After learning that one of his beloved aunt's rare white bulldogs has been poisoned, the Orthodox bishop of a remote Russian province on the Volga River knows that only one detective is clever enough for this murder: Sister Pelagia.

Peter Robertson's novel "Angel", chronicling the sordid world of a teenage prostitute, was the biggest bestseller of the year. But it also attracted someone who not only looks like Angel but embodies the desperate creature he created. And she follows him everywhere. And when he finds out what she's really after it will explode his world.

Body Farm's renowned anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton is called to a remote mountain community. The mummified corpse of a young woman dead for thirty years has been discovered in a cave, the body bizarrely preserved and transformed by the environment's unique chemistry. But Brockton's investigation is threatening to open old wounds among an insular people who won't forget or forgive.

Dreamers are people attracted to the simple life in the rugged landscape of Scotland. They usually do not last the harsh winters. Local sleuth Hamish MacBeth finds dreamer Effie Garrand delusional about a relationship with local artist Jock Fleming. Effie is found in the mountains poisoned with hemlock. It is up to Hamish to find the dreamer's killer.

Koko has developed the new hobby of dropping off balconies to see where that takes him. When a young man comes to visit his wealthy relatives, Koko drops right on his head. The cat is therefore well-situated when the visitor's family members start turning deathly ill.

Years ago the body of a graphic artist was found bludgeoned in his studio. His stepson was quickly arrested, found with the murder weapon and bloody clothing in his car. Missing, however, was his 4-year old daughter. His other son, Caleb, is now a forensic anthropologist, called by the Las Piernas police to the old Sheffield estate when bones are discovered. With the help of Irene Kelly he will have to confront his past. Recommended.

Assistant Dorm director Heather Wells must deal with a student decapitation on top of a number of personal pressures. The trail from the murder seems to lead to one of New York College's most revered fraternities.

Belinda Cooley accompanies her twin brother Ben to a Las Vegas amateur Texas Hold 'Em tournament - however, she doesn't intend to gamble. But after Ben mysteriously disappears from his hotel room she must take his place at the table and play her way to the final round. Because if she can't, her brother might be retired from tournament poker - permanently.

Once a Florida's sheriff's depty, Dixie Hemingway is now a pet-sitter. When she finds a dead man face down in an Abyssinian's water bowl - a death that stymies the local cops - including a handsome detective who catches her eye - she decides to go sleuthing herself.

Louise Baker has married her way to the top in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and her mob connections have given her the power she always wanted. She doesn't worry much about jilting her latest lover, handsome Henry Witlo, known as Goldilocks. But Henry's got a vicious streak, and maybe he's a little crazy, crazy enough to set into motion a chain of events that will blow the town sky-high.

Jannie Fox left behind her Mormon upbringing and fiance five years ago, but she is forced to confront both when her childhood friend vanishes. Amidst break-ins, threats and murder, Jannie must unravel the secrets of the past if she ever wants to see her friend alive again.

Schizophrenia runs in David's family. He has it, his father had it, and now his sister Diana's son Jason has it. When Jason drowns, Diana cannot accept that it was an accident. She makes increasingly bizarre accusations to David and works feverishly to build a case against her husband.

Joe Pike owes a bad man a big favour. And so he must protect the life of a spoiled rich girl who happens to be a federal witness in a case against the mob. When he comes under intense fire he and Elvis Cole take the girl into the anonymous underbelly of Los Angeles.

A fortuneteller is gruesomely murdered in Orange County's Vietnamese community, Little Saigon. During the course of Detective Seven Bushard's investigation, artist Gia Moon claims she will be one of the killer's victims. Gia appears to be convinced by her own psychic insight, but the sceptical detective isn't so sure.

Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs must stop a time-obsessed serial killer known as the Watchmaker.

The nightmare begins at a party for wedding planner Carnegie Kincaid's client, a sexy Goth rocker marrying a Seattle home run king. When murder strikes and Boris the Mad Russian Florist is charged with the crime, Carnegie steps up to the plate to clear him over the objections of fiance Aaron Gold, who has suddenly become a full-time sports nut.

San Francisco wrongful death attorney David Sloane receives a package from a White House confidante who then turns up dead by apparent suicide. A 30 year old conspiracy may reach as far as the Oval Office.

95,000 hopefuls, three judges, one winner. Colin Simms and his fellow judges on this TV talent show are about to see the real put back into reality television.

Retirement isn't easy for an ex-hit man: now the man accustomed to killing people in cold blood must spend time with his eccentric mother-in-law. Then Peter Macklin discovers mom-in-law's boyfriend Benjamin Grinnell is a spotter for a gang of armed robbers - one who made a big mistake. Grinnel failed to spot a shotgun-toting shop-owner, whom the gang had to turn into red mist. Now Grinnell's life is threatened, and Grinnell's jeopardy endangers those closest to Macklin.

Connie Rosolli has a secret admirer - or does she? She's getting both love mail and hate mail. Stephanie Plum is determined to find out who's responsible. 160 pages.

Kountry Kitchen's Wanda Nell gets a surprise customer - her brother Rusty - on whom she hasn't set eyes since their mama died. Wanda Nell wants to heal the rift between them, but Rusty has other scores to settle in town. Then a man is murdered, and Rusty - who had a violent fight with the victim shortly before his death - disappears. She knows her baby brother isn't a killer, and she's got to find both him and the real murderer before the whole thing stars to stink like yesterday's leftovers.

In the middle of a trial a cataclysmic explosion interrupts the construction of Water Tunnel #3, more than 600 feet below the surface. Prosecutor Alexandra Cooper, attempting to prove a young businessman hired a hit man to murder his wife, discovers a connection between the accused and the tunnel workers.

Summer, 1450: Dame Frevisse of St. Frideswide's nunnery goes to London to recover gold from the coffers of her cousin's husband, the murdered Duke of Suffolk. But a rebel army advances on London and a murdered body is discovered in the crypt of a church, mutilated with what a Franciscan friar of the Inquistion claims are Hebrew letters.

Dame Frevisse of St. Frideswide's nunnery, in London to bury her cousin's husband, helps wandering player Simon Joliffe search for noblemen named on a list. These are purportedly traitors who conspired with the French against their King.

Christian Gillette, the young dynamo chairman of the New York private equity firm Everest Capital, intends to stake out a piece of the action in Las Vegas by opening a new casino and launching an NFL franchise. But the mob soon makes it clear that Christian's company will have to pay if it wants to play in the nation's gaming capital.

After the Bay of Pigs, Jack Teller is through with the CIA. But then a Stasi colonel contacts the Berlin Station days before JFK is due to visit the Wall. There's a plot to kill the President, and the Colonel will speak to no one but Jack.

Journalist and movie and food critic Lou Tedesco has just earned another title: sleuth. When the wife of a philandering rabbi dies, he's tried for murder. But a mistrial sets the stage for Lou to investigate where the police feared to tread.

