The third title in the Inspector Ramsay crime series. Dorothea Cassidy, the Vicar's wife is found dead in the park's flower bed. The list of suspects include old Mrs Bowman, Clive Stringer, a disturbed adolescent, and Theresa Stringer, a single mother with a violent boyfriend and even members of her own family.

The new twisting mystery from CWA Historical Dagger 2014 winner Antonia Hodgson.

Late spring, 1728, and Thomas Hawkins has left London for the wild beauty of Yorkshire – forced on a mission he can't refuse. John Aislabie, one of the wealthiest men in England, has been threatened with murder. Blackmailed into investigating, Tom must hunt down those responsible – or lose the woman he loves forever.

Arriving at the grand estate of Studley Royal, Tom realises that the threats to Aislabie and his family must be connected to someone in the house itself. Could one of the servants be responsible? And what of the mysterious Mrs Fairwood, the young widow who claims to be Aislabie's lost daughter?

Far from the ragged comforts of home, Tom and his ward, Sam Fleet, enter a world of elegant surfaces and hidden danger. Someone is determined to punish John Aislabie – and anyone who stands in the way. As the violence escalates and shocking truths are revealed, Tom is dragged inexorably towards the darkest night of his life.

Inspired by real characters, events and settings, A Death at Fountains Abbey is a gripping stand-alone historical thriller. It also continues the story that began with the award-winning The Devil in the Marshalsea and The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins.

THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

To all persons to whom these presents may come greeting be it known that JAMES AGEE has been awarded THE PULITZER PRIZE IN LETTERS FICTION for A DEATH IN THE FAMILY in accordance with the provisions of the statutes of the University governing such award.

In witness whereof we have caused this certificate to be signed by the President of the University and our corporate seal to be hereto affixed in the City of New York on the fifth day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifty eight.

Grayson Kirk

PRESIDENT

James Agee’s novel A Death in the Family is a classic American story, chronicling just a few days in 1915 during which a husband and father is called out of town to be with his own father, who has had a heart attack, and while returning is killed in a car accident. Agee patterned the story closely after his own life, focusing on a boy who is the same age that he was when his father died. The narrative shifts from one perspective to another, including the young widow and her two children and her atheistic father and the dead man’s alcoholic brother, to name just a few, in an attempt to capture the ways in which one person’s loss immediately and powerfully affects everyone around.

The book was published in 1957 by McDowell, Obolensky, two years after Agee’s death from heart failure at the age of 46, and was awarded the 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Although Agee had worked on it for almost a decade, he had not produced a definitive final draft, and so his publishers had to put the book together in a way that they believed would make the most sense. They have indicated places where they added materials that come from outside of the flow of the story, such as the opening section “ Knoxville: Summer, 1915,” which was first published in the 1940s. Critics agree that the end product is a consistent novel, one of the most moving works ever written about one of the most traumatic experiences a child could ever face.

The sins of the past reverberate into the present, in an extraordinary novel by the new master of international suspense.

It was an ordinary-looking photograph. Just the portrait of a man. But the very sight of it chilled Allon to the bone.

Art restorer and sometime spy Gabriel Allon is sent to Vienna to authenticate a painting, but the real object of his search becomes something else entirely: to find out the truth about the photograph that has turned his world upside down. It is the face of the unnamed man who brutalized his mother in the last days of World War II, during the Death March from Auschwitz. But is it really the same one? If so, who is he? How did he escape punishment? Where is he now?

Fueled by an intensity he has not felt in years, Allon cautiously begins to investigate; but with each layer that is stripped away, the greater the evil that is revealed, a web stretching across sixty years and thousands of lives. Soon, the quest for one monster becomes the quest for many. And the monsters are stirring…

Rich with sharply etched characters and prose, and a plot of astonishing intricacy, this is an uncommonly intelligent thriller by one of our very best writers.

From Publishers Weekly

Mayle's breezy, uncomplicated fifth novel (Chasing Cezanne, etc.) and ninth book follows 30-something Max Skinner from a sabotaged financial career in London to his adoption of the Provençal lifestyle on an inherited vineyard in France. Max spent holidays at his Uncle Henry's vineyard as a child, so when he inherits the place, the prospect of returning is tempting; a generous "bridging loan" from ex-brother-in-law Charlie seals the deal. The estate, Le Griffon, is in a dire state of disrepair and the wine cellar is filled with bottles of a dreadful-tasting swill, but it's nothing that vineyard caretaker Claude Roussel and prim housekeeper Madame Passepartout can't resolve. Max settles into his new life easily thanks to the attentions of local notary Nathalie Auzet and busty cafe owner Fanny. The arrival of young Californian "wine brat" Christie Roberts, Uncle Henry's long-lost daughter, complicates matters for Max, but her surprise offer and Charlie's arrival lessen the impact of a vicious vineyard scandal involving a delicious, high-priced, discreetly produced wine called Le Coin Perdu. Mayle's simple story provides lighthearted if unadventurous reading and a fond endorsement of the pleasures of viniculture.

From The Washington Post

Even a hyperactive terrier will sometimes melt to the floor, paws in the air and tongue alop, when he's approached by someone he trusts. But will he get a soul-satisfying belly rub this time or just a quick pat and tickle? The expectant pooch never knows.

So it is for fans of Peter Mayle, who became the adoptive bard of Provence with his phenomenally successful A Year in Provence. Will admirers open the ex-advertising man's ninth book and find the Mayle whose eye for detail and ear for language make for satisfying wallows in the south of France (the original Year, Hotel Pastis, Anything Considered) or the Mayle who sometimes slices the saucisson a bit thin in an effort to perpetuate his franchise (Toujours Provence, Encore Provence)?

The short answer is that A Good Year, Mayle's latest fictional confection, winds up slightly in the latter category. Once again we have the beleaguered Brit at an unhappy crossroad. In Hotel Pastis it was Simon Shaw being stripped bare by his newly minted ex-wife; in Anything Considered it was Bennett, the Brit on his uppers trying to score by flushing toilets in closed-up manor houses to keep an invented strain of dung beetles from invading the plumbing lines (that actually was funny). And once again the sunny south comes to the rescue, with the potential for making a living without losing one's soul, with a rasher of busty, leggy women and, of course, with good food and drink.

But, as the creators of television's "Law and Order" understand, why tamper with a winning formula? And thus are we launched into the marginal life of Max Skinner, a London investment banker suddenly deal-less and jobless on the streets of the City, where the day's weather forecast is for "scattered showers, followed by outbreaks of heavier rain, with a chance of hail."

And all this is followed, in Peter Mayle's classic caper formula, by timely good luck (inheritance, on the very day he loses his job, of a beloved uncle's big old house and vineyard in the hilly Luberon region of Provence), more good luck (dishy village maidens and a languid new lifestyle to explore), a halfway-engaging intrigue (an unknown American rival for the estate and the mysterious interest in vines that seem to produce nothing but pipi de chat – you know, cat pee) and then more good luck (they all drink happily every after). Coming soon to a movie theater near you, thanks to filmmaker Ridley Scott, whose "nose for a good story" got Mayle started on the rather thin plot and who already has "A Good Year" in production.

Are we just being cranky? Maybe. There really is a comfort factor that assures long, profitable lives to characters – fictional detectives, for instance – whose next formula book readers learn to anticipate. But when the formula is presented practically bare-bones, with only cursory attempts at embellishment, heretofore faithful readers may walk away feeling they've been snookered.

Mayle's deftness with detail – grace notes rather than entire imagery-laden passages – has been thoroughly catalogued. But there's detail that moves you right along: "He turned off the N7 toward Rognes and followed the narrow road that twisted through groves of pine and oak, warm air coming through the open window, the sound of Patrick Bruel whispering 'Parlez-moi d'amour' trickling like honey from the radio." (Okay, moves you along with a little huffing and puffing.) And then there's detail that stops you cold: " 'Air France to Marseille?' The girl at the desk didn't even bother to consult her computer. 'Out of luck there, sir. Air France doesn't fly direct to Marseille from London anymore. I could try British Airways.' "

Yes, by all means, please do.

The caper in A Good Year revolves around a mysterious small-batch cult wine that never makes it to the wine store and trades as an investment. But given that the bulk of Mayle's faithful are presumed Francophiles and therefore at least marginally interested in viticulture, the false note on page 90 is perplexing. As Max inspects his vineyard for the first time he finds a piece of his land that "sloped away gently down to the east… the surface appeared to consist entirely of jagged limestone pebbles, blinding white in the sun, warm to the touch, an immense natural radiator. It seemed unlikely that even the most undemanding of weeds could find sufficient nourishment to grow here. And yet the vines appeared to be healthy."

Perhaps Max has never read descriptions of the poor, gravelly soil in many of the finest districts of Bordeaux, source of some of the priciest wines in the world. But those who have done so are doomed to spend the next 197 pages wondering why Mayle would give the game away so early. Kindly interpretation: We're meant to read on, smiling slightly, feeling superior to poor Max. Or, darker thought: Mayle thinks we're clueless enough to fall for this.

Even as venerable a novelist as Graham Greene recognized that lighter fare – Our Man in Havana, Stamboul Train – had a role to play in his life as a writer and ours as readers. He nonetheless flinched slightly, labeling these works "entertainments." As entertaining as Peter Mayle can be, he might aim a bit higher – if not for his own entertainment, then for ours.

Wafer-thin saucisson, oui. Pipi de chat on the rocks? Non!

***

In A Good Year, Max Skinner's London career has just taken a nosedive when he suddenly inherits his uncle's vineyard in Provence. Leaving one life behind to start another, Max soon discovers that the wine made on his uncle's land is swill, but he's captivated by the village, landscape, weather, and the beautiful notaire. He can't understand why the caretaker is so eager to buy the land when the wine is so bad, and then a woman claiming to be his uncle's long-lost daughter arrives from California with her claim on the property. Max's new life threatens to fall out from under him before it can even take off. Peter Mayle (author of A Year in Provence) has written a light-hearted novel that has received positive reviews. BookPage says, "Brimming with colorful, eccentric characters, A Good Year offers both a behind-the-scenes peek at the high-stakes wine business and a voyeuristic portrait of Provencal village life. Richly evocative of the pleasures of both place and palate, Mayle's latest is sure to entertain and delight his many devotees."

Fourteen strangers came to Delmak-O. Thirteen of them were transferred by the usual authorities. One got there by praying. But once they arrived on that planet whose very atmosphere seemed to induce paranoia and psychosis, the newcomers found that even prayer was useless. For on Delmak-O, God is either absent or intent on destroying His creations.

In his early thirties, Greg Baxter found himself in a strange place. He hated his job, he was drinking excessively, he was sabotaging his most important relationships, and he was no longer doing the thing he cared about most: writing. Strangest of all, at this time he started teaching evening classes in creative writing — and his life changed utterly.

A Preparation for Death is a document of the chaos and discovery of that time and of the experiences that led Greg Baxter to that strange place — an extraordinarily intimate account of literary failure (and its consequences), personal decay, and redemption through reading, writing, and truth-telling.

'Brilliant and wonderfully original… Yes, this is a book about drinking and shagging. But rarely have these things been written about so well' William Leith, Literary Review

'Baxter is a serious, thoughtful writer, bend on emotional truth and artistry. He has written an unusual, provocative book' Suzi Feay, Financial Times

'Brave, honest and propulsive' Metro

'The triumph is the steely courage it takes to put a life down with such uncompromising clarity' Hugo Hamilton, Irish Times

'This is an occasionally infuriating and completely wonderful book. I read it in one sitting, unsettled and delighted by its ferocity' Anne Enright

Hannah is returning from a charity luncheon in Washington, DC, when her train is involved in a horrific crash. Although her arm is broken, she remains at the side of her critically injured seatmate until help arrives – but when she is later discharged from hospital, she finds herself in possession of the man's distinctive bag, and her efforts to return it soon set in motion a chain of events that put her life in grave danger.

A country house whodunnit introducing Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James. Kincaid's holiday in Yorkshire turns sinister when one of the hotel guests is found murdered in the hotel's whirlpool bath. Ably assisted by Gemma, Kincaid sets out to track down a surprising killer.

The real star of this gripping and beautifully written mystery which won the British Crime Writers' Golden Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel last year is Portugal, whose history and people come to life on every page. Wilson tells two stories: the investigation into the brutal sex murder of a 15-year-girl in 1998, and the tangled, bloody saga of a financial enterprise that begins with the Nazis in 1941. Although the two stories seem unrelated, both are so strong and full of fascinating characters that readers' attention and their faith that they will eventually be connected should never waver. The author creates three compelling protagonists: middle-aged detective Jose Coelho, better known as Ze; Ze's late British wife, whom he met while exiled in London with his military officer father during the anti-Salazar political uprisings of the 1970s; and Ze's wise, talented and sexually active 16-year-old daughter. The first part of the WWII story focuses on an ambitious, rough-edged but likeable Swabian businessman, Klaus Felsen, convinced by the Gestapo to go to Portugal and seize the lion's share of that country's supply of tungsten, vital to the Nazi war effort. Later, we meet Manuel Abrantes, a much darker and more dangerous character, who turns out to be the main link between the past and the present. As Ze sifts through the sordid circumstances surrounding the murder of the promiscuous daughter of a powerful, vindictive lawyer, Wilson shines a harsh light on contemporary Portuguese society. Then, in alternating chapters, he shows how and why that society developed. All this and a suspenseful mystery who could ask for more?

Another Perry mystery that highlights the frustrating status of women in Victorian England. The story hinges on society's low opinion of nurses and of both single and married women who seek abortions. A talented nurse is found strangled, and Inspector Monk and his friends, a nurse and a lawyer, follow the clues to see that the murderer will hang. It is difficult to decide which element is the author's true forte-the details of everyday life or the suspenseful courtroom dialogues. The plot has many twists and turns. Readers may suspect some of the answers, but surprises continue right until the last page. The opening chapters place readers in a subplot that provides background on different characters. The shift in the action is slightly confusing as these people are rarely mentioned again. However, Perry fans will not be disappointed, and newcomers will be entertained by a good mystery as they enter the world of Victorian high society.

Park ranger Anna Pigeon returns, in a mystery that unfolds in and around Lake Superior, in whose chilling depths sunken treasure comes with a deadly price. In her latest mystery, Nevada Barr sends Ranger Pigeon to a new post amid the cold, deserted, and isolated beauty of Isle Royale National Park, a remote island off the coast of Michigan known for fantastic deep-water dives of wrecked sailing vessels. Leaving behind memories of the Texas high desert and the environmental scam she helped uncover, Anna is adjusting to the cool damp of Lake Superior and the spirits and lore of the northern Midwest. But when a routine application for a diving permit reveals a grisly underwater murder, Anna finds herself 260 feet below the forbidding surface of the lake, searching for the connection between a drowned man and an age-old cargo ship. Written with a naturalist's feel for the wilderness and a keen understanding of characters who thrive in extreme conditions, A Superior Death is a passionate, atmospheric page-turner.

Amazon.com Review

Who hasn't dreamed, on a mundane Monday or frowzy Friday, of chucking it all in and packing off to the south of France? Provençal cookbooks and guidebooks entice with provocatively fresh salads and azure skies, but is it really all Côtes-du-Rhône and fleur-de-lis? Author Peter Mayle answers that question with wit, warmth, and wicked candor in A Year in Provence, the chronicle of his own foray into Provençal domesticity.

Beginning, appropriately enough, on New Year's Day with a divine luncheon in a quaint restaurant, Mayle sets the scene and pits his British sensibilities against it. "We had talked about it during the long gray winters and the damp green summers," he writes, "looked with an addict's longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreamed of being woken up by the sun slanting through the bedroom window." He describes in loving detail the charming, 200-year-old farmhouse at the base of the Lubéron Mountains, its thick stone walls and well-tended vines, its wine cave and wells, its shade trees and swimming pool-its lack of central heating. Indeed, not 10 pages into the book, reality comes crashing into conflict with the idyll when the Mistral, that frigid wind that ravages the Rhône valley in winter, cracks the pipes, rips tiles from the roof, and tears a window from its hinges. And that's just January.

