Olivia thought gathering some of the most renowned storytellers in one place would be a nice, simple way for herself and the Bayside Book Writers to appreciate their talents. But things take a dark turn when the most famous storyteller in the nation - the captivating performer Violetta Devereaux - announces onstage that she will meet her end in Oyster Bay. When Violetta is discovered murdered after the show, everyone involved with the retreat becomes a suspect.

The stately calm of Anglemore Park is disrupted when Lady Emily's neighbour, the Marquess of Montagu, bursts through the French doors from the garden and falls down dead in front of the shocked gathering. But who has a motive for murdering the young aristocrat? The lovely cousin who was threatened by his engagement, the Oxford friend he falsely accused of cheating, the scheming vicar's daughter he shamelessly seduced or the relative no one knew existed who appears to claim the Montagu title?

Oh, where to start? It was probably the skunks someone put in the loft of the Baptist church, requiring the pre-Christmas concert to relocate to Trinity Episcopal. As Meg is taking the skunks to the zoo, her grandfather discovers his boa has been stolen, only to turn up later during the concert, slithering out from the ribbon-bedecked evergreens. Then Sunday morning at the Catholic church finds it completely filled with several hundred ducks. Then a fire breaks out at Trinity Episcopal, and an elderly vestryman is found dead.

Summer, 1992. Dr. Bill Brockton is determined to revolutionize the study of forensics to help law enforcement solve homicides. But his plans are derailed by a chilling murder that leaves him reeling from a sense of deja vu. Followed by another. And then another. The bodies bear an eerie resemblance to cases from Brockton's past. The police chalk up the first corpse to coincidence. But as the body count rises, the victims' fatal injuries grow more and more distinctive - a spiral of death that holds dark implications for Brockton himself.

Maggie Gerber and those discount divas, the Good Buy Girls, are gearing up for their first big holiday thrift shop sale. But one of the Girls - Joanne Claramotta, pregnant with her first child - is acting less than festive. It could be hormones. Or it could be Diane Jenkins, the young knockout her husband, Michael, hired as his new deli assistant. Calming Joanne's nerves proves impossible when Maggie finds Michael unconscious on his deli floor - and with Diane next to him, strangled to death with her apron strings. Then Maggie discovers something even more disturbing. There's no record of Diane having been hired. In fact, she has no history at all. It's as if she never even existed.

A cluster of suicides among the elderly has been dismissed by the police as routine -- but Tom Thorne disagrees. Unfortunately he has stepped out of line once too often and has been demoted to uniform - and his suspicions are ignored by his former colleagues in the Murder Squad.

The 16 stories and 1 stage play feature appearances by some of Block's most famous characters, including gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr and alcoholic private detective Matt Scudder, as well as glimpses into the minds of a rogue's gallery of frightening killers, dangerous sociopaths, crooked cops, and lost souls whose only chance to find themselves may be on the wrong side of a gun.

When the nation's economy tanks, taking the construction business with it, all it takes is one phone call to drag Keller back into the game -- and back to his former home city, New York, where his target is the abbot of a midtown monastery. Another call puts him on a West Indies cruise, with several interesting fellow passengers-the government witness, the incandescent young woman keeping the witness company, and, sharing Keller's cabin, his wife, Julia. But the high drama comes in Cheyenne, where a recent widow is looking to sell her husband's stamp collection.

Derbyshire's CID has discovered a man's body lying in shallow water, but torrential rain has swollen the rivers and flooded the roads, making travel difficult and forensic examination impossible. The fatal events of one damp August night are likely to remain shrouded in mystery if they can't track down a car glimpsed only as a dark outline in the rain by a passer-by.

A Hollywood movie company has come to Paradise to film. Jesse Stone and the rest of the police go on high alert when the star is given a death threat. Then Jesse arrests a teenage driver after she causes a horrifying collision and finds himself in conflict with the local selectmen, the DA and some people with very deep pockets.

A Boston organization named Street Business, which gives shelter and seeks job opportunities for the homeless and lost is in danger of losing its tenuous foothold in the community, turning homeless boys back on the street. But it isn't the simple case of intimidation that it first appears to be - and Spenser, aided by Hawk, finds a trail that leads to a dangerous drug kingpin, whose hold on the at-risk community Street Business serves threatens not just the boys' safety and security, but their lives as well. Unfinished at the time of his death and completed by Parker's longtime agent.

As PI Jasmine Sharp battles her demons and Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod chases her ghosts, these two very different detectives will ultimately confront the secrets that have entangled both of their fates since before Jasmine was even born.

Autumn has descended and crops are being harvested all over Crozet, Virginia, ideal conditions for a scenic drive for Harry and husband Fair. Bucolic views are all well and good, but Harry's nose for trouble leads her straight to a cornfield's macabre scarecrow - an all too real murder victim that frightens all but the noisy crows. This accountant's gruesome death is only the first of many disturbing events in this normally pastoral corner of the world.

Hunt clubs from all over North America have gathered in a Manhattan hotel for their annual gala. But Sister Arnold and her young friend "Tootie" Harris, must solve the murder of a tobacconist. His body was found with a cigarette pack laid carefully over his heart. When a similar murder occurs in Boston, Sister's "horse sense" tells her there's a nefarious plot afoot - one that seems to originate in the South's aromatic tobacco farms.

Montalbano is hailed as a hero after news cameras film him scaling a building - gun in hand - to capture a pair of unlikely snipers. Shortly after, the inspector begins to receive cryptic messages in verse from someone challenging him to go on a "treasure hunt." Intrigued, he accepts, treating the messages as amusing riddles - until they take a dangerous turn.

As much as the chocolate concoctions at TenHuis Chocolade can tantalize people's tongues, Lee's newest hire is more likely to make them wag. Forsythia "Sissy" Smith is the granddaughter of Warner Pier's resident hippie, but the fact that Sissy is a third-generation flower child is the least of Lee's concerns. The previous winter, Sissy's husband, Buzz, was found dead, and even though her alibi was airtight, the gossips are still pointing their fingers at her. Then the chief gossip is found dead, with Sissy on the scene. Was she lured there? Or is she the killer?

When it turns out a member of Warner Pier's library board has been living on borrowed time, Lee is determined to discover who wrote the victim's final chapter.

England is in tumult under the rule of Queen Mary and her Spanish husband. Princess Elizabeth is confined to house arrest at Hatfield House to find solace in simple things. Kate Haywood, daughter of her chief musician, will prove herself valuable when an envoy of the queen - sent to flush out heretics in the princess's household - is found dead on the grounds of Hatfield. Acting as Elizabeth's eyes and ears, Kate is sent out on the trail of a killer whose mission could destroy her family, friends - and the future of England.

They are The Two. And now the stakes are raised once more for Detective January David. Five lie dead, brutally murdered -- the first taken on the night of Halloween and as autumn bleeds into winter more ritualistic murders are discovered. January must battle his demons, for in his mind lies the clue to stopping a ruthless murderer. But his worst nightmares have literally come true when he discovers there's not one but two twisted killers on the loose.

Set in Gothenburg. Inspector Christian Tell and his team are called to the scene of a double murder. University lecturer Anne-Marie Karpov lies dead in her home, alongside her student and lover, Henrik. The crime appears straightforward: Henrik's girlfriend Rebecca, a woman in therapy for her violent jealousy, had been spotted outside Karpov's flat, and her fingerprints are found on the door. But Tell begins to wonder if she might be the victim in a larger game.

Kimber Breeze of KBEZ-TV is broadcasting live from a hotel balcony in the French Quarter, interviewing locals and capturing the spectacle in the streets. But as Carmela Bertrand, owner of Memory Mine scrapbooking shop, waits to be interviewed next, someone sneaks onto the balcony and strangles Kimber with a cord, leaving her body dangling above the parade. Soon after the murder, Carmela begins receiving strange postcards at her shop - signed by the late reporter.

When the body of journalist Jerry Markham is found in a traditional Shetland boat, outside the house of the Fiscal down at the Marina, young Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in from the Hebrides to head up the investigation. Helped by Jimmy Perez, she is soon led to Sullum Voe, the heart of Shetland's North Sea oil and gas industry. It seems that Markham was pursuing a story.

Long before November 22, 1963, Nathan Heller, "P.I. to the Stars," knows that a conspiracy is in the works. Several years earlier, Heller had been involved with the Kennedys, the Mob, and the CIA in the early stages of a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. Shortly after, Heller's Mafia contact is murdered. After being interrogated by gangsters and contacted by U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Heller realizes that he may be the one person who can prevent a devastating political assassination. Only he knows all the players; only he knows why a web of conspirators has targeted the man known to the Secret Service as "Lancer," John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

In a case that spans 20 years, Harry Bosch links the bullet from a recent crime to a file from 1992, the killing of a young female photographer during the L.A. riots. Bosch's ballistics match indicates that her death was not random violence, but something more personal, and connected to a deeper intrigue. Like an investigator combing through the wreckage after a plane crash, Bosch searches for the "black box," the one piece of evidence that will pull the case together.

While orchard owner Meg Corey dreads the labor of manual irrigation to stave off a drought, her boyfriend, Seth, couldn't be more excited about doing historic renovation on one of Granford's oldest houses. Tagging along as he picks up supplies is supposed to give Meg a much-needed break, but the trip turns rotten when she almost trips over a dead body at an old saw mill's forest reserve. But the body isn't the only frightening discovery she makes. A mysterious insect infestation seems to have migrated to the area - one that could bring serious harm to local woodlands. And it's up to Meg to find out what's behind this sudden swarm of trouble.

