Vikram Chandra's novel draws the reader deep into the life of Inspector Sartaj Singhâand into the criminal underworld of Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India. It is a story of friendship and betrayal, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its dark side.
Seven years in the making, Sacred Games is an epic of exceptional richness and power. Sartaj, one of the very few Sikhs on the Mumbai police force, is used to being identified by his turban, beard, and the sharp cut of his trousers. But "the silky Sikh" is now past forty, his marriage is over, and his career prospects are on the slide.
When Sartaj gets an anonymous tip-off as to the secret hide-out of the legendary boss of G-Company, he's determined that he'll be the one to collect the prize. Vikram Chandra's keenly anticipated new novel is a magnificent story of friendship and betrayal, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its dark side.
Drawing inspiration from the classics of nineteenth-century fiction, mystery novels, Bollywood movies, and Chandra's own life and research on the streets of Mumbai, Sacred Games evokes with devastating realism the way we live now but resonates with the intelligence and emotional depth of the best of literature.
Good-bye, Lightning Girl
Ever since a walk home on a particularly stormy day, Jessica Mastriani has had an ability like no other. She became known worldwide as Lightning Girlâa psychic who could find the location of anyone, dead or alive. Jess finally had no choice but to embrace her newfound talent, and ended up lending her skills to the U.S. government.
But her work for them has taken a terrible toll, and Jess resurfaces months later a shadow of her former self, her powers gone, Lightning Girl no more. Her only hope is starting over in a new place, a big city where nobody knows her.
It's only when Rob Wilkins unexpectedly shows up on her doorstep that she's forced to face her past. Rob, all the way from back home, needs her help. But how can Jess, her powers gone, find anyone, let alone the sister of a man she once loved... when she can't even find herself?
Missing You, the fifth and final book in the 1-800-Where-R-You series.
His Last Bow, the title story of this collection, tells how Sherlock Holmes is brought out of retirement to help the Government fight the German threat at the approach of the First World War. The Prime Minister himself requests Holmes's services to hunt down the remarkable German agent, Von Bork.
Several of the detective's earlier cases complete the volume, including 'Wisteria Lodge', 'The Bruce-Partington Plans', and 'The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax'. In 'The Dying Detective', Dr. Watson is horrified to discover Holmes at death's door from a mysterious tropical disease as his friend lays a trap for a murderer.
This collection is a thrilling journey through some of the most intriguing cases of the world's most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of 13 Sherlock Holmes stories, originally published in 1903-1904, by Arthur Conan Doyle. The stories mark the astonishing return of the brilliant detective, Sherlock Holmes, who reappears to his faithful friend Dr. Watson after being presumed dead for three years. This momentous event takes London by storm as Holmes resumes his exceptional service in solving baffling mysteries.
The collection includes memorable adventures such as:
Sherlock Holmes' remarkable intellect and astute powers of deduction are on full display as he faces a variety of challengers and puzzles in these thrilling stories.
Kimihiro Watanuki's after-school job working for the mysterious witch YĂ»ko Ishikawa has taken a dangerous turn. A recent assignment cost Kimihiro his right eye to a spider with a grudge. Now the missing eye has become the latest must-have item in the spirit world. Even the Zashiki-Warashi, the pretty spirit who has a crush on Kimihiro, has become entangled in the mess â and she's being held captive by an unknown evil! Can Kimihiro save both the girl and his eyeâwithout getting himself killed by beings more powerful than he can imagine?
Includes chapters 48-51.
When an aristocratic old lady is brutally murdered in her country home the night before 9/11, it takes all the resources of the FBI and Interpol to work out the connection between her and the possible motive for her death â a priceless Van Gogh painting.
Itâs a young woman in the North Tower when the first plane crashed into the building who has the courage and determination to take on both sides of the law and avenge the old ladyâs death. Anna Petrescu is missing, presumed dead, after 9/11 and she uses her new status to escape from America, only to be pursued across the world from Toronto to London, to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bucharest, but it is only when she returns to New York that the mystery unfolds.
