In a quiet house on a quiet street, Frank and Julia are having an affair. Not your ordinary affair. For Frank, it began with his own insatiable sexual appetite, a mysterious lacquered box, and then an unhinged voyage through a netherworld of imaginable pleasures and unimaginable horror…
Now Frank - or what is left of Frank - waits in an empty room. All he wants is to live as he was before. All Julia can do is bring him her unfulfilled passions… and a little flesh and blood…
Paul Brenner, a former army homicide investigator, had settled into a life of early retirement, a decision forced upon him after the tumultuous end of his last case. However, when his old commanding officer calls in a career's worth of favors, Brenner finds himself drawn back into the fold.
Tasked with investigating a murder that occurred in wartime Vietnam thirty years prior, Brenner reluctantly accepts the mission out of curiosity, loyalty, and perhaps a touch of boredom. Returning to a place that still haunts him, he is swept up into the battle of his life, navigating a world rife with corruption, lethal double-crosses, and haunted memories.
In Vietnam, Brenner encounters Susan Weber, an expatriate as exotic and dangerous as the land of her voluntary exile. Together, they delve into a mystery that thrusts Brenner back into a war that neither he nor his country ever truly stopped fighting.
This thrilling tale is more than just a blood-and-guts thriller; it's an insightful and moving look at the effects of war on a country, its people, and its enemies.
New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn returns with his most explosive political thriller yet. A tour de force of action-packed suspense, Protect and Defend delivers an all-too-realistic and utterly compelling vision of nations navigating the minefield of international intrigue.
In Protect and Defend, the action begins in the heart of Iran, where billions of dollars are being spent on the development of a nuclear program. No longer willing to wait for the international community to stop its neighboring enemy, Israel launches one of the most creative and daring espionage operations ever conceived. The attack leaves a radioactive tomb and environmental disaster in the middle of Iran's second largest city. An outraged Iranian government publicly blames both Israel and the United States for the attack and demands retribution. Privately, Iran's bombastic president wants much more. He wants America and Israel to pay for their aggression with blood.
Enter Mitch Rapp, America's top counterterrorism operative. Used to employing deception, Rapp sees an opportunity where others see only Iranian reprisals that could leave thousands of Americans dead. Rapp convinces President Josh Alexander to sign off on a risky operation that will further embarrass the Iranian government and push their country to the brink of revolution. As part of the plan, CIA director Irene Kennedy is dispatched to the region for a clandestine meeting with Azad Ashani, her Iranian counterpart.
But Rapp isn't the only one hatching plans. Iran's President Amatullah has recruited Hezbollah master terrorist Imad Mukhtar to do his dirty work. For decades Mukhtar has acted as a surrogate for Iran, blazing a trail of death and destruction across the Middle East and beyond. When Kennedy's meeting with Ashani goes disastrously wrong, Rapp and Mukhtar are set on a collision course that threatens to engulf the entire region in war. With the clock ticking, Rapp is given twenty-four hours, no questions asked, to do whatever it takes to stop Mukhtar, and avert an unthinkable catastrophe.
Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready, abducted from her bed on a warm, summer night. They meet her stoned-out, strangely apathetic mother, her loving aunt and uncle, the mother's dangerous, drug-addled friends, and two cops who've found so many abused or dead children they may be too far over the edge to come back.
Despite enormous public attention, rabid news coverage, and dogged police work, the investigation repeatedly hits a brick wall. Led into a world of drug dealers, child molesters, and merciless executioners, Patrick and Angie are soon forced to face not only the horrors adults can perpetrate on innocents but also their own conflicted feelings about what is best, and worst, when it comes to raising children.
As the Indian summer fades and the autumn chill deepens, Amanda McCready stays gone, banished so completely that she seems never to have existed.
Then another child disappears...
Dennis Lehane takes you into a world of triple crosses, elaborate lies, and shrouded motives, where the villains may be more moral than the victims, the missing should possibly stay missing, and those who go looking for them may not come back alive.