In prose that skips along lightly, Mayle records the highlights of each month, from the aberration of snow in February and the algae-filled swimming pool of March through the tourist invasions and unpredictable renovations of the summer months to a quiet Christmas alone. Throughout the book, he paints colorful portraits of his neighbors, the Provençaux grocers and butchers and farmers who amuse, confuse, and befuddle him at every turn. A Year in Provence is part memoir, part homeowner's manual, part travelogue, and all charming fun. – L.A. Smith

From Publishers Weekly

An account of the author's first frustrating but enlightening year in Provence opens with a memorable New Year's lunch and closes with an impromptu Christmas dinner. "In nimble prose, Mayle… captures the humorous aspects of visits to markets, vineyards and goat races, and hunting for mushrooms," said PW.

***

One of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors, A Year in Provence is a light-hearted autobiography as well as a travel/restaurant guide and cultural study of the south of France. Peter Mayle, once a British businessman, has finally chucked it all and bought a house in Provence with his wife and two dogs. He recounts a year of their adventures living and working amid the French, including daily struggles with the strong Provençal accent, the nosiness of neighbors, and the self-proclaimed experts on everything from geophysics to truffle hunting. His humorous yet affectionate approach will make you long for France, particularly the south, whether or not you've ever been there.

You won't be able to stop laughing when you read about the author's discovery of French bureaucracy and the bone-chilling winter wind called the Mistral, his desperate tactical maneuvering to get his house remodeled, and the hordes of rude tourists. You'll be tickled by his observations of French greetings and body language. You'll love his French neighbors and hate his English friends. And you will be starving after reading his mouth-watering descriptions of dozens of restaurants and dinner parties.

Whether you are interested in learning more about French, "the Hexagon," or cuisine française, A Year in Provence is the book to get you started on your cultural discovery of the south of France. The best discovery of all is that Peter Mayle continues to write about Provence, both non-fiction and novels. You will definitely want to seek out all of his books and continue learning about the people, traditions, and food of southern France.

Laura K. Lawless

It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the first death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why-before the police do.

Lawrence Block weaves his spell in this suspenseful taleof a man haunted by murders he hopes he hasn¹tcommitted… It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the first death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why? before the police do.

In An Easeful Death, someone is killing beautiful young women and taking extraordinary risks to carefully pose their painted bodies in public places. The first is bronze, then silver who will be gold? Detective Sergeant Stevie Hooper, young, hard-edged and newly seconded to the Serious Crime Squad, finds herself haunted by increasingly disturbing flashbacks as the bizarre case unfolds. And, as she closes in on the killer, the carefully drawn line between her professional and personal life becomes increasingly blurred, till she doesnt know who can be trusted.

The Seventh Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew.

Cambridge, March 1354, and the cause of murder is once more on the minds of physician Matthew Bartholomew and his colleague Brother Michael.

It is a time of division and denomination at the great University. The Carmelites and the Dominicans are at theological loggerheads, so much so that the more fanatical members are willing to swap rational judgement for a deadlier form of debate. And no sooner is Carmelite friar Faricius found stabbed than a Junior Proctor is found hanging from the walls of the Dominican Friary.

What was Faricius doing out when he had not been given permission to wander? How are the nuns at the nearby convent of St Radegund involved? And who is brokering trouble between Cambridge and its rival University at Oxford? The longer their enquiries go on, the more Bartholomew and Michael realise that the murders are less to do with high-minded academic principles, and more to do with far baser instincts.

They call themselves “January 30”, after the date of a British massacre in Belfast. They are the enemies of peace – and they are plotting an assassination that will shatter the uneasy truce that reigns in Ireland. Former IRA enforcer Sean Dillon must hunt down January 30 before they kill again – before they spark a war.

Commissario Brunetti's hopes of a refreshing holiday with his family are dashed when a body is found in Marghera so badly beaten that the face is unrecognizable. Brunetti searches in vain for someone who can identify the body. Then he receives a call promising some tantalizing information.

Topf and Sons designed and built the crematoria at the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, Belzec, Dachau, Mauthausen and Gusen. At its height sixty-six Topf triple muffle ovens were in operation – forty-six of which were at Auschwitz.

In five years the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz had been the engine of the holocaust, facilitating the murder and incineration of more than one million people, most of them Jews.

Yet such a spectacularly evil feat of engineering was designed not by the Nazi SS, but by a small respectable firm of German engineers: the owners and engineers of J. A. Topf and Sons. These were not Nazi sadists, but men who were playboys and the sons of train drivers. They were driven not by ideology, but by love affairs, personal ambition and bitter personal rivalries to create the ultimate human killing and disposal machines – even at the same time as their company sheltered Nazi enemies from the death camps.

The intense conflagration of their very ordinary motives created work that surpassed in its inhumanity even the demands of the SS. In order to fulfil their own ‘dreams’ they created the ultimate human nightmare.

About the Author

KAREN BARTLETT is a writer and journalist based in London. She has written extensively for the Sunday Times, The Times, The Guardian, and WIRED from Africa, India, and the US, and has presented and produced for BBC Radio. Most recently, she worked with Eva Schloss, writing her Sunday Times bestselling autobiography After Auschwitz: A Story of Heartbreak and Survival by the Stepsister of Anne Frank.

In the latest Richard Nottingham historical mystery, the Constable must track down a predatory child-killer roaming the city.   

Leeds, 1733. Three children are found dead in a disused bell pit, their bodies battered and bruised, each of them stabbed through the heart. Fear, suspicion and violence tear at the city as Richard Nottingham, John Sedgwick and Rob Lister hunt a ruthless child-killer. The Constable is certain he knows who’s behind the murders, but his efforts to bring the killer to justice brings a blow that strikes right at his own heart.

Рассказ вошёл в сборники:

Quicker Than The Eye (В мгновение ока)

At the luxurious Roarke Palace Hotel, a maid walks into suite 4602 for the nightly turndown- and steps into her worst nightmare. A killer leaves her dead, strangled by a thin silver wire. He’s Sly Yost, a virtuoso of music and murder. A hit man for the elite. Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows him well. But in this twisted case, knowing the killer doesn’t help solve the crime. Because there’s someone else involved. Someone with a more personal motive. And Eve must face a terrifying possibility-that the real target may, in fact, be her husband Roarke…

Tricia Miles, owner of the Haven’t Got a Clue bookstore, must solve her own mystery when a bestselling author is found dead in the washroom.

From Publishers Weekly

Set in New York City in 2060, bestseller Roberts's latest police thriller under her Robb pseudonym in her Lt. Eve Dallas series (Naked in Death, etc.) offers her usual engaging characters. Dallas's investigation of the brutal murders of Natalie Copperfield, a 26-year-old accountant, and Copperfield's boyfriend becomes entangled with the search for Tandy Willowby, a pregnant friend who mysteriously vanishes shortly before her due date. Dallas discovers that Copperfield had stumbled on some white-collar fraud at her high-profile accounting firm, while Willowby's disappearance may be part of a series of abductions. Predictably, the two cases converge, and the mystery's solution becomes obvious. Newcomers, who may be dismayed at how little things will have changed in more than 50 years, would do better to start with earlier books in this near-future suspense series.

Lieutenant Eve Dallas is no party girl, but she's managing to have a reasonably good time at the celebrity-packed bash celebrating The Icove Agenda, a film based on one of her famous cases. It's a little spooky seeing the actress playing her, who looks almost like her long-lost twin. Not as unsettling, though, as seeing the actress who plays Peabody drowned in the lap pool on the roof of the director's luxury building. Now she's at the center of a crime scene-and Eve is more than ready to get out of her high heels and strap on her holster and step into the role she was born to play: cop.

Conducting a top secret investigation into the death of a fellow police officer has Lieutenant Eve Dallas treading on dangerous ground. She must put professional ethics before personal loyalties. But when a dead body is placed outside her home, Eve takes the warnning personally. With her husband, Roarke, watching her every move, Eve is drawn into the most dangerous case of her career. Every step she takes makes her question her own beliefs of right and wrong-and brings her closer to a confrontation with humanity's most seductive form of evil…

Eve and Rourke return to investigate a series of murders connected to a brilliant young surgeon in Chaos in Death.

Josie Prescotts friends thought she was nuts when she left her high-paying New York auction house job to live on the beautiful New Hampshire coast. Truth is, Josie wondered herselfnevermind that her peripheral involvement in a high profile price-fixing scandal made the idea of a new start enticing. And things are looking upthat is, until she gets mixed up in murder, and the eligible but emotionally distant local police chief pegs her as a suspect. Josie suddenly has a lot to lose, and no desire to leave her new lifeand the possibility of a little romancebehind. So she sets out to find the killer. After all, Josie is grateful for her second chance…even with a killer on the loose.

Amazon.com Review

Streetwise cop Eve Dallas and her trusty sidekick Peabody face a methodical killer in this latest addition to the In Death series by J.D. Robb, better known as the bestselling author Nora Roberts.

In the late 21st century, on the streets of New York City, a street sleeper is found murdered, his diseased heart removed with surgical precision. His death would typically drop to the bottom of a list of senseless and inexplicable killings, but Lieutenant Dallas, who "would stand for the dead and the living," is not about to let that happen. When her research uncovers similar crimes in several cities that were dropped under mysterious circumstances, Dallas knows she's facing a killer cruel enough to prey on the weakest in society and powerful enough to conspire an extensive coverup.

To complicate matters further, Dallas faces an equally troubling threat to her career when she's linked to the death of a fellow cop. Now she must fight to restore her good name as well as track down the killer.

In Conspiracy in Death, Roberts creates a futuristic world of evil that Eve Dallas negotiates through tough talk and brute force. While Robb crafts the crimes with great care, she assumes a familiarity with the characters that new readers will lack. But fans of the In Death series and newcomers alike will enjoy the thrill of the chase as Eve Dallas sets out to get her man.

Wolfe is hired by a society party planner to find out who is writing poison pen letters about her and sending them to her clients and potential clients. Since it appears that the letters are coming from a member of the party planner’s household, Archie is sent up to her Riverdale mansion to investigate. The client dies a few days into the investigation. Was it an accident or murder? Is there a connection between the death and the letters? If it was murder how was it done?

Lieutenant Eve Dallas keeps the streets of New York City safe in this extraordinary series. But even she makes mistakes, and is haunted by those she couldn't save – and the killers she couldn't capture. When the body of a young brunette is found in East River Park, artfully positioned and marked by signs of prolonged and painful torture, Eve is catapulted back to nine years ago. A man the media tagged "The Groom" – because he put silver rings on the fingers of his victims – had the city on edge with a killing spree that took the lives of four women in fifteen days. But now, The Groom has returned – and Eve's determined to finish him. Familiar with his methods, Eve knows that he has already grabbed his next victim. Time is running out on another woman's life. When it turns out that the dead woman was employed by Eve's billionaire husband, Roarke, she brings him onto the case – a move that proves fitting when it becomes chillingly clear that the killer has made it personal. The victim was washed in products from a store Roarke owns, and laid out on a sheet his company manufactures. And chances are that he's working up to the biggest challenge of his illustrious career – abducting a woman who will test his skills on every level and who promises to give him days and days of pleasure before she dies: Eve.

Secret government operative Sasha Trudeau arrives at the scene of a murder, only to discover that a Fae creature has been killed – in a whole new kind of way. What is the meaning behind this mysterious ritualistic killing? What did the victim do to deserve it? Sasha fears that the Vampires and Unseelies have formed an unholy alliance.and they're ready to unleash their darkest arsenal of magick yet.

Teaming up with her mate and fellow Shadow Wolf, Max Hunter, Sasha tries to penetrate the paranormal community for clues. Meanwhile, members of the Wolf Clan are turning against one another as they race to uncover the meaning behind an ancient Unseelie curse. Even Sasha is not immune to this powerful magick, and soon finds herself drawn to a sensual, dangerous dance – one that could cost her own life.

Agent Pendergast has become one of crime fiction's most endearing characters. His greatest enemy is one who has stalked him all of his life, his cunning and diabolical brother Diogenes. And Diogenes has thrown down the gauntlet. Now, several of the people closest to Pendergast are viciously murdered, and Pendergast is framed for the deeds. On the run from federal authorities, with only the help of his old friend NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, Pendergast must stop his brother. But how can he stop a man that is his intellectual equal-one who has had 20 years to plan the world's most horrendous crime?

Overkill

The heat's on. Bodies are strewn acrosss the Sunbelt. Who they are and where they came from is shrouded in mystery. The casualties are still mounting when Remo and Chiun come to cool things off - unprepared for the discoveries that await them there, like the impregnable mountain fortress where 242 beautiful senoritas are being imprisoned. And the insidious plot that has them earmarked as gifts for America's most powerful men. And the blackmail that's sure to follow..

Rescue operations begin at once, with Remo's job-and life-on the line, as he and his mentor tackle a new Old West that's wilder than the shootout at the O.K. Corral!

A footman should not be dancing when on duty. But suppose he does — what will be the consequences for the solving of a murder puzzle?

Рассказ вошёл в сборники:

The Machineries of Joy (Механизмы радости)

Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (Сборник ста лучших рассказов)

With an abandoned degree behind her and a thirtieth birthday approaching, amateur writer Bonnie Falls moves out of her parents’ home into a nearby flat. Her landlady, Sylvia Slythe, takes an interest in Bonnie, encouraging her to finish one of her stories, in which a young woman moves to the seaside, where she comes under strange influences. As summer approaches, Sylvia suggests to Bonnie that, as neither of them has anyone else to go on holiday with, they should go away together — to the seaside, perhaps.

The new novel from the author of the Man Booker-shortlisted The Lighthouse is a tense and moreish confection of semiotics, suggestibility and creative writing with real psychological depth and, in Bonnie Falls and Sylvia Slythe, two unforgettable characters.

After she double-crosses her lover, a ruthless crime lord, Drea must flee from a relentless assassin who ultimately succeeds in killing her. But after a very brief death, Drea returns to life a changed woman: no longer selfish and cruel, determined to bring down the ones who marked her for death. Joining forces with the FBI, little does she suspect that the man she will come to love is the same assassin who took her life.

Perennial New York Times bestselling crime novelist Linda Fairstein explores the rich – and little-known – history of New York's City's Central Park in her latest Alexandra Cooper novel, Death Angel.

In her fourteen bestsellers, Linda Fairstein has enthralled millions of fans with her trademark style that infuses fascinating New York City history with breathtaking suspense. She continually creates some of the most authentic and compelling crime thrillers of our time thanks in part to her extensive experience as a New York City prosecutor.

With Death Angel, Fairstein takes readers into the storied history of New York's Central Park as Assistant DA Alex Cooper and Detective Mike Chapman race to track down a serial killer before yet another young woman is found dead. Is the body found in the Ramble the first victim of a deranged psychopath, or are other missing women in years past whose remains have never been found connected to this savage attack? Is this enormous urban park a sanctuary in the middle of the city – as it seems to the thousands of New Yorkers and tourists who fill it every day – or is it a hunting ground for a killer with a twisted mind?

Once again, Linda Fairstein will thrill both longtime fans and new readers with an explosive page-turner filled with a shocking realism that only she can deliver.

The debut thriller in the internationally acclaimed series – available for the first time in the United States

A long-time number one bestseller in his native Sweden, Åke Edwardson's profile was conspicuously raised when his novel Frozen Tracks was chosen as a finalist for a 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Until now, however, the novel that launched Edwardson's critically acclaimed Erik Winter series has never been available in the United States. With a new series translator who fully captures Edwardson's signature atmospheric style, Death Angels is America's introduction to Sweden's youngest Chief Inspector as he teams up with Scotland Yard to solve the mysterious parallel killings of young British and Swedish tourists. Richly evocative of mid-nineties South London and Gothenburg, Sweden, Death Angels is a brilliant opening to a mesmerizing series that has become a phenomenon in international crime fiction.

***

“A crime novel with snappy dialogue, depth and-most important of all-suspense from beginning to end.” – Morala Vadstena Tidning (Sweden)

“Edwardson will not be hampered by the constraints of the crime genre… with his sharp dialogue… and a backdrop of darkness that recalls the early works of James Ellroy, one must proclaim Åke Edwardson a master of the Scandinavian detective novel.” – Le Monde des Livres (France)

“A read which even on a really warm July day sends cold shivers down my spine… Edwardson’s language is vivid and full of nuance.” – Hufvudstadsbladet (Finland)

“A fast, sleek, hard ballad.” – Die Welt (Germany)

“Clever, exciting, atmospheric!” – Der Spiegel (Germany)

There's plenty of excitement at Epsom Downs, as Lord Charles Sheridan and his American wife, Kate, watch the races from a box shared by Jennie Jerome Churchill and world-renowned actress, mistress and horse-trader Lillie Langtry. But the real excitement comes that evening, when Charles is called to investigate both the death of a Derby jockey and the theft of Lillie Langtry's jewels. Before long, there are no safe bets as Kate and Charles are pulled into Lillie Langtry's reckless social world, where lords and ladies run neck and neck with thieves and murderers-and the race for justice stands to be a photo finish.