The annual pre-Thanksgiving pancake-eating contest is a big event in Sugar Grove, New Hampshire. It's sponsored by the Sap Bucket Brigade, aka the firefighters auxiliary, and the Greene family farm provides the syrup. But when obnoxious outsider Alanza Speedwell flops face first into a stack of flapjacks during the contest, Greener Pastures' syrup falls under suspicion.

Helping a hapless husband win back his wayward wife will mean sneaking into a cult of dog-worshippers. Inside the believers' rural retreat, Pepe perks up his ears when the charismatic leader pegs him as the next incarnation of the spirit Dogwanda. But the discovery of a body, murdered between mantras, suggests there's more chicanery than channeling going on here.

Gabriela waits desperately for news of her abducted daughter. At last, the door opens. But it's not the negotiators. It's not the FBI.It's the kidnapper. And he has a gun. How did it come to this? Two days ago, Gabriela's life was normal. Then, out of the blue, she gets word that her six-year-old daughter has been taken. She's given an ultimatum: pay half a million dollars and find a mysterious document known as the "October List" within 30 hours, or she'll never see her child again.

Long out of print. In the hours before Lord Comstock's murder, his visitors included the government Chief Whip, an Archbishop, and the Assistant Commissioner for Scotland Yard. Suspicion falls upon them all so, abandoning protocol, the Home Secretary invites four detectives to solve the case: Mrs Adela Bradley, Sir John Saumarez, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Mr Roger Sheringham. All are diff erent, all are plausible, all are on their own-and none of them can ask a policeman.

Ex-convict Peter Boutrup moves to remote, rural Denmark to start a new life. But when a young woman goes missing on New Year's Eve and Peter discovers the body of Ramses, an old acquaintance from prison, things start to unravel.

Lilith Benley and her mother were rumoured to be witches. And when they killed two teenage girls and fed their bodies to their pigs, they were swiftly brought to justice. Eighteen years later, a young woman is found brutally murdered at a neighbouring farm, just as Lilith, recently released from prison, returns to her old home. The farm is the setting for a celebrity TV show and DI Wesley Peterson is called in to investigate.

Sir Richard Stewart, the racing authority chairman, wants Sid Halley to investigate suspicious race results. But Halley gave up investigating 8 years ago, swearing he'd never go back. When Halley refuses to investigate, his young daughter goes missing.

When Victoria takes a break from penning her popular mystery series and moves back to the Jersey shore, she imagines sun, sand, and scents of fresh basil and simmering marinara sauce at the family restaurant, the Casa Lido. But their small town is up in arms over plans to film a new reality TV show, and when Victoria serves the show's pushy producer his last meal, the Casa Lido staff finds itself embroiled in a murder investigation.

Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is at a loss. The daughter of her friend Taymullah Azhar has been taken by her mother. Azhar and Barbara hire a private detective, but the trail goes cold. Azhar is just beginning to accept his soul-crushing loss when Angelina reappears with shocking news that Hadiyyah is missing, kidnapped from an Italian marketplace. The Italian police are investigating, and the Yard won't get involved, until Barbara takes matters into her own hands - at the risk of her own career.

Seth Hubbard is a wealthy man dying of lung cancer. He trusts no one. Before he hangs himself from a sycamore tree, Hubbard leaves a new, handwritten, will. The second will raises far more questions than it answers. Why would Hubbard leave nearly all of his fortune to his maid? Had chemotherapy and painkillers affected his ability to think clearly? And what does it all have to do with a piece of land once known as Sycamore Row?

Charlie Baker hasn't set foot on the island of St. Croix for 10 years. But now his ex-wife is luring him back with the promise of a family reunion - a promise she keeps breaking. He always knew Mira was a little crazy, but he's about to discover just how crazy she is. And with a mysterious figure lurking in the shadows who could be the source of the terrifying Goat Foot Woman legend, he will also learn what dark fate the island has in store for him.

Following the 1934 success of "The Thin Man" movie, Hammett was commissioned to write stories for additional films. He wrote two full-length novellas, for the films that became "After the Thin Man" and "Another Thin Man", neither of them previously published. Bringing back his classic characters, retired private investigator Nick Charles and his former debutante wife Nora, who return home to find Nora's family gardener murdered, pulling the couple back into another deadly game of cat and mouse.

When the CIA intercepts a call signal from an operative in China long thought dead, the Triple Seven Chase team is given the perilous task of retrieving the lone soldier from deep within the Chinese wilderness. There is only one plane for such a dangerous mission: the Shadow Catcher, a plane with capabilities beyond anything that has ever flown. What Baron and his men don't know is that the enemy is already among them - and that the Shadow Catcher itself may be the ultimate prize.

Nela Farley's telepathic link with cats has suggested that the death of former tenant Marian Grant wasn't an accident and she begins to research Marian's life. It all seems to lead back to the charitable Haklo Foundation where Nela and her sister work. When a detective becomes suspicious of Nela's sister and a second murder occurs, Nela realizes she'll have to make the most of her unwanted ability to figure out what's really going on.

Navajo Nation Police Officer Bernadette Manualito witnesses the cold-blooded shooting of someone very close to her. With the victim fighting for his life, the entire squad and the local FBI office are hell-bent on catching the gunman. Bernie, too, wants in on the investigation, despite regulations forbidding eyewitness involvement. But that doesn't mean she's going to sit idly by, especially when her husband, Sergeant Jim Chee, is in charge of finding the shooter.

When Rink's father is brutally murdered, Joe has to stop his friend rushing headlong for vengeance. Rink's mother witnessed the crime and Yukiko isn't telling everything she knows. Her silence is governed by the Japanese tradition of giri, or moral obligation. But when there are more vicious deaths - all of them elderly men known to Yukiko - it becomes a matter of honour to uncover the shameful secret that lies behind the murders.

Bob Lee Swagger begins asking questions about the third bullet in the JFK assassination. Why did it explode? Why did Oswald risk all by returning to his rooming house to secure a pistol he easily could have brought with him? Pitted against him is a gifted, Yale-educated veteran of the CIA Plans Division. Hugh Meachum has secrets and the means and the will to keep them buried.

A young woman walks into the frozen fjords of Iceland, never to be seen again. But Matthildur leaves in her wake rumours of lies, betrayal and revenge. Decades later, somewhere in the same wilderness, Detective Erlendur is on the hunt. He is looking for Matthildur but also for a long-lost brother, whose disappearance in a snow-storm when they were children has coloured his entire life. He is looking for answers.

Will Eve Duncan survive? Will those she loves take the fall with her? And will the secrets of Eve's past ultimately become her undoing? In this novel all these questions will be answered.

A young woman shows up with questions about Sheriff Walt Longmire's predecessor, Lucan Connally. Lucan claims he doesn't recognize her, so the woman whispers "Steamboat" and begins a story that takes them all back to Christmas Eve 1988, when three people died in a terrible crash and a young girl had the slimmest chance of survival - back to a record- breaking blizzard, to Walt's first year as sheriff, with a young daughter at home and a wife praying for his safety - back to a whiskey-soaked World War II vet ready to fly a decommissioned plane and risk it all to save a life.

Present Day Snowdonia. As Hannah Wilde flees to LLyn Gwyr, a remote mountain farmhouse, her husband bleeds to death on the passenger seat beside her. In the back of the car sits their seven year old daughter. Hannah's father is missing, her mother already dead. Mysterious strangers are converging on the mountain. And Hannah must decide who to trust and who to sacrifice - if she's to defeat the predator who has stalked five generations of her family.

"Fired." Tara Holloway can't believe it. After all she's done for the IRS, a few too many shots fired from her weapon and suddenly she's public enemy number one. To add insult to injury, another agent has replaced her, and a ten million dollar assault case is hanging over her head. There's a plan to stick Tara in auditing, where she can't possibly get into trouble. But between bumping into a college frenemy whose family business is under audit, Tara's stubborn determination to keep an eye on Nick behind the scenes, and her new long-range rifle, she's about to get a taste of just how dangerous her life can be.

With her sort-of boyfriend Marcus calling it quits and her ex-boyfriend Andrew showing up out of the blue, Kathleen has more than enough drama to deal with - and that's before a local theatre festival relocates to Mayville Heights. Now the town is buzzing with theatre folk, and many of them have their own private dramas with the director, Hugh Davis. When Davis is found shot to death by the marina, he leaves behind evidence of blackmail and fraud, as well as an ensemble of suspects.

Anna and Lukas have a happy marriage but when, in a moment of madness, Anna has a brief fling with Erik, a man she met at a work conference, she regrets more than just her infidelity. Erik is a disturbed individual who goes to extreme lengths to get Anna's attention, including kidnapping her 10 year old daughter and attacking her mother.

Detective Patrik Hedstrom investigates the death of a man found murdered in his own home, shot in the back of the head. He was the council's financial director, heading up a regeneration project worth millions. They discover he had been in a rush to return to his home town of Fjallbacka after years in Gothenburg. Is it pure coincidence that his childhood sweetheart Annie has also suddenly returned to the area?