Why are so many people willing to risk their own lives and others' to own the Van Gogh Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear? Jeffrey Archer, one of the greatest popular novelists of our generation, delivers a truly page-turning thriller.
Alex Cross was a rising star in the Washington, D.C., Police Department when an unknown shooter gunned down his wife, Maria, in front of him. The killer was never found, and the case turned cold, filed among the unsolved drive-bys in D.C.'s rough neighborhoods.
Years later, still haunted by his wife's death, Cross is making a bold move in his life. Now a free agent from the police and the FBI, he's set up practice as a psychologist once again. His life with Nana Mama, Damon, Jannie, and little Alex is finally getting in order. He even has a chance at a new love.
Then Cross's former partner, John Sampson, calls in a favor. He is tracking a serial rapist in Georgetown, one whose brutal modus operandi recalls a case Sampson and Cross worked together years earlier. When the case reveals a connection to Maria's death, Cross latches on for the most urgent and terrifying ride of his life.
From the master of the genre, James Patterson, CROSS is the high-velocity thriller fans have waited years to read and the pinnacle of the bestselling detective series of the past two decades.
Light - working as Kira, the newest member of the NPA intelligence bureau, and L - has nearly succeeded in creating his ideal world. But the years of uncontested victory have made him complacent, and he is unprepared for a new attack close to home.
With his younger sister Sayu kidnapped and the NPA's Death Note demanded as ransom, Light must travel across the world and confront two new adversaries, each with a very different agenda.
Will Light's quick wits be a match for this new challenge, or will he be forced to choose between Kira's ambitions and his own family's lives?
"My name is MacKayla, Mac for short. I'm a sidhe-seer, one who sees the Fae, a fact I accepted only recently and very reluctantly. My philosophy is pretty simple - any day nobody's trying to kill me is a good day in my book. I haven't had many good days lately. Not since the walls between Man and Fae came down. But then, there's not a sidhe-seer alive who's had a good day since then."
When MacKayla's sister was murdered, she left a single clue to her death, a cryptic message on Mac's cell phone. Journeying to Ireland in search of answers, Mac is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to master a power she had no idea she possessed - a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae.
As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister's death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho...while at the same time, the ruthless V'lane - an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women - closes in on her. As the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac's true mission becomes clear: to find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book - because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control both worlds in their hands.
I see dead people. But then, by God, I do something about it.
Odd Thomas never asked for his special ability. He's just an ordinary guy trying to live a quiet life in the small desert town of Pico Mundo. Yet he feels an obligation to do right by his otherworldly confidants, and that's why he's won hearts on both sides of the divide between life and death.
But when a childhood friend disappears, Odd discovers something worse than a dead body and embarks on a heart-stopping battle of will and wits with an enemy of exceptional cunning. In the hours to come, there can be no innocent bystanders, and every sacrifice can tip the balance between despair and hope.
You're invited on an unforgettable journey through a world of terror and transcendence to wonders beyond imagining. And you can have no better guide than Odd Thomas.
He always knew he was different. First there were the dreams. Then the deaths began. When Matt Freeman gets into trouble with the police, he's sent to be fostered in Yorkshire. It's not long before he senses there's something wrong with his guardian; with the whole village. Then Matt learns about the Old Ones and begins to understand just how he is different. But no one will believe him; no one can help. There is no proof. There is no logic. There is just the Gate.
There's a serial killer loose in Los Angeles and the local authorities need help fast. For some reason, the killer has been leaving a string of maddeningly arcane clues at each crime scene. Each of these clues, it seems, is an indecipherable roadmap to the next murder.
Onto the scene comes L, the mysterious super-sleuth. Despite his peculiar working habitsâhe's never shown his face in publicâbut this time, he needs help. Enlisting the services of an FBI agent named Naomi Misora, L starts snooping around the City of Angels. It soon becomes apparent that the killing spree is a psychotic riddle designed to specifically engage L in a battle of wits.