Settle in and turn off the phone. From its haunting opening to its shocking climax, Gone, Baby, Gone is certain to be one of the most thrilling suspense novels you'll read.
Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke one morning to discover that her entire family—mother, father, brother—had vanished. No note, no trace, no return. Ever.
Now, twenty-five years later, she'll learn the devastating truth. Sometimes it's better not to know...
Cynthia is happily married with a young daughter, a new family. But the story of her old family isn't over. A strange car in the neighborhood, untraceable phone calls, ominous gifts—someone has returned to her hometown to finish what was started twenty-five years ago.
And no one's innocence is guaranteed, not even her own. By the time Cynthia discovers her killer's shocking identity, it will again be too late... even for goodbye.
A long-lost work of Shakespeare, newly found. A killer who stages the Bard’s extravagant murders as flesh-and-blood realities. A desperate race to find literary gold, and just to stay alive.
On the eve of the Globe’s production of Hamlet, Shakespeare scholar and theater director Kate Stanley’s eccentric mentor Rosalind Howard gives her a mysterious box, claiming to have made a groundbreaking discovery. But before she can reveal it to Kate, the Globe burns to the ground and Roz is found dead... murdered precisely in the manner of Hamlet’s father.
Inside the box, Kate finds the first piece in a Shakespearean puzzle, setting her on a deadly, high-stakes treasure hunt. From London to Harvard to the American West, Kate races to evade a killer and decipher a tantalizing string of clues, hidden in the words of Shakespeare, that may unlock literary history’s greatest secret.
At once suspenseful and elegantly written, Interred with Their Bones is poised to become the next bestselling literary adventure in the tradition of The Thirteenth Tale and The Historian.
Adam Farmer is on a journey - he has to get to Rutterburg with a parcel for his father. But as he travels, he starts to remember the events leading up to this point, memories which are also being prised out in gruelling psychiatric interviews.
What is the secret of Adam Farmer? And what will happen when he finds out?
Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go.
She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind—addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. Archie's a different person, his estranged wife says, and he knows she's right. He continues to visit Gretchen in prison once a week, saying that only he can get her to confess as to the whereabouts of more of her victims, but even he knows the truth—he can't stay away.
When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders. A hungry young newspaper reporter, Susan Ward, begins profiling Archie and the investigation, which sparks a deadly game between Archie, Susan, the new killer, and even Gretchen.
They need to catch a killer, and maybe somehow then Archie can free himself from Gretchen, once and for all. Either way, Heartsick makes for one of the most extraordinary suspense debuts in recent memory.
A beautiful woman stands by the side of the road, barefoot and bleeding, a child in her arms. Someone just tried to kill her, but she wouldn't recognize him if she saw his face. She doesn't even remember her own name.
A suburban cop surveys a kitchen in disarray—a woman and child missing, a chilling note. This crime scene is unlike any he has ever seen.
The man who calls himself Gideon waits and plans. He sees himself as a destroyer of evil, one who rids the world of abominations. He has already killed five. He will kill again.
And somewhere in the wilderness, in a secret geocache near where the wild swans gather, lies the unspeakable clue that links them all together.
Michigan's rugged and beautiful Upper Peninsula is the setting for this absorbing tale of love and loss, beauty and terror, grievous sins and second chances.
A deftly woven thriller from the bestselling author of the Rock Harbor novels.
Police Lieutenant Phoebe MacNamara found her calling at an early age when a violently unstable man broke into her family’s home, trapping and terrorizing them for hours. Now she’s Savannah’s top hostage negotiator, who puts her life on the line every day to diffuse powder-keg situations.
After watching her talk one of his employees off a roof ledge, Duncan Swift is committed to keeping this intriguing, take-charge woman in his life. Phoebe’s used to working solo, but she’s finding that no amount of negotiation can keep Duncan at arm’s length.