Two weeks before the mayoral election, Dae gets sidetracked from her political aspirations by a spirit in need of rescuing. An antique amber necklace allows Dae to connect with Maggie Madison, a witch who wants Dae to rebury her bones so she can rest in peace. But digging leads Dae to an even bigger mystery, a forty-year-old murder with ties to Randal "Mad Dog" Wilson, her mayoral opponent. And then she learns that her own grandfather - the former sheriff of Dare County - might be mixed up in the long-buried tragedy.

Asked by a group of ex-colleagues to hunt down a former Taliban tyrant who has claimed UK asylum by assisting the British government, Spider is forced to decide between his sense of justice and his job. For as he struggles to save the life of one man, he's on a path to extinguish another.

Venetian opera expert Caterina Pellegrini returns home from Manchester to take an unusual job. After nearly three centuries, two locked trunks, believed to contain the papers of a baroque composer have been discovered. Now two Venetians, descendants of his cousins, each claim inheritance. Caterina's job is to examine any enclosed papers to discover the "testamentary disposition" of the composer.

This is the story of the spy's early years. In the words of his friends, lovers, and Soviet handlers we see the development of a fascinating, flawed man who kept people guessing about his ideals and allegiances until the very end.

Maxie Pierce's daddy, Texas Jack Pierce, king of the chili cook-off circuit, has been missing for nearly six weeks now. In his place, Maxie must team up with her irritating half sister, Sylvia, to promote the family business at the Taos Chili Showdown. But when Maxie discovers her ex-boyfriend Roberto's body in the chef's trailer - only hours after publicly breaking up with him while wearing a giant red chili pepper costume - she suddenly finds she's the one in the spotlight as the police pepper her with questions.

Ex-homicide detective Frank Quinn's niece, Carlie Hobbs, needs help - she's being stalked. She fits the victim type for a killer who has been leaving women bound, gagged and tortured with a surgical precision. To win against this adversary Quinn will have to set the perfect trap. All he needs is the perfect bait...

Guilt and grief have driven a wedge between clinical psychologist Tony Hill and police detective Carol Jordan, but just because they aren't talking doesn't mean the killing stops. Someone is killing women, women who bear an unsettling resemblance to Carol Jordan. When the evidence begins to point in a disturbing direction, thinking the unthinkable seems the only possible answer. Cornered by events beyond their control, Tony and Carol are forced to fight for themselves, and each other, as never before.

A sniper has promised to shoot one policeman every day until South African Police Services arrest the murderer of Hanneke Sloet. The threat becomes reality. But Bennie Griessel can find no motive, no leads, just a set of nude photographs, a very complicated business transaction, and immense pressure from the brass, the media, and the relentless, unfathomable sniper.

The first victim is a horse. Its headless body hangs suspended from the edge of a frozen cliff. Commandant Servaz, a Toulouse city cop begins to take the crime more seriously when the DNA from one of the most notorious inmates of an asylum is found on the corpse -- and a few days later the first murder takes place.

Caro Warrick was acquitted for the murder of her best friend Amelia Bettencourt, but the lingering doubts of everyone around Caro is affecting her life. Sharon McCone thinks she can settle the matter, but when Caro is brutally beaten right at Sharon's doorstep, her investigation takes on a whole new course. How many more people remain at risk until Amelia's murderer is finally caught?

V.I. Warshawski's closest friend in Chicago is the Viennese-born doctor Lotty Herschel, who lost most of her family in the Holocaust. Lotty escaped to London in 1939 on the Kindertransport with a childhood playmate, Kitty Saginor Binder. When Kitty's daughter finds her life is in danger, she calls Lotty, who, in turn, summons V.I. to help. The daughter's troubles turn out to be just the tip of an iceberg of lies, secrets, and silence, whose origins go back to the mad competition among America, Germany, Japan and England to develop the first atomic bomb.

The job seems simple enough: retrieve the valuable painting - "The Double" - Grace Kinkaid's ex-boyfriend stole from her. It's the sort of thing Spero Lucas specializes in, finding what's missing, and doing it quietly. But Grace wants more. She wants Lucas to find the man who humiliated her - a violent career criminal with a small gang of brutal thugs at his beck and call. In the midst of a steamy, passionate love affair that he knows can't last, in pursuit of a dangerous man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, Lucas is forced to decide what kind of man he is - and how far he'll go to get what he wants.

At the end of the sunless summer of 1560, black rumour shrouds the death of the one woman who stands between Lord Robert Dudley and marriage to the young Queen Elizabeth. Did Dudley's wife, Amy, die from an accidental fall in a deserted house, or was it murder?

Daniel Clode cannot say whether or not he killed a woman. They were found together in a locked room dressed for the Carnival. The sister of the slain woman knows that Daniel is not the murderer. She and the reclusive anatomist Gabriel Crowther must travel to the Duke of Maulberg's Court to save him from the axeman's steel.

Marnie Logan's husband Daniel has been missing for more than a year. She can't access his bank accounts or his life insurance. Clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin is worried by her state of mind and her reluctance to talk about the past. And that's even before he discovers Daniel's Big Red Book. It began as a celebration of Marnie's life - but the story it tells is not what anyone expects.

Ellie Avery planned a perfect family getaway. Fun in the sun on Florida's Gulf Coast, with a side visit to the eBay vendor who had mistakenly sent her the wrong handbag. But what should have been a simple exchange turns into a fatal transaction when Ellie discovers Angela495 floating face-down in her pool.

Three teenagers with dead-end lives, and chips on their shoulders, and guns. The first person they killed was a highway patrolman. The second was a woman during a robbery. As their crime spree cuts a swath through rural Minnesota, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers joins the growing army of cops trying to run them down. But even he doesn't realize what's about to happen next.

In Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a message from Lucas Davenport. You're about to get a visitor. It's an Israeli cop, and she's tailing a man who has smuggled out an extraordinary relic - a copper scroll revealing startling details about the man known as King Solomon. Wait a minute, laughs Virgil. Is this one of those Da Vinci Code deals? The secret scroll, the blockbuster revelation, the teams of murderous bad guys? Should I be boning up on my Bible verses? He looks at the cop. She's not laughing.

A small British team, three ex-soldiers and one student dropout who knows the language, are sent into Iran to smuggle out a feisty, independent young woman named Farideh. Her husband is a corporal in the Revolutionary Guard, entrapped by MI6 and held in a safe house in Austria. His job as driver for a top general means he knows the location of nuclear sites and other secrets. But he won't talk unless they will bring out Farideh.

When Milo Weaver's former CIA boss Alan Drummond uses one of Milo's compromised aliases to travel to London and then disappears, calling all kinds of attention to his actions, Milo can't help but go in search of him. Worse still, it's beginning to look as if Tourism's enemies are gearing up for a final, fatal blow.

DI Marjory Fleming is called to investigate a skeleton found shackled to the rocks in a sea cave on Lovatt Island. Her inclination to assign the crime to ancient history is confounded by the modern watch on the skeleton's wrist. Meanwhile Matt Lovatt, owner of the island, finds himself at the centre of a series of escalating crimes.

1914. After Lady Elspeth's new fiance Alain is mobilized into the French army, she makes her way back to England. During the harrowing return she is rescued from a battle by Captain Peter Gilchrist. Back in London she enrolls in a nursing course, where she meets a fellow nurse in training, Bess Crawford. She will return to the war, and Alain, and Peter Gilchrist.

While Daphne Martin is attending a class with a famously ornery celebrity chef, the chef is found beaten to death with a cake stand after his first lesson. Since he has more enemies than anyone can count, it's a shock to Daphne when she immediately comes under police suspicion. And on top of that, her boyfriend tells her he's considering a career move - to Kentucky. To a company run by an old girlfriend! And, there's still the cake competition Daphne has to win.

A Washington psychiatrist is killed in a hit-and-run on the street in front of his office. Suspicion quickly focuses on one of the doctor's patients, and Mackenzie Smith is called in to defend her. Then information emerges that links the slain shrink to a highly secret CIA mind-control project. A young man, the perfect mind control subject, is programmed to assassinate the front-runner in the U.S. presidential race. As he zeroes in on his target, other government agencies become aware of the rogue CIA program.

State Senator Paul Giannis is a candidate for Mayor of Kindle County. His identical twin brother Cass is newly released from prison, 25 years after pleading guilty to the murder of his girlfriend, Dita Kronon. When Evon Miller, an ex-FBI agent who is the head of security for the Kronon family business, and private investigator Tim Brodie begin a re-investigation of Dita's death, a complex web of murder, sex, and betrayal begins to emerge.

Danielle Parkman's sweet but mentally troubled adolescent son, Max, while being assessed at an Iowa psychiatric hospital, is found covered with blood at the scene of a horrific murder and is accused of being the killer. Danielle, a lawyer out on bail but confined to her motel as an accessory, defies a court order. Desperate to save her child, she flees to Chicago and then to Phoenix to seek evidence against the true killer.

When their grandmother dies, adult siblings Grace and Andrew Easton inherit her sprawling London home. Rather than sell it, they move in together, splitting the numerous bedrooms and studies. The arrangement is unusual, but ideal for the affectionate pair until the day Andrew brings home a new boyfriend, a devilishly handsome novelist named James. When he and Andrew witness their friend's murder outside a London nightclub, James begins to unravel, and what happens next changes the lives of everyone in the house.