Stuck in the middle between killer and investigator, it's up to Misora to navigate both the dead bodies and the egos to solve the Los Angeles Murder Cases.
A best seller in France, with over 400,000 copies sold, and currently being translated into eighteen languages, Fault Lines is the new novel from internationally-acclaimed and best-selling author Nancy Huston. Huston's novel is a profound and poetic story that traces four generations of a single family from present-day California to WW II era Germany.
Fault Lines begins with Sol, a gifted, terrifying child whose mother believes he is destined for greatness partly because he has a birthmark like his dad, his grandmother, and his great-grandmother. When Sol's family makes an unexpected trip to Germany, secrets begin to emerge about their history during World War II. It seems birthmarks are not all that's been passed down through the bloodlines.
Closely observed, lyrically told, and epic in scope, Fault Lines is a touching, fearless, and unusual novel about four generations of children and their parents. The story moves from the West Coast of the United States to the East, from Haifa to Toronto to Munich, as secrets unwind back through time until a devastating truth about the family's origins is reached.
Huston tells a riveting, vigorous tale in which love, music, and faith rage against the shape of evil.
Et si l'on nous donnait la chance de revenir en arriĂšre ?
Elliott, médecin réputé, pÚre comblé, ne s'est jamais consolé de la disparition d'Ilena, la femme qu'il aimait, morte il y a trente ans. Un jour, par une circonstance extraordinaire, il est ramené dans le passé et rencontre le jeune homme qu'il était alors.
Les années 1970 battent leur plein à San Francisco, Elliott est un jeune médecin passionné et plein d'ambition. Fera-t-il cette fois le geste décisif qui pourrait sauver Ilena?
Saura-t-il modifier son implacable destin ?
Lieutenant Eve Dallas faces a grisly double homicide when two young lovers, both employees of the same prestigious accounting firm, are brutally killed on the same night. Eve must balance solving this case with organizing a baby shower for her friend Mavis, but that's what friends are for.
Mavis needs another favor. Tandy Willowby, one of the moms-to-be in Mavis's birthing class, didn't show up for the shower. A recent emigrant from London, Tandy has few friends in New York and no family, and she was eagerly looking forward to the party. When Eve finds a gift for Mavis's shower wrapped and ready on the table and a packed bag for the hospital still on the floor, a chill runs down her spine.
Normally, such a case would be turned over to Missing Persons. But Mavis insists that no one else but Eve handle itâand Eve can't say no. She must track Tandy down while simultaneously unearthing the deals and double-crosses hidden in the files of some of the city's richest and most secretive citizens, racing against this particularly vicious killer.
Luckily, her multimillionaire husband Roarke's expertise comes in handy with the number crunching. But as he mines the crucial data to break the case wide open, Eve faces a very real danger in the world of flesh and blood.
Two brothers and their friend stumble upon the wreckage of a planeâthe pilot is dead and his duffle bag contains four million dollars in cash. In order to hide, keep, and share the fortune, these ordinary men all agree to a simple plan.
Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk. Faerie is never as far away as you think. Sometimes you find you have crossed an invisible line and must cope, as best you can, with petulant princesses, vengeful owls, ladies who pass their time embroidering terrible fates, or with endless paths in deep, dark woods and houses that never appear the same way twice.
The heroines and heroes bedevilled by such problems in these fairy tales include a conceited Regency clergyman, an eighteenth-century Jewish doctor, and Mary, Queen of Scots, as well as two characters from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: Strange himself and the Raven King.
This enchanting collection of stories from Susanna Clarke invites readers into a world where charm is always tempered by eerieness, and picaresque comedy is always darkened by the disturbing shadow of Faerie.
Ever wondered where lost things go?
When Sandy Shortt was ten years old, a girl from her class vanished, leaving her with an unquenchable curiosity about missing things. This event ignited a lifelong obsession with finding everything that gets lost: from socks and keys to, eventually, people. Sandy dedicates her life to her search agency, giving hope to those who have lost loved ones, as she never gives up.