Especially when a man throws a hood over Phoebe’s head and brutally assaults her—in her own precinct house—and threatening messages begin appearing on her doorstep. Duncan backs her up every step of the way, as she establishes contact with the faceless tormentor who is determined to make her a hostage to fear—before she becomes the final showdown.
The battle ends here!
Join the thrilling conclusion of the Death Note series as Light Yagami faces his ultimate challenge. With the stakes higher than ever, alliances are tested, and the true power of the Death Note is revealed.
Who will emerge victorious? Dive into this final installment filled with suspense and unexpected twists!
Lauren Stillwell is not your average damsel in distress. When the NYPD cop discovers her husband leaving a hotel with another woman, she decides to beat him at his own game. But her revenge goes dangerously awry, and she finds her world spiraling into a hell that becomes more terrifying by the hour.
In a further twist of fate, Lauren must take on a job that threatens everything she stands for. Now, she's paralyzed by a deadly secret that could tear her life apart. With her job and marriage on the line, Lauren's desire for retribution becomes a lethal inferno as she fights to save her livelihood—and her life.
Patterson takes us on a twisting roller-coaster ride of thrills in his most gripping novel yet. This story of love, lust, and dangerous secrets will have readers' hearts pounding to the very last page.
In Shadow Man, Cody McFadyen took the suspense thriller where other writers have feared to tread. He introduced readers to a heroine every bit as dark and edgy as the serial killers she hunts: Special Agent Smoky Barrett.
Now, in his latest novel, McFadyen brings Agent Barrett back to track down a killer who breaks all the rules. Get ready for a shattering confrontation with the very essence of human evil.
I want to talk to Smoky Barrett or I'll kill myself. The girl is sixteen, at the scene of a grisly triple homicide, and has a gun to her head. She claims The Stranger killed her adoptive family, that he's been following her all her life, killing everyone she ever loved, and that no one believes her. No one has. Until now.
Special Agent Smoky Barrett is head of the violent crimes unit in Los Angeles, the part of the FBI reserved for tracking down the worst of the worst. Her team has been handpicked from among the nation's elite law enforcement specialists and they are as obsessed and relentless as the psychos they hunt; they'll have to be to deal with this case.
For another vicious double homicide reveals a killer embarked on a dark crusade of trauma and death: an "artist" who's molding sixteen-year-old Sarah into the perfect victim—and the ultimate weapon. But Smoky Barrett has another, more personal reason for catching The Stranger—an adopted daughter and a new life that are worth protecting at any cost.
This time Smoky is going to have to put it all on the line. Because The Stranger is all too real, all too close, and all too relentless. And when he finally shows his face, if she's not ready to confront her worst fear, Smoky won't have time to do anything but die.
A gorgeously written novel that marks the debut of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense.
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery.
Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past. Richly atmospheric, stunning in its complexity, and utterly convincing and surprising to the end, In the Woods is sure to enthrall fans of Mystic River and The Lovely Bones.
Miami Purity is a noir-ish tale of an aging former stripper whose attempt to go clean leads her into a murderously perverse affair.
This modern, feminist take on classic noir is gripping, super-sexy, and unforgettably raw. It's set in the sunny places of Miami, filled with shady people, and showcases the dark underbelly of the city.
When thirteen-year-old Matthew Whately goes missing from Bredgar Chambers, a prestigious public school in the heart of West Sussex, aristocratic Inspector Thomas Lynley receives a call for help from the lad's housemaster, who also happens to be an old school chum.
Thus, the inspector, his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, and forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James find themselves once again outside their jurisdiction and deeply involved in the search for a child—and then, tragically, for a child killer.
Questioning prefects, teachers, and pupils closest to the dead boy, Lynley and Havers sense that something extraordinarily evil is going on behind Bredgar Chambers's cloistered walls. But as they begin to unlock the secrets of this closed society, the investigation into Matthew's death leads them perilously close to their own emotional wounds—and blinds them to the signs of another murder in the making.