In an unnamed country on the first day of the new year, people stop dying. Amid the general public, there is great celebration: flags are hung out on balconies and people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity – eternal life. Death is on strike. Soon though, the residents begin to suffer. For several months undertakers face bankruptcy, the church is forced to reinvent its doctrine, and local ‘maphia’ smuggle those on the brink of death over the border where they can expire naturally.

Death does return eventually, but with a new courteous approach – delivering violet warning letters to her victims. But what can death do when a letter is unexpectedly returned?

Among the guests at the Plume of Feathers on the memorable evening of the murder were a West End matinée idol, a successful portrait painter, an Oxford-educated farmer’s daughter, a radical organizer and assorted rustics and villagers. Each of them had an opportunity to place the deadly poison on the dart that seemingly had been the instrument of murder. But no one admitted seeing any suspicious movement on the part of anyone else. And what exactly had been the method of the killer? This was the problem Inspector Alleyn had to solve — and he does so with all of his accustomed verve and brilliance.

Thea Campbell goes out for revenge when the one person who is the most likely and least likely candidate for thief steals her horse. But Olympic hopeful Valerie Parsons is past caring about being arrested. She’s dead. At first Thea’s horse is assumed to have killed the woman, but when the coroner determines it was a human hand and not a horse’s hoof that ended Valerie’s li…more

Yoshio Kita’s hopelessness and lack of faith in his future crystallizes into a decision to commit suicide by what he calls ‘capital punishment at free will’, meaning his only pressing problem now is how to spend both his remaining self-allocated seven days on earth and all his worldly money. From fine dining with a former porn actress to insuring his life, from pursuing an ex-girlfriend to an entanglement with an assassin, Yoshio’s last seven days on earth take on unexpected twists and turns in this darkly comic exploration of the cult of suicide in Japan and the culture that has created it.

Ordinarily, Charleston's Indigo Tea Shop is an oasis of calm. But when tea shop owner, Theodosia Browning, caters the annual Lamplighter Tour of historic homes, one of the patrons turns up dead.  Never mind that it's Hughes Barron, a slightly scurrilous real estate developer. Theodosia's reputation is suddenly on the line. Aided by her friends and fellow tea shop entrepreneurs, Theo sets about to unravel the mystery of the deadly Darjeeling and encounters a number of likely suspects. 

Tanner Joseph, the fiery environmentalist, held a grudge against the developer for his misuse of land. Timothy Neville, the octogenarian majordomo for the Heritage Society, opposed Hughes Barron's election to the board. And Barron's unsavory partner might very well profit from a cleverly written buy-sell agreement!

On the rugged, wild, eastern shore of Barbados, Cindy and Clint are enjoying their dream honeymoon, when paradise quickly turns into hell. Cindy finds her newly beloved taken away from her, drowned in a freak accident in the ocean. The local police are quick to declare it an accident, to insist that he was caught in a sudden riptide. But Cindy, left all alone, is not convinced. Cindy must return to her and Clint's now-empty home in New York and face her in-laws, who never wanted Clint to marry her, and who did everything to make her engagement and wedding hell. She must deal with all of these women's backbiting, gossiping and unspoken accusations, while she tries to get a handle on her own grief and to get clear on what really happened to Clint.

Bartulin’s debut is an old-fashioned mystery with lots of snappy dialogue and a noir atmosphere. A second-hand book dealer in Australia, Jack just wants a quiet life among his beloved books and far away from his former work as a Mob driver. Broke and with his store struggling, Jack accepts a commission from a local magnate to locate and buy all known copies of any books by a relatively unknown and out-of-print poet. But Jack isn’t the only one tracking down the books, and the businessman drives a tough bargain. The Australian setting doesn’t make a strong impression, but that is more than made up for by the well-rounded and believable characters. With a fast pace and a noir tone, this is bound to appeal to a wide audience of mystery readers but will be especially popular with book lovers and fans of John Dunning’s Cliff Janeway series. A strong debut and a promising series.

Kenzaburo Oe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today." In Death by Water, his recurring protagonist and literary alter-ego returns to his hometown village in search of a red suitcase fabled to hold documents revealing the details of his father’s death during WWII: details that will serve as the foundation for his new, and final, novel.

Since his youth, renowned novelist Kogito Choko planned to fictionalize his father’s fatal drowning in order to fully process the loss. Stricken with guilt and regret over his failure to rescue his father, Choko has long been driven to discover why his father was boating on the river in a torrential storm. Though he remembers overhearing his father and a group of soldiers discussing an insurgent scheme to stage a suicide attack on Emperor Mikado, Choko cannot separate his memories from imagination and his family is hesitant to reveal the entire story. When the contents of the trunk turn out to offer little clarity, Choko abandons the novel in creative despair. Floundering as an artist, he’s haunted by fear that he may never write his tour de force. But when he collaborates with an avant-garde theater troupe dramatizing his early novels, Kogito is revitalized by revisiting his formative work and he finds the will to continue investigating his father’s demise.

Diving into the turbulent depths of legacy and mortality, Death by Water is an exquisite examination of resurfacing national and personal trauma, and the ways that storytelling can mend political, social, and familial rifts.

The second novel in the Oslo Crime Files, a tense and dark quartet of thrillers for fans of Camilla Lackberg and Jo Nesbo.

Psychologist Mailin Bjerke is due to appear on the notorious TV show Taboo, tackling its most sensational subject yet. But she never arrives at the studio.

As the police struggle to find any sign of Mailin, her sister Liss, living on the edge in Amsterdam, takes matters into her own hands. Flying home to Olso, she discovers a complex backdrop of friends and enemies, where no one can be relied upon to tell the truth. Her battle is made harder by the fractured memories of a childhood where Mailin was always her protector and by the secrets she must keep hidden. And she has no idea that Mailin's disappearance is somehow connected to a chance meeting more than a decade before…

The big brains behind the business usually have many pots boiling on their stove, or running their think engines as the case may be. But when the business motto of the Brewster forum, "Pursuing Research Into Original Thought", leads them to some eccentric affairs that throw them far enough off track, Remo Williams enlists the help of his Master Chiun to solve a harrowing crime.

Ein turbulenter Sommer wird den 15jährigen Sherlock Holmes für immer verändern: Ein Mord, eine Entführung, Korruption und ein sehr finsterer Schurke werden ihm das Leben schwer machen.

Über Andrew Lane

Andrew Lane ist der Autor von mehr als zwanzig Büchern, unter anderem Romanen zu bekannten TV-Serien wie ›Doctor Who‹, ›Torchwood‹ und ›Randall & Hopkirk - Detektei mit Geist‹. Einige davon hat er unter Pseudonym veröffentlicht. Er hat außerdem für die ›Radio Times‹ und den ›TV Guide‹ geschrieben. Andrew Lane lebt mit seiner Frau, seinem Sohn und einer riesigen Sammlung von Sherlock Holmes Büchern in Dorset. ›Young Sherlock Holmes - Death Cloud‹ ist der erste Band der Serie über das Leben des jugendlichen Meisterdetektivs. Weitere Bände sind in Vorbereitung.

Die englische Originalausgabe erschien 2010 unter dem Titel ›Young Sherlock Holmes - Death Cloud‹ bei Macmillan Children’s Books, London, England

Aus dem Englischen von Christian Dreller

A rare meeting of literary genius: P. D. James, long among the most admired mystery writers of our time, draws the characters of Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride and Prejudice into a tale of murder and emotional mayhem.

It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcy’s magnificent estate. Their peaceful, orderly world seems almost unassailable. Elizabeth has found her footing as the chatelaine of the great house. They have two fine sons, Fitzwilliam and Charles. Elizabeth’s sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby; her father visits often; there is optimistic talk about the prospects of marriage for Darcy’s sister Georgiana. And preparations are under way for their much-anticipated annual autumn ball.

Then, on the eve of the ball, the patrician idyll is shattered. A coach careens up the drive carrying Lydia, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister, who with her husband, the very dubious Wickham, has been banned from Pemberley. She stumbles out of the carriage, hysterical, shrieking that Wickham has been murdered. With shocking suddenness, Pemberley is plunged into a frightening mystery.

Inspired by a lifelong passion for Austen, P. D. James masterfully re-creates the world of Pride and Prejudice, electrifying it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly crafted crime story, as only she can write it.

In “Death Comes To The Torpedo Factory”, World War II has been over for years and an old Torpedo Factory is now used to store government documents – including classified records from the campaign against Nazi Germany. In 1971, a lowly clerk stumbles upon a file with explosive photographs that, if made public, could ruin a prominent local family. When the photographs disappear, the hunt for them attracts a motley assortment of characters – including a former German intelligence agent and an old school gumshoe – with deadly consequences.

From Publishers Weekly

Reunited with fellow Manhattan crime scene investigators Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, brazen, outspoken Alexandra Cooper, assistant DA for the sex crimes prosecution unit, tackles the case of a murdered dancer with the Royal Ballet. While it was no secret that "world-renowned" Russian ballerina Natalya Galinova had a bad attitude and a cuckolded husband, that she was tossed, undetected, into the cooling unit at the Metropolitan Opera House still comes as a shock, even to a whole slew of suspects, among them her agent, Rinaldo; Broadway kingpin and voyeur Joe Berk; Berk's shady niece Mona; and the Met's slippery artistic director, Chet Dobbis. Varied clues paired with the fascinating theatrical spadework involved in the opera business lead to a sidewalk electrocution and several sabotaged stage sets. As additional suspects are tacked on, concurrent evidence and motives surface and the stage becomes increasingly deadly for everyone involved, especially Alex. Running alongside is a rape subplot involving an elusive Turkish doctor, and an unsolved urban assault case. Despite the overcrowded plot, this whodunit manages to pirouette to a satisfying climax just as the curtain drops. Fairstein (Entombed) fans will undoubtedly demand an encore.

Was it an accident? Or suicide? Or murder?

When 12-year-old David is found blindfolded and dead at the bottom of a ship's hold while on a school outing, the headmaster claims the tragedy was due to an accident. But the boy's father begins his own investigation and very quickly he uncovers a tawdry and messy web of secrecy, jealousy and cover-up.

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell cuts a new edge in suspense with this thrilling tale of passion, danger, and international intrigue in which a pair of former operatives must stop a deadly plot that threatens a major American city – and ultimately the world

When she joined St. Kilda's, the elite security consulting firm, Emma Cross thought she'd left behind the blood, the guilt, and the tribal wars that defined her life at the CIA. Yet, trading spying for investigating yacht thefts didn't alleviate the danger – or melt away her professional paranoia. Now, the same good instincts that got her into trouble at the agency might be what will help her survive her latest case.

With some arm-twisting, St. Kilda and Emma are tracking a yacht named Blackbird, a dead ringer for another ship that went missing somewhere between Vladivostok and Portland a year earlier. Emma knows the boat's intended cargo is lethal. What she needs to find out is whether it's biological, chemical, or fissionable. And she's only got seven days to uncover the truth… or a major American city will be lost.

Fortunately, she's working with a new partner as menacing and distrustful as the worst enemy she's ever faced – and as deadly. A honed killer, MacKenzie Durand led a special ops team that was deployed to some of the world's nastiest places. But five years ago everything went to hell in Afghanistan, when bad intel hung his team out to dry. The only survivor, Mac walked away and never looked back, preferring to make money sailing high-end boats like Blackbird.

But Emma and Mac aren't the only eyes watching Blackbird. Taras Demidov, an expert in extortion and execution in the pay of the oligarchs running the former Soviet Union, is also waiting in the shadows, determined to intercept a fearsomely powerful arms dealer with the money, weaponry, and connections to alter the geopolitical balance.

Thrown together by an organization of enemies with global ties more dangerous than either of them realize, Mac and Emma must put aside their growing attraction for each other to save more than just their own lives. In a deadly game where the rules change without warning and the line between friend and foe is blurred, the pair must find answers fast – or watch as innocent civilians are sacrificed in a cold-blooded grab for power and supremacy. And even Mac and Emma aren't sure just who will get to the finish line alive…

A breathtaking tale of passion and danger, Death Echo is superb entertainment from the queen of suspense, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell.

When a necromancer is murdered, a magician takes the case

Freelance scribe Ross Harte is working on an essay about the sad state of the modern mystery novel when a scream comes from the hallway: “There is death in that room!” Harte finds a trio of conjurers trying to get into the apartment of his neighbor, the mysterious Dr. Cesare Sabbat, famed occultist and, for the past few minutes, a corpse.

They break down the door to find Sabbat lying in a pentagram, face twisted from the agonies of strangulation, but with no bruises on his neck. All the doors were locked, and the windows drop straight down to the river below. Only an escape artist could get out of that room, and Sabbat knew quite a few. To make sense of this misdirected muddle, the police bring in the Great Merlini, an illusionist whose specialty is making mysteries disappear.

Sheng Keyi was born in Hunan province in 1973 and lives in Beijing. Death Fugue is her sixth novel, and the second to be published in English translation, after Northern Girls (2012). It is a brave work of speculative fiction, a cross between Cloud Atlas and 1984, scathing in its irony, ingenious in its use of allegory, and acute in its understanding of the power of writing. The imagination that drives it is exuberant and unconstrained.

In a large square in the centre of Beiping, the capital of Dayang, a huge tower of excrement appears one day, causing unease in the population, and ultimately widespread civil unrest. The protest, in which poets play an important part, is put down violently. Haunted by the violence, and by his failure to support his girlfriend Qizi, who is one of the protest leaders, Yuan Mengliu gives up poetry in favour of medicine, and the antiseptic environment of the operating theatre. But every year he travels in search of Qizi, and on one of these trips, caught in a storm, he wakes to find himself in a perfect society called Swan Valley. In this utopia, as he soon discovers, impulse and feeling are completely controlled, and every aspect of life regulated for the good of the nation, with terrible consequences.

Colonel John Sheppard knows it's going to be a bad day when he wakes up in a downed Jumper with a head wound and no memory of how he got there.

Things don't get any better.

Concussed, far from the Stargate, and with his only remaining team mate, Teyla, injured, Sheppard soon finds himself a prisoner of the local population. And as he gradually pieces the situation together he realises that his team is scattered across a tropical archipelago, unable to communicate with each other or return to the Stargate. And to make matters worse, there's a Wraith cruiser in the skies above…

Meanwhile, Ronon and Doctor Zelenka find themselves in an unlikely partnership as they seek a way off their island and back to the Stargate. And Doctor McKay? He just wants to get the Stargate working…

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When a quaint Pennsylvania town hosts a Civil War reenactment, only the blood will be real…

How does a once-hip New Yorker get used to living in a quaint Pennsylvania town famous for its gooey, oversized sticky buns? For Tori Miracle, it means kissing her diet good-bye, always showing up in the wrong clothes, and struggling with a love life. And now that she's filling in for the editor of the Lickin Creek Chronicle and has the town newspaper to look after as well as her own dear fastidious felines, sometimes it means cosponsoring public events like a Civil War reenactment for the local women's college.

But when this charmingly authentic reenactment is done, and each man and woman has played his or her part to the hilt, it's clear that Tori has miscalculated again. Someone used one live bullet in an antique gun. And with a man dead, it's going to be up to the only city slicker in Lickin Creek to unravel a mystery of murder in a town where calories don't count, but murder does…

A nice writing style and considerable wit. – Chicago Tribune

Wit is Wolzien's strong suit… Her portrayal of small-town life will prompt those of us in similar situations to agree that we too have been there and done that. – The Mystery Review

Domestic mysteries, with their emphasis on everyday people and everyday events, are very popular and the Susan Henshaw stories are some of the best in this subgenre. – Romantic Times

For Susan and Jed Henshaw and their friends Kathleen and Jerry Gordon, the tiny Caribbean resort called Compass Bay has everything. White sand, luxurious cottages, rum punches to die for?even a gorgeous unattached blonde ornamenting the premises.