Everyone gets into the holiday spirit when Uncle Charlie is pressed into service as Santa at a weekend charity event in the mall. But yuletide cheers turns to yuletide fear after a killer tries to zap back to the North Pole.

It's February 1992. Desert Storm is raging in Iraq but 22 year old Jack has more pressing matters at home. His favorite bar, The Spot, is about to be sold out from under Julio, Jack's friend. Jack has been something of a tag-along to this point, but now he takes the reins and demonstrates his innate talent for seeing biters get bit. 2nd of 3 prequels to the series.

When a case that had seemingly been resolved returns in full force, Stone finds himself teamed with the least likely ally - a gentleman of unique abilities, who can fly below the radar and above the law. From the high-stakes poker tables of Las Vegas to California's lush beachside resorts, the trail of disguise, subterfuge, and murder leads to a shocking conclusion.

Tyler Wingo, a teenage boy, learns the awful news that his father, a soldier, was killed in action in Afghanistan. Then the extraordinary happens. Tyler receives a communication from his father ... after his supposed death.Tyler hires Sean and Michelle to solve the mystery surrounding his father. But their investigation quickly leads to deeper, more troubling questions. Could Tyler's father really still be alive? What was his true mission? Could Tyler be the next target?

Dan Starkey returns. Peacetime Belfast seems like the perfect place for media billionaire's daughter Alison Wolff to study anonymously, but when she disappears following a massacre at a student party nobody knows if she has been kidnapped for ransom or caught in the crossfire.

After Carly Bell Hartwell finds a dead man, clutching one of her bottles in her magic potion shop, she soon finds herself the object of a witch hunt. She'll need to brew up some serious sleuthing skills to prover her potions aren't literally to die for.

Lady Georgiana Rannoch contrives to land a position as hostess to a posh holiday party in Tiddleton, a village like something out of "A Christmas Carol". But no sooner has she arrived than a neighbourhood nuisance, a fellow named Freddie, falls out of a tree dead. On her second day, another so-called accident results in a death - and there's yet another on her third. Perhaps a recent prison break could have something to do with it...that, or a long-standing witch's curse.

When the tomb of St. Tancred is opened at a village church in Bishop's Lacey, its shocking contents lead to another case for Flavia de Luce. Greed, pride, and murder result in old secrets coming to light - along with a forgotten flower that hasn't been seen for half a thousand years.

Lately, Hamlet hasn't been chasing customers or being his obnoxious self - something Darla surprisingly misses. Concerned, she hires a cat whisperer to probe Hamlet's feline psyche and then decides to get out of her own funk by taking up karate to learn how to defend herself in case the need arises again. But when Darla finds her sensei dead at the dojo, it seems that even a master can be felled by foul play. Darla decides to investigate the matter herself, and the promise of a mystery snaps Hamlet out of his bad mood. After all, Darla may be the sleuth, but Hamlet's got a black belt in detection.

Newly sworn FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid can't remember the last time she spent the holidays with her whole family, but getting home by December 25th is proving to be a bit of a problem. A blizzard shut down the airports and she and her boyfriend Sean Rogan are stuck in a Denver hotel ... with a dead body. And if that wasn't all, back in San Diego Colonel Kincaid ends up in the hospital, where an even greater danger awaits ... a man with a vendetta who will kill anyone who gets in his way. This Christmas, the Kincaid family needs nothing less than a miracle to survive.

A vigilante killer begins targeting the scum of Galway, signing mysterious notes with the moniker 'C 33' and addressing these letters to former cop Jack Taylor, trying to goad him into joining the murderous spree. While Jack tries to unravel the mystery and motives of this demented killer, he is also brought into the fold of an enigmatic tech billionaire who has been buying up massive amounts of property in Galway, seemingly in the hopes of offering this downtrodden city a better future.

Sandra Vega, a forensic analyst with the Roman police department, mourns deeply for a marriage that ended too soon. A few months ago, in the dead of night, her husband, an up-and-coming journalist, plunged to his death at the top of a high-rise construction site. The police ruled it an accident. Launching her own inquiries, Sandra finds herself on a dangerous trail, working the same case that she is convinced led to her husband's murder.

Between brewing magically spiced treats at Honeybee Bakery and volunteering with a local conservation group, Katie Lightfoot barely has time to delve into her destiny as a witch. But avoiding her fate won't be as easy as whipping up a new recipe - especially when Katie finds herself once again mixed up in murder.

Eleanor Swift isn't amused when Laughing Luigi - the sketchy frozen pizza dough baron - walks into her Timber Ridge, North Carolina pizzeria. But the contract for his pizza-making contest seems made to order - especially with $25,000 in first-prize money up for grabs. However, when the pizza dough king fails to rise after being murdered with a slice of poisoned pizza, Eleanor and her sister Maddie are peppered with suspicion from all corners.

Allie McMurphy is renovating the grand old hotel that has been in her family for generations. With its world famous fudge shop it is one of Mackinaw Island's most beloved landmarks. Though every family has a skeleton or two in the closed, Allie didn't expect to find an actual corpse inside one, especially one Joe Jessup, who'd had a long-running feud with her dear, departed grandfather.

Alison Kerby has no choice but to take a case when the local homeless man is found murdered under mysterious circumstances, just hours after asking for help in exorcising a specter. If that weren't enough to deal with, Alison's other PI case soon turns fatal, as the mistress she was spying on for a jealous wife turns up dead as well. The cases seem like they couldn't possibly be linked, but with a mountain of clues, motives and suspects - both living and dead - Alison will have to think fast before someone else checks out for good.

The body of a young woman has been discovered on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's rugby field. The victim, a graduate student named Gail Shipman, is oddly draped in ivory linen and posed in a way that is too deliberate to be the killer's first strike. A preliminary examination in the sea of red mud where the body has been left also reveals a bizarre residue that fluoresces blood red, emerald green and sapphire blue.

The plan: to rob the Reina, a super-luxury hotel off the coast of Spain. The crew: three seasoned criminals with the skills to pull off the heist of the century. The edge: the scheme has been simulated in a computer, down to the last variable. The complication: three beautiful women with agendas of their own - and the sort of variables no computer can fathom...

To prevent an arms shipment from reaching the Middle East a terrorist group has been carrying out targeted assassinations in Egypt...Portugal...Denmark...France. In response, the United States sends one of its deadliest agents to take the killers down. But when the agent is delayed in transit, lawyer Roger Carr gets mistaken for him. Now, with some of the world's deadliest men after him, will he survive long enough to prove his identity?

Beneath the sands of the Egyptian desert lies treasure beyond imagining. And when a professor of archaeology finds clues to the location of a Pharaoh's lost tomb in ancient hieroglyphs, he hatches a plan to find the burial site - and plunder it. But can a five-man team of smugglers and thieves uncover what the centuries have hidden? And even if they find it, can they escape with it...and with their lives?

American radiologist Peter Ross just wanted a vacation. But when he meets the beautiful Angela Locke on a Spanish beach, he soon finds himself caught in a murderous crossfire between rival gangs seeking a precious artifact. From Barcelona to the rain-swept streets of Paris, from the towers of the Alhambra to its darkest catacombs, Peter Ross is an ordinary man in desperate circumstances: racing to uncover a secret lost for centuries, before he becomes its next victim.

As an expert handler of venomous snakes - and a smuggler of rare artifacts - Charles Raynaud is accustomed to danger. So the job bodyguarding an old acquaintance about to come into a fortune shouldn't make him break a sweat. But when the attempts on the man's life nearly get Raynaud killed, he's left wondering: is he the killers' real target...?

On a secret island in the Caribbean, bioengineers have devised a vacation resort like no other, promising the ultimate escape. But when Dr. Roger Clark investigates, he discovers the dark secret of Eden Island and of Advance Biosystems, the shadowy corporation underwriting it...

Diver James McGregor is used to exploring sunken ships. But there's something strange about the wreck of the Grave Descend. No one aboard tells quite the same story about what happened. Then there's the mysterious cargo they were carrying... In one of the most beautiful places on Earth, a sinister plot is about to unfold. And if McGregor's not careful, he may find himself in over his head.

Political radical John Wright is plotting an act of mass destruction - and federal agent John Graves has him under surveillance, trying to figure out what the plot is. When a government computer is hacked and a high-security shipment of nerve gas gets hijacked, Graves puts the pieces together - but can he stop Wright from unleashing his weapon before it kills a million people...including the President of the United States?

The morning of 9/11 Brenda Grant and Daniel Henderson met for coffee before going to their software firm in the World Trade Center. That casual act saved them from the Twin Towers' collapse, even as their friends and Brenda's fiance were killed and their company obliterated. Founding their own software security firm, they never forgot that morning of horror. Grant and Henderson then establish a clandestine division inside their company committed to covertly tracking down global terrorists. In a search involving Washington DC, Egypt, Italy and Turkey, they expose a plot to hijack a US presidential election, rig voting machines, and topple democracies worldwide.

Falco - the new generation - introducing Flavia Albia. Based on real historical events: mysterious poisonings, in which victims died, often unaware they had been attacked. Albia is now twenty-eight and an established female investigator. Her personal history and her British birth enable her to view Roman society and its traditions as a bemused outsider and also as a woman struggling for independence in a man's world.