A police labour dispute in San Francisco gives Monk his badge back, and his own squad to command. Unfortunately, some of the squad members make Monk look like a paragon of mental health. But despite the challenges, they'll have to pull together to catch an astrologer's killer, solve a series of mysterious fatal assaults, and most importantly, clean up their desks.

What do an old book hidden in Jake Tiptree's cellar, the appearance of her ex-husband's ghost, and the suicide of a local bad boy have in common?

Ex-spy Thomas Chaloner is recommended to Lord Clarendon by his old employer, the feared Secretary of State John Thurloe. In return Thurloe demands that Thomas keep him informed of any plot against him. But what Thomas discovers is that he is the second ex-employee that Thurloe had sent to White Hall - and the first is now dead.

Richard Jury investigates the circumstances of the death of wealthy bachelor Billy Maples and finds himself drawn to trendy Clerkenwell galleries, clubs and hotels, and to the Sussex town of Rye and the house where Henry James composed three of his masterworks.

Sean Drummond, JAG lawyer, is dispatched to investigate the suicide of one of DC's most influential defense officials who is a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq.

Montana bush pilot Lauren Taylor notices that her passenger - whom she is flying into her isolated hometown - bears a striking resemblance to a serial arsonist on the FBI's wanted list.

Arly Hanks returns from vacation to find that the local old-folks' home has been sold to a mysterious outsider, and overnight the place has been transformed into the Stonebridge Foundation, an exclusive rehabilitation center complete with a stone-faced guard who doesn't speak a word of English and an even nastier dog. When the beautiful young receptionist found drowned in the garden pool is identified as a local girl from nearby Farberville, it's clear the case may not only involve the suspicious characters who've recently moved to town, but also some of the citizens of Maggody, who may have a secret or two to hide themselves.

When the body of popular contestant Matt Hanes is discovered during the middle of a hit reality talent show - one of those that pitches a talented nobody into superstardom - PI Jim McNamara must sort out which one of the ten finalists would actually kill to become a star.

Somewhere due west of Deadwood, a pair of unlikely cowboy sleuths have adopted Sherlock Holmes as their model after reading Doyle's stories in Harper's Weekly. Now it's time to put Sherlock's lessons to work.

When police suspect that Venus Envy's new makeup artist has drowned, Persia Vanderbilt knows there's more to it than meets the eye.

PI Lincoln Perry connects the death of an old friend to a wave of arson that struck Cleveland seventeen years ago - fires that lit up the dark secrets of two families, a local powerbroker, and at least one crooked cop.

Winner of Sweden's Best First Crime Novel Award. Stockholm attorney Rebecka Martinsson returns to Kiruna, the town she'd left in disgrace years before, to help her friend Sanna, whose brother has been horrifically murdered in the revivalist church his charisma helped create. To find the real killer of a man she once adored and is now not sure she ever knew, Rebecka must relive the darkness she left behind in Kiruna, delve into a sordid conspiracy of deceit, and confront a killer whose motives are dark, wrenching, and impossible to guess.

Gina Roake, a partner in Dismas Hardy's firm, takes the case of a husband who is accused of killing his wife for millions in insurance. He claims he was at a cabin that weekend. She calls Wyatt Hunt to check out her client's past, but her client is on the lam before the facts are in.

Self-employed PI Wyatt Hunt works low-profile surveillance and insurance fraud cases. But after a federal judge is murdered in Pacific Heights, Hunt forms his friends, stringers and associates into a confederation - the Hunt Club - to help nail the killer.

Her boyfriend has been badgering her for years to marry him or let him move in, but London ghostwriter Lee Bartholomew is set in her own ways. Now an arsonist is setting fire to nearby homes - with the occupants inside - and Lee finds herself in the centre of the investigation - and in the arms of a dangerous new lover.

In the sequel to DEAD I WELL MAY BE mercenary Michael Forsythe is forced to infiltrate an Irish terrorist cell on behalf of the FBI. He must insinuate himself into the good graces of a band of political terrorists.

Sheriff Bo Tully, sheriff of Blight County, Idaho must deal with a dead body that's turned up on Batim Scragg's ranch. Forced to put on his sleuthing hat, Bo finds himself faced with a whole slew of possible suspects. And what quickly becomes apparent is that, while the sheriff's investigative methods may not exactly be legal, they are, for better or worse, "The Blight Way."

North Korea refuses to allow the US to search its mountainous frontier with China for a crashed space shuttle. But the US is determined to keep the secrets onboard out of North Korea's hands.

Dublin's King's College is an institution in crisis. Seamus Joyce, hired as a consultant to analyze the situation, finds that dark forces are seeking to influence his report. When the university's president is murdered he realizes the stakes are higher than he realized.

Alcohol is a no-no in the Mennonite community of Hernia, Pennsylvania, but the events bubbling up in town are enough to make everyone feel a little tipsy. A couple of unprincipled outsiders have a plan to start a vineyard and open a winery. So everyone's a suspect when the manager of the vineyard is found entombed in cement.

Marco Valoni, chief of Italy's Art Crimes Department, traces a century-long series of mishaps in the Cathedral of Turin to a a secret Christian sect with roots in antiquity.

Only Seattle writer Gillian McBride is able to spot a connection in a series of bizarre, apparently random murders taking place - a connection with the Schoolgirl Murders that terrorized Seattle years ago. The link that makes everything into a pattern, Gillian realizes, is herself.

A mutilated body is found lying on the ground in Chicago, a dead hand pointing down Adams Street, also known as Route 66. Now the parents of children that have gone missing over the last decade drive in a caravan along that road, and Kathy Mallory drives with them. During the next few extraordinary days, Mallory will find herself hunting a killer like none she has ever known.

A collection of her crime and suspense short stories.

Since a fall from a 6th floor hotel room, San Diego homicide detective Robbie Brownlaw sees little coloured shapes when people speak. His synesthesia acts like a primitive lie detector. This will come in handy after he is assigned to investigate the apparent suicide of an investigator for the City's Ethics Authority Enforcement Unit. Recommended.

When a young investment banker dies of baffling causes, FBI agent John O'Hara suspects the victim's beautiful fiance and begins building a case. But the stronger his case, the less sure he is whether he is pursuing justice or his own fatal obsession.

In San Francisco Jewish lawyer David Wolfe is called upon to defend a Palestinian woman with whom he had an affair in law school. She is acccused of assassinating the prime minister of Israel.

Tony Romero, overlord to San Francisco's brothels, is blazing a path to the top of organized crime, a path littered with bodies and broken dreams - some, his own. Out of print for 40 years.

Debbie Stansfield can't accept that her sun Richard killed himself. DI Lorraine Hunt believes Richard's four friends know something, but the teenagers are clearly terrifed. And then Richard's friends start going missing.

Edgar Allan Poe is the prime suspect in two unrelated murders in 1840s New York. High Constable Jacob Hays, nearing retirement, and his daughter - editor at a powerful publishing firm - quest deeply into the underbelly of the city's high society, publishing world and gangland.