But when she takes on the case of Jack Ruttle's missing brother, Sandy herself disappears into a mysterious place known only as "Here."
This novel, full of imagination, suspense, and heartfelt moments, embarks on a quest to discover life, love, and our own identities.
Dina has unwillingly inherited her mother's gift: the ability to elicit shamed confessions simply by looking into someone's eyes. To Dina, however, these powers are not a gift but a curse. Surrounded by fear and hostility, she longs for simple friendship.
But when her mother is called to Dunark Castle to uncover the truth about a bloody triple murder, Dina must come to terms with her powerâor let her mother fall prey to the vicious and revolting dragons of Dunark.
Lauren has always known she was adopted, but when a little research turns up the possibility that she was snatched from an American family as a baby, suddenly Lauren's life seems like a sham. How can she find her biological parents? And are her adoptive parents really responsible for kidnapping her?
Running away from her family to seek out the truth, Lauren's journey takes her deeper and deeper into danger as she realizes that someone wants to stop her uncovering what really happened when she was a baby... at any cost.
A cursed book sends a young woman on a philosophical journey through an alternate dimension in this âstylish and dizzyingâ novel by the author of PopCo. Graduate student Ariel Manto has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientistsâespecially Thomas Lumas, the mysterious author of The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read. When she uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel goes down an interdimensional rabbit hole of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between. And to make matters worse, the CIA is onto her.
Following in Mr. Yâs footsteps, Ariel swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and is transported into the Troposphere: a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. There she begins to understand all the mysteries surrounding the book, herself, and the universe. Or is it all just a hallucination?
Everyone has something to hideâespecially high school juniors Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hanna. Spencer covets her sister's boyfriend. Aria is fantasizing about her English teacher. Emily is crushing on the new girl at school. Hanna uses some ugly tricks to stay beautiful. But they've all kept an even bigger secret since their friend Alison vanished.
How do I know? Because I know everything about the bad girls they were, the naughty girls they are, and all the dirty secrets they've kept. And guess what? I'm telling.
The last volume of the fabulously popular A Series of Unfortunate Events series, in which the history of the Baudelaire orphans is brought to its end.
You are presumably looking at the back of this book, or the end of the end. The end of the end is the best place to begin the end, because if you read the end from the beginning of the beginning of the end to the end of the end of the end, you will arrive at the end of the end of your rope. This book is the last in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and even if you braved the previous twelve volumes, you probably can't stand such unpleasantries as a fearsome storm, a suspicious beverage, a herd of wild sheep, an enormous bird cage, and a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents.
It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the Baudelaire orphans, and at last I am finished. You likely have some other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so the end does not finish you. With all due respect, Lemony Snicket.
"We call you Saint." The name ignited a light in Carl's mind. Saint. He'd been covertly recruited for Black Ops and given his life to the most brutal kind of training any man or woman could endure. He was here because he belonged hereâto the X Group. An assassin. The most effective killer in the world. And yet... Carl Strople struggles to retain fleeting memories that betray an even more ominous reality. He's been told part of the truthâbut not all of it.
Invasive techniques have stripped him of his identity and made him someone newâfor this he is grateful. But there are some things they can't take from him: the love of a woman, unbroken loyalties to his past, the need for survival.
From the deep woods of Hungary to the streets of New York, Saint takes you on a journey of betrayal in a world of government cover-ups, political intrigue, and one man's search for the truth. In the end, that truth will be his undoing.
She stood in Purgatory and studied death. The blood and the gore of it, the ferocity of its glee. It had come to this place with the willful temper of a child, full of heat and passion and careless brutality.
In an uptown strip joint, a cop is found bludgeoned to death. The weapon's a baseball bat. The motive is a mystery. It's a case of serious overkill that pushes Eve Dallas straight into overdrive. Her investigation uncovers a private club that's more than a hot spot. Purgatory is a last chance for atonement where everyone is judged. Where your ultimate fate depends on your most intimate sins. And where one cop's hidden secrets are about to plunge innocent souls into vice-ridden damnation...