Dr. Amin Jaafari, an Arab-Israeli citizen, is a surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv. Dedicated to his work, respected and admired by his colleagues and community, he represents integration at its most successful. He has learned to live with the violence and chaos that plague his city.
On the night of a deadly bombing in a local restaurant, he works tirelessly to help the shocked and shattered patients brought to the emergency room. But this night of turmoil and death takes a horrifyingly personal turn. His wife's body is found among the dead, with massive injuries, the police coldly announce, typical of those found on the bodies of fundamentalist suicide bombers.
As evidence mounts that his wife, Sihem, was responsible for the catastrophic bombing, Dr. Jaafari is torn between cherished memories of their years together and the inescapable realization that the beautiful, intelligent, thoroughly modern woman he loved had a life far removed from the comfortable, assimilated existence they shared.
From the graphic, beautifully rendered description of the bombing that opens the novel to the searing conclusion, The Attack portrays the reality of terrorism and its incalculable spiritual costs. Intense and humane, devoid of political bias, hatred, and polemics, it probes deep inside the Muslim world and gives readers a profound understanding of what seems impossible to understand.
Fighting terrorism on foreign ground, CIA superagent Mitch Rapp does whatever it takes to protect American freedom.
CIA intelligence has pointed to a major terrorist attack on the United States, just as the nation's capital prepares for a grand Memorial Day tribute to the veterans of World War II. Racing to Afghanistan, Mitch Rapp leads a commando raid on an al Queda stronghold in a remote border village—and defuses plans for a nuclear strike on Washington.
The crisis averted, the special ops work is done. But Rapp knows, in the face of a new kind of enemy, nothing is as it seems—and it's up to him alone to avert a disaster of unimaginable proportions.
From a helicopter high above the empty California desert, a man is sent free-falling into the night. In Chicago, a woman learns that an elite team of ex–army investigators is being hunted down one by one. And on the streets of Portland, Jack Reacher—soldier, cop, hero—is pulled out of his wandering life by a code that few other people could understand.
From the first shocking scenes in Lee Child’s explosive novel, Jack Reacher is plunged like a knife into the heart of a conspiracy that is killing old friends…and is on its way to something even worse.
A decade post-military, Reacher has an ATM card and the clothes on his back—no phone, no ties, and no address. But now a woman from his old unit has done the impossible. From Chicago, Frances Neagley finds Reacher, using a signal only the eight members of their elite team of army investigators would know. She tells him a terrifying story—about the brutal death of a man they both served with.
Soon Reacher is reuniting with the survivors of his old team, scrambling to raise the living, bury the dead, and connect the dots in a mystery that is growing darker by the day. The deeper they dig, the more they don’t know: about two other comrades who have suddenly gone missing—and a trail that leads into the neon of Vegas and the darkness of international terrorism.
For now, Reacher can only react. To every sound. Every suspicion. Every scent and every moment. Then Reacher will trust the people he once trusted with his life—and take this thing all the way to the end. Because in a world of bad luck and trouble, when someone targets Jack Reacher and his team, they’d better be ready for what comes right back at them…
Vengeance in Death is a thrilling novel where technology intertwines with the lawless. An expert in the latest technology, a madman with the mind of a genius and the heart of a killer, quietly stalks his prey. He haunts the police with cryptic riddles about the crimes he is about to commit—always solved moments too late to save his victims' lives.
Police lieutenant Eve Dallas finds the first victim butchered in his own home. The second loses his life in a vacant luxury apartment. The two men had little in common, except both suffered unspeakable torture before their deaths. Both had ties to an ugly secret of ten years past—a secret shared by none other than Eve's new husband, Roarke.
So my only protection is a kindergarten teacher and a ninety-eight-pound female minister... And they don't even believe I'm in danger.
As Bethany approaches her thirteenth birthday, her parents begin acting more oddly than usual. Her mother cries constantly, and her father barely lets Bethany out of his sight. Then one morning, he hustles the entire family into the car, drives across several state lines — and leaves Bethany with an aunt she never knew existed.