Three years after he was unjustly convicted and sent to prison, former Building Department inspector Joe Cole lives a broken life. But a woman's murder and the death of a young man will open old wounds and plunge him into the city's darkest corners in a quest to expose the truth.

Danny Carter has gone straight, but now his partner Evan - from the liquor store holdup days - is out of prison. Evan feels he's owed some major payback.

One should, it seems, think twice about breaking up with Abby Foote. Her former boyfriend is found murdered on the day he announces his engagement. Then two previous boyfriends report that attempts were made on their lives after breaking up with Abby. Is this just coincidence. Or is someone trying to frame Abby?

Arkady Renko returns to Moscow and encounters a nostalgia for the good old days of Stalin and a group of reactionaries attempting to create a groundswell for a new dictatorship.

Three women, newly admitted to Baltimore's St. Raphael's Hospital, are all from group homes for the mentally impaired, victims of a strange virus. Dr. Nathaniel McCormick, knows something is terribly wrong. He soon zeroes in on the "vector" - the one person who had sexual contact with the first victims. And when that suspect is found murdered, Nate fears that the disease he's chasing may not be an act of nature, but of man.

When Katherine Murray's elderly Aunt Lucy dies, she leaves behind worldly belongings that are mostly destined for the dumpster. The exception is a priceless Celtic necklace and a diary written in German, neither of which Katharine's ever seen before. The discovery of these objects also discloses a homicide five decades old. Then the objects are stolen, and the main suspect in the robbery turns up dead.

Alaska PI Kate Shugak and state trooper Jim Chopin have seen Louis Deem get away with murder before - but this time they feel sure they'll get a conviction - they have a witness.

The thought of working with a hot-shot producer and her TV crew is about as appealing to Abby as sticking her hand in a bucket of leeches. But "Reality Check" is a program that claims to turn American dreams into the real thing, and Abby figures that if anyone deserves that kind of bonanza, it's Emma Lopez, who has been raising her three younger siblings since her mother disappeared. Abby is determined to help Emma realize her dream of a reunion-even when it becomes clear that someone out there doesn't believe in happy endings.

Young Fanny Delarue is a cook for a wealthy family in the Place Royale. Etienne, chef to a neighbouring household, is found dead under suspicious circumstances. Who would murder a cook?

New Year's Eve, 1919. Scotland Yard's Inspector Ian Rutledge finds a brass cartridge casing that is seemingly identical to the countless others he'd seen during the War. But this one has an engraving in the metal. Soon he finds another - in a most unexpected place. These cartridge casings seem to point to unfinished business involving the War. A man with a dark secret, Rutledge already walks on the edge of sanity. Now someone is hunting him. But who?

In the small harbour town of Hampton Regis a man is found on the strand so severely beaten that he slips in and out of consciousness. The prime suspect is his wife's jilted lover, who served with Inspector Rutledge in the War - but who left the Front under a cloud. Rutledge is called on to prove the innocence of a man he dislikes and distrusts.

Professor McLeod Dulaney's unassuming star student, Greg Pierre, actually is assuming - a false name, that is. When the student who outed him is found murdered, suspicion falls on Pierre. But McLeod believes in Pierre's innocence, and now must trace the clues left behind to find a killer's true identity.

Would-be novelist Ivy Seidel, running low on money and concerned that her writing might lack a depth and darkness, takes a job teaching creative writing at a maximum-security prison. One of the prisoners there is unlike the others: Vance Harrow is soft-spoken, charismatic and brilliantly talented. She suspects that Harrow shouldn't be in prison at all, and yet he has deep reservoirs of rage and brutality that seem perfectly in line with the other prisoners. She begins to ask questions, but soon other people begin to ask questions - about Ivy Seidel.

Beatrix Potter, learning that a mysterious outsider has plans that would ruin the pristine shoreline of Lake Windermere, organizes her friends to thwart those plans.

East Hampton, New York is the summer playground of the wealthy and is also the site of the first terrorist suicide bombing to hit US shores. A small plane also crashes in the middle of East End Harbor. Local cop Justin Westwood investigates and finds a connection between the two incidents that has nothing to do with Middle East terrorism. Someone is targeting specific victims and is covering up the murders with apparent"suicide bombings".

With the help of the phantom Aunt Dimity Lori Shepherd begins to amass and piece together clues that point to an illegal smuggling operation on the island, unaware of the growing danger.

Dr. Bill Brockton, the founder of the world-famous Body Farm, lends his assistance to medical examiner Jess Carter. A young man's battered body has been found in nearby Chattanooga. He's re-created the Chattanooga death scene at the Body Farm, but a killer tampers with it in a shocking way: placing another corpse at the setting, confusing authorities and putting Brockton's career and life in jeopardy. Soon Brockton himself is accused of the horrific new crime, and the once-beloved professor becomes an outcast.

Maid Mrs. Gillespie is murdered, violently, felled by a metal bucket. Hamish MacBeth, following a tactic that has proved fruitful in the past, decides that the victim's penchant for gossip had led her to gather secrets from her clients. The list of suspects, therefore, is the list of those whose homes she cleaned.

Senate aide Veronica Cooper was found in a secret Senate office beneath the Capitol building, on Senator Todd Glancy's favorite couch, blood pouring from the knife wound in her throat. The young woman's death comes on the heels of the release of a sordid videotape depicting her and Senator Glancy in compromising positions. With the senator's reputation in tatters, the evidence against him - as a sexual predator and possibly a killer-mounts. By the time a nationally televised murder trial begins, Ben Kincaid and his team know they're facing the challenge of a lifetime.

Cotton Malone, one-time top operative for the U.S. Justice Department, is now an antiquarian book dealer in Copenhagen - until his help is needed by his former supervisor, Stephanie Nelle, in her quest for the treasure of the Templars. Competing for the historic prize - and desperate for the crucial information Stephanie possesses - is Raymond de Roquefort, a shadowy zealot with an army of assassins at his command.

Sisters and innkeepers Meg and Quill have an inn full of guests who can't stop fighting. Soon, one ends up murdered on a pig farm. And when a psychic correctly predicts a second murder, business grinds to a halt.

Detective Francis X. Loughlin's first huge case comes back to haunt him. The 17 year old boy he set up for conviction is out of jail on a technicality - and there's another homicide. But the DNA tests will give Loughlin a shocking surprise.

A professional card shark tries to frame one of his marks for murder and finds himself playing a game for the highest stakes of his life. Out of print for 40 years.

Winner of Gold Dagger! A teenager has been strangled on a small Shetland island. The locals focus on Magnus Tait, a loner and simpleton, but the police insist on a wider investigation. A veil of suspicion and fear is cast over the community.

Food connoisseur Chloe Carter is on a quest for the perfect meal and man. That's why the "Gourmet Girl" accepts an online date with "Dinner Dude." Too bad he's murdered in the restaurant. Leave it to Chloe to fall in love with the chef, who's also suspect #1.