But Kathleen and Jerry are having marital problems?and when the mysterious blonde turns up murdered, the cloud hanging over their little paradise grows black indeed. It turns out that the victim is the once-frumpy sister of Jerry?s first wife. Many years ago, Susan, Jed, and Jerry had known her well, and the island police don?t believe it?s coincidence that she appeared at Compass Bay at the same time as her old friends. Nor does Susan, who shifts into investigative red alert?and finds a serpent in Eden, its fangs loaded with venom…

A murder in aristocratic circles. The seventh mystery in Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn series.

The Lodge of the Golden Windhorse has provided the citizens of Compton Dando with splendid fodder for gossip, prompting speculation of arcane rituals and bizarre sexual practices. But with the murder of the commune's leaders, the rumor-mill goes into overdrive. It's the most exciting thing to happen in Compton Dando since three boys burned down the bus shelter. In trying to solve those murders, Chief Inspector Barnaby is less excited than exasperated. The residents of the Windhorse commune may have been seeking the simple life, but they're all concealing complicated pasts - or past lives.

DOUBLE THE LOVE, DOUBLE THE DEATH

Susan Henshaw and her husband, Jeb, are the proud grandparents of beautiful twins, and their daughter and son-in-law are temporarily moving into the Henshaws' Connecticut home with their tiny bundles of joy. Added to the mix are two giant bullmastiffs and a nanny. Though a bit overwhelmed, Susan and Jeb are delighted to be a part of the chaos.

But a neighbor, Nadine Baines, soon starts to rain on their parade. She recognizes the nanny as a suspect in several recent shady deaths at a nursing home. The day after this troubling revelation, Nadine is found in her kitchen with a knife protruding from her chest. Is the nanny the culprit? Are Susan's grandchildren at risk? With murder so close to home and another possibly following, Susan must investigate-and she uncovers a tangled conspiracy beyond her wildest imagination.

The woman stretched both her hands out and the priest gave her the cup.

“The wine of ecstasy gives joy to your body and soul.”

She raised the cup to her lips. Her head tipped back until the last drop must have been drained. Suddenly she gasped violently. Her face twisted into an appalling grimace. She pitched forward like an enormous doll, jerked twice, and then was still…

She may have been in a state of ecstasy, but she was undoubtedly dead.

Kate and Charles Sheridan are attending the new king's coronation ceremony when an anarchist accidentally blows himself up-with a bomb meant for the royals. Now, it's up to Kate and Charles to discover who is threatening the crown-and whether or not American author Jack London is involved…

To appreciate DEATH IN OSLO as an English-language reader, one must note that the book was first published (in Norwegian) in 2006, being written and set in the spring of 2005. Only now (December 2009) is it available in an English-language version. In those times, 9/11 was a much closer, and more raw, memory than it is now, and DEATH IN OSLO takes place in the context of international and personal relations that have not settled down to a new norm after that dreadful atrocity.

Helen Bentley has recently been elected as the first woman president of the United States, beating George W. Bush. Preoccupied with internal stability, Bentley has not made any state visits abroad since her inauguration until the opening of this novel. She’s decided to visit Norway, the safest country in the world from the point of view of its dearth of terrorist attacks and its internal stability. Mysteriously, Bentley travels very light, refusing to let her husband and teenage daughter accompany her, and allowing only the minimum in terms of her own security. Abruptly, she vanishes from her hotel room on the first night of her visit, during the preparations for Norway’s national midsummer day holiday celebrations.

The rest of the book deals with the aftermath of this shocking event. The author is mainly interested in looking at the United States in relation to the rest of the world, in particular the country’s response to the 9/11 atrocities in terms of its sudden legislation to remove many civil liberties as the authorities seek to track and monitor any possible attack from within. After Helen Bentley disappears, the Norwegian police and security services begin an immediate and exhaustive investigation, soon discovering witnesses who saw the president travelling in a car (oddly, in a very wide-ranging trip around the country) and pulling the perpetrators in for questioning. Although progress in this sense is very fast, these leads go nowhere and the authorities are left in total ignorance of the president’s whereabouts, as well as how and why she was kidnapped.

At the same time, the Americans themselves are piling into Norway, quickly brushing aside offers to share the investigation and setting up their own system from their embassy. Warren Scifford, who we know from previous novels by reputation as a senior “spook” of some kind in the USA, is called in as he’s become the president’s special adviser and is also her friend – one of the small circle who helped her to get elected. As soon as he arrives, Warren asks for Johanne Vik, his ex-student, to be his liaison between the US and Norwegian investigations. Not only does Johanne refuse this request because of their past history, but when Warren instead asks Adam Stubo, Johanne’s husband and a senior policeman, to take the role (no doubt hoping Adam will discuss the case with Johanne and pass on her insights), Johanne tells Adam she and their baby daughter will leave him if he accepts. Adam has no choice but to accept his boss's instruction to accompany Warren. As soon as he does, Johanne takes her baby and goes to the only person she knows will take her in and not ask questions. Her decision brings her right into the centre of events in the most incredible (unlikely) sense, and her skill as a profiler becomes crucial in the hunt for the missing woman.

DEATH IN OSLO is a book that I find hard to assess. On the one hand it is extremely good and had me reading keenly to the end. It is very strong on its analysis of the international political scene and of the motives and modus operandi of the perpetrators. I don’t usually like these “who kidnapped the president?” thrillers but this one is certainly superior, partly because of the author’s confidence in constructing the scenario in all its disparate scenes that slowly come together, and partly because of the attractive character of Helen Bentley and the flashbacks to her campaign and political manoeuvrings. In other ways, however, the plot is unbelievably weak. Without giving away spoilers, the whole book depends on two massive coincidences- where the president goes after her disappearance; and Adam’s closeness to the investigation. As well as this, too many puzzles that the author creates are simply left, not even unanswered, but just ignored. The character of Warren is an enigma – we know he has done something unspeakable to Johanne in the past, but not what. Now he is apparently a close friend of the president – is he in fact a double agent? Is he operating with or against the FBI? Why does he want to work with Adam and then ignore him, regularly disappearing? And, more generally, why is the apparently very persuasive briefing document about the most likely source of threats to the president ignored by the authorities, even though it is on file? And why is the person behind the killing, who obsessively plans for many years and has endless failsafes in place for various aspects of the plans, so casual about how the crucial final piece of information is to be disseminated? (Though this part of the plot does include a lovely character sketch of a widower and his daughters.) And why did the president travel with minimum security against advice?

These and many other issues are left hanging – in addition, the spectre of Wenke Benke (see THE FINAL MURDER) hovers over the novel – yet is not developed. The actions of the president are very hard (impossible, in my case) to comprehend, both before and after her disappearance – too much is simply left unexplained. And although we receive a throwaway piece of vital information about why Johanne hates Warren so much, most of the details are not shared with the readers.

In many respects, DEATH IN OSLO is an tight, convincing and readable thriller with good characterisations (particularly Adam and Johanne), yet in others, it seems incredibly careless – which is incomprehensible to me as I (not the most imaginative of people) can think of several ways in which some of the more implausible elements of the plot could have been made more authentic, and in particular, it isn’t hard to think of how the last part of the puzzle could be made more robust on the part of the bad guys given all their previous careful planning. All in all, I’m left confused as to why some parts of this well-translated book are so good, whereas others have a casually unfinished air to them, leaving the reader feeling a bit cheated, even though the read itself is so exciting.

Death in Oslo has just been reviewed by Karen Meek at Euro Crime.

Chief of Police Jesse Stone returns to investigate the murder of a troubled teenager in a seemingly bucolic New England town. The Paradise Men's Softball League has wrapped up another game, and Jesse Stone is lingering in the parking lot with his team-mates, drinking beer, swapping stories of double plays and beautiful women in the late summer twilight. But then a voice, scared, calls out to him from the edge of a nearby lake. He walks to the sound, where two men squat at the water's edge. In front of them, face down, is something that used to be a girl. The local cops haven't seen anything like this, but Jesse's LA past has made him all too familiar with floaters. This floating girl hadn't committed suicide, she hadn't been drowned: she'd been shot, and dumped, discarded like trash. Before long it becomes clear that the dead girl had a reputation and a taste for the wild life; and her own parents can't even be bothered to report her missing, or admit that she once was a child of theirs. All Jesse has to go on is a young man's school ring on a gold chain, and a hunch or two. At the same time, Jesse must battle two demons from his past: a renewed struggle with the bottle, and a continuing relationship with his ex-wife. Neither one will help him solve the case, and either one could jeopardize his career – and his life. Filled with magnetic characters and the muscular writing that are Parker's trademarks, Death in Paradise is a storytelling masterpiece.

夜降临太早，这场雨真的永远没完。上海的马路，像一个个织妇的手把细丝般的水掂捏成一束，从路四角汇集到铁阴沟盖，汩汩地流下去。下水道被如此泡过几个星 期之后，潮气升出，带着磷火的蓝光，幽幽地游动在四周。法租界兰心大戏院门口人头攒动，伞和尖顶的雨衣密密麻麻占了蒲石路迈而西爱路口。这不奇怪，每晚都 如此，今天令人不安的是似有若无的说法。事情已经发生，事情正在发生。

Perfect for fans of Nelson DeMille and Daniel Silva

Ex-Israeli operative turned private investigator, Dotan Naor—to settle a bet—agrees to locate the missing son of former acquaintance, now ruthless Israeli arms merchant, Willy Mizrachi. Willy, who does not hesitate to sell killing machines to the most heinous players in the world, is desperate to find his only son, Itiel, who has headed to an ashram in the Himalayas.

The Himalayas are also host to groups of young Israelis who have completed their mandatory military service—a sort of rite of passage. Now, those innocent kids are being hunted down by violent terrorists.

India and the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan is familiar territory to Dotan, as he searches for Itiel and for the source of these heinous attacks on Israeli youth.

Unwilling to leave this quest in the hands of Dotan, Willy also travels to India, where he is murdered in Delhi, triggering international repercussions capable of ripping the world apart at one of its most dangerous flashpoints.

Nothing is as it seems in this region of the world. Betrayal reigns everywhere.

But love, in its purest form, does manage to shine through in this story of brutal international corruption.

Considered by many to be the grand achievement of her later period, Death in Spring is one of Mercè Rodoreda's most complex and beautifully constructed works. The novel tells the story of the bizarre and destructive customs of a nameless town — burying the dead in trees after filling their mouths with cement to prevent their soul from escaping, or sending a man to swim in the river that courses underneath the town to discover if they will be washed away by a flood — through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy who must come to terms with the rhyme and reason of this ritual violence, and with his wild, child-like, and teenaged stepmother, who becomes his playmate. It is through these rituals, and the developing relationships between the boy and the townspeople, that Rodoreda portrays a fully-articulated, though quite disturbing, society.

The horrific rituals, however, stand in stark contrast to the novel’s stunningly poetic language and lush descriptions. Written over a period of twenty years — after Rodoreda was forced into exile following the Spanish Civi War—Death in Spring is musical and rhythmic, and truly the work of a writer at the height of her powers.

A book for the ages, Death in Spring can be read as a metaphor for Franco's Spain (or any oppressed society), or as a mythological quest novel. Rodoreda’s last novel is a bold, ambitious statement, and a fitting capstone to her remarkable career.

Death in the Afternoon is a non-fiction book by Ernest Hemingway about the ceremony and traditions of Spanish bullfighting. It was originally published in 1932. The book provides a look at the history and what Hemingway considers the magnificence of bullfighting, while also being a deeper contemplation on the nature of fear and courage.

Any discussion concerning bullfighting would be incomplete without some mention of the controversy surrounding it. Toward that end Hemingway commented, "anything capable of arousing passion in its favor will surely raise as much passion against it."

An ancient castle, a cash-strapped and psychologically unstable aristocratic couple, and the rumor of ghosts weave together in this sparkling historical mystery from Pearl S. Buck.

Sir Richard Sedgeley and Lady Mary are broke and without an heir to the castle that’s been in their family for centuries. Tourists are infrequent, and the offers they’ve received are not ones they can live with: a state-run prison or a museum in America. What is the remedy, and is it true that there’s treasure hidden somewhere under their noses? Featuring a cast of outsize characters — timid Mary, her possibly mad husband, Wells the Butler, and his mysterious daughter Kate—Death in the Castle is a suspenseful delight by the author of The Good Earth.

A bobby on his night rounds discovers a corpse in evening dress locked in the stocks on the village green. Inspector Hannasyde is called in, but sorting out the suspects proves a challenge. Anyone in the eccentric, exceedingly uncooperative Vereker family had the motive and means to kill Andrew Vereker, who seemed to have been universally disliked. One cousin allies himself with the inspector, while the victim's half-brother and sister, each of whom suspects the other, markedly try to set him off the scent. To readers' delight, the killer is so cunning (not to mention the author), that the mystery remains until the very end…

It is the first in a series of three mystery novels that Bradbury wrote featuring a fictionalized version of the author himself as the unnamed narrator. Toiling away amid the looming palm trees and decaying bungalows, a struggling young writer (who bears a resemblance to the author) spins fantastic stories from his fertile imagination upon his clacking typewriter. Trying not to miss his girlfriend (away studying in Mexico), the nameless writer steadily crafts his literary effort until strange things begin happening around him. Starting with a series of peculiar phone calls, the writer then finds clumps of seaweed on his doorstep. But as the incidents escalate, his friends fall victim to a series of mysterious "accidents"--some of them fatal. Aided by Elmo Crumley, a savvy, street-smart detective, and a reclusive actress of yesteryear with an intense hunger for life, the wordsmith sets out to find the connection between the bizarre events, and in doing so, uncovers the truth about his own creative abilities.

Magnus McFall is no stranger to trouble, but he never expected a life sentence. He is arrested just as a pandemic called ‘The Sweats’ hits London. Growing public disorder results in emergency powers and he finds himself imprisoned without trial. An unlikely alliance with long-termer Jeb and a prison riot offer the opportunity of escape. The two men force their way through the devastated city and head north into countryside fraught with danger. Magnus is unsure if Jeb is an ally or an enemy and soon he is forced to decide how far he will go in order to survive.

A dogged, absurd quest through the nightmare of the Syrian civil war

Khaled Khalifa’s Death Is Hard Work is the new novel from the greatest chronicler of Syria’s ongoing and catastrophic civil war: a tale of three ordinary people facing down the stuff of nightmares armed with little more than simple determination.

Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. His final wish, conveyed to his youngest son, Bolbol, is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya. Though Abdel was hardly an ideal father, and though Bolbol is estranged from his siblings, this conscientious son persuades his older brother Hussein and his sister Fatima to accompany him and the body to Anabiya, which is—after all—only a two-hour drive from Damascus.

There’s only one problem: Their country is a war zone.

With the landscape of their childhood now a labyrinth of competing armies, whose actions are at once arbitrary and lethal, the siblings’ decision to set aside their differences and honour their father’s request quickly escalates from a dutiful commitment into an epic and life-threatening quest. Syria is no longer any place for heroes, and the trials that confront the family along their journey—while they are captured and recaptured, interrogated, imprisoned, and bombed—will prove to have enormous consequences for them all.

A mixture of brutal, front-line reportage and surreal humor evocative of Beckett and Kafka, Death Is Hard Work is an unforgettable journey into a contemporary heart of darkness.

Meet Elizabeth Hartleigh Compton. She's the house-rich, money-poor keeper of the Manor – and keeper of the peace. In WWII England, the quiet village of Sitting Marsh is faced with food rations and fear for loved ones. But Elizabeth Hartleigh Compton, lady of the Manor House, stubbornly insists that life must go on. Sitting Marsh residents depend on Elizabeth to make sure things go smoothly. Which means everything from sorting out gossip to solving the occasional murder. "Dangerous Enemy on the Loose!" read the newspaper headlines. When a German pilot crash-lands and escapes into the nearby woods, locals are in a panic. But Lady Elizabeth caught a good glimpse of the fellow as he parachuted down, and he seemed nothing more than a harmless, terrified young boy. Until a local girl is found murdered the very day he disappears. Coincidence? The constable thinks not. But Elizabeth suspects everyone's jumping to conclusions. And once again, she's in the thick of a murderous muddle, combing for clues and searching for answers before more trouble ignites.