Bethany has no idea what's going on. She's worried that her mom and dad are running from some kind of trouble, but she can't find out because they won't tell her where they are going.
Bethany's only clue is a few words she overheard her father tell her aunt: "She doesn't know anything about Elizabeth." But Aunt Myrlie won't tell Bethany who Elizabeth is, and she won't explain why people in her small town react to Bethany as if they've seen a ghost.
The mystery intensifies when Bethany gets a package from her father containing four different birth certificates from four different states, with four different last names — and thousands of dollars in cash. And when a strange man shows up asking questions, Bethany realizes she's not the only one who's desperate to unravel the secrets of her past.
In this riveting thriller from the Queen of Suspense and #1 New York Times bestselling writer Mary Higgins Clark, the mystery of twin telepathy is brilliantly woven into a mother's desperate search for her kidnapped child, presumed dead.
When Margaret and Steve Frawley return home to Connecticut from a black-tie dinner in New York, they find their three-year-old twins, Kathy and Kelly, gone. The police discover the babysitter unconscious, and a ransom note from the "Pied Piper" demands eight million dollars. Steve's global investment firm puts up the money, but upon retrieving the twins, only Kelly is found in the car. The dead driver's suicide note claims he inadvertently killed Kathy.
At the memorial, Kelly tugs Margaret's arm and says: "Mommy, Kathy is very scared of that lady. She wants to come home right now." Initially, only Margaret believes that the twins are communicating and that Kathy is still alive. But as Kelly's warnings grow increasingly specific and alarming, FBI agents embark on a desperate search.
As the tension escalates, the FBI closes in on the "Pied Piper" and his accomplices, with Kathy's life hanging by a thread.
House is a mind-bending supernatural thriller from the creators of This Present Darkness and Saint. Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker—two of the most acclaimed writers of supernatural thrillers—have joined forces for the first time to craft a story unlike any you've ever read.
Enter House—where you'll find yourself thrown into a killer's deadly game in which the only way to win is to lose... and the only way out is in.
The stakes of the game become clear when a tin can is tossed into the house with rules scrawled on it. Rules that only a madman—or worse—could have written. Rules that make no sense yet must be followed.
One game. Seven players. Three rules. Game ends at dawn.
Pierre Sauvé. À l'orée de la quarantaine, veuf, père d'une fille de vingt ans. Sergent-détective à la police municipale de Drummondville, il enquête sur un quadruple meurtre qui a toutes les apparences d'un crime passionnel.
Frédéric Ferland. Début de la cinquantaine, divorcé, père de deux adultes qu'il ne voit guère, il cherche depuis des années l'excitation ultime, celle qui donnera un sens à son existence et à la vie en général, qu'il a toujours trouvée terne. Psychologue, il exerce sa profession dans la ville de Saint-Bruno.
Maxime Lavoie. Trente-sept ans, célibataire, idéaliste... et milliardaire. Il y a deux ans, il a quitté ses fonctions de président de Lavoie inc. pour devenir le producteur et l'animateur de Vivre au Max, l'émission de téléréalité la plus controversée de l'heure... mais aussi la plus populaire.
Trois hommes différents, trois existences que tout sépare. Or, contre toute attente, leurs chemins se croiseront bientôt et leur vie en sera bouleversée à jamais. Tout comme celle de milliers de gens... tout comme la vôtre !
In Chris Bohjalian's astonishing novel, nothing is what it at first seems. Not the bucolic Vermont back roads college sophomore Laurel Estabrook likes to bike. Not the savage assault she suffers toward the end of one of her rides. And certainly not Bobbie Crocker, the elderly man with a history of mental illness whom Laurel comes to know through her work at a Burlington homeless shelter in the years subsequent to the attack.
In his moments of lucidity, the gentle, likable Bobbie alludes to his earlier life as a successful photographer. Laurel finds it hard to believe that this destitute, unstable man could once have chronicled the lives of musicians and celebrities, but a box of photographs and negatives discovered among Bobbie's meager possessions after his death lends credence to his tale.