As a child, Juliet Price witnessed the bloody slaying of an entire family. Then the killer chased her down, brutalized her, and left her for dead. The police were never able to find the man responsible. For years, Juliet's traumatized mind hid the events from her. Then she sees a television show featuring the unsolved cold case, and the horrors come to her in her nightmares. She shares her fears with Diane Fallon, who realizes that Juliet's shattered visions recall not one, but two intertwined crimes-crimes that Diane intends to uncover.

The ship's magician for a cruise ship has an air-tight alibi - he was seen performing before hundreds when the murder occured.

Max Holman is being released from a ten year stint in prison and he is thinking about reconciliation with his police officer son. Then he receives news that his son and three other officers are shot dead in the L.A. warehouse district. The evidence points to Alejandro Juarez but the police are doing nothing to solve the case. Max then decides to conduct his own renegade investigation into police corruption.

Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James's idyllic holiday in Cheshire is interrupted by murder both past and present. A teenager drowns in a local canal, the remains of an infant are discovered in an old canalside dairy barn, and then a troubled former social worker is found murdered in her boat.

Alec Milius has been rebuilding his life in Madrid after a disastrous MI6-CIA operation. But he still has a fatal weakness for secrets. When a prominent politician disappears, he can't resist tracking him down. This time, though, he's on his own.

Young Canadian Samuel Simpson volunteers to become a records-keeper for a UN war-crimes investigation working in upstate New York. As Samuel and his team travel through the war-torn region looking for evidence of atrocities, he begins to suspect one of the team is not only trying to conceal crimes, but working to betray and kill them all.

On the day before Jordy Mills was going to donate a kidney to save his brother Cornell's life, he was shot to death. Without a donor, Cornell tragically committed suicide. Looking into the lives of these two brothers, Manhattan P.I. Desiree Shapiro has discovered that one's a saint, the other's a sinner, and someone wanted them both dead.

On the day before Jordy Mills was going to donate a kidney to save his brother Cornell's life, he was shot to death. Without donor, Cornell tragically committed suicide. Looking into the lives of these two brothers, Manhattan P.I. Desiree Shapiro has discovered that one's a saint, the other's a sinner, and someone wanted them both dead.

Winner of the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel. Detectives, led by a very pregnant Inspector Ann Lindell, at first suspect a psychotic for the murder of a local family man. They're wrong, as it turns out, which means there's a vicious and cunning murderer still on the loose.

Ex-stockcar racer Robert 'Redball' Redding is now a North Carolina prosecuting attorney. A brain-dead hayseed, brother to pro racing's most popular driver, is caught trying to hijack an 18-wheeler filled with die-cast toy race cars. The truckful of toys leads to a lockerful of cash - and to perfidy, porn, loser Louisiana wiseguys . . . and murder.

Alexandra Cooper investigates the disappearance of the world famous dancer Natalya Galinova who suddenly vanished backstage - during a performance at Lincoln Center. At the same time she's trying to nab a doctor who is using his knowledge of pharmaceuticals to drug women before assaulting them. Little does Alexa know that the two cases are connected! Although, I must say she's a little dense there, since every case she's ever had always ends up the same way, with everything connected somehow.

The Cookie Jar is snack central when Lake Eden's Main Street is rented out as a movie set for a week. But then director Dean Lawrence demonstrates a suicide scene with a prop gun that turns out to be real.

A controversial artist is murdered and displayed as part of her own outrageous installation. No suspects, no motive, no evidence - it's business as usual for the Peculiar Crimes Unit's cantankerous founding partners, Arthur Bryant and John May. But this time they have an eyewitness. According to 12 year old Luke Tripp, the killer was a cape clad highwayman atop a black stallion. Recommended.

An assassin for hire: a monster of cold intellectual genius: a murderer whose homicidal drives are fuelled by a voracious sexual appetite...the demonic Klaas-Pieter Terajima is back. In league with a cabal of Russian billionaire oligarchs, Terajima is hell-bent on the destruction of the one man who could defeat him, PI Alan Rosslyn.

Cocktail waitress turned psychologist Christina McMullen has handled obsessed patients, love-struck drunks, and her own guilt-tripping mother with aplomb. But that all vanishes when LA homicide detective Jack Riviera lights up his wicked smile. She can't help but come to his aid when he's accused of murder.

The arrest of a right-wing radio show host for illegal possession of prescription drugs puts in motion a deadly series of events that culminates in murder. Leading the investigation is Gregor Demarkian, a retired FBI agent hired to stop a killer from striking again.

When a client is accused of murder, Lara's investigation leads her to the Orkney Islands off the northeast coast of Scotland. There, she is pulled into a centuries-old Viking saga and a troubling quest that could end in danger - and rewrite history.

Contains SHALLOW GRAVE and BLOOD SINISTER in the Detective Slider series.

Sloane is an unsuccessful painter but a successful forger. He is reunited with his daughter Connie only to find she has become locked in a highly charged relationship with Vincent Delaney, a man whom police believe has killed once and will not hesitate to kill again. Sloane must decide whether to walk away or stay and fight for Connie.

Journalist Joe Oakes is a debunker of the supernatural. But a visit to a secretive religious community on a remote Scottish Island, and the violent aftermath to a confrontation, forces him to question the nature of evil.

A young Englishwoman comes to Tokyo seeking a rare piece of film footage that has been lost for decades, showing a specific incident during the notorious 1937 Nanking Massacre. Only one man can help her - a survivor of the massacre and now a visiting professor at the University of Todai in Tokyo. In order to get his trust she accepts a job as a hostess in an upmarket nightspot catering to Japanese businessmen and wealthy yakuza, where a certain gangster may be the key - an old man in a wheelchair surrounded by a terrifying entourge, rumoured to rely on a mysterious elixir for his continued health.

Costa and Peroni can see the end approaching to their exile in Venice, and so are eager to quickly conclude an investigation into a fire in a glass foundry. There is pressure from above, too, to finish quickly so that a British millionaire can conclude a property deal. Unfortunately, as they dig deepr into the strange Arcangeli family, they find things are not adding up. Recommended.

Nic Costa, Peroni and Leo Falcome are back in Rome and must team up again. A shirt with fresh bloodstains appears in a small museum exhibit that purports to display evidence of communication from souls in Purgatory. The shirt belongs to a missing boy. Their search leads them to the ancient cult of Mithras and to the sinister ossuary, the House of Bones.

The last thing pet-sitter Kendra Ballantyne wants is to start a catfight with her boyfriend's ex-wife, Amanda. So she agrees to help when Amanda's stalker turns up dead in her home - but only if Amanda will take her claws out of her ex for good.