Anti-Terrorist Task Force agent John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, have been posted overseas to Sana'a, Yemen to work with a small team tracking down a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative known as The Panther. As latecomers to a deadly game, John and Kate don't know the rules, the players, or the score. What they do know is that there is more to their assignment than meets the eye-and that the hunters are about to become the hunted.

Hal Challis is in trouble at home and abroad. He was dressed down by the boss for speaking out about police budget cuts and is missing his lover, Ellen Destry, who is overseas on a study tour. But there's plenty to keep his mind off his problems. A rapist in a police uniform stalks Challis's Peninsula beat, there is a serial armed robber headed in his direction and a home invasion that's a little too close to home. Not to mention a very clever, very mysterious female cat burglar who may or may not be planning something on Challis's patch.

Framed for a murder he didn t commit, Master thief Michael St. Pierre is forced to reunite with his former love, KC Ryan, to complete two halves of a dangerous mission. Dispatched to the opposite ends of China, they must each steal a separate piece of an ancient puzzle - a compass and diary that, according to legend, are the keys to untold power. If they succeed, their blackmailer will use them to seek bloodthirsty revenge against a ruthless crime lord. If they fail, a poisonous toxin will be unleashed upon the world.

The last days of Henry VIII's reign were taut with tension as the Council factions, ruthless and power-hungry, manoeuvred and fought. Not to mention the tension within the despot himself, his fears and phobias, the obsession he'd developed with the sexually-dominating Howard women. THE LAST OF DAYS chronicles the fascinating disintegration of this king, the murderous schemes that encircled him, and the emergence of the ruthless, blood-smattered political order that followed his death.

When newly unemployed Patrick and Barbara McDougal decide a vacation in Florida is just what they need to put life back on the right track, awful accommodations, a robbery, and a not-so-helpful police department make them rethink their decision to drown their troubles in paradise. Luckily, charismatic (and crazy!) tour guide Serge Storms and his sidekick, Coleman, are on hand.

Geoffrey Cubbin, facing trial for embezzling millions from Trenton's premier assisted-living facility, has mysteriously vanished from the hospital after an emergency appendectomy. Now it's on Stephanie to track down the con man. But he is proving elusive. Desperate for money--or maybe just desperate--Stephanie accepts a secondary job guarding her secretive and mouthwatering mentor Ranger from a deadly Special Forces adversary.

New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum knows better than to mess with family. But when powerful mobster Salvatore "Uncle Sunny" Sunucchi goes on the lam in Trenton, it's up to Stephanie to find him. Uncle Sunny is charged with murder for running over a guy (twice), and nobody wants to turn him in - not his poker buddies, not his bimbo girlfriend, not his two right-hand men, Shorty and Moe. Even Trenton's hottest cop, Joe Morelli, has skin in the game, because - just Stephanie's luck - the godfather is his "actual" godfather.

Hannah Swensen recipes combined with vignettes featuring favourite Lake Eden characters.

An entire family, vanished without a trace. Now, investigator Tessa Leoni must race against the clock to uncover the family's innermost dealings, a complex tangle of friendships and betrayal, big business, and small sacrifices. Who would want to kidnap such a perfect little family? And how far would such a person be willing to go?

The legacy of the Sun-Pharaoh has disappeared into the sands, but only after the discovery of Tutahkhamun's tomb do people believe the half-crazed man who insists there is a vast lost labyrinth beneath modern Cairo. When Jack Howard and his team hear of the crazed engineer, they dive into the past, to a people who have sworn to guard the greatest secret of all time . . .

When a cart laden with gunpowder explodes outside the General Letter Office, Thomas Chaloner cannot understand why a man of known incompetence is put in charge of investigating the attack while he is diverted to make enquiries about the poisoning of birds in the King's aviary in St James's Park.

The Love Commandos are dedicated to helping lovers from different castes marry for love in spite of India's millennia-old caste prejudices. But when a would-be Romeo from the Untouchable caste is kidnapped, the Love Commandos turn to Vish Puri for help. Has his fiancee's father made good on his promise and done away with him? Or is his disappearance the result of other forces at work? It falls to Vish Puri to find out.

On her houseboat, Vicky Hawks is found by one of her neighbours having apparently succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning due to improper ventilation of the narrowboat's heating system. But while the cause of death seems apparent and there's no reason for Kolla to think otherwise, something about this death still bothers her.

This volume includes both new Hammett stories gleaned from his personal archives along with screen treatments long buried in film-industry files.

The television crime show LA 911 has taken over Tarzana, making cinematic backdrops out of the town's most mundane locations, including the yard of Kelly Donahue, the newest member of the Tarzana Hookers. And at the end of the day, the TV shoot isn't all that's wrapped. It seems someone silenced Kelly - permanently - and no one heard a thing. Without any leads, Molly and her pals must stitch together the clues to catch the killer - before someone else dials 911.

As Eve battles the man who is holding her prisoner, secrets about why Eve has been targeted come into the light, bringing Eve even closer to danger.

As Cecily scrambles to hire and train new staff in time for the holidays, one of her guests is beyond help. Gerald Evans is found stabbed to death on the beach, and Cecily soon discovers he was a private investigator from London looking into dark doings involving the Pennyfoot. Who among the staff or guests was being pursued, and what secret drove that person to cold-blooded murder?

Cecily Sinclair Baxter could use a Christmas miracle. The temporary replacement for Mrs. Chubb, the Pennyfoot's housekeeper, Beatrice Tucker fights with just about everyone, including celebrity London actor Archibald Armitage. When Armitage drops dead after Beatrice serves him some plum pudding, everyone assumes the huffy housekeeper is the culprit.

Samson Segal, an unemployed thirty-something, has taken to spying on his neighbours, particularly beautiful and successful Gillian Ward. When Gillian's daughter comes home to a locked house, Samson takes her in but finds himself venting his anger in his diary when his actions go unappreciated, unaware that his suspicious sister-in-law cracked his password long ago. When Gillian's husband is murdered in his own home, Samson comes under intense scrutiny, but the only man making any progress in the case shouldn't be working on it. Yet he is the only one that believes Samson is innocent.

Former CIA agent Lemuel Gunn left the battlefield of Afghanistan for the desert of New Mexico, where he works as a private investigator from the comforts, such as they are, of a mobile home. Into his life comes Ornella Neppi, a thirty-something woman making a hash out of her uncle's bail bonds business. The source of her troubles, Emilio Gava, was arrested for buying cocaine. He's jumped bail and now she's about to pay the price for it. Curiously, no photographs of Gava seem to exist. And once Gunn begins his search, for $95 a day plus expenses, it becomes unclear whether Gava even existed in the first place.

The Glasgow underworld. Frank MacLeod was the best at what he does. But is he still? Most say goodbye with a bang, but Frank is still here. He's lasted longer than he should have...

Winter Intersession is in full swing, and campus is buzzing over the concert celebrating the bell tower's reopening. The building has been closed for 25 years because a student had leapt from it to her death. When one of Sophie's favorite students, a performer in the concert, is brutally beaten and left in a coma, Sophie's mind kicks into overdrive, connecting the present day crime to the old, apparent suicide.

On her houseboat, Vicky Hawks is found by one of her neighbors having apparently succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning due to improper ventilation of the narrowboat's heating system. But while the cause of death seems apparent and there's no reason for Kolla to think otherwise, something about this death still bothers her.

A young man named Peter Maugram appears at the front door of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson's Baker Street lodgings. Maugram's uncle is dead and his will has disappeared, leaving the man afraid that he will be left penniless. Holmes agrees to take the case and he and Watson dig deep into the murky past of this complex family.

Lt. Sigrid Herald and her mother Anne are in Colleton County to visit Anne's ailing mother, Mrs. Lattimore. Judge Deborah Knott and Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant are present when the group gathers at Mrs. Lattimore's home for dinner. There they meet the enigmatic Martin Crawford, an ornithologist who claims to be researching a new book on Southern vultures and who is Mrs. Lattimore's nephew. Anne can't shake the feeling that there is something familiar about Martin - something he doesn't want Anne or anyone else to discover.

January, 1916. Cyril Ablatt, leader of Shoreditch's group of conscientious objectors, makes a rousing speech refusing to be 'an instrument of slaughter in a khaki uniform'. When he is found brutally murdered, Scotland Yard detectives Inspector Marmion and Sergeant Keedy unearth an intriguing private life behind the man's saintly facade.

When two teenage girls go missing along the Irish border, forensic psychologist Paula Maguire has to return to the hometown she left years before. Swirling with rumour and secrets, the town is gripped by fear of a serial killer. But the truth could be even darker.

Edie Kiglatuk, the half-Inuit and half-outsider heroine, prepares to help her ex-husband, Sammy, in his bid to win Alaska's world-famous Iditarod. But the race turns grim when she stumbles upon the body of an infant - its tiny corpse covered in mysterious ceremonial markings - on land belonging to the Old Believers, an exiled Russian Orthodox sect. Meanwhile, it's election time and the lead candidate for governor of Alaska, Anchorage mayor Chuck Hillingberg, desperately wants to keep Edie's discovery out of the press.