When I was fifteen, I was struck by a bolt of lightning through an open window of the trailer where we lived... I recovered, mostly. I have a strange spiderweb pattern of red on my torso and right leg, which has episodes of weakness. Sometimes my right hand shakes. I have headaches. I have many fears. And I can find dead people.
That was the part that interested the professor... At the request of anthropology professor Dr. Clyde Nunley, Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver come to Memphis to give a demonstration of Harper's unique talent. And what better place to have that demonstration than in a very old cemetery?
Dr. Nunley doesn't bother to hide his skepticism, especially when Harper stands atop a grave and senses two bodies beneath her - one of a centuries-dead man and the other of a young girl, recently deceased. When the grave is opened, Harper's claim is proven true. The dead girl is Tabitha Morgenstern, an eleven-year-old abducted from Nashville two years previously - a child whom Harper had tried, and failed, to find.
The coincidence raises suspicions about her among the police - so she and Tolliver undertake their own hunt to find the killer. They make a nocturnal visit to the cemetery, hoping that Harper can sense something further about the murder. And then, the next morning, a third dead body is found in the grave...
San Francisco art patron Bibi Chen has planned a journey of the senses along the famed Burma Road for eleven lucky friends. But after her mysterious death, Bibi watches aghast from her ghostly perch as the travelers veer off her itinerary and embark on a trail paved with cultural gaffes and tribal curses, Buddhist illusions and romantic desires. On Christmas morning, the tourists cruise across a misty lake and disappear.
With picaresque characters and mesmerizing imagery, Saving Fish from Drowning gives us a voice as idiosyncratic, sharp, and affectionate as the mothers of The Joy Luck Club. Bibi is the observant eye of human natureâthe witness of good intentions and bad outcomes, of desperate souls and those who wish to save them. In the end, Tan takes her readers to that place in their own heart where hope is found.
Three years ago, David Hunter moved to rural Norfolk to escape his life in London, his gritty work in forensics, and a tragedy that nearly destroyed him. Working as a simple country doctor, seeing his lost wife and daughter only in his dreams, David struggles to remain uninvolved when the corpse of a woman is found in the woods, a macabre sign from her killer decorating her body.
In one horrifying instant, the quiet summer countryside that had been Davidâs refuge has turned malevolentâand suddenly there is no place to hide.
The village of Manham is tight-knit, far from the beaten path. As a newcomer, Dr. Hunter is immediately a suspect. Once an expert in analyzing human remains, he reluctantly joins the police investigationâand when another woman disappears, it soon becomes personal. Because this time she is someone David knows, someone who has managed to penetrate the icy barrier around his heart.
With a killerâs bizarre and twisted methods screaming out to him, with a brooding countryside beset with suspicion, David can feel the darkness gathering around him. For as the clock ticks down on a young womanâs life, David must follow a macabre trail of cluesâall the way to its final, horrifying conclusion.
Meet Dexter Morgan, a polite wolf in sheep's clothing. He's handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He's a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likeable: he only kills bad people. And his job as a blood spatter expert for the Miami police department puts him in the perfect position to identify his victims.
But when a series of brutal murders bearing a striking similarity to his own style start turning up, Dexter is caught between being flattered and being frightenedâof himself or some other fiend.
What's left of a place when you take the ground away?
Answer: The Zero.
Brian Remy has no idea how he got here. It's been only five days since his city was attacked, and Remy is experiencing gaps in his lifeâas if he were a stone skipping across water. He has a self-inflicted gunshot wound he doesn't remember inflicting. His son wears a black armband and refuses to acknowledge that Remy is still alive. He seems to be going blind. He has a beautiful new girlfriend whose name he doesn't know. And his old partner in the police department, who may well be the only person crazier than Remy, has just gotten his picture on a box of First Responder cereal.