Lew Fonesca finds deadbeats, errant spouses, and generally keeps the populace of Sarasota on the up and up. Now Lew has two apparently unrelated cases - one that involves an elderly woman who swears she's witnessed a murder in her old age home, and one that requires Lew to find a hit and run driver who killed a 14 year old boy. When someone tries to run him down, Lew knows that he's getting close to some nasty home truths.

A young medical resident rescues a woman from a knife-wielding assailant near Times Square, killing the man in self-defense. The woman seeks him out and they start a torrid affair, but he is put off by her masochism. When he attempts to extract himself from the relationship, he finds himself stalked.

When a young reporter is viciously murdered, Mobile detectives Carson Ryder and Harry Nautilus find themselves drawn into the dealings of the wealthy Kincannon family. And then Ryder is abducted - with no clues as to who did it or why. Digging to uncover the truth that could lead him to his partner, Nautilus discovers a web of connections between the dead reporter, an enigmatic behind-the-scenes powerbroker, and the Kincannons' own dark secrets.

Robert Reckliss receives a copper puzzle box accompanied by a cryptic note. The box, he'll learn, brings with it the responsiblity to stopping a mind-staggering terrorist threat. That will mean a series of trials around Manhattan guided by Terri, a mysterious psychic, and under the constant gaze of the sinister Watchman.

Attorney Rebecka Martinsson is back in Kiruna and drawn into the investigation into the murder of a female priest.

2000 Edgar nominee for best novel. Elliot Steill is on the hunt through Miami's mean streets. He seeks the man who offered him the means to escape from Cuba - and then betrayed him.

Lem Altick is peddling encyclopedias door to door to pay for college. Then, in a sweltering trailer in rural Florida, a couple whom Lem has spent hours pitching is shot dead before his eyes. The killer, the mysterious and strangely charismatic Melford Kean, a self-styled ethical assassin, hadn't planned on a witness, and so he makes Lem a deal: Stay quiet and there will be no problems. Go to the police and take the fall. Before Lem can decide, he is drawn against his will into the realm of the assassin, a post-Marxist intellectual with whom he forms an unlikely (and perhaps unwise) friendship.

A prostitute is found stripped naked and beaten to death in Aberdeen's red light district. DS Logan MacRae hopes to crack the case quickly and redeem himself for a botched raid. But it won't be quick: on the other side of the city six people are burning to death in a squat that someone soaked with petrol and then screwed shut the doors and windows from the outside. And then another prostitute turns up dead.

Seville, Indiana, has five traffic lights and one interior design firm-Designer Jeans, cofounded by Jean Hastings and her daughter, Jean Jr. Lately they're finding that the keen eyes needed for plotting color schemes and tracking down flea market treasures also come in handy for interpreting more sinister designs.

Two teenagers are found dead in a Park Avenue penthouse. Feeling pressure from the top to solve the high-profile case fast, prosecutor Melanie Vargas breaks all the rules and goes undercover. Her search for the devious killer leads from the rarefied world of New York's elite private schools to the darkest recesses of the city's nightlife.

Renegade rich girl Andy Kendricks' defense attorney boyfriend Brian is such a straight arrow that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a close friend's bachelor party at a sleazy local "gentleman's club." So why is the groom-to-be saying that Brian left the bacchanal arm-in-arm with "the hottest body in the Lone Star State?" And what was that hot body doing stone-cold dead in the trunk of Brian's car? And where "is" Brian anyway?

Lydia Strong's old writing student, Lily, has been missing for weeks. Before her disappearance, Lily had left a strange phone message for Lydia, asking for her help. But until now, Lydia did not pay much attention to the message because Lily tended to call occasionally. But when she learns that Lily had been looking into her brother's suicide, Lydia becomes concerned. Lydia teams up with her husband, ex-FBI agent, p.i. Jeffrey Mark, to uncover the truth behind Lily's disappearance.

St. Petersburg, 1867. Two frozen bodies are found in Petrovsky Park. The first - that of a dwarf - has been packed neatly in a suitcase with a deep wound splitting his skull in two. The second - a burly peasant, is hanging from a nearby tree, a bloody axe in his belt. Porfiry Petrovich (last met in Dostoevsky) takes his investigation from squalid tenements and brothels into the more gentle stratum of society.

An ex-con is brutally murdered with an ax in Kaalbringen. Then the body of a wealthy real estate mogul is found, also the victim of a violent attack. There appears to be a serial killer on the loose, and Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is called in to help the local police. In his storied career he has only left one case unsolved, but he's never before faced an ax murderer. As details surrounding the grisly murders are collected, Van Veeteren finds that there is almost nothing to go on; nothing links the two victims. But then there's another murder, and shortly thereafter one of Van Veeteren's colleagues, a promising female detective, goes missing_perhaps because the criminal knows she has come too close to the truth.

Three people, with no apparent connection, hold the key to a secret society with God-like aspirations and roots in antiquity.

When the body of a controversial talk-show host is discovered hanging from a tree outside Paradise, police chief Jesse Stone finds himself under the scrutiny of national media. Then the body of a young woman is discovered a few days later and the the medical examiner finds a link between the departed souls.

Lydia Beauchamp lives in the starkly beautiful Trawbawn, near the small village of Skibbereen. Ma Beauchamp's private existence is interrupted when a stranger, a young man named Adam arrives. Lydia sends her new confidante, Adam, to Dublin to find her estranged daughter. What terrible past has driven a daughter from her mother?

NYPD officer Michael Bennett is lead negotiator with the armed men disguised as monks inside New York City's largest cathedral. He wrestles with personal problems as the kidnappers, equipped with enough C4 to put a crater in Manhattan, hold 100 of the most powerful people in America.

Halloween and the annual Mischief Night party are just around the corner at the Philadelphia private school where Amanda Pepper teaches English. But trouble erupts long before the witching hour. The school is plagued by a series of mishaps ranging from the trivial to the potentially deadly-and most of which seem to center on a group of popular seniors. As the turmoil in the school escalates into a lethally explosive situation, Amanda receives a warning that there is more-and far worse-to come.

A Lithuanian woman is brought to a Stockholm hospital severly injured by a whipping. She's been trapped in a brothel, forced to repay her 'debt'. In the same hospital police officer Sven Sundkvist and a superior are chasing a lead on a notorious gang boss.

When bodies start turning up with his father's signature marks, all the evidence points to Caleb, son of executed serial killer Gray Parker. The evidence is so convincing that even Caleb is forced to wonder if he might be guilty.

Cate Fante wonders whether she can do justice to her new job as a federal judge, but keeps her doubts a secret. And, as it happens, the dark double life that she hides from everyone, even her best friend - until a high-profile case in her courtroom explodes into a shocking murder-suicide and blasts her cover wide open. But Cate's troubles are only beginning.

Berkeley tarot card reader Warren Ritter is being blackmailed - he must either find the killer who is hunting down members of the satanic cult - or have his real identity as a '60s radical bomber exposed. His cards warn of peril as the High Priestess is cast followed by the Fool. That fool is Warren himself, in a race against time to hunt down a criminal--and erase his own crimes of the past before the last hand is dealt.