How could such an accomplished man have fallen on such hard times? Becoming obsessed with uncovering Bobbie's past, Laurel studies his photographs, tracking down every lead they provide into the mystery of his life before homelessness—including links to the rich neighborhoods of her own Long Island childhood and to the earlier world of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, with its larger-than-life characters, elusive desires, and haunting sorrows.
In a narrative of dazzling invention, literary ingenuity, and psychological complexity, Bohjalian engages issues of homelessness and mental illness by evoking the humanity that inhabits the core of both. At the same time, his tale is fast-paced and riveting—The Double Bind combines the suspense of a thriller with the emotional depths of the most intimate drama.
The breathtaking surprises of its final pages will leave readers stunned, overwhelmed by the poignancy of life's fleeting truths, as caught in Bobbie Crocker's photographs and in Laurel Estabrook's painful pursuit of Bobbie's past—and her own.
Step on a Crack introduces a new hero in an exciting thriller set in the heart of Manhattan. NYPD detective Michael Bennett is concentrating on getting his family through a particularly difficult Christmas as he faces the loss of his brave wife, Maeve, to cancer. But a major crisis calls him away: the funeral of a former First Lady at St. Patrick's Cathedral goes horribly awry when men storm the church and take hundreds of attendees hostage.
Michael is asked to try to reason with a sinister man named Jack. Jack releases all but the most famous people, making his demands: several million dollars from each celebrity hostage, including the mayor, a popular comedic actor, a beloved talk show host, and a pop starlet. Once Jack starts killing, Michael realizes he's up against a truly diabolical foe.
Patterson has a knack for creating genuinely likable heroes, and Michael fits the bill. As readers rapidly turn the pages to learn how the tense hostage drama plays out, they will also be sympathizing with Michael as he faces the agonizing loss of his wife. Totally gripping and downright impossible to put down, this is a promising start to a potential new series.
Twelve-thousand feet beneath the Atlantic Ocean, scientists are excavating the most extraordinary undersea discovery ever made. But is it the greatest archaeological find in history—or the most terrifying?
Former naval doctor Peter Crane is urgently summoned to a remote oil platform in the North Atlantic to help diagnose a bizarre medical condition spreading through the rig. But when he arrives, Crane learns that the real trouble lies far below—on “Deep Storm,” a stunningly advanced science research facility built two miles beneath the surface on the ocean floor.
The top secret structure has been designed for one purpose: to excavate a recently discovered undersea site that may hold the answers to a mystery steeped in centuries of myth and speculation. Sworn to secrecy, Dr. Crane descends to Deep Storm. A year earlier, he is told, routine drilling uncovered the remains of mankind’s most sophisticated ancient civilization: the legendary Atlantis. But now that the site is being excavated, a series of disturbing illnesses has begun to affect the operation. Scientists and technicians are experiencing a bizarre array of symptoms—from simple fatigue to violent psychotic episodes.
As Crane is indoctrinated into the strange world of Deep Storm and commences his investigation, he begins to suspect that the covert facility conceals something more complicated than a medical mystery. The discovery of Atlantis might, in fact, be a cover for something far more sinister... and deadly.
Like Lincoln Child’s spectacular bestsellers coauthored with Douglas Preston, Deep Storm melds scientific detail and gripping adventure in a superbly imagined, chillingly real journey into unknown territory. Child is a master of suspense, and Deep Storm is his most ambitious novel to date.
Travels in the Scriptorium is a fantastic, labyrinthine novel from the beloved author Paul Auster. An old man awakens, disoriented, in an unfamiliar chamber. With no memory of who he is or how he has arrived there, he pores over the relics on the desk, examining the circumstances of his confinement and searching his own hazy mind for clues.
Determining that he is locked in, the man—identified only as Mr. Blank—begins reading a manuscript he finds on the desk, the story of another prisoner, set in an alternate world the man doesn't recognize. Nevertheless, the pages seem to have been left for him, along with a haunting set of photographs.