Former Broadway actress Violet La Rue is holding auditions for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - and everyone from the sour spinster librarian Ms. Cole to Lindsey's youthful library pages are trying out for parts. Brought in to play the mischievous Puck is the flirtatious professional actor Robbie Vine, who seems to have eyes for Lindsey. Before her blush has faded, the Bard's dream turns into a nightmare - when one of the cast is poisoned.

When Colonel Jon Smith is assigned to assess the military potential of a revolutionary new device called the Merge, he discovers that it will change the face of warfare forever. Meanwhile, in the mountains of Afghanistan, CIA operative Randi Russell encounters an entire village of murdered Afghans - all equipped with enhanced Merge technology. Is the Merge really secure? What secrets about its development is the Pentagon so desperate to hide? Smith and Russell are determined to learn the truth. But they may pay for it with their lives.

1890s San Francisco. Former Pinkerton operative Sabina Carpenter and her detective partner, ex-Secret Service agent John Quincannon, undertake what initially appear to be two unrelated investigations. Sabina's case involves the hunt for a ruthless lady "dip" who uses fiendish means to relieve her victims of their valuables at Chutes Amusement Park and other crowded places. Quincannon, meanwhile, is after a slippery housebreaker who targets the homes of wealthy residents, following a trail that leads him from the infamous Barbary Coast to an oyster pirate's lair to a Tenderloin parlor house known as the Fiddle Dee Dee.

It's Christmas Eve and Detective Alex Cross has been called out to catch someone who's robbing his church's poor box. That mission behind him, Alex returns home to celebrate with Bree, Nana, and his children. The tree decorating is barely underway before his phone rings again - a horrific hostage situation is quickly spiraling out of control. Away from his own family on the most precious of days, Alex calls upon every ounce of his training, creativity, and daring to save another family. Alex risks everything - and he may not make it back alive on this most sacred of family days.

When his former lover is found murdered in his bed, Jack Morgan, CEO of the world's most effective investigation firm, instantly becomes the number one suspect. While he is under police investigation, the mob strong-arms him into recovering $30 million in stolen pharmaceuticals for them. And the beautiful manager of a luxury hotel chain persuades him to quietly investigate a string of murders at her properties.

Special Agent Pendergast arrives at an exclusive Colorado ski resort to rescue his protegee, Corrie Swanson, from serious trouble with the law. His sudden appearance coincides with the first attack of a murderous arsonist who - with brutal precision - begins burning down multimillion-dollar mansions with the families locked inside. After springing Corrie from jail, Pendergast learns she made a discovery while examining the bones of several miners who were killed 150 years earlier by a rogue grizzly bear. Her finding is so astonishing that it, even more than the arsonist, threatens the resort's very existence.

Rebus returns. And he finds himself in trouble with Malcolm Fox of Edinburgh's internal affairs unit. Added to which, Rebus may be about to derail the career of his ex-colleague Siobhan Clarke, while himself being permanently derailed by mob boss and old adversary Big Ger Cafferty. But all Rebus wants to do is discover the truth about a series of seemingly unconnected disappearances stretching back to the millennium. The problem being, no one else wants to go there - and that includes Rebus's fellow officers.

Rebus is back on the force albeit with a demotion and a chip on his shoulder. A 30-year-old case is being reopened and Rebus's team from back then is suspected of foul play. With Malcolm Fox as the investigating officer, are past and present about to collide in a shocking and murderous fashion? And does Rebus have something to hide? His colleagues back then called themselves 'The Saints', and swore a bond on something called 'the Shadow Bible'. But times have changed and the crimes of the past may not stay hidden much longer. Who are the saints and who the sinners? And can one ever become the other?

A female vicar named Sarah Hussein is discovered strangled in her Kingsmarkham vicarage. The retired Chief Inspector Wexford leaps at the chance to tag along with the investigators. As Wexford searches the Vicar's house, he puts a letter - serving as a bookmark - into his pocket without thinking. Wexford soon realizes he has made a grave error in removing a piece of valuable evidence from the scene without telling anybody. Yet what he finds inside begins to illuminate the murky past of Hussein.

1579. Hannah and Isaac Levi, Venetians in exile, have set up a new life for themselves in Constantinople. Isaac runs a newly established business in the growing silk trade, while Hannah, the best midwife in all of Constantinople, plies her trade within the opulent palace of Sultan Murat III, tending to the thousand women of his lively and infamous harem. But one night, when Hannah is unexpectedly summoned to the palace, she's confronted with Leah, a poor Jewish peasant girl who has been abducted and sold into the sultan's harem. The sultan favours her as his next conquest and wants her to produce his heir, but the girl just wants to return to her home and the only life she has ever known.

Judge Daniel Brennan is only days away from achieving a seat on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals bench when he's brutally stabbed to death in his garage. A tip leads New Jersey policeman Luke Somers to Steven Gallagher, earning Luke instant glory. But Chris Gallagher raised his brother Steven almost single-handedly and is certain that Steven is innocent. He quickly makes it clear that Luke's own brother will die if Luke refuses to help clear Steven's name. So begins Luke's desperate attempt to find another suspect - any other suspect.

Allegra Gardner's sister Fiona was murdered six years ago, and it seemed like an open-and-shut case. The accused, Lonnie Stall, was seen fleeing the scene; his blood was on Fiona and her blood was on him; most damningly, Lonnie Stall pleaded guilty. But Allegra believes Lonnie is innocent and has been wrongly imprisoned. The Gardner family is one of the most powerful in the country and Allegra's parents don't believe in reopening the case, so taking it on is risky. But the Rosato & Associates firm can never resist an underdog.

Mma Ramotswe is asked to help the proprietor of the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, who is having trouble with her business. The salon has suffered some unfortunate events, including mistakenly using face creams that burn the skin. Could someone be trying to put them out of business? Meanwhile on the home front, successful career woman Mma Makutsi is going to have a baby. But in Botswana - a land where family has always been held above all else but which is on the crossroads between old and new - this may be cause for as much controversy as celebration.

The fearless investigative reporter Tatiana Petrovna falls to her death from a sixth-floor window in Moscow the same week that a mob billionaire, Grisha Grigorenko, is shot and buried with the trappings due a lord. No one makes the connection, but Arkady is transfixed by the tapes he discovers of Tatiana's voice, even as she describes horrific crimes hidden by official versions. The trail leads to Kaliningrad, a Cold War secret city and home of the Baltic Fleet, separated by hundreds of miles from the rest of Russia.

On a frigid January night, Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne and Reverend Clare Fergusson are called to the scene of a raging fire, that quickly becomes a double homicide and kidnapping. Which is the very last thing Russ needs...

Liana Clymer runs away from her divorce and her past to a cottage in the swampy hinterlands of the Florida panhandle. But when she decides to introduce herself to the only neighbours in sight of her new home she finds herself at the mercy of a depraved abductor who already has a teenage boy trapped with him. Liana is seized by powerful will to live and to save the boy as well. But can she thwart a man for whom abuse is a a way of life - and killing is routine?

It's the stuff of nightmares: Nora de Jong returns home from work one ordinary day to find her mother has been murdered. Her infant daughter is missing. And the only clue is the body of an unknown man on the living-room floor, clutching a Luger in his cold, dead hand. Frantic to find Rose, Nora puts aside her grief and frustration with the local police to start her own search. But the contents of a locked metal box she finds in her parents' attic leave her with as many questions as answers--and suggest the killer was not a stranger.

When Josie and her new husband find a dead body in their back yard, it's up to them to solve the mystery before the killer strikes even closer to home.

This holiday season, Phyllis Newman hosts her best friend's wedding in her Texas home - until someone turns the festivities into a funeral.

It's time for the State Fair of Texas - and cooking contests galore! Phyllis Newsom has entered the contest for best funnel cake and has made it to the finals. Her entry will be sampled on television by celebrity chef Joyce Jameson. But Phyllis's moment in the spotlight is spoiled after Joyce drops dead from one bite of the funnel cake.

After executing a hit on a fellow assassin in Algiers, Victor - the world's deadliest hit man - is contracted by the CIA for an assignment that will take him across Europe to the blood-stained streets of Rome...and straight into hell. He must pose as his previous - and very much dead - target to figure out who the killer's next victim was going to be. But what was supposed to be a quick operation soon becomes much more complicated and treacherous.

When Jordan manages to locate her boss's missing set of Dorothy Sayers first editions, they are in the possession of Randolph Adams, an elderly man in a nearby town. Offering a valuable Hemingway first edition as an incentive, Jordan thinks she's about to seal the deal - but some of Randolph's relatives think he should hold out for more. Then the entire family disappears - and a dead body shows up.

To fundraise for the parish in bucolic Thornford Regis, Father Tom Christmas skydives, plummeting for charity. While his landing is bumpy, it's nothing compared to that of Hector, Earl of Fairhaven. Some residents of the town, including every member of the Earl's household, however, believe that those results were not accidental, and soon Tom Christmas is investigating.

For Avery and her husband Derek, renovating the Craftsman Bungalow was like stepping back in time. The quaint old home was just as its original owners had left it - from the beautiful butler's pantry to the surprisingly exquisite ribbon tile. But it's the attic that yields the most heart-stopping surprise. In a discreetly hidden antique crate, Avery finds a clue to a decades-old missing persons case. As Avery works on the house and delves deeper into the sinister story, it becomes clear that someone very crafty wants the Craftsman home's secrets to stay that way!