A multi-millionaire leaves each of his three children one from his dwindled stable of companies. And each bequeathal comes accompanied by a codicil that leaves each heir in a quandary.

Georgia magistrate, mother, wife, and sometime sleuth MacLaren Yarbrough has been invited to join the Magnolia Ladies' Investment Club and is plumb confused-she's definitely no heiress. But she tables that thought when, at her first meeting, she finds out-going club president Willena Kenan dead on the bathroom floor with a corkscrew protruding from her neck. Since it happened during a coffee break, when everyone left the room separately, no club member is above suspicion. But when the police find a trench coat with incriminating evidence, things get sticky.

Jim was just a teenager when he had an affair with Lily. Now, 24 years later and dying of cancer, she tells him that she gave birth to Jim's daughter. James will now need to confront his past, because their daughter is now a wanted woman, on the run for murder.

Regina Cutter has a job as psychic for the Boston police. Reggie is asked to get involved with a deal. Steven is murdered and her apartment door is smeared with blood. Will her psychic abilities help to prove her innocence and stop the killer?

Sally Harrington starts a new job, created just for her, anchoring a national morning newscast. created just for her: DBS News "America This Morning." Then a jet-setting millionaire turns up dead, shortly after an interview with Sally. And then the feds connect the attempted murder of one of Sally's old acquaintances to the death of her infamous millionaire.

Jimmy Miles can't sleep. Perfect for a private investigator. The night belongs to him-and to Lucy, the woman he's trailing. Her link to Jimmy lies with a strange group called the Sailors. Jimmy knows about them. That's what keeps him up. So do the murders, and the lies about Lucy and his own past...which are far less frightening than the truth.

When Miller was 11 years old, on a tiny Scottish island, the police arrested her father for the murder of three teenage girls. Now, 32 years later, her father has died in prison and she returns to the island to uncover the truth about his guilt.

Roy Valois discovers that his wife, dead now for 15 years, did not - as he though - work as an economist for a think tank, but for the United Nations. His attempts to clear up the mystery turns old friends into strangers.

No sooner does Lori Sheppard arrive in the mountain town of Bluebird, Colorado than things start to go amiss. Someone has mysteriously disappeared, a charming and charismatic man seems to know more than he's letting on, and the whole town is hiding a dark secret. With Aunt Dimity's help, Lori sets out to solve a hundred-year-old mystery.

Quirke, a Dublin pathologist, follows clues from the body of a young woman named Christine Falls to secrets of Dublin's high Catholic society - including members of his own family.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent Bill Tasker is sent to Manatee Correctional Prison to investigate a killing. Here, it turns out, the psych ward misplaces mental patients, the prison inspector carries a number of secrets - and there's something very bad impending.

When NYPD captain Daniel Sullivan is accused of accepting bribes and lands himself in the Tombs, the notorious city jail, he begs Molly to help prove he was framed. After everything they've been through together, how can she turn him down?

Molly Murphy boards a boat for a trip back to her native Ireland to find the long-lost sister of a theatre impressario. But even before the boat lands, Broadway's leading actress goes missing from the ship, and her maid is found dead in her cabin.

Boston homicide detectives Policzki and Lorna Adams look into the disappearance of realtor Kaye Winslow. She went out to show an expensive new listing and left behind her credit cards, her BlackBerry and an unidentified male corpse. It turns out she has an interesting dark side she's kept carefully hidden.

The excitement generated by the remarriage of Harry and veterinarian Fair is overwhelmed by the brutal murder of a world-famous grape and fungal expert who has come to Crozet, Virginia to visit local vineyards.

Mrs. Murphy is along for a trip to the Saddlebred show in Kentucky. This is lucky, for crimes start popping up. A $200,000 mare is stolen and a groom found murdered.

Brooklyn girl Lili Marino has found herself starting over in the tiny village of Walden Corners, New York, where she has the time and space to cultivate her first love: crafting gourds. She's also becoming surprisingly expert at cutting to the rotten heart of a mystery. Lily is just starting to feel welcomed in Walden Corners when she finds the local high school football coach dead on the first day of hunting season. She had naively thought the most dangerous thing she would have to deal with was a moldy gourd--not a murderer.

Jack's dealer, imprisoned at Mountjoy, calls him to Dublin and asks him to find out the truth about his sister's death. Jack reluctantly agrees - not realizing the danger and violence that will result.

A new job offers Jack Taylor a fresh start. He is given hope that his one desperate vision - of family - might yet be fulfilled.

Eccentric widow Helen Walker's home is a maze of bric-a-brac, papers, and just plain junk that she won't throw out. Even worse: two bizarre deaths have convinced Helen she is being stalked by a serial killer. Erin Gilbert has been hired to bring the home back to life - but soon she realizes that somewhere in the clutter is at least one thing to die for.

Theodosia donates teas and treats from her tea shop when a friend throws a benefit for the restoration of a run-down Victorian home. But a beloved local politician falls down dead at the event.

Once a year Charleston's upper crust open their sprawling gardens to the public for the Ramble, the site of flower shows, rare plant auctions, and a contagious spring fever. Although Theodosia Browning barely knows a Phalinopsis from a Bog Rose, she still enjoys the Ramble, especially since she can pour tea and promote her Indigo Tea Shop-and her latest concoction, Dragonwell Sweet Tea.

Jane is taking a self-defense class when a classmate is murdered. Juggling a worried groom, dueling mothers-in-law, and her own prewedding jitters, she throws herself into the hunt for the killer.

Arriving at the bridal salon to pick up her gown, the soon-to-be-wedded Regan Reilly discovers the shop has been broken into, the designers bound and gagged, and wedding dresses for four of the April brides (her dress included) are missing. A fifth dress is in shreds on the floor.

Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team are confronted with two bodies, both strangled, laid out in a bath of water, and strewn with flowers. Vera's attention is drawn to the curious group of friends that discovered one of the bodies.

The residents of the village of Elvet are distressed to hear that, 10 years after Jeanie Long was charged with the murder of 15 year old Abigail Mantel, new evidence has surfaced. Inspector Vera Stanhope's fresh enquiries are threatening some long-buried secrets.

London, 1926: Joe Sandilands is back from Ranipur. Dame Beatrice Joliffe, one of the founders of the Wrens, has been discovered bludgeoned to death in her suite at the Ritz. A broken window and missing emerald necklace suggest that it is a burglary gone wrong. Then Joliffe's companion, an ex-chorus girl, falls from Waterloo Bridge at twilight, and two of the Dame's clique of eager young Wrens commit suicide. Although these deaths make Joe suspect that Beatrice has been killed by someone close to her, he suddenly finds that the case is closed, and he is asked by his superiors to surrender his files.