Damon Mee was last seen in a blurred security video on the dance floor of a Kirkaldy nightclub. It was a routine missing persons case and it wasn't even on his patch, but inspector John rebus said he'd look into it as a favour to the boy's father, a friend from his school days. In the deft hands of Ian Rankin, the ripples of the investigation widen rapidly. They lead to the club's greasy owner, to a slightly bent casion croupier, to a drop dead blonde whose name nobody seems to know, to a Hibs striker with a talent for goals and a weakness for gambling and finally to the shadowed men who call the shots in Edinburgh's underworld. When it's over, Rebus has repaid a debt and his boss has received an unexpected birthday present.

A crime novel featuring Chief Inspector Morse, in which Morse and his assistant Sergeant Lewis are called upon to investigate the murder of a young woman who was shot from close range through her kitchen window. After a visit to his doctor, Morse finds that he also has to deal with a crisis of his own.

When angry natives attack a secret U.S. satellite station on a remote Pacific island, Nick Carter goes undercover to find out why. The island's French governor can't be bled for information, but his gorgeous young wife is infinitely more helpful…

She leads Carter to a nearby island-and a tribe of cannibals thirsty for American blood. Someone is inciting them to murder-and to annihilation of the satellite station. It's up to N3 to put a stop to the bloody uprisings, but first he'll have to escape a perilous trap-and do battle with an unexpected and deadly foe.

THE ZONE 10 • DEATH MARCH

A Russian General plans to use refugees as a shield for his assault on a city. The Special Combat Force has been sent behind Russian lines to retrieve a damaged nuclear demolition device. They find they are the only NATO troops in a position to obstruct the enemy attack. The risk to them is as great as it is to the enemy.

SYNOPSIS

The Russian troops attacking Nurnberg are the dregs of the Warsaw Pact armies. Even the vast supplies of ammunition given to them does not make up for their being drawn from third rate formations and penal battalions. Then NATO uses nuclear demolition bombs to close their convoy routes and even that advantage is lost to the Russian General commanding the attack. He finds himself fighting intrigue within his own command as much as the NATO troops lined up against him.

Major Revell and the Special Combat Force have been sent to retrieve a damaged nuclear weapon from behind Warsaw Pact lines. They have to make a wide detour to return with it and discover the Russians have concealed a highly disciplined Division whose purpose is to make a flank attack on the city using refugees to breach the minefields and provide a shield. The Special Combat Force is the only unit that can thwart the surprise attack but to do so the risk is as great to them as it is to the enemy.

PUBLISHED

First IMPRINT E-Book Edition April 2007

First IMPRINT Publication E-Book Edition May 2005

First Revision IMPRINT Publications E-Book Edition April 2007

Death Mask by prolific horror novelist Graham Masterton is a blood-bath thriller about an ugly, evil killer who appears out of thin air to bludgeon people, usually in elevators of all places. What makes the killer uncharacteristically scary is that he's untraceable and non-existent when the police are looking for him. He's nearly a ghost.

Meanwhile at her home, a young artist named Molly discovers she can paint pictures that come to life. Relying on help from her tarot-card reading mother-in-law Sissy, her husband Trevor, and a couple of fearless detectives, everyone puts their heads together to stop the crazy madman from striking over and over again.  

[version history and scanner's info]

Version 1.0-scanned, OCR'd and spell-checked from first edition (ISBN 0-399-15106-0).

Version 2.0 -September 21, 2003-proofread and corrected by The_Ghiti from first printing (release date: August 15, 2003). A number of obvious errors in the original were corrected, as I regard bookz as new editions, not mere "reproductions." If you find errors, please fix, increment version number by 0.1 and re-post, but please refrain from changing the series numbering.

Version 2.1-September 23, 2003 converted to html and reproofed by Highroller.

Lewis and Lindsay Thorpe were the perfect couple: young, attractive, and ideally matched. But the veil of perfection can mask many blemishes. When the Thorpes are found dead in their tasteful Flagstaff living room (having committed double suicide), alarms go off in the towering Manhattan offices of Eden Incorporated, the high-tech matchmaking company whose spectacular success, and legendary secrecy, has inspired awe around the world. The Thorpes, few people knew, were more than the quintessential happy couple — they were Eden's first perfect match. A short time later, Christopher Lash, a gifted former FBI forensic psychologist, receives an urgent plea from Eden to perform a quick and quiet investigation into the deaths. Lash's psychological autopsy reveals nothing suspicious, but inadvertently dredges up the memories of a searing personal tragedy he has kept at bay for years. The situation changes suddenly when a second Eden couple is found dead — by all appearances, another double suicide. Now Eden particularly Richard Silver, the company's brilliant and reclusive founder has no choice but to grant Lash unprecedented access to its most guarded secrets if he is to have any chance of determining what is going wrong. The hidden world he discovers is a stunning labyrinth of artificial intelligence, creative genius, and a melding of technology that does indeed, to Lash's surprise, deliver on Eden's promise to its clients: the guarantee of a perfect, lifelong mate. But Lash's involvement in the investigation becomes more personal and dangerous than he could have imagined, nearly as soon as it begins.

The first message sent to Tom Thorne's mobile phone was just a picture – the blurred image of a man's face, but Thorne had seen enough dead bodies in his time to know that the man was no longer alive. But who was he? Who sent the photograph? And why? While the technical experts attempt to trace the sender, Thorne searches the daily police bulletins for a reported death that matches the photograph. Then another picture arrives. Another dead man…It is the identities of the murdered men which give Thorne his first clue, a link to a dangerous killer he'd put away years before and who is still in prison. With a chilling talent for manipulation, this man has led another inmate to plot revenge on everyone he blames for his current incarceration, and for the murder of his family while he was inside. Newly released, this convict has no fear of the police, no feelings for those he is compelled to murder. Now Tom Thorne must face one of the toughest challenges of his career, knowing that there is no killer more dangerous than one who has nothing left to lose.

Remember those old VHS tapes with labels that said “banned in 40 countries” and “not for the faint of heart,” with titles like Faces of Death and Mondo Violence? Well, they’re back, only this time it’s a book. This book. Death Obsessed is Faces of Death with an identity crisis. Get ready for something mondo macabre!

Back when he was a teenager, Calvin was into the morbid stuff. He thought he outgrew it, but he’s only a video clip away from becoming obsessed, and what’s Ronnie going to think about that? She’s not the kind of girl who digs cemeteries and dead things. But Hazel, she’s something else altogether, and oh how persuasive is a woman who knows what she wants.

Drawn back to a place Calvin had forgotten about, and lured by the baritone drawl of Mr. Ghastly, who promises the much sought-after death scenes classic known as Death’s Door, Calvin trips down one hell of a rabbit hole, and everything is at stake. Can he leave his nine-to-five life in the dust for some real action, or will he be left sick, all alone, and death obsessed?

From Publishers Weekly

When a porno movie theater is blown up in Times Square, 21-year-old film production assistant Rune (no last name given) decides that this is the chance to realize her dream of making her own film. Using the bombing as a hook for a documentary on pornography, she interviews Shelly Lowe, a major porn star. Rune is just getting into the film when another explosion kills Shelly. Evidence points to a religious cult, but Rune teams up with a quirky bomb squad detective, Sam Healy, to discover the real murderer. Since Rune's method of operation is unorthodox (including breaking into offices and buying false IDs), Sam extricates her from some bizarre predicaments and then becomes her lover. Rune's pursuit of the killer takes her behind the scenes of legitimate theater and into the seamy world of pornography. She is an offbeat heroine with a mixture of spunk and naivete. Deaver (Manhattan Is My Beat) writes compellingly about New York 's sordid side, but his portrayal of Shelly as a gifted actress and aspiring playwright is hard to credit. Still, his fast-paced whodunit is saved by surprising twists near the end.

"The traditional British cozy is alive and well. Delicious. I was hooked from the first paragraph.” – Rhys Bowen, award-winning author of Her Royal Spyness

“Death of a Cozy Writer, G. M. Malliet’s hilarious first mystery, is a must-read for fans of Robert Barnard and P. G. Wodehouse. I'm looking forward eagerly to Inspector St. Just’s next case!” – Donna Andrews, award-winning author of The Penguin Who Knew Too Much

“A house party in a Cambridgeshire mansion with the usual suspects, er, guests-a sly patriarch, grasping relatives, a butler, and a victim named Ruthven (what else?)-I haven’t had so much fun since Anderson’s ‘Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy.’ Pass the tea and scones, break out the sherry, settle down in the library by the fire and enjoy Malliet’s delightful tribute to the time-honored tradition of the English country house mystery.” – Marcia Talley, Agatha and Anthony award-winning author of Dead Man Dancing and six previous mysteries

“Death of a Cozy Writer is a romp, a classic tale of family dysfunction in a moody and often humourous English country house setting. A worthy addition to the classic mystery tradition and the perfect companion to a cup of tea and a roaring fire, or a sunny deck chair. Relax and let G. M. Malliet introduce you to the redoubtable Detective Chief Inspector St. Just of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more from him!” – Louise Penny, author of the award-winning Armand Gamache series of murder mysteries

***

From deep in the heart of his eighteenth century English manor, millionaire Sir Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk writes mystery novels and torments his four spoiled children with threats of disinheritance. Tiring of this device, the portly patriarch decides to weave a malicious twist into his well-worn plot. Gathering them all together for a family dinner, he announces his latest blow – a secret elopement with the beautiful Violet… who was once suspected of murdering her husband.

Within hours, eldest son and appointed heir Ruthven is found cleaved to death by a medieval mace. Since Ruthven is generally hated, no one seems too surprised or upset – least of all his cold-blooded wife Lillian. When Detective Chief Inspector St. Just is brought in to investigate, he meets with a deadly calm that goes beyond the usual English reserve. And soon Sir Adrian himself is found slumped over his writing desk – an ornate knife thrust into his heart. Trapped amid leering gargoyles and concrete walls, every member of the family is a likely suspect. Using a little Cornish brusqueness and brawn, can St. Just find the killer before the next-in-line to the family fortune ends up dead?

When the Sword Dancer's mock beheading becomes horribly real, it is Superintendent Roderick Alleyn who must discover who had the best motive for murder.

Actors do love their dramas, and the members of the Causton Amateur Dramatic Society are no exception. Passionate love scenes, jealous rages? they?re better than a paycheck (not that anyone one in this production of Amadeus is getting one). But even the most theatrically minded must admit that murdering the leading man in full view of the audience is a bit over the top. Luckily, Inspector Tom Barnaby ? first seen in The Killings at Badger's Drift - is in that audience, and he's just the man to find the killer. With so many dramas playing out, there's no shortage of suspects, including secret lovers and jealous understudies galore. Ms. Graham tweaks her collection of community-theater artistes and small-town drama queens with merciless delight until the curtain falls on the final page.

Robert Thomson—“a true master,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle—now gives us his most powerful work yet: the story of a woman who, even after her death, inflames an entire nation, and of the man who comes under her spell.

Having spent decades in prison for crimes gruesomely familiar to everyone in England, this murderer has finally died of natural causes but is no less notorious in death than she was in life. Billy Tyler, a career policeman, has been assigned the task of guarding her body — to make sure, he’s told, that nothing happens. But alone on a graveyard shift his wife begged him not to accept, Billy has occasion to contemplate the various turns his life has taken, his complicated thoughts about violence in himself and society, the unease that distances him from marital disappointment and a damaged daughter, and, finally, why it is that this reviled murderer, in the eerie silence of the hospital morgue, seems to speak to him directly and know him more fully than anyone else. In this dark night of the soul, his own problems and anxieties gradually acquire a new and unexpected significance, giving rise to questions that should haunt us all: Whom do we love, and why? How do we protect our children? And what separates us from those we call monsters?

A gripping revelation of crime, of punishment — and of what we desperately seek to hide from ourselves.

Suicide? Murder? Or maybe a political assassination?

When Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead in his Argentina apartment mere hours before his testimony before Congress about linkages between the Argentinean President and the Islamic Republic of Iran, his death was initially ruled a suicide. But as facts emerged in the days after Nisman’s death, the public outcry for justice grew into a roar.

Death of a Pawn, a companion short story to the full-length thriller about modern-day nuclear terrorism, Weapons of Mass Deception, takes a fictional look at the real life tragic death of Alberto Nisman and the possible links to Iran and Hezbollah.

With a “sidekick” named Shakespeare, Inspector Alleyn singles out a killer from a glittering array of suspects…

Inspector Chen must battle the political climate of Shanghai and seek the help of a former lover in order to solve the murder of a National Model Worker who was a celebrity of utmost probity.

The Twentieth Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew

In the summer of 1358 the physician Matthew Bartholomew returns to Cambridge to learn that his beloved sister is in mourning after the unexpected death of her husband, Oswald Stanmore. Aware that his son has no interest in the cloth trade that made his fortune and reputation, Oswald has left the business to his widow, but a spate of burglaries in the town distracts Matthew from supporting Edith in her grief and attempting to keep the peace between her and her wayward son.

As well as the theft of irreplaceable items from Michaelhouse, which threatens its very survival, a new foundation, Winwick Hall, is causing consternation amongst Matthew's colleagues. The founder is an impatient man determined that his name will grace the University's most prestigious college. He has used his wealth to rush the construction of the hall, and his appointed Fellows have infiltrated the charitable Guild founded by Stanmore, in order to gain the support of Cambridge's most influential citizens on Winwick's behalf. A perfect storm between the older establishments and the brash newcomers is brewing when the murder of a leading member of the Guild is soon followed by the death of one of Winwick's senior Fellows. Assisting Brother Michael in investigating these fatalities leads Matthew into a web of suspicion, where conspiracy theories are rife but facts are scarce and where the pressure from the problems of his college and his family sets him on a path that could endanger his own future...

Mark Sava is thrown into the fight of his life when an unresolved Cold War mystery involving his first love collides with a present-day Russia on the march.

Life has never been better for Mark Sava, the former CIA station chief of Azerbaijan. He's recently married, has a newborn daughter, and the launch of his spies-for-hire business in Central Asia has been a great success. Then he gets a call from the US Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia-one his employees, seventy-two-year-old Larry Bowlan, has died of a heart attack.

Bowlan was also Sava's first boss at the CIA, so Sava feels a responsibility to personally recover the remains of his friend. He hops on a flight to Tbilisi, visits the hotel room in which Bowlan died, and is shocked when he discovers an oil painting that depicts a woman he knows all too well…

So begins four of the most violent and blisteringly personal days of Sava's life as he struggles to protect his future, and the future of a country he loves, by fighting demons from his past.

Hester Monk's voluntary work in Coldbath Square is increasingly demanding. Every night she tends to a stream of women of the streets who have been injured or become ill as a result of their trade. But the injuries are becoming more serious, and now a body has been discovered in one of the area's brothels. The dead man is none other than the wealthy and respectable Nolan Baltimore, head of Baltimore and Sons, a successful railway company. With calls for the police to clean up the streets, Hester decides she must intervene to protect these women who stand to lose everything. Meanwhile her husband, William Monk, has been approached by Katrina Harcus, who suspects that the company her fiance works for may be guilty of fraud. That company is Baltimore and Sons. As Monk endeavours to prevent a serious crime, possibly even a tragedy, taking place, he faces some staggering revelations. And with the link between the two cases becoming ever clearer, Monk finds that the time has come to confront his own demons – even if it means losing all that he now holds dear…

Amazing news has spread across the Scottish countryside. The most famous of highland bachelors, police sergeant Hamish Macbeth, may actually marry at last. The entire village of Lochdubh adores Macbeth's bride-to-be. Josie McSween is Hamish's new constable, and she is a pretty little thing, with glossy brown hair and big brown eyes. The local folk think that Josie is quite a catch, but Hamish couldn't be more miserable.

The wedding wouldn't be happening if it weren't for the murder of a beautiful woman in a nearby village. After the gorgeous woman receives a deadly Valentine's Day gift, Hamish and Josie take on the case. However, they soon discover that the list of the victim's admirers is endless. The case confirms Hamish's belief that love is extremely dangerous, but he still can't avoid the events that lead up to his celebrated engagement.

Constable Hamish MacBeth goes undercover to investigate the mysterious death of a recovered heroin addict, whose church has been suspected of being in the drug trade.

The Algeans have been found by the Empire and they are searching for an answer to the orange pods being harvested by the Black Ships. If they are successful in finding a way to kill the pods, then the main tool of destruction used by the Invaders will be eleminated. However, success means angering the power behind the Invaders and there is a rising fear that it will take revenge on the Empire for destroying its drug supply.