San Francisco contractor Mel Turner is leading a volunteer home renovation project, and while she expects lots of questions from her inexperienced crew, she can't help asking a few of her own - especially about the haunted house next door...the place local kids call the Murder House. But when volunteers discover a body while cleaning out a shed, questions pile up faster than discarded lumber. Mel notices signs of ghostly activity next door and she wonders if the Murder House ghosts are reaching out to her for help, or has the house claimed another victim?

Eddie followed Minnie home one day, and now she can't seem to shake the furry little shadow. But in spite of her efforts to contain her new pal, the tabby sneaks out and trails her all the way to the bookmobile on its maiden voyage. Before she knows it, her slinky stowaway becomes her cat co-pilot! Minnie and Eddie's first day visiting readers around the county seems to pass without trouble - until Eddie darts outside at the last stop and leads her to the body of a local man who has reached his final chapter.

There's a new strong man in Russia but his rise to power is based on a dark secret hidden decades in the past. The clue to the mystery lies with a most unexpected source, President Jack Ryan.

For Jack Ryan, Jr., and his comrades at the covert organization known as The Campus, the fight against America's enemies is never over. But the danger has just hit home in a way they never expected... The Campus has been discovered. And whoever knows they exist knows they can be destroyed. Meanwhile, President Jack Ryan has been swept back into the Oval Office - and his wisdom and courage are needed more desperately than ever.

Mickey Haller gets the text, "Call me ASAP - 187," and the California penal code for murder immediately gets his attention. Murder cases have the highest stakes and the biggest paydays, and they always mean Haller has to be at the top of his game. When Mickey learns that the victim was his own former client, a prostitute he thought he had rescued and put on the straight and narrow path, he knows he is on the hook for this one. He soon finds out that she was back in LA and back in the life. Far from saving her, Mickey may have been the one who put her in danger. Haunted by the ghosts of his past, Mickey must work tirelessly and bring all his skill to bear on a case that could mean his ultimate redemption or proof of his ultimate guilt.

In the depths of the Maine woods, the wreckage of a plane is discovered. There are no bodies, and no such plane has ever been reported missing, but men both good and evil have been seeking it for a long, long time. What the wreckage conceals is more important than money. It is power: a list of names, a record of those who have struck a deal with the devil. The race to secure the prize draws in private detective Charlie Parker, who fears that his own name may be on the list. It lures others, too - a beautiful, scarred woman with a taste for killing; a silent child who remembers his own death; and a serial killer known as the Collector, who sees in the list new lambs for his slaughter.

Natalie sneaks off to Half Moon Bay for a retreat run by Miranda Bigley, leader of the Best Possible Me self-help program, but her plans for a relaxing weekend are disrupted when Monk tracks her down to rescue her from the "cult." Their argument is cut short when Miranda, in full view of everyone, calmly walks to the edge of a cliff and jumps.

Three tales of military action and undercover technology: "al-Jihad", The Sea Witch", and "The 17th Day."

Beatrice has never crashed a party but now her fellow quilt guild member, Meadow Downey, is driving them to a Victorian mansion in the mountains beyond Dappled Hills, North Carolina. Muriel Starnes, an elderly eccentric, has organized a meeting of quilters to pick someone to administer a quilting scholarship. The fact that the Village Quilters weren't invited isn't enough to keep Meadow from speaking her piece. But once the quilters arrive at the mansion, it seems they may never leave. An ice storm sends an old tree crashing across the driveway, leaving them stranded for the night. And by the next morning, they are one fewer - for Muriel has been sent to meet her maker.

Sam Gaddis is a divorced academic in need of money. A journalist friend tells him that she's uncovered the century's most extraordinary spy scandal. Within hours, she's dead. Soon Gaddis is in the crosshairs of a very real, very dangerous plot. Risking everything he has and everyone he loves, Gaddis follows leads that take him all over Europe and beyond, unraveling the layers of Cold War secrets surrounding the notorious sixth man. And, with MI6 trying to throw him off the trail, Gaddis approaches a shocking revelation that threatens the peace and security of modern Europe.

A troubling phone call about her grandmother sends Holly Miller and her scruffy but loveable Jack Russell Terrier rushing home to the family inn on Wagtail Mountain. The staff - and a frisky Calico kitten named Twinkletoes - adopts Holly and her new dog on arrival. But someone in this friendly town is bad to the bone. One of the employees at the inn has been killed in a hit-and-run accident - which is looking anything but accidental.

The Cold Case crime department of Derby Constabulary feels like a morgue to DI Damen Brook. As a maverick cop, his bosses think it's the best place for him. But Brook isn't going to go down without a fight. Applying his instincts and razor sharp intelligence, he sees a pattern in a series of murders that seem to begin in 1963. How could a killer go undetected for so long? And why are his superiors so keen to drive him down blind alleys?

A hiker discovers the bodies of wine patriarch Pietro Cubbiddu and his wife in the Apennines. The carabinieri investigate and release their findings. They are dealing with a murder-suicide. Not long afterwards, Gideon Oliver and his wife, Julie, are in Tuscany visiting their friends, the Cubbiddu offspring. The renowned Skeleton Detective is asked to reexamine the bones. When he does, he reluctantly concludes that the carabinieri, competent though they may be, have gotten almost everything wrong. Whatever it was that happened in the mountains, a murder-suicide it was not.

Betsy is a natural-born yarnsmith - so it's only fitting that some of her favourite items to stock come from the dye-works of Hailey Brent. But when Hailey is found dead in her workshop, Betsy discovers that there was a lot about Hailey she would have never guessed. Like her penchant for stealing, her use of dangerous additives to create her so-called all-natural fibers, and a scheming mind that had made her more than one enemy.

Called into headquarters by Oskar Kasavian, the head of Home Office security, Bryant and May are shocked to hear that their longtime adversary now desperately needs their help. Oskar's wife, Sabira, has been acting strangely for weeks - succumbing to violent mood swings, claiming an evil presence is bringing her harm - and Oskar wants the PCU to find out why.

This collection is both a look at Sue Grafton's own early life in the guise of the character Kit Blue, and a fascinating glimpse of Kinsey Millhone in nine tales.

Ex-CIA master assassin Court Gentry has always prided himself on his ability to disappear at will, to fly below the radar and exist in the shadows - to survive as the near-mythical Gray Man. But when he takes revenge upon a former employer who betrayed him, he exposes himself to something he's never had to face before. A killer who is just like him. Code-named Dead Eye, Russell Whitlock is a graduate of the same ultra-secret Autonomous Asset Program that trained and once controlled Gentry. But now, Whitlock is a free agent who has been directed to terminate his fellow student of death. He knows how his target thinks, how he moves, and how he kills. And he knows the best way to do the job is to make Gentry run for his life - right up until the moment Dead Eye finally ends it.

Jack Swyteck obtains a not guilty verdict in the sensational trial of a sexy nightclub waitress and good-time girl accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter for cramping her party life. The public is outraged at the verdict. On the night of his client's release, a riot leaves an innocent young woman in a coma.

Sgt. Juliette Worth, one of the few women in the Missouri State Criminal Investigation Unit, has been banished to cold case duty. There she uncovers a group of unsolved disappearances in the area of pretty girls, until now presumed to be runaways. But something doesn't add up, and as she digs further, signs point to something far more sinister. When Juliette's own daughter is abducted, the case is suddenly red hot once more and Juliette will have to be the best cop she's ever been if she wants to get her daughter back.

Egyptologist Sheila Ramsay develops a newfound interest in MesoAmerican affairs after meeting an outspoken - and attractive - Mexico City curator, a harsh critic of museums that deal in stolen art. And her own museum gives her the perfect opportunity to see him again: a valuable Aztec manuscript needs to be returned to its rightful owners, the wealthy Ortega family. But things don't go as planned for Sheila south of the border. An anonymous note threatens her with death if she remains in Mexico City. The curator she longed to see treats her with contempt. And the Ortegas are as mysterious as they are charming.

Daria Gibron is a woman with a deadly past and an uncertain future. Living in exile in the United States after years working as a Shin-Bet agent, she's a thrill junkie who can't resist taking the occasional freelance job as an operative. It's a habit that has left a trail of corpses behind her - and high-powered enemies who have sworn revenge.

When Claire's attempts to learn French cooking start getting "mixed" reviews, she agrees to help Caron and her best friend Inez in fluffing up their college applications by volunteering as an ESL tutor with the Farberville Literacy Council. Just as she decides that it might be best to extricate herself, Claire gets a frantic call from her husband, Deputy Chief Peter Rosen. One of the students, an older Russian woman named Ludmilla, famed for her unpleasantness, has been murdered in the offices of the Farberville Literary Council.

When Ian Forbes, the eccentric head of an international hair care empire, offers luxury realtor Amanda Thorne a chance to list his palatial Palm Springs pad, she agrees even though it means appearing on the bizarre reality dating show he's starring in. A throng of attractive contestants descends on the mansion in hopes of winning Ian's heart - and his fortune. The competition is so fast and furious it is almost no surprise when two of Ian's prospective lovers turn up dead.