During the annual Pickle Fest, Abby's boyfriend Marco inexplicably disappears for a day. When he returns, he's the main suspect in the death of a clown. It seems the cops have found Snuggles pushing up water-spurting daisies-and Marco was the last person seen leaving Snuggles's house. Although Marco is still a mystery to her, Abby knows he's innocent. Now she has to find a way to prove it.

At a fund-raiser featuring samples of Chloe Carter's boyfriend Josh's cuisine, a trendy club owner is found bludgeoned to death-by Josh's state-of-the-art, professional-grade food processor, the ominously-named Robocoupe. By opening night at Simmer, the list of suspects is almost longer than the line to get in. And Chloe is struggling to solve the crime before the final course is served.

The death of a French intelligence officer on an Air France flight to Amman, Jordan is the trigger that launches Tommy Carmelline and Jake Grafton on the mission to unravel a tangle of espionage, terrorism, and murder. Together they uncover an elaborate strategy to infiltrate the highest levels of AL Qaeda. Grafton and Carmellini uncover a horrifying plan to shake the West.

Ex-spook Jack Valentine finds himself pulled back to his old life when a set of dog tags, supposedly belonging to a man missing since the early '50s, washes up on a beach. But what can the disturbance of an old North seas arms dump have to do with a botched US mission to Iraq in the early '90s?

Oslo Detective Frohlich does not learn, until their affair is underway, that the lovely Elizabeth is the sister of a member of a larceny gang.

Cemetery tour guide Pepper Martin has seen and heard dead people ever since she banged her head on a headstone. Now one of them is claiming that her sister, a famous author, did her in. The only way Pepper can shut her up is to take a job as the author's secretary.

Veleda, a tribal leader and prophetess from Germania, has been captured and brought to Rome. She is the first love of Justinus, Helena's brother. When she escapes, leaving behind a corpse, Justinus disappears too. It's up to Falco and Chief Spy Anacrites to find the missing couple somewhere in the orgiastic chaos of Saturnalia.

Amateur sleuth and retired botany professor Lawrence Kingston's newest investigation starts when an old human skeleton is unearthed in a well at Wickersham Priory. Then workers on the restoration of the gardens begin to die.

A mistress of the art of death - Medieval England's version of a medical examiner - comes from Italy to Cambridge to investigate the suspicious deaths of four children.

1922 Berlin. Russian refugee Esther Solomonova survives by working as secretary to a charming cabaret owner with a scheme to pass off a young asylum patient as Anastasia, the last surviving heir to the murdered czar of all Russia. But their found "princess," Anna Anderson, fears that she's being hunted - and this may turn out to be more than paranoia when innocent people all around her begin to die.

When renowned birder Guy Sazby's protege is killed and he becomes the prime suspect, Rachel Wilder wonders if - like the painted bunting - Saxby really did kill another male who was encroaching upon his turf.

Rivals for the position of CEO of a construction company are incensed when the billionaire owner won't relinquish control. One plots the owner's death.

Jury spends three nights in the Old Wine Shades pub listening to Harry Johnson, apparently an expert in quantum physics, spin a complicated tale about a woman and her dog who disappeared viewing property in Surrey. Jury wonders how true the story is and finds it checked out - until the body showed up.

The last copy of a black and white photograph taken during the 1964 Clay-Liston fight on Miami Beach falls into Thorn's hands - and makes him and everyone he loves the target of madmen and trained killers.

LA shoe designer Maddie Springer heads to Las Vegas to find her father. She hasn't seen him since he reportedly ran off with a showgirl named Lola - but has heard from him - in a disturbing message left on her answering machine.

Demetrios is in Antioch and longs to return home. But the only way is through Jerusalem. When at last, after a three-day onslaught, the city falls, Demetrios must find his family while the crusaders' journey reaches its terrible apotheosis in a nightmare of violence, bloodshed and slaughter.

Now best known for her Sookie Stackhouse novels, Charlaine Harris garnered an unusual degree of acclaim with her first novel - the story of a murder that embroils a small-town reporter in a mystery that hits close to home.

Police detectives Will Grayson and Helen Walker first think that the violent murder of a gay Cambridge academic was the result of a sexual encounter gone badly wrong. However, their investigation ends centered on the biography the victim was writing of a fifties film star.

Frank Elder is asked by his ex-wife to look into the disappearance of a friend's sister. When the missing woman is found dead Elder finds similarities to a 1997 unsolved case. To solve this riddle, Elder will have to repartner with another person from his past, Detective Inspector Maureen Prior. Recommended.

A gunman opens fire onto a crowded Central Park West. Fritz Malone is on hand and pursues the man into the park. He doesn't learn until cops hustle him into the office of the police commissioner that the man was a mere footsoldier for someone who has warned that there's more carnage to come unless the city meets his impossible demands. Fritz is exactly the kind of guy they need to track this guy down out of the public eye.

Luke McKenna, an ex-top secret special ops member turned pediatric ER surgeon, is about to discover a link between a puzzling illness spreading among tribal villages - and the death in southern California of a young boy with a crescent moon tattoo on his chest.

On a trip to England failed screenwriter Jack Stone finds himself falling in love with the wife of the farmer he's staying with - and tempted to commit murder to have her for himself...

DS Andy Dalziel, caught in the blast from a huge explosion, lies In a hospital bed on life support. Meanwhile DCI Pascoe goes after those responsible. He suspects a group called the Templars - and he's certain they're getting help from within the police force.

After Judge Carey Moore rules that the criminal record of Karl Dahl, a brutal killer, is inadmissable, she becomes the target of community outrage. And when she is attacked by an unknown assailant in a parking garage, two of Minneapolis's top cops are given the task of protecting the judge and locating her attacker. But this becomes even more a challenge for Sam Novac and Nikki Liska after the killer escapes from jail and then - while her house is being watched - the judge is kidnapped.

Crack government assassin Leah Berglund learns that her new target, journalist Elliot Delgado, is not a drug lord. She joins with him to stop the drug war from going nuclear. But to do that they must somehow evade Leah's former colleagues.

As a clinical psychologist and author of an online advice column, Dr. Rebecca Butterman is supposed to help people resolve their internal conflicts--not stir up her own. But when her next door neighbour allegedly commits suicide, Rebecca's investigative instincts make it hard to maintain appropriate boundaries.

Ex-television journalist Ali Reynolds has retreated to her hometown of Sedona Arizona to lick her wounds. But the day before her divorce is final, her estranged husband is found dead in Palm Springs, leaving behind a rich estate and a pregnant fiancee. Not only is Ali the sole heir to her not-quite-ex-husband's estate, she's also the prime suspect in his murder.

South Florida tugboat skipper Seychelle Sullivan investigates when a gambling-boat tycoon, husband to her long-estranged best friend Molly, is picked off his yacht by a sniper. There's no shortage of suspects, from Russian mobsters to Indian gamers to ecological activists - but the cops have zeroed in on Molly.

Crime and vengeance reach out from the past to the present in a new thriller from the author of EVERY SECRET THING and TO THE POWER OF THREE.