The magnatude of that revenge is beyond what anyone in the Empire imagined.

The action continues in Death of an Empire as the Emperor continues the struggle to survive against an ancient enemy.

The fate of a young nation rests in the hands of a reluctant warrior in the thrilling sixth volume of the New York Times bestselling Saxon Tales series. Following the intrigue and action of The Burning Land and Sword Song, this latest chapter in Bernard Cornwell’s epic saga of England is a gripping tale of divided loyalties and mounting chaos. At a crucial moment in time, as Alfred the Great lays dying, the fate of all—Angles, Saxons, and Vikings alike—hangs desperately in the balance. For all fans of classic Cornwell adventures, such as Agincourt and Stonehenge, and for readers of William Dietrich’s Hadrian’s Wall or Robert E. Howard’s Bran Mak Morn, the stunning Death of Kings will prove once again why the Wall Street Journal calls Bernard Cornwell “the most prolific and successful historical novelist in the world today.”

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

“Fast-paced [and] riveting. . Stone is one of our transcendently great American novelists.” — Madison Smartt Bell

“Brilliant.” — Washington Post

At an elite college in a once-decaying New England city, Steven Brookman has come to a decision. A brilliant but careless professor, he has determined that for the sake of his marriage, and his soul, he must end his relationship with Maud Stack, his electrifying student, whose papers are always late yet always incandescent. But Maud is a young woman whose passions are not easily curtailed, and their union will quickly yield tragic and far-reaching consequences.

Death of the Black-Haired Girl is an irresistible tale of infidelity, accountability, the allure of youth, the promise of absolution, and the notion that madness is everywhere, in plain sight.

“At once unsparing and generous in its vision of humanity, by turns propulsive and poetic, Death of the Black-Haired Girl is wise, brave, and beautifully just.” — Boston Globe

“Unsettling and tightly wrought — and a worthy cautionary tale about capital-C consequences.” — Entertainment Weekly

“A taut, forceful, lacerating novel, full of beautifully crafted language.” — Los Angeles Review of Books

Seeking to completely undermine the American influence in the Middle East, a Moroccan arms dealer unleashes his band of cutthroats to attack U.S. Seeking to completely undermine the American influence in the Middle East, a Moroccan arms dealer unleashes his band of cutthroats to attack U.S. allies.

The brutal slayings of a string of her patients in New York and a horrific attempt on her own life leave Hailey Dean down, but not defeated. After a yearlong respite back home in the Southland, former violent crimes prosecutor Hailey Dean finally returns to her apartment in the sky overlooking Manhattan. Hailey's determined to rebuild a normal life and settle back into her growing practice as a therapist. But in a twist of fate, Hailey agrees to follow her heart and fight crime once again, this time in a new arena, in front of a camera! Under the hot lights of a TV studio, Hailey learns the TV industry's not so glamorous. In fact, it's downright deadly!

Waning celebrities, all stunning actresses, each one a shining star turned has-been now struggling to get off the D-List and back into the limelight, meet with a bloody stage exit… murder! Hailey's archenemy, Lieutenant Ethan Kolker, the NYPD cop who hunted Hailey down for the murders of her own patients, now wants the past forgotten and reaches out for Hailey's help to solve the murders. In a race against the clock, Hailey has no idea that TV can be murder!

In best-selling author, attorney, and TV personality Nancy Grace's second Hailey Dean thriller, life on television is no less dangerous than life in the courtroom!

" Oklahoma attorney Ben Kincaid put his reputation on the line when he represented Ray Goldman. The seemingly mild-mannered industrial chemist was charged with a staggeringly brutal crime: the torture and massacre of an entire suburban Tulsa family. But in spite of the grisly, tabloid-ready details of the sensational case, Ben's deft defense against a lack of hard evidence and improper police procedure made an acquittal all but certain. Until the prosecution's star witness – the lone survivor of the slaughter – took the stand and sealed Ray Goldman's fate." "Seven years later, Goldman's date with the death chamber is at hand. But seconds before the lethal injection, an eleventh-hour reprieve halts the execution – and launches Ben on a race against time to overturn Ray Goldman's conviction. Erin Faulkner, the young woman who narrowly escaped the carnage that claimed her family, has abruptly recanted her testimony after years of silence, desperate to keep an innocent man from dying. Just as suddenly, this near-miraculous turn of events turns tragic: Erin is discovered dead, an apparent suicide. And Ben Kincaid is the only witness to her stunning confession." Ben is certain Erin didn't commit suicide. She was a victim of murder – silenced by the same killer who butchered her family. All Ben has to do is prove it. But his unseen enemy is determined to cover his tracks once and for all… with blood.

Murder in the holiday spirit

It was Christmas in Lickin Creek, and all through the town something was stirring…The borough council was quarreling about the color of the Christmas lights. A social worker wouldn't let a living baby be part of the town's living crèche. And some ladies were stretching the limits of their leotards in a pageant called the Nutcracker. All in all, former New Yorker Tori Miracle was basking in the quaint glow of her adopted Pennsylvania town, when suddenly the season went sour. A boy was missing. A thirty-year-old mystery resurfaced. And now two people have been murdered. With her boyfriend-the town police chief-out of town, Tori must help his befuddled replacement. And what she finds out, or should be finding out, is making Tori the next target-of someone only in the mood for murder…

The dreaded Black Hand has let out a $100,000 contract on Bolan's life, and every trigger-happy gunman in the country is trying to collect. At the same time, local, state, and federal police forces have banded together in the greatest manhunt in history to stop Bolan.

Fired with a holy vengeance, Bolan recruits nine buddies — all heroes of the Vietnam war, all specialists in the more sophisticated aspects of meting out death.

Brilliant and dazzlingly beautiful Dr. Lithia Forrester is masterminding an undercover agency that is stealing America's top secrets. The group is infiltrating the highest echelons of the U.S. government and planning to sell the information at an international auction, where every country's ante is a billion in gold - control of the USA going to the highest bidder. What the small army doesn't know is they are subjects of Dr. Forrester's mind control experiments. They are doing themselves in, while the lovely doctor reaps the rewards. That is, until Remo and Chiun crush the plot and save the country - then both buyer and selling may be going . . . going . . . gone!

There's nothing to fear in the world of men. It is only on the edge of the world of spirits that real fear begins.

Respectable businessman Randloph Clare, president of one of Tennessee's largest companies, is challenging the bureaucratic Cottonseed Association with lower prices and greater efficiency. But his commonsense approach is given a sharp jolt when arsonists destroy one of his Memphis plants. But then even greater tragedy strikes: his wife and children are savagely and brutally murdered…

Desperate to make sense of such mindless violence, he contacts an Indonesian priest who claims he can help Randolph enter the world of the dead. But, the priest warns, terrifying demons are hungry for those who dare make the voyage. Not only do they crave Randolph's life, but they are eager to condemn the souls of his family to a hell of perpetual agony beyond all human imagination…

“Cooper saw more of the war than most junior officers, and he writes about it better than almost anyone…. His stories are vivid, enlightening, full of life—and of pain, sorrow, horror, and triumph.”

—STEPHEN E. AMBROSE

From his Foreword

“In a down-to-earth style, Death Traps tells the compelling story of one man’s assignment to the famous 3rd Armored Division that spearheaded the American advance from Normandy into Germany. Cooper served as an ordnance officer with the forward elements and was responsible for coordinating the recovery and repair of damaged American tanks. This was a dangerous job that often required him to travel alone through enemy territory, and the author recalls his service with pride, downplaying his role in the vast effort that kept the American forces well equipped and supplied…. [Readers] will be left with an indelible impression of the importance of the support troops and how dependent combat forces were on them.”

—Library Journal

“[DEATH TRAPS] FILLS A CRITICAL GAP IN WW2 LITERATURE…. IT’S A TRULY UNIQUE AND VALUABLE WORK.”

—G.I. Journal

As "Death Vows" opens, Strachey, a hard-boiled detective in Albany, N.Y., is enlisted to investigate the mysterious Barry Fields, who may or may not be a violent con man and gold digger, preparing to marry an older man named Bill Moore just over the Massachusetts state line in the Berkshires. (If, in fact, those are their real names. Which they're not.) The investigation gets complicated when someone kills Strachey's client, sleazy busybody Jim Sturdivant. (Yes, that's technically his real name, but it hides more than it reveals about his past.)

There's only one couple in "Death Vows" whose connection is honest, public and lacking ulterior motives: Strachey and his partner, Timothy Callahan. He serves as Strachey's sounding board, support system and confidant. He doesn't let Strachey get away with anything, matching him quip for quip, same as any good partner. But since they live in New York, they can't get married. If that changes, Stevenson will surely write about it, with the snappiest wedding vows you've ever heard.

Compared with a spaceship in distress, going to hell in a handbasket is roomy and slow!

On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.

Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small d,became human and were to fall in love?

Reva Ewing was a former member of the Secret Service, and now a security specialist for Roarke Enterprises-until she was found standing over the dead bodies of her husband, renowned artist Blair Bissel, and her best friend. But Lieutenant Eve Dallas believes there was more to the killing than jealous rage-all of Bissel's computer files were deliberately corrupted. To Roarke, it's the computer attack that poses the real threat. He and Reva have been under a code-red government contract to develop a program that would shield against techno-terrorists. But this deadly new breed of hackers isn't afraid to kill to protect their secret-and it's up to Lieutenant Eve Dallas to shut them down before the nightmare can spread to the whole country.

The kidnapping of a noted nuclear scientist sends Carter on a rescue mission to a military stronghold of a despot anxious to blackmail the Western powers.

"[Kellerman] has shaped the psychological mystery novel into an art form." – Los Angeles Times Book Review

"More than satisfying… Kellerman delves deep into the psyche of his characters, peeling back the layers of secrets to uncover a stunning truth." -The Orlando Sentinel

"Kellerman uses bloody killings, psychological intrigue and a straight-ahead writing style to keep readers turning pages well into the night." -The Denver Post

"Often, mystery writers can either plot like devils or create believable characters. Kellerman stands out because he can do both. Masterfully." – USA Today

"[An] intriguing thriller… A heady blend of criminal profiling and police procedural and another surefire hit for the bestselling Kellerman." -Booklist

***

People are voluntarily dying before their time in California. Some call it assisted suicide when cancer or heart disease or painful old age make the quality of life unbearable. Others say it is murder, that no-one has the right to help others take their own life.

As the debate rages over whether euthanasia should be legalised or not the man at the centre of the row, nick-named Doctor Death, continues his work. Dr Alex Delaware joins in the argument, but when Detective Milo Sturgis comes to him with the suspicion that some of Doctor Death's patients are not willing collaborators, Delaware finds himself on the front line of the affair, and increasingly believes that euthanasia is not the prime motivation. So what is driving Doctor Death to kill so many?

A civilized game of Duplicate Bridge ends in a double murder in which both victims were strangled with picture wire. The crimes seem identical, but were they carried out by the same hand? The odds of solving this crime are stacked up against Inspector Hemingway. Fortunately, the first-rate detective doesn’t miss a trick.

Seventeen, dead, and in charge of heaven's dark angels—all itching to kill someone.

Madison Avery's dreams of ever fitting in at her new school died when she did. Especially since she was able to maintain the illusion of a body, deal with a pesky guardian angel, and oh yeah, bring the reaper who killed her to his untimely end. Not exactly in-crowd material. It's amazing that her crush, Josh, doesn't think she's totally nuts.

Now Madison has learned that she's the dark timekeeper, in charge of angels who follow the murky guidelines of fate. Never one to abide by the rules, she decides it's time for a major change to the system. With the help of some unlikely allies, Madison forms a rogue group of reapers who definitely don't adhere to the rules of the heavens.

But as she grapples with the terrifying new skills that come with being a timekeeper, Madison realizes she may not be prepared for what lies ahead—unless she gets some seriously divine intervention

En El año de la muerte de Ricardo Reis, Saramago entabla un lance con Fernando Pessoa, convirtiéndose ambos en protagonistas --autor y personaje, el novelista como uno más de los heterónimos del poeta-- de una de las narraciones más conmovedoras de la literatura de fin de siglo. Un recorrido por la Lisboa de los años treinta, sus calles, parques, puentes y cafés, conducido por la palabra sabia y dulce de Saramago y acompañado por la sombra reconfortante de Pessoa, ambos cantores inmortales de la ciudad del Tajo, la ciudad de Eça de Queiroz y de Camoens. Una de las mejores novelas jamás escritas, una obra que hubiera complacido, como los honra, a Fernando Pessoa, a Ricardo Reis, a Alvaro de Campos y a Alberto Caeiro por igual.

When bored young housewife Simone Hollingsworth misses bell-ringing practice-her latest effort to find something to do-no one is surprised. In fact, if old Mrs. Molfrey, her neighbor, didn't report it to Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby, Simone's disappearance might have gone unrecorded in Fawcett Green. But ever Barnaby isn't concerned-until a body is found.

Soon Barnaby is uncovering the passionate entanglements beneath the placid surface of Fawcett Green-and perhaps jeopardizing his career. Now, if he misconstrues the clue buried in Simone's garden-and a subtlety of human behavior his experienced eye should spot-a brutal killer may go free...

They were best friends, driven by one shared vision – to rule the world of virtual reality games. Cill, hard-edged and beautiful, Var and Benny, brains and business acumen, and Bart, the genius behind the idea. Their newest invention, developed to transport the player into a fantastical virtual world, is just about to be launched. Then, suddenly, Bart is found brutally killed, defeated by their own game. Their close-knit group is torn apart. Who could have engineered a virtual death with such devastating consequences? Even Eve Dallas, New York City's most cunning investigator, is hard-pressed for an answer. But as she digs deeper, peeling back layers of secrets, revenge and misplaced allegiances, she realises with growing dread the depth of the killer's master plan. And she knows his game is far from over…

Even a Ghost Can Die

Deep within an ancient bunker, the Desert Rangers uncover the secret to defeating the Base Cochise AI, the crazed computer responsible for spawning the killer robots terrorizing the Arizona wastes. But the secret is hidden under a mountain, and protected by a cult known as the Guardians of the Old Order, who hate everything the rangers stand for.

As the Rangers fight the Guardians, Ghost, the clone of a clone of a ranger, fights a battle of his own. Should he continue to help the friends of the man he used to be? Should he sacrifice himself to save humanity? Why bother, when the only person who treats him with any humanity at all might not be entirely human herself?

Photojournalist Mike Burke carried his camera into every war zone and hellhole on earth – and came back with the pictures (and battle scars) to prove it. He was flying high until, quite suddenly, he wasn’t. When Burke’s helicopter crashed and burned in Africa, he came away with his life but lost his heart to the beautiful woman who saved him. That’s when he decided it was time to stop dancing with the devil. But a wicked twist of fate puts an end to Burke’s dreams, leaving him adrift in Dublin with bittersweet memories… and no appetite for danger. But the devil isn’t done with him yet.

An ocean away, Jack Wilson leaves prison burning for revenge. Like Burke, Wilson has had something taken from him. And he, too, dreams of starting over. Only Wilson ’s dream is the rest of the world’s nightmare. Driven by his obsession with a Native American visionary, and guided by the secret notebooks of Nikola Tesla, the man who is said to have “invented the twentieth century,” Wilson dreams of the Apocalypse – and plans to make it happen.

As a terrifying worldwide chain reaction is set in motion, Burke alone grasps the impending horror of Wilson ’s malevolent plan. With nothing left to lose, Burke pursues an American terrorist – a twisted genius who journeys from a lawless weapons arsenal in the Transdneister to the diamond fields of the Congo… to an isolated Nevada ranch. It is here, in a climactic showdown, that a determined Mike Burke faces a nemesis who knows no fear.