As the day passes, various characters call on the man in his cell—vaguely familiar people, some who seem to resent him for crimes he can't remember—and each brings frustrating hints of his identity and his past. All the while, an overhead camera clicks and clicks, recording his movements, and a microphone records every sound in the room. Someone is watching.
Both chilling and poignant, Travels in the Scriptorium is vintage Auster: mysterious texts, fluid identities, a hidden past, and, somewhere, an obscure tormentor. And yet, as we discover during one day in the life of Mr. Blank, his world is not so different from our own.
New Year's Eve, the last day of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War. Dr. Kay Scarpetta plunges into the murky depths of a ship graveyard to recover the very human remains of Ted Eddings, an investigative reporter. What kind of story was Eddings chasing below the icy surface of the Elizabeth River? And why did Scarpetta receive a phone call from someone reporting the death before the police were notified?
She soon discovers that Eddings' murder is merely the first layer of something much deeper — a labyrinthine conspiracy that will put all of her criminal and forensic knowledge to the test like never before. For Scarpetta, the real challenge won't be cataloging the growing number of dead bodies, but preventing herself and those she loves from becoming the next victims.
Light has always been confident in his ability to out-think everyone, but L's protégés are proving to be more of a challenge than he anticipated. The more Light mentally maneuvers, the tighter the net around him becomes. And now Near and Mello are working to break the task force apart and expose Kira from within!
Light has always held up under pressure in the past, but will the stress of this new line of attack and the strain of maintaining three different personalities be the beginning of his end?
Shirley Jackson's The Lottery is a memorable and terrifying masterpiece, fueled by a tension that creeps up on you slowly without any clear indication of why. This is just a townful of people, after all, choosing their numbers for the annual lottery. What's there to be scared of?
In this seemingly ordinary village, a yearly lottery determines a sacrificial victim, revealing the tragic results of following tradition blindly. Jackson masterfully portrays how eeriness lurks beneath the surface of everyday life.
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 – a priceless Van Gogh painting.
It’s 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 lady’s 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?
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 it—and 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.
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.
HIDE OR FIGHT?
Matthias, an illegal third child, is caught in the crossfire between rebels and the Population Police. When he unwittingly saves a Population Police officer, Matthias is brought to Population Police headquarters to train as an officer himself. There he meets Nina, another third-born who enlists his help in a plot to undermine the Population Police. But Matthias is under constant scrutiny, and he has no idea whom he can trust. What can one boy do against a wicked bureaucracy?
"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 here—to 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 truth—but not all of it.
Invasive techniques have stripped him of his identity and made him someone new—for 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...
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 David’s refuge has turned malevolent—and 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 investigation—and 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 killer’s 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 woman’s life, David must follow a macabre trail of clues—all the way to its final, horrifying conclusion.
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'Donnell—Jane'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 someone—or something—is 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 own—or 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.
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 century’s 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 John’s 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 mount—with no answers in sight.
In this contemplative thriller, acclaimed author Tim O’Brien examines America’s legacy of violence and warfare and its lasting impact both at home and abroad.
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 business—where 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 fiction—Myron Bolitar—a 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.
Building on her series featuring forensic sculptor Eve Duncan, bestselling suspense writer Iris Johansen takes a slightly different tangent with her latest thriller, The Search. The search and rescue team of Sarah Patrick and her golden retriever, Monty, first appeared in The Killing Game, where they helped Eve track down a kidnapped child and a maniacal killer.
Now, John Logan, the billionaire who wooed Eve only to lose her to Joe Quinn, needs to utilize Sarah and Monty's talents in a quest of his own. Although it has its rewards, the rescue work Sarah and Monty do demands a hefty emotional toll from them both. Sarah is highly protective of Monty, and when Logan first approaches her with what's obviously a very dangerous mission, Sarah is quick to say no. But Logan brings his powerful resources to bear and more or less forces Sarah to agree to the mission or face the loss of her job, her peace of mind, and Monty.
