a fraud. His suspicions grow when his fellow reporter - award-winning journalist Clifford Nolan - turns up dead, his laptop missing.

An unexpected windfall has given burned-out Chicago journalist Mark Manning the chance to reconnect with his boyhood roots. With the blessing of his lover, Neil, he leaves the Windy City to return to Dumont, Wisconsin, to take over the town paper. His long-awaited family reunion is cut short when his cousin Suzanne is bludgeoned to death just before Christmas dinner. Before she dies, she whispers something to Manning: The name of her son. Was she expressing a mother’s dying wish for the future welfare of her child? Or revealing the identity of her murderer?

Front-page news in the quiet town of Dumont, Wisconsin, where former Chicago reporter Mark Manning runs the town’s Daily Register, involves the annual exhibition of the Midwest Miniatures Society and new zoning laws for an adult bookstore. But murder becomes the headline when “King of Miniatures” Carrol Cantrell, the nation’s foremost expert, is found strangled in the guesthouse of a local shop owner. It seems Cantrell was leading a double life. He was having an affair with Doug Pierce, Dumont’s closeted sheriff and a good friend of Manning’s. 

For Mark Manning, running the local paper in his Wisconsin hometown is a refreshing change from his life as a hard-charging reporter for the Chicago Journal. Together with his partner, architect Neil Waite, he’s settling into scenic, sleepy Dumont, whose inhabitants have welcomed them into their fold. Until Manning’s nephew becomes the prime suspect in a murder case.

During his distinguished career as a journalist, Mark Manning has seen it all - riots, murder, political corruption, and every manifestation of the dark heart of the human species. But, even his proven emotional resources will be stretched when the home he shares with his lover, architect Neil Waite, and his ward and nephew, Thad Quatrain, becomes the site of one of the most daunting, taxing, and potentially dangerous of all human rituals - a wedding.

Journalist Mark Manning has been successfully running his family's newspaper, The Dumont Daily Register, for several years now, and he sits on the board of two local companies, Quatro Press and Ashton Mills. So, when the respective CEOs of these companies discuss a merger, it is only natural that Manning be interested in the proceedings. What's more, Manning's lover Neil, an architect, is designing a new house for Ashton's CEO, Gillian Reece.