'a perfect balance of suspense, futuristic police procedural and steamy romance…truly fine entertainment…sure to leave you hungering for more…' Publisher's Weekly

Glory in Death by J D Robb (better known as the highly successful Nora Roberts) is the second in her series featuring feisty police lieutenant Eve Dallas. It's set some 50 years in the future with a gun ban and genetic screening for criminal behaviour in place, but there are still plenty of crimes to solve and perpetrators to catch. Eve's investigation concerns the murder of two beautiful and successful women. Why is the first victim found alone in such a sleazy area? As a prosecutor, she must have sent many violent people to prison who could have wanted revenge, but there are many more suspects among her own family, her lover and even Eve's commander and his wife. Eve is a tough and uncompromising detective, driven to do her best for victims and bereaved. A woman without roots who has had to create herself from nothing, the one person she is close to is her lover, Roarke. Their sexual relationship is ardent and passionate, but Eve finds it hard to give her lover the commitment he wants; when he gives her an ultimatum and seems to be linked with both victims and an old scandal, she forces herself to concentrate on the investigation to the exclusion of everything else. Now Eve could be in danger herself as the motivation for the murders becomes clearer; re-finding her emotional balance, she also makes the breakthrough she needs professionally. Eve Dallas is an attractive and complex character, and the combination of an investigation involving the rich and powerful with the automatically programmed cars, androids and interstellar travel of mid-21st century living and an appealing heroine is a page-turning mix.

Number Twelve is an urban legend in 2060 New York City. The hot club in the 1960s, it is now reported to be haunted…and cursed. Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called there to investigate the apparent murder of Radcliff Hopkins, its new owner and the grandson of the man who made Number Twelve a cultural icon. Several bullets from a banned gun end his dream of returning the building to its former glory.

With everyone around her talking about the supernatural, pragmatic Eve won't let rumors of ghosts distract her from hard evidence. The case becomes even more bizarre when it appears to be linked to the suspicious disappearance of a rock star eighty-five years ago. As Eve searches for the connection, logic clashes with the unexplainable. She may be forced to face the threat of something more dangerous than a flesh-and-blood killer.

A dark spirit threatens the Pennyfoot's shiny and bright Christmas…

The Christmas Angel is a welcome sight during the winter season-but not this year. A killer is afoot in Badger's End, cutting a lock of hair from his victims and sticking a gold angel on their foreheads. Cecily Sinclair Baxter already promised her husband that she'd take a hiatus from sleuthing. But three killings have created a blizzard of bad publicity-and guests are canceling their hotel reservations. She will have to find the angel of death before he strikes again, leaving murder under the tree…

Murder of a Genius

When a mechanical genius is murdered at the moment of his greatest invention, THE SHADOW decodes a plan of linked deaths and traps a master killer in a bizarre and brilliant intrigue…

As originally published in “The Shadow Magazine,” September, 1932.

Amazon.com Review:

In the seventh of J.D. Robb's futuristic romance thrillers, NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas is on the trail of a serial killer terrorizing the city during the holidays. The only link between the victims-all are patrons of an exclusive dating service, Personally Yours. Working with her aide Officer Peabody, Peabody 's nemesis Ian McNab, and her own intriguing husband, Roarke, Eve uncovers secrets that link the victims: secrets that involve both the owners and the clients of Personally Yours and which might be worth killing for. Whether she's writing as Nora Roberts or as J.D. Robb, Roberts weaves a taut and powerful story with lush sensuality and masterful characterization. This murder mystery combines elements of romance, science fiction, and police procedural genres in an entertaining mix that will keep readers turning the pages.

Baltimore Sun reporter Simon spent a year tracking the homicide unit of his city's police, following the officers from crime scenes to interrogations to hospital emergency rooms. With empathy, psychological nuance, racy verbatim dialogue and razor-sharp prose, he offers a rare insider's look at the detective's tension-wracked world. Presiding over a score of sleuths is commander Gary D'Addario, "connoisseur of survival" who grapples with political intrigue, massive red tape and "red balls" (major, difficult cases). His detectives include Tom Pelligrini, obsessed with solving the rape-murder of an 11-year-old girl; Rich Garvey, whose "perfect year" is upset by a murder case that collapses in court; and black, cosmopolitan Harry Edgerton, a lone wolf, son of a jazz pianist. This hectic daily log reveals the detective's beat on Baltimore 's mean streets (234 murders in 1988) to be brutal, bureaucratic and, occasionally, mundane.

DEATH TRAP FOR KILLMASTER

It was just another expensive call girl operation, catering to Washington's elite. Until AXE realized that too many of the high-ranking customers were beginning to die. A senator. A cabinet officer. A congressman. Suddenly dead — and all of natural causes.

It was one of Killmaster's hottest assignments. It called for a false identity, and lots of field work with the willing women in the dead men's lives.

But each encounter ended with an attempt on Nick's life. The "accident" on the deserted highway… the bullet whistling past his head…the sharp-honed knife in the hands of a butchering assailant. The assignment was heating up!

Nick knew what he had to find. The Chicom agent behind the whole terrifying set-up. The man who trained beautiful women into exquisite sex machines; the man who blackmailed top American officials into treason after his girls finished with them; the man who killed those who refused to co-operate — like Nick Carter.

Seven days after she had been abducted, the body of a twenty-year-old woman is found on a green patch of grass by the Los Angeles International Airport. She has been left with her limbs stretched out and spread apart, placing her in a five-point human star. The autopsy reveals that she had been tortured and murdered in a most bizarre way. But the surprises don’t end there. This killer likes to play, and he left a note lodged inside his victim’s throat.

Detective Robert Hunter, who leads LAPD’s Special Section, Ultra Violent Unit, is assigned the case. But almost immediately a second body turns up. Hunter knows he has to be quick.

Surrounded by new challenges as every day passes, Hunter finds himself chasing a monster. A predator whose past hides a terrible secret, whose desire to hurt people and thirst for murder can never be quenched — for he is DEATH.

Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas encounters one of her most difficult cases in this latest offering from J. D. Robb, alter ego of bestselling author Nora Roberts. With the very first victim, Eve realizes that the killer stalking the streets of New York City isn't a run-of-the-mill serial murderer. The copycat executions are imitating the methods and victim choices of an ominous list of notorious serial killers, beginning with Jack the Ripper. And when the killer leaves a distinctive note at the crime scene, it's clear that he's targeting Eve personally-a fact that worries Roarke, Eve's shrewd husband.

Assisted by her aide, Peabody, Eve compiles a list of suspects that includes several high-profile possibilities. Their very prominence, however, complicates the investigation, for they have the power and influence to make the search difficult. All of the suspects are reluctant to cooperate but one of them is playing with Eve like a cat with a mouse by tempting her with crime scene notes and challenging her to find him. Can Eve stop him before he slaughters again? Or will his next victim be Eve herself?

Author Robb, a.k.a. Roberts, doesn't miss a beat in this police procedural thriller. The futuristic setting is rich with imaginative details; the cast of supporting characters offers an intriguing variety, while Eve and Roarke's relationship is layered with emotional intimacy and spiced with sex. Whether you're a faithful follower or new to the series, you won't be disappointed in the edge-of-the-seat suspense in Imitation In Death. Don't miss this one.

From Publishers Weekly

The year is 2056. mood-altering drugs are legal, prostitution is licensed, virtual-reality games have replaced TV sets for entertainment and New York supercop Eve Dallas continues her sleuthing in Robb's fourth installment in the Death series (Naked in Death, Glory in Death, etc.). This time around, Eve has married her soul mate, Roarke, and is caught up in the puzzling suicide of a technician who's been working on Roarke's unfinished space resort. The young tech, Eve learns, had cheerfully hanged himself after a VR trip. Back on Earth, autopsies from two similar suicides reveal a pin-sized burn on the brains of the victims. All clues point to a deadly subliminal message in a VR toy?one that Roarke produces. This is sexy, gritty, richly imagined suspense. The fact that it is written by Nora Roberts under the pseudonym J.D. Robb is a tribute to her versatility.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Three thousand years after Sun Tszu wrote those words, in the time of the Fourth Interstellar War, the ancient advice still holds true. The "Bugs" have overwhelming numbers, implacable purpose, and a strategy that's mind-numbingly alien. They can't be reasoned or negotiated with. They can't even be communicated with. But what they want is terrifyingly clear. The sentient species in their path aren't enemies to be conquered; they're food sources to be consumed.Totally oblivious to their own losses, rumbling onward like some invincible force of nature, their enormous fleets are as unstoppable as Juggernaut. Yet for the desperate Federation Navy and its enemies-turned-allies, the Orions, there is nowhere to go. Their battered, outnumbered ships are all that stand between the billions upon billions of defenseless civilians on the worlds behind them and an enemy from the darkest depths of nightmare, and there can be no retreat. But at least their options are clear.As Sun Tzu said, in death ground, there is only one strategy:

Dawn Raffel's debut delivers us to the wild spaces of a youth in the Midwest and to the blank terrors of the heart. There is a cold wind blowing through these stories, whose sentences come to us as a rebuke to anything felt. In her flight from sentiment, Raffel masterfully reifies the new will to absence that marks the moral and emotional bearing of her generation. The result is not just an acknowledgment of all our long divisions — the divide between impulse and the means to apprehend it, between desire and entrapment — but of the final sweet concession that we must each of us make to the futility of even the smallest mending. In the Year of Long Division gives us the triumph of craft over the obstinance of expression and the installation of a writer certain to be cited in the continuing reinvention of the American short story.

First it was a limo driver shot through the neck with a crossbow. Then it was a high-priced escort stabbed through the heart with a bayonet.

Random hits, thrill kills, murderers with a taste for the finer things in life – and death – are making NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas angry. And an angry Eve can be just as an efficient and dangerous predator as the killer.

As time runs out on another innocent victim's life, Eve's investigation will take her into the rarified circle that her husband, Roarke, travels in – and into the perverted heart of madness…

The phenomenal series set in a future New York City returns as NYPSD Lt. Eve Dallas hunts for the killer of a seemingly ordinary history teacher-and uncovers some extraordinary surprises. Craig Foster's death devastated his young wife, who'd sent him to work that day with a lovingly packed lunch. It shocked his colleagues at the private school, too, and as for the ten-year-old girls who found him in his classroom in a pool of bodily fluids-they may have been traumatized for life.

Eve soon determines that Foster's homemade lunch was tainted with deadly ricin, and that Mr. Foster's colleagues have some startling secrets of their own. It's Eve's job to sort it out- and discover why someone would have done this to a man who seemed so inoffensive, so pleasant… so innocent.

Now Magdalena Percell… there's someone Eve can picture as a murder victim. Possibly at Eve's own hands. The slinky blonde-an old flame of her billionaire husband, Roarke-has arrived in New York, and she's anything but innocent. Roarke seems blind to Magdalena 's manipulation, and he insists that the occasional lunch or business meeting with her is nothing to worry about… and none of Eve's business. Eve's so unnerved by the situation that she finds it hard to focus on her case. Still, she'll have to put aside her feelings, for a while at least-because another man has just turned up dead.

Eve knows all too well that innocence can be a facade. Keeping that in mind may help her solve this case at last. But it may also tear apart her marriage.

In early spring of 2059, Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called off planet to face a grueling ordeal – giving a seminar at the largest police conference of the year, to be held in a swanky resort. A resort which just happens to be owned by her husband, Roarke, of course.

Even though Eve can't quite see it that way, it's supposed to be at least partly a vacation. But work intrudes in the form of a bloody homicide, and Eve is off and running. The case is complicated by Eve's personal history with the victim – and by the killer's history with Roarke. As danger closes in and the body count rises, Eve must find a way to stop the cycle of violence and revenge, and shove the past back where it belongs.

It’s hungry… and it wants out!

Something came to Earth two thousand years ago. The Roman Army trapped it under an island off the Welsh coast, but then as their empire decayed, they forgot about it. Now it tastes fresh air for the first time in centuries, and it wants out!

A celebrity historian finds clues to a two-thousand year old mystery and sets out to solve it. But he is not the only one seeking what the Romans left buried.

Strange things are happening in North Wales. When a United Nations official is fished from the sea, the UN decides to look into it.

Peri Carlton, seconded to a little-known agency of the UN Security Council, is sent to Wales. But though she does not yet realise it, her new boss at the UN suspects that Peri is not exactly human.

She finds that the island is strangely quiet… it seems the buried beast is not the only monster on the foggy island…

Please note that “Island of Fog and Death” was previously published under the title “Child of the Servator”

"I pledge myself to you, Tahl."

"I pledge myself to you, Qui-Gon."

With these words, two Jedi Knights acknowledged that their bond had grown beyond friendship and into love.

Now Tahl has been abducted in a trap that Qui-Gon feels he should have foreseen. Consumed by dark visions, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Kenobi must do everything in their power to get her back before it's too late. But that won't be easy in a land where nobody can be trusted…and everyone has something to hide.

From Publishers Weekly

Written under the pen name J.D. Robb, this futuristic mysteryDset in New York City, year 2059Dshowcases veteran writer Nora Roberts's skills at their best. It's as tough, smart, sassy and successful as its heroine, police lieutenant Eve Dallas. The story opens in the upscale nightclub Purgatory, where Dallas discovers the brutally slain body of a fellow officer; another cop is murdered soon thereafter. Both men, it appears, were on the take, and both were connected to elusive criminal Max Ricker. Dallas 's investigation, which exposes crime and police corruption, puts both her reputation and life in danger. To make matters worse, Purgatory is owned by her own millionaire husband, RoarkeDa business associate of Ricker's before turning legitimateDand the overlap of professional and personal lives adds extra fireworks to an already tempestuous marriage. Robb's plotting is precise and fast paced, creating a satisfying mystery full of lively, credible twists. Secondary charactersDa troubled female police captain, an Internal Affairs cop with a leftover crush on DallasDare as well-drawn as Dallas herself, a tough but endearing 21st-century woman. Sexy, surprising and often funny power struggles between Dallas and Roarke are the tasty icing on this extremely well-made fictional "cake," which is just the right confection for lazy late-summer reading.

When the newly promoted captain of the NYPSD and his wife return a day early from their vacation, they were looking forward to spending time with their bright and vivacious sixteen-year-old daughter who had stayed behind.

Not even their worst nightmares could have prepared them for the crime scene that awaited them instead. Brutally murdered in her bedroom, Deena's body showed signs of trauma that horrified even the toughest of cops; including our own Lieutenant Eve Dallas, who was specifically requested by the captain to investigate.

When the evidence starts to pile up, Dallas and her team think they are about to arrest their perpetrator; little do they know yet that someone has gone to great lengths to tease and taunt them by using a variety of identities. Overconfidence can lead to careless mistakes. But for Dallas, one mistake might be all she needs to bring justice.

Vampire musician Michael Glass has attracted the attention of a big-time producer who wants to cut a demo and play some gigs—which means Michael will have to enter the human world. For this, he's been assigned escorts that include both a dangerous immortal as well as Michael's all-too-human friends. And with that mix of personalities, this is going to be a road trip from hell...

In the secluded guesthouse of a lavish California estate, Whitney Marshall has finally found a refuge…a place to heal after the painful end of her marriage. Until her newfound peace is shattered by the arrival of the property's distractingly handsome heir, Adam Hunter--and she finds herself drawn into a deadly game of danger and desire.

Adam Hunter needs Whitney's help to prove that his uncle--Hunter needs Whitney's help to prove that his uncle--the the estate's original owner--was murdered. But as the two estate's original owner--was murdered. But as the two begin begin to unearth the truth about Cal Hunter's shadowy past, to unearth the truth about Cal Hunter's shadowy past, it's it's Whitney's own life that is suddenly on the line. Because

Whitney's own life that is suddenly on the line. Because someone someone nearby thinks she knows too much…

Two events made September 1st a memorable day for Jesse Cullum. First, he lost a pair of Oakley sunglasses. Second, he saved the life of President Ulysses S. Grant.

In the near future of Robert Charles Wilson’s Last Year, the technology exists to open doorways into the past—but not our past, not exactly. Each “past” is effectively an alternate world, identical to ours but only up to the date on which we access it. And a given “past” can only be reached once. After a passageway is open, it’s the only road to that particular past; once closed, it can’t be reopened.

A passageway has been opened to a version of late 19th-century Ohio. It’s been in operation for most of a decade, but it’s no secret, on either side of time. A small city has grown up around it to entertain visitors from our time, and many locals earn a good living catering to them. But like all such operations, it has a shelf life; as the “natives” become more sophisticated, their version of…

Lightspeed (www.lightspeedmagazine.com) is the critically-acclaimed, online science fiction magazine edited by bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams. Lightspeed publishes all types of science fiction, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between. Each month, Lightspeed features a mix of originals and reprints, from a variety of authors—from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven't heard of yet. Now, in Lightspeed: Year One, you will find all of the fiction published in Lightspeed's first year, from new stories such as Nebula Award finalists, Vylar Kaftan’s “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” and “Arvies” by Adam-Troy Castro, and Carrie Vaughn’s Hugo Award-nominee “Amaryllis,” to classic reprints by Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, and more.