The task at hand involves finding and rescuing a highly valued scientist who has been kidnapped and is being held somewhere in Colombia. But the man who took the scientist is a ruthless and heartless killer whose primary objective is carrying out his sadistic revenge on Logan. Sarah, none too happy about being coerced into helping Logan, becomes even less inclined toward him when Monty is wounded in the rescue attempt. Logan is wounded too, and after their mission has been accomplished, the threesome end up back at Sarah's isolated cabin.
Sarah does everything she can to make Logan leave but finds it hard to be too insistent given his wounds. Besides, when Logan pays his debt to her for completing the mission, it is something Sarah could never have anticipated, an act that leaves her stunned, confused, and indebted. As for Logan, he refuses to leave Sarah alone because he knows that his nemesis, Rudzak, saw her and Monty in Colombia. And because of the nature of his relationship with Rudzak and the secret history they share, Logan knows the psycho will eventually come after Sarah.
Holed up together and fighting a wide array of emotions, Sarah and Logan discover a spark of passion between them. Though they both try to resist, eventually the spark ignites a full-fledged conflagration that leaves both of them stunned, puzzled, and forever changed. By the time the inevitable confrontation with Rudzak occurs, Logan will be forced to risk both his life and his heart in hopes of keeping Sarah and Monty safe. And Sarah must risk everything she holds dear if she ever hopes to find a happiness she is only now beginning to realize.
Keine Zeugen, keine Spuren, keine Leiche. Josy, die zwölfjährige Tochter des bekannten Psychiaters Viktor Larenz, verschwindet unter mysteriösen Umständen. Ihr Schicksal bleibt ungeklärt.
Vier Jahre später: Der trauernde Viktor hat sich in ein abgelegenes Ferienhaus zurückgezogen. Doch eine schöne Unbekannte spürt ihn dort auf. Sie wird von Wahnvorstellungen gequält. Darin erscheint ihr immer wieder ein kleines Mädchen, das ebenso spurlos verschwindet wie einst Josy.
Viktor beginnt mit der Therapie, die mehr und mehr zum dramatischen Verhör wird...
A magnificent blend of fact and fiction, The Dante Club is a brilliantly realized paean to Dante's continued grip on our imagination, and a captivating thriller that will surprise readers from beginning to end.
Words can bleed.
In 1865 Boston, the literary geniuses of the Dante Club—poets and Harvard professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, along with publisher J. T. Fields—are finishing America's first translation of The Divine Comedy and preparing to unveil Dante's remarkable visions to the New World. The powerful Boston Brahmins at Harvard College are fighting to keep Dante in obscurity, believing that the infiltration of foreign superstitions into American minds will prove as corrupting as the immigrants arriving at Boston Harbor.
The members of the Dante Club fight to keep a sacred literary cause alive, but their plans fall apart when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small group of scholars realizes that the gruesome killings are modeled on the descriptions of Hell's punishments from Dante's Inferno. With the lives of the Boston elite and Dante's literary future in America at stake, the Dante Club members must find the killer before the authorities discover their secret.
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and an outcast police officer named Nicholas Rey, the first black member of the Boston police department, must place their careers on the line to end the terror. Together, they discover that the source of the murders lies closer to home than they ever could have imagined.
Have you ever loved someone who's mortally wounded you? Phineas Poe, disgraced cop and morphine addict, has just been released from a psych ward when he meets a beautiful woman named Jude in a hotel bar. Red dress, black hair, body like a knife. He takes her back to his room and wakes the next morning in a bathtub full of blood and ice, missing a kidney.
Dragging himself from a hospital bed, Phineas discovers he wants to be with Jude like a hunger—and he wants to find her and kill her. Falling for her is the start of a twisted love story that takes him from the snowy streets of Denver to the high plains of Texas where the boundaries between torturer and victim, killer and accomplice, become nightmarishly distorted.