Tess Monaghan, now a consultant to the local newspaper, faces felony charges for withholding the identity of an informant, a young street kid, who holds key information in the unsolved murder of a federal prosecutor.

Charles Jay Tice was a spy's spy in the intelligence world of the CIA but he was also a traitor. He had been kept in a maximum security prison until his escape. Agent Elaine Cunningham is a "hunter" assigned to find Tice quickly before the rest of the world knows that he has escaped. She finds out that something is very wrong and there is a more dangerous conspiracy than the old spy's run for freedom.

When the tycoon owner of a spectacularly tacky sports bar is killed, Nora Blackbird suspects a secretive politician, a shady former rock star doubling as a pastry chef, and a dangerous aristo-brat on the verge of stardom.

Michael Forsythe is running security for the Hilton in Lima Peru when two goons show up and force him to take a call from Bridget in Dublin. Soon he's in Dublin himself, arriving there on Bloomsday to search for Bridget's kidnapped daughter. He leaves a trail of bodies behind him as he plunges through the IRA's underground.

Tomcat Joe Grey has his paws full when an escaped convict chooses the quaInt coastal hamlet of Molena Point for a hideout.

Who would be interested in killing a double murderer who spent 24 years in prison? Chief Inspector Van Veeteren discovers that Verhaven was a star sprinter before he went to prison for allegedly killing two of his lovers. However, he never confessed to the murders and spent a lifetime proclaiming his innocence.

Catherine LeVendeur is a creature of twelfth century France. She is witty, intelligent, and fiercely loyal to both her faith and her family. Intrigue and dark forces at work may bring about the very destruction of her family's Christian life.

20 years after the unsolved murder of her mother Hannah Griffin is a talented CSI investigating a case of child abuse when she receives an anonymous message that turns her blood cold: Your Mom called.

Jesse Stone identified a partially decomposed body that has washed ashore to be that of a recently divorced Florida heiress with a penchant for steamy sex. However, no one associated with the deceased is willing to talk to the Paradise, Massachusetts police chief.

Matt Stromsoe is hired to protect a local television personality from a stalker. However, he soons discovers that it is her private pursuits, not her fame, that has made her a target. But the more he uncovers, the more he puts himself in a killer's bull's eye.

Angie Amalfi flies to Rome to help her realtor sister Caterina, accused of murdering a stranger she found dead in the abandoned mansion of famed restauranteur Marcello Piccoletti. Angie's idea of solving the crime invloves her going undercover as a cook in Piccoletti's famous upscale eatery Da Vinci's.

The fourth volume of the Reavley family at war is set in the trenches of the Western Front in 1917.

William Monk is on a patrol boat near Waterloo Bridge when he notices a young couple standing at the bridge railing, apparently engaged in an intense discussion that ends with the pair plunging to their deaths. Was it an accident, a suicide, or a murder? The two, Monk learns, had planned to marry. And the woman's father, an engineer for the Argyll company, had recently committed suicide - or had he? It is suggested that he may have been murdered for his insistence that the Argyll's new sewer project could put the entire city in peril.

NYPSD Lt. Eve Dallas hunts for the killer of a seemingly ordinary history teacher. His homemade lunch was tainted with ricin.

Air Force wife Ellie Avery is an ace at moving. But nothing prepares her for her new neighbours. Driving home from her first squadron barbecue she finds neighbourhood environment activist Cass Vincent dead on the side of the road. And then suspicious accidents start happening in her own backyard.

When a famous chef doesn't return to his kitchen after a relaxing Syrah bath splash, vineyard manager Nikki Sands figures the bubbles must have gone to his head. But instead of bubbles, it was a bullet.

Law professor Natalie Greco is on a visit to prison when a riot explodes. She rushes to the aid of a fatally wounded prison guard and hears his last words. Now she is under attack from all sides as she searches for the secret behind those words.

Small town laundromat owner Josie Toadfern is asked to deliver a eulogy in honour of her deceased junior high school teacher, Mrs. Oglevee. But a woman who alleges that she is Mrs. Oglevee's long-lost daughter delivers Josie a note that claims the educator's death was due to murder.

Milan, 1497 - as Leonardo finishes his Last Supper, Pope Alexander VI is determined to execute him after realizing there is a baffling - and blasphemous message in the painting. Why are the Holy Grail and the Eucharist missing? Why are the apostles portrayed with the faces of well-known heretics? Why no halos? And why is the artist himself there, back toward Jesus?

Gillian is a photographer famed for her gruesome work. When demonstrators show up at her new exhibit, Detective Ray Pearce becomes her bodyguard. But then dead bodies start popping up, posed in scenes from Gillian's sadistic images.

7 years after Claire Doucett's child disappeared, a doll surfaces in the French Quarter that is the spitting image of the missing Ruby, right down to the tiny birthmark on the girl's left arm. When the doll is snatched and the store owner murdered, Claire turns reluctantly to Dave, her ex-husband, ex-cop.

Ella Clah faces new challenges in her personal and professional life. Ella's mother Rose wants to remarry and Dawn's father announces he wants full custody . Jimmy Blacksheep is killed shortly after he returns from a tour of duty in Iraq. Ella turns up evidence of corruption in Blacksheep's National Guard unit.

Small-town Puerto Rico Sheriff Luis Gonzalo suspects Elena Maldonado's abusive husband for her death - until someone else dies, his best friend is in danger and he watches a fortune worth millions change hands.

The body is discovered in a disused burial ground. A young woman, ritualistically mutilated, her eyes and mouth crudely sewn shut. Her boyfriend is arrested and charged with the murder. He might have a vicious temper and a history of violence towards women, but is Michael Neil really a killer? Michael's lawyer doesn't think so. She's hired Joe Donovan to prove his alibi.

Doc Ford listens to an old woman tell of a loved one lost while rendezvousing with a German submarine off the coast of Florida 60 years ago, of her belief that he was being blackmailed. A category 4 hurricane has stirred up wrecks from the ocean bottom and she wants Doc Ford to prove his innocence by uncovering the remains of his boat.

When Doc Ford saves controversial former US President J. C. Wilson from assassination he has no idea what he's let himself into. Wilson intends to prevent a US strike on an oil-rich Central American country and needs the help of a former lover, the reclusive former dictator of the country, and Doc Ford.

He has chosen to die and signed a contract with the right people to make it happen. Everything will go as planned, even if he changes his mind. Which he has. All he can do now is keep looking over his shoulder.

Michael McClelland, introduced in PRIVILEGED INFORMATION, has left the Colorado State Mental Hospital. He's coming after Alan Gregory's family - and he hold secrets about Alan's past that he thought he had successfully buried years ago.

When an SUV forces his car off the road and into the river, Josh Michaels thinks it might have been an accident - until he sees the SUV's driver give him a "thumbs-down" signal for the road. Each new attempt on his life is designed to look like an accident. But who wants him dead - and why?