And these are the good things in Brian Remy's life. While smoke still hangs over the city, Remy is recruited by a mysterious government agency that is assigned to gather all of the paper that was scattered in the attacks. As he slowly begins to realize that he's working for a shadowy operation, Remy stumbles across a dangerous plot, and soon realizes he's got to track down the most elusive target of them allâhimself. And the only way to do that is to return to that place where everything started falling apart.
Evil exists. Evil walks the streets. And evil has spawned a diabolical new disciple in this white-knuckle thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.
PECCAVI - The Latin word is scrawled in blood at the scene of a young woman's brutal murder: I HAVE SINNED. It's a chilling Christmas greeting for Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli, who swiftly link the victim to controversial celebrity psychiatrist Joyce O'DonnellâJane's professional nemesis and member of a sinister cabal called the Mephisto Club.
On top of Beacon Hill, the club's acolytes devote themselves to the analysis of evil: Can it be explained by science? Does it have a physical presence? Do demons walk the earth? Drawing on a wealth of dark historical data and mysterious religious symbolism, the Mephisto scholars aim to prove a startling theory: that Satan himself exists among us.
With the grisly appearance of a corpse on their doorstep, it's clear that someoneâor somethingâis indeed prowling the city. The members of the club begin to fear the very subject of their study. Could this maniacal killer be one of their ownâor have they inadvertently summoned an evil entity from the darkness?
Delving deep into the most baffling and unusual case of their careers, Maura and Jane embark on a terrifying journey to the very heart of evil, where they encounter a malevolent foe more dangerous than any they have ever faced... one whose work is only just beginning.
All children mythologize their birth... So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist. The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret.
Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.
As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire. Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.
The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.
After a high-speed chase, Light and the task force apprehend the newest Kira. Light regains his Death Note and his memories, and the depths of his cunning are revealed as the plans he carefully put in place before going into confinement are slowly unveiled. His masterful manipulation of both humans and Shinigami lead him to the strongest position he's yet enjoyed.
But the glow of his victory is marred when a new threat appears. Can Light withstand a surprise attack on two fronts?
In the Lake of the Woods is a riveting novel of love and mystery by the acclaimed author of The Things They Carried. This psychologically haunting story examines the lasting impact of the twentieth centuryâs legacy of violence and warfare, both at home and abroad.
Vietnam veteran John Wade is running for senate when long-hidden secrets about his involvement in wartime atrocities come to light. But the loss of his political fortunes is only the beginning of Johnâs downfall. A retreat with his wife, Kathy, to a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota only exacerbates the tensions rising between them. Then, within days of their arrival, Kathy mysteriously vanishes into the watery wilderness.
When a police search fails to locate her, suspicion falls on the disgraced politician with a violent past. But when John himself disappears, the questions mountâwith no answers in sight.
In this contemplative thriller, acclaimed author Tim OâBrien examines Americaâs legacy of violence and warfare and its lasting impact both at home and abroad.
When Colonel Protheroe is found dead from a single gun shot wound to the head, none of his neighbors in the village of St. Mary Mead is much surprised.
So many people wished this local official would say farewell, if not quite so permanently. With suspects abound and the local police stymied, it is up to Miss Jane Marple to root out the killer.
âAnyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,â declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, âwould be doing the world at large a favour!â It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later â when the colonel was found shot dead in the clergymanâs study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.
Paul Fisher sees the world from behind glasses so thick he looks like a bug-eyed alien. But heâs not so blind that he canât see there are some very unusual things about his familyâs new home in Tangerine County, Florida.
Where else does a sinkhole swallow the local school, fire burn underground for years, and lightning strike at the same time every day? The chaos is compounded by constant harassment from his footballâstar brother, and adjusting to life in Tangerine isnât easy for Paulâuntil he joins the soccer team at his middle school.