Ali Reynolds is contracted to investigate the grisly murder of a gold-digging divorcee on behalf of a woman accused of the crime. Lynn Martinson is dating the dead woman's ex-husband, and she and her boyfriend Chip Ralston have been charged. Ali is simultaneously drawn to the case of A.J. Sanders, a frightened teen who is the first to find the body in the Camp Verde desert when he goes to retrieve a mysterious buried box hidden by his absent father - a box that turns out to be filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in poker chips. When the body of an ex-con is discovered near the first crime scene, Ali struggles to determine if A.J. and Lynn's cases are related.

1927, Breslau, Poland: Two elaborate and sadistic murders are discovered within days of each other. The body of an unknown musician, bound and gagged, is found behind a false wall in a shoemaker's workshop. The victim had been sealed in alive. Elsewhere in the city, the horrifically mutilated body of a locksmith is found. Next to each victim is a torn-out calendar page, with the day of the death marked in blood. Nothing else seems to connect the cases. It falls to Criminal Councillor Eberhard Mock to solve the case.

From the outside, Carter Tomlin's life looked perfect: a big house, pretty wife, two kids - a St. Paul success story. But Tomlin has a secret. He's lost his job, the bills are mounting, and that perfect life is hanging by a thread. Desperate, he robs a bank. Then he robs another. As the red flags start to go up, FBI Special Agent Carla Windermere homes in on Tomlin from one direction, while Minnesota state investigator Kirk Stevens picks up the trail from another.

Artist Forbis Parmenter has invited Josie to the opening of his latest exhibit of voodoo-inspired works. He plans to make a show of completing the centerpiece - a button- encrusted statue - when Josie arrives with the final button. But just as the big moment comes, Forbis bolts out of the gallery in panic. Is it another of his publicity stunts, or is something more sinister afoot? Josie gets her answer when the eccentric artist is found dead - his lifeless body in the arms of a statue and his eyes and lips sealed with buttons.

Bourne's friend Eli Yadin, head of Mossad, learns that Ouyang Jidan, a senior member of China's Politburo, and a major Mexican drug lord may have been trafficking in something far more deadly than drugs. Yadin needs Bourne to investigate. Bourne agrees, but only because he has a personal agenda. Ouyang Jidan is the man who ordered Rebeka - one of the only people Bourne has ever truly cared about - murdered.

Bodies are turning up on the outskirts of Aberdeen: burned from the neck up, hands chained behind their backs. The similarities between the real life killings and the plot of a bestselling novel about witchcraft seem more than coincidental, but the more that DI Logan McRae digs, the more dangerous and blurred the line between fact and fiction becomes.

Gangster Billy Malone stand accused of killing Trevor Shea, a suspected FBI informant, with a potent dose of heroin. Prosecutor Annie Fitzgerald must crack the infamous code of silence and battle seasoned criminal defense attorney Buddy Clancy, who unleashes reasonable doubt with his penetrating cross-examinations. The trial explodes into a high-energy race to justice when Annie's chief witness is killed, jurors defy their instructions, and FBI cover-ups obscure the truth.

Beecher White discovers a killer in Washington, D.C., who is meticulously re-creating the crimes of the four men who have successfully assassinated a US President. Historians have branded them as four lone wolves. But what if they were wrong? Beecher is about to discover the truth. During the course of a hundred years, all four assassins were secretly working together. What was their purpose? For whom do they really work? And why are they planning to kill the current President? Beecher's about to find out. And most terrifyingly, he's about to come face-to-face with the fifth assassin.

As Quincannon hunts the murderous perpetrators of a Wells Fargo robbery from the infamous Barbary Coast to the expensive Tenderloin gaming houses and brothels frequented by wealthy men, Sabina Carpenter tries to solve the mystery of the debutante who committed suicide by leaping from a foggy parapet but left no corpse as proof of success. The pieces of the puzzles start falling into place, but it's an oddly disguised gent appearing out of nowhere who provides the final clue to both cases - the shrewd "crackbrain" who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes.

Georgia Fenchurch appears to be an unassuming antiquarian bookseller in Victorian London, but she is also a member of the Archivist Society, a secret association of private investigators led by the mysterious Sir Broderick. A frantic woman comes to Georgia claiming that her neighbour, Nicholas Drake, has been abducted by the notorious Duke of Blackford. But Drake is no innocent - he is a thief who has been blackmailing many of the leading members of London society. Georgia and her beautiful assistant, Emma, will have to leave the cozy confines of their bookshop and infiltrate the inner circles of the upper crust - with the help of the dashing but dubious Duke of Blackford himself.

All over the world, brutal attacks are crippling entire cities. Jackson Oz, a young biologist, watches the escalating events with an increasing sense of dread. When he witnesses a coordinated lion ambush in Africa, the enormity of the violence to come becomes terrifyingly clear. With the help of ecologist Chloe Tousignant, Oz races to warn world leaders before it's too late. The attacks are growing in ferocity, cunning, and planning, and soon there will be no place left for humans to hide.

Detective Alex Cross is a family man at heart - nothing matters more to him than his children, his grandmother, and his wife Bree. One man knows this deeply, and uses Alex's strength as a weapon against him. When the ones Cross loves are in danger, he will do anything to protect them. If he does anything to protect them, they will die.

Novella. Claudine Burroughs, a volunteer in Hester Monk's clinic for sick and injured prostitutes, meets the attractive poet Dai Tregarron at a party. Shortly after Tregarron is accused of killing a young streetwalker who had been smuggled into the party. Even though she suspects that an upper-class clique is quickly closing ranks to protect the real killer, Claudine and the clinic's disreputable bookkeeper, Squeaky Robinson, vow to do their utmost for Dai.

A wedding is always a happy occasion, even if Lois Meade must remind herself she isn't losing a daughter, but gaining a policeman. Her new son-in-law is in the Tresham force - and happens to be Inspector Cowgill's nephew - so now Lois has another link to the law. But when her youngest son invites a mysterious woman, Akiko, as a guest, Lois wonders why she refuses to talk about her past. And when a thief waltzes off with the young woman's cello, Lois enlists the Inspector's help to find the valuable instrument. When Akiko herself goes missing, Lois discovers that this could be another in a string of murderous musical thefts.

When a man's body is discovered in the picturesque town of Hay-on-Wye, his unnatural death brings exorcist Merrily Watkins onto the case.

Paris, 1909. Maud Creely becomes a companion to beautiful, opium-addicted Sylvie. Both fascinated and repelled by the secrets within this world of luxury, Maud struggles to resist the temptations of wealthy Paris. Paris, 2011. Astrid, attempting to learn about her great aunt Maud, increasingly finds herself in a world where nothing is certain. Past and present, fact and fiction, begin to blur.

For nearly ten years, the Roman Empire has fought ceaselessly to strengthen its hold over Britannia. But opposition from native tribes led by the ruthless warrior Caratacus threatens to destroy everything. Prefect Cato and Centurion Macro are summoned by Governor Ostorius to Londinium. Tasked with leading a newly formed cavalry cohort into the heartland of Wales, they must destroy the growing resistance. But with Caratacus hatching increasingly ambitious plans and disorder threatening from within Macro and Cato's own ranks, this final test will push the soldiers to their limits.

Jam and preserve maker Becca Robins is excited about the extra business that the Ridgeway Christmas Tree Farm is bringing to the market this holiday season. But when a competing tree farmer, Reggie Stuckey, arrives with a truck full of trees, angrily barking that he has exclusive selling rights at the market, Becca finds herself pining for more goodwill toward men. After Reggie is found with a tree stake in his chest, she wonders when the Christmas tree business turned so deadly.

Caprice De Luca has successfully parlayed her skills as an interior designer into a thriving home staging business. Her old high school friend Roz Winslow asks her to spruce up her mess of a mansion. But when Roz's husband Ted is found skewered by one of his sword room's prized possessions, it appears the Winslows may have a few skeletons in their palatial closets.

London, summer 1920. An unidentified body appears to have been run down by a motorcar and Ian Rutledge is leading the investigation to uncover what happened. One small clue leads Rutledge to a firm built by two families, famous for producing and selling the world's best Madeira wine. Lewis French, the current head of the English enterprise, is missing. But is he the dead man? And does either his fiancee or his jilted former lover have anything to do with his disappearance--or possible death? What about his sister? Or the London office clerk? Is Matthew Traynor, French's cousin and partner who heads the Madeira office, somehow involved?

Three men have been shot in one of Goteborg's most fashionable neighbourhoods, sending Detective Inspector Irene Huss and her colleagues on a goose chase through a tony world of expensive cars and fancy homes. All three victims seem to be tied to one person, the glamorous dot-com darling Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, but no matter which strategy Irene adopts - good cop or bad cop - Sanna is not speaking, even when her own life seems to be at stake.

Atlanta P.D. Lieutenant Aaron Rauser is called to the disturbing scene of the strangling death of a thirteen-year-old boy. Meanwhile, Keye Street, a recovering alcoholic, must deal with her emotionally fragile cousin, who has her own history of drug abuse and is now convinced that she is being stalked. But all hell breaks loose when another murder - the apparent hanging of an elderly man - hits disturbingly close to home for Keye.

When he travels to Europe under highly unusual circumstances, Stone finds himself at the center of mystery that is most peculiar, even by his standards. Two unexpected invitations may be the first clues in an intricate puzzle that will lead Stone deep into the rarified world of European ultrawealth and privilege, where billionaires rub elbows with spies, insider knowledge is traded at a high premium, and murder is never too high a price to pay for a desired end.