With the help of his new teammates, Paul begins to discover what lies beneath the surface of his strange new hometown. And he also gains the courage to face up to some secrets his family has been keeping from him for far too long. In Tangerine, it seems, anything is possible.
When Alice Asher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot is already on to the clues. Alphabetically speaking, it's one down, twenty-five to go. There's a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway guide beside each victim's body. But if A is for Alice Asher, bludgeoned to death in Andover; and B is for Betty Bernard, strangled with her belt on the beach at Bexhill; then who will Victim C be?
Considered to be one of Agatha Christie's most controversial mysteries, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd breaks all the rules of traditional mystery writing. The peaceful English village of Kingâs Abbot is stunned. First, the attractive widow Ferrars dies from an overdose of veronal. Not twenty-four hours later, Roger Ackroydâthe man she had planned to marryâis murdered. It is a baffling, complex case involving blackmail, suicide, and violent death, a cast that taxes Hercule Poirotâs âlittle grey cellsâ before he reaches one of the most startling conclusions of his fabled career.
It is 922 A.D. The refined Arab courtier Ibn Fadlan is accompanying a party of Viking warriors back to their home. He is appalled by their customsâthe gratuitous sexuality of their women, their disregard for cleanliness, and their cold-blooded sacrifices.
As they enter the frozen, forbidden landscape of the Northâwhere the dayâs length does not equal the nightâs, where after sunset the sky burns in streaks of colorâFadlan soon discovers that he has been unwillingly enlisted to combat the terrors in the night that come to slaughter the Vikings, the monsters of the mist that devour human flesh. But just how he will do it, Fadlan has no idea.
Midnight Bayou is a captivating novel set deep in the bayou of Louisiana, where the only witness to a long-ago tragedy is a once-grand house.
Declan Fitzgerald had always been the family maverick, but even he couldn't understand his impulse to buy a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of New Orleans. All he knew was that ever since he first saw Manet Hall, he'd been enchantedâand obsessedâwith it. So when the opportunity to buy the house comes up, Declan jumps at the chance to live out a dream.
Determined to restore Manet Hall to its former splendor, Declan begins the daunting renovation room by room, relying on his own labor and skills. But the days spent in total isolation in the empty house take a toll. He is seeing visions of days from a century past and experiencing sensations of terror and nearly unbearable griefâsensations not his own, but those of a stranger.
Local legend has it that the house is haunted, and with every passing day, Declan's belief in the ghostly presence grows. Only the companionship of the alluring Angelina Simone can distract him from the mysterious happenings in the house, but Angelina too has her own surprising connection to Manet Hallâa connection that will help Declan uncover a secret that's been buried for a hundred years.
Until the phone calls came at three o'clock on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily is deadâshot with a gun her beloved and devoted Chris pilfered from his father's cabinet as part of an apparent suicide pactâleaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew. From New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoultâone of the most powerful writers in contemporary fictionâcomes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence.
In a Norwegian coastal town, society's carefully woven threads begin to unravel when an unsettling stranger named Johan Nagel arrives. With an often brutal insight into human nature, Nagel draws out the townsfolk, exposing their darkest instincts and suppressed desires.
At once arrogant and unassuming, righteous and depraved, Nagel's bizarre behavior and feverish rants seduce the entire community even as he turns it on its headâbefore disappearing as suddenly as he had arrived.
It began with a simple note: a letter of rejection from Miss Templeâs fiancĂ©, written on crisp Ministry paper and delivered on her maidâs silver tray. But for Miss Temple, Roger Bascombeâs cruel rejection will ignite a harrowing quest for answers, plunging her into a mystery as dizzying as a hall of mirrorsâand a remote estate where danger abounds and all inhibitions are stripped bare.
Nothing could have prepared Miss Temple for where her pursuit of Roger Bascombe would take herâor for the shocking things she would find behind the closed doors of forbidding Harschmort Manor: men and women in provocative disguise, acts of licentiousness and violence, heroism and awakening. But she will also find two allies: Cardinal Chang, a brutal assassin with the heart of a poet, and a royal doctor named Svenson, at once fumbling and heroicâboth of whom, like her, lost someone at Harschmort Manor.
As the unlikely trio search for answersâhurtling them from elegant brothels to gaslit alleyways to shocking moments of self-discoveryâthey are confronted by puzzles within puzzles. And the closer they get to the truth, the more their lives are in danger. For the conspiracy they faceâan astonishing alchemy of science, perverted religion, and lust for powerâis so terrifying as to be beyond belief.
Something is murdering my men.
Thus reads the message received from a Nazi commander stationed in a small castle high in the remote Transylvanian Alps. When an elite SS extermination squad is dispatched to solve the problem, the men encounter something both powerful and terrifying. Invisible and silent, the enemy selects one victim per night, leaving behind bloodless and mutilated corpses to terrify its future victims.
Panicked, the Nazis bring in a local expert on folkloreâwho just happens to be Jewishâto shed some light on the mysterious happenings. Unbeknownst to anyone, another visitor is on his wayâa man who awoke from a nightmare and immediately set out to meet his destiny.
The battle has begun: On one side, the ultimate evil created by man, and on the other... the unthinkable, unstoppable, unknowing terror that man has inevitably awakened.
Sports agent Myron Bolitar is poised on the edge of the big time. So is Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback and Myron's prized client. But when Christian gets a phone call from a former girlfriend, a woman who everyone, including the police, believes is dead, the deal starts to go sour. Trying to unravel the truth about a family's tragedy, a woman's secret, and a man's lies, Myron is up against the dark side of his businessâwhere image and talent make you rich, but the truth can get you killed.
In novels that crackle with wit and suspense, Edgar Award winner Harlan Coben has created one of the most fascinating and complex heroes in suspense fictionâMyron Bolitarâa hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent who grows more and more engaging and unpredictable with each page-turning appearance.
A catastrophic, unexplainable plane crash leaves three hundred and thirty dead--no survivors. Among the victims are the wife and two daughters of Joe Carpenter, a Los Angeles Post crime reporter. A year after the crash, still gripped by an almost paralyzing grief, Joe encounters a woman named Rose, who claims to have survived the crash. She holds out the possibility of a secret that will bring Joe peace of mind. But before he can ask any questions, she slips away.
Driven now by rage and a hope almost as unbearable as his grief, Joe sets out to find the mysterious woman. His search immediately leads him into the path of a powerful and shadowy organization hell-bent on stopping Rose before she can reveal what she knows about the crash. Sole Survivor unfolds at a heart-stopping pace, as a desperate chase and a shattering emotional odyssey lead Joe to a truth that will force him to reassess everything he thought he knew about life and death--a truth that, given the chance, will rock the world and redefine the destiny of humanity.
Two thousand years ago, Mary Magdalene hid a set of scrolls in the rocky foothills of the French Pyrenees, a gospel that contained her own version of the events and characters of the New Testament. Protected by supernatural forces, these sacred scrolls could be uncovered only by a special seeker, one who fulfills the ancient prophecy of l'attendue -- The Expected One.
When journalist Maureen Pascal begins the research for a new book, she has no idea that she is stepping into an ancient mystery so secret, so revolutionary, that thousands of people have killed and died for it. She becomes deeply immersed in the mystical cultures of southwest France as the eerie prophecy of The Expected One casts a shadow over her life and work, and a long-buried family secret comes to light.
Maureen's extraordinary journey takes her from the dusty streets of Jerusalem to the cathedrals of Paris... and ultimately to search for the scrolls themselves. She must unravel clues that link history's great artistic masters, including Sandro Botticelli, Nicolas Poussin, and Jean Cocteau; the Medici, Bourbon, and Borgia dynasties; and great scientific minds like Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton.
Ultimately, she, and the reader, come face-to-face with Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, Judas, and Salome in the pages of a deeply moving and powerful new gospel, the life of Jesus as told by Mary Magdalene.