Charlie D is the host of a successful late-night radio call-in show. His listeners have a particularly intimate relationship with him and often reveal much about themselves, confident that he will honor their trust and that he can save them. In their minds, he is perfect: one of life's winners. But Charlie feels he's something of a fake. His easy confidence on-air belies the reality for a man born with a wine-colored birthmark that covers half his face.

Love You to Death covers one hour on "The World According to Charlie D" – an hour during which he must both discover the long-time listener who is killing the people who trust him and attempt to come to terms with the man behind the birthmark.

In 21st-century New York City, tough-as-nails cop Eve Dallas can survive a bombing, seduce her husband, and outsmart a terrorist-all on four hours of sleep. In this latest installment of the In Death series, author J.D. Robb (a.k.a. Nora Roberts) casts our heroine against an enigmatic group of terrorists named Cassandra. With no clear motivation or demands, Cassandra feeds on the thrill of senseless killing and the calculated destruction of Eve's world.

Relying on her own brawn and brains, as well as that of her aid Peabody and her husband Roarke, Eve begins to unravel a mystery that began decades before. When the killer's threats land close to home, Eve knows she has no choice but to gamble her own life for the chance to save her city as well as her loved ones.

J.D. Robb's combinations of mystery, suspense, and romance keep the fans of this series clamoring for more, and Loyalty in Death has equal amounts of each. While the passion between Eve and Roarke is as good as ever, the introduction of a new romantic element certainly turns up the heat and is a welcome twist. Though the evil-terrorist-in-NYC theme has been done before (most recently in The Siege), these beloved characters put up a good fight, and keep us glued to the pages.

Global overcrowding, a new immortality serum and an unfriendly alien ambassador are only a few of the problems confronting Roy Walton, government's new Master of Life and Death in Robert Silverberg's early and accomplished novel. Praised by a distinguished critic, Anthony Boucher, for "its complete clarity and narrative drive" the novel retains its power today.

The number-one New York Times bestselling In Death series explodes with intrigue, passion, and suspense. Now, Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb propels you into the darkest night of Lieutenant Eve Dallas's life-when a killer comes to call.

Eve's name has a made a Christmas list, but it's not for being naughty or nice. It's for putting a serial killer behind bars. Now the escaped madman has her in his sights. With her husband Roarke at her side, Eve must stop the man from exacting his bloody vengeance-or die trying.

A chance encounter restores Giles Armitage to his fiancee, but the shipwreck has left him with amnesia, and their happiness is threatened by Carola Roland. So when Carola is murdered, Giles is the chief suspect and it takes all Miss Silver's ingenuity to unravel the real significance of the crime.

When Christian children are being kidnapped and murdered in 12th century Cambridge, England, Adelia is sent to seek out the truth, and hopefully absolve the Jews being blamed for the crimes, before the townspeople take matters into their own hands. During a time when women are second-class citizens at best, and the practice of scientific autopsies is considered blasphemous, Adelia is the most skilled “speaker for the dead” hailing from progressive Naples – yet she is forced to masquerade as the meek assistant to her colleagues during their frantic search for the real child killer.

From The Washington Post

It's hard enough to produce a gripping thriller – harder still to write convincing historical fiction that recreates a living, breathing past. But this terrific book does both, and does it with a cast of characters so vivid and engaging that you'd be happy to read about them even if they weren't on the track of a sexually depraved serial child-murderer.

Mistress of the Art of Death opens with a clever takeoff on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which introduces the central players, a group of pilgrims returning from the shrine of the newly canonized St. Thomas à Becket: a prior and a prioress (from rival abbeys); two knights, lately returned from the Crusades; an overweight but very shrewd tax collector; a gaggle of citizens; and three Gypsies, who are in fact secret investigators sent by the king of Sicily to discover the truth behind a series of gruesome murders near Cambridge.

Four children have been found dead and mutilated. The Jews of Cambridge have been blamed for the murders, the most prominent Jewish moneylender and his wife have been killed by a mob, and the rest of the Jewish community is shut up in the castle under the protection of the sheriff.

As the only group allowed to commit usury – that is, to lend money at interest – the Jews are prosperous, and thus the king of England considers them his prize cash cows. He wants them cleared of suspicion and released, so they can go back to paying him high taxes. To this end, he appeals to his cousin, the king of Sicily, to send his best master of the art of death: a doctor skilled in "reading" bodies. Enter Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar, 25, the best mistress of death that the medical school at Salerno has ever produced. With Simon of Naples, a Jewish "fixer," and Mansur, a eunuch with a mean throwing-ax, it's her job to find a murderer before he – or she – can kill again.

Adelia comes onstage when she meets the prior under dramatic circumstances on the road, saving him from a burst bladder caused by a swollen prostate by thrusting a hollow reed up his penis. Not every man would follow up on an introduction like this, but the prior wants the mystery solved, too – and if the solution happens to ace out the rival abbey, so much the better.

Adelia finds 12th-century England a barbarous place. England finds Adelia a jaw-dropping anomaly. And Franklin exploits the contrast brilliantly. We're on Adelia's side from the start, identifying with her quite modern sensibilities – but at the same time, as she begins to know the English inhabitants as people, we sympathize with them, too. And a small but nice romantic subplot develops as the celibate, married-to-science Adelia discovers to her horror that live bodies have minds of their own.

Though the story is set in Cambridge, the Crusades run through the culture. We see both the corruption and the idealistic faith of the period, and while the Jews come off by far the best, Christians and Muslims are portrayed with evenhanded understanding. Beyond this, the story's background is a wonderful tapestry of the paradoxes and struggles of the times: Christianity and Islam, Christians and Jews, science and superstition, and the new power of Henry II's rule of law versus the stranglehold of the Church.

There are also fascinating details of historical forensic medicine, entertaining notes on women in science (the medical school at Salerno is not fictional), and a nice running commentary on science and superstition, as distinct from religious faith. Franklin does this subtly, by showing effects, rather than by beating us over the head with her opinions. These are clear enough but expressed with artistry rather than political correctness.

Franklin likewise balances cynicism, humanity and objectivity well. Adelia feels horror, fury and sympathy on behalf of the victims and the bereaved, but she doesn't let that get in the way of finding the truth. And the story makes it clear that the motives of those who want a solution to the crime are not necessarily purer than the motives of those who want to conceal it.

Mistress of the Art of Death is wonderfully plotted, with a dozen twists – and with final rabbits pulled out of not one hat but two, as both the mystery and the romance reach satisfactorily unexpected conclusions. It's a historical mystery that succeeds brilliantly as both historical fiction and crime-thriller. Above all, though, Franklin has written a terrific story, whose appeal rests on the personalities of the all-too-human beings who inhabit it.

– Diana Gabaldon, author of a series of historical novels, including "Outlander" and "A Breath of Snow and Ashes."

'a perfect balance of suspense, futuristic police procedural and steamy romance…truly fine entertainment…sure to leave you hungering for more…' Publisher's Weekly

It is 2058. New York cop Eve Dallas doesn't have to confront gun crime anymore, no one does. Guns are simply relics. She is assisted in detection by instant communications and probability predictions from the all-pervasive computer network. But this latest homicide is an old-fashioned crime in many ways. Sharon DeBlass is a high-class hooker from a wealthy, powerful family. Her brutal, possibly sexually motivated shooting sends shockwaves through her family, the upper echelons of political society and police headquarters. From the note under her body, it seems that a serial killer with a penchant for antique weaponry and a grudge against prostitutes is on the loose. The killer gets uncomfortably close to Eve Dallas as she pieces together his identity, flying in the face of authority and risking her career. Naked in Death introduces the reader to Dallas: a fascinating heroine, complex and vulnerable, a great detective with an aeroplane hold full of baggage. In the course of this murder investigation she meets Roarke, a charming self-made billionaire, and passions are stirred. This is the first in the incredibly successful suspense series featuring Dallas and Roarke and their developing relationship. With some 20 novels already in print and more to come, the In Death series should satisfy the most ravenous appetite for gritty murder mystery. Nora Roberts, world-renowned romance writer, uses the pen name J D Robb for these books. But those expecting a gentle read should put this book back on the shelf immediately. This tale has street language, sex and violence. And it is highly addictive stuff which will have you turning the pages far too fast. The denouement may not be a huge shock, but that is quite satisfying. Roberts plants clues, and the reader can indulge in a bit of self-congratulation for having solved the crime.

Всех с Новым Годом, до которого осталась неделя, и с Рождеством, до которого осталось всего ничего.

Если помните, в начале прошлого января мы (все) усиленно подшучивали по поводу не наступившего кризиса 2000-го года. Так вот, «Y2K» возник как раз тогда. По даренному сюжету.

Весь рассказ написался очень быстро и с тех пор по-крупному не редактировался (по разным причинам). Думаю, именно этим объясняется его «бамбуковый» стиль.

И еще. Это — своеобразное проникновение на чужую территорию. Hа самом деле я все-таки «он», а не «она». Просто так, к сведенью.

Надеюсь, мои действия не будет сочтены попыткой нарушить запрет на компьютерную тематику.

Искренне Ваш, Pan.

P.S. А еще я хотел вставить сюда эпиграф про роль хранительницы очага, которая закрепилась за слабым полом с древнейших времен, и так далее, но не попалось ничего подходящего. Может еще попадется, кто его знает.

Так уж получилось, что этот текст выходит на всеобщее обозрение только сейчас, в преддверии — угадайте, чего? Так уж получилось, потому что совсем скоро снова наступит день, когда у кого-то (а вдруг!) летает кровать и появляются из ничего гостевая тумбочка, замерзший пруд и старинный подвал.

И — кто знает, кому в этот день суждено… ну, вы понимаете.

A nurse sleeps at the bedside of his dying patients; a wife deceives her husband by never telling him he has cancer; a bedridden man has to be hidden from his demented and amorous eighty-year-old wife. In her poignant and genre-busting debut, Susana Moreira Marques confronts us with our own mortality and inspires us to think about what is important. Accompanying a palliative care team, Moreira Marques travelled to Trás-os-Montes, a forgotten corner of northern Portugal, a rural area abandoned by the young. Crossing great distances where eagles circle over the roads, she visits villages where rural ways of life are disappearing. She listens to families facing death and gives us their stories in their words as well as through her own meditations. Brilliantly blending the immediacy of oral history with the sensibility of philosophical reportage, Moreira Marques’ book speaks about death in a fresh way.

Months before publication, William R. Forstchen’s One Second After was cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read. This thrilling follow-up to that smash hit begins one year after One Second After ends, two years since nuclear weapons were detonated above the United States and brought America to its knees. After months of suffering starvation, war, and countless deaths, the survivors of Black Mountain, North Carolina, are beginning to recover technology and supplies they had once taken for granted. When a “federal administrator” arrives in a nearby city, they dare to hope that a new national government is finally emerging.

Progress is halted when the young men and women in the community are drafted into the “Army of National Recovery.” Town administrator John Matherson and the people of Black Mountain protest vehemently. But “the New Regime” is already tyrannizing one nearby community, and it seems that Matherson’s friends and neighbors will be next.

Everyone in town disliked the rich, nasty spinster who delighted in stirring up jealousies and exposing well-kept secrets — the doctor’s wild affair, the old squire’s escapades, the young squire’s revels. But when the lady was shot at the piano while playing the overture for an amateur theatrical, Inspector Alleyn knew he was faced with a killer who was very much a professional.

Earthman Roy Crawford is framed for murder on the planet Velliran. He has two choices. He must escape from the planet within three days or go to prison for life.

But the only spaceship leaving the planet within three days belongs to the Exploration Corps. This is a group of scientists which investigates new planets. They are about to leave for World Seven on the Star System Z-16.

With help from his friends, the dazed Crawford finds himself in the ship. The scientists, of course, think he is one of them.

But World Seven is no escape for Roy. It is a planet of death. The team of scientists find themselves in a world where even the trees are killers. And one more killer is on the spaceship—the real murderer who framed Crawford!

In Plotting Hitler’s Death Joachim Fest, acclaimed biographer of Adolf Hitler, brings together the full story of those Germans who, from 1933 almost until the moment the Third Reich collapsed, plotted to kill the Führer.

Fest recounts in vivid detail Count von Stauffenberg’s famous planting of a time-bomb at Hitler’s feet on 20 July 1944. But he also describes lesser-known plan by leading Wehrmacht generals who, reluctant to go to war, plotted in 1938 to have Hitler arrested, tried and shot—a plot they called off when Neville Chamberlain opted for appeasement at Munich. Included, too, are heroic attempts by isolated individuals and numerous conspiracies even among Germany’s highest-ranking officers.

Time and again, small numbers of Germans, civilian and military, noble and ignoble, schemed to topple the Führer, and on several occasions they came within minutes – or inches—of succeeding. In this compelling, definitive work Fest explores why they tried, why they found so little support either in Germany or outside it, and why they failed. As he places the resistance in the larger political and social context, we come to understand the difficulties of opposition in an age of totalitarianism.

"On the way to a lunch meeting of her local book discussion group, the Uppity Women, small-town Southern librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden is shocked and dismayed to find her sister-in-law, Poppy, lying bloody and dead right outside her own back door. Poppy had her flaws, certainly – she and her husband were having trouble staying faithful to each other – but she didn't deserve to be so brutally murdered." Investigating a case like this is never easy, of course, given the gossipy atmosphere of any small town, what with Poppy and her husband's extramarital affairs, the local police detective, who also happens to be a former boyfriend of Roe's, and his seemingly unresolved feelings of Poppy, and the need to protect Poppy's family. But Roe is also coping with a burgeoning romantic relationship as well as the sudden appearance of her teenaged half brother. All in all, it's a lot for one woman to have on her plate, even one as together as Roe.

Lieutenant Eve Dallas faces a serial killer who offers his victims eternal youth by taking their life…

After a tip from a reporter, Eve Dallas finds the body of a young woman in a Delancey street dumpster. Just hours before, the news station had mysteriously received a portfolio of professional portraits of the woman. The photos seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary for any pretty young woman starting a modeling career. Except that she wasn't a model. And that these photos were taken after she had been murdered.

Now Dallas is on the trail of a killer who's a perfectionist and an artist. He carefully observes and records his victim's every move. And he has a mission: to own every beautiful young woman's innocence, to capture her youth and vitality-in one fateful shot…

After a tumultuous year, attorney Nina Reilly heads home to put her life in order and move in with her long-time, part-time love, Paul van Wagoner. Carmel Valley, however, is not quite the sleepy town Nina remembers. In a place where the locals clash with the rich newcomers, conflicts have always been an inevitable part of life, but lately, the hostilities have turned ugly: someone has been setting seemingly random forest fires. Just as Nina is re-establishing her family ties and beginning her new life with Paul, she is called upon again. The last fire proved fatal, and Wish, the son of her faithful ex-assistant, Sandy Whitefeather, stands accused of murder. Nina is certain that the fires are not random at all. Against her better judgement, she must work with Paul in order to gain the locals' trust in a race against timeto find the truth before the real killer's motives become all too shockingly apparent.

Every cop gets angry when a police officer is killed. And Lieutenant Eve Dallas is no exception. But Amarylis Coltraine was also in a relationship with one of Eve's closest colleagues, so after Eve has delivered the terrible news to him, she throws every resource she has into finding the killer. When she finds a link to the son of a criminal she and her husband Roarke had put behind bars, the case heats up even further. Alex Ricker was romantically involved with Amarylis ? did she leak information to him and then have a change of heart? Eve puts herself in danger to get to the truth ? but she can't prevent another death before she learns who betrayed both the criminal's son and the police officer he loved...

Louie Cogburn had spent three days holed up in his apartment staring at his computer screen. His pounding headache was unbearable-it felt like spikes drilling into his brain. And it was getting worse. Finally, when someone knocked at the door, Louie picked up a baseball bat, opened the door, and started swinging… The first cop on the scene fired his stunner twice. Louie died instantly. Detective Eve Dallas has taken over the investigation but there's nothing to explain the man's sudden rage or death. The only clue is a bizarre message left on his computer screen.

ABSOLUTE PURITY ACHIEVED

And when a second man dies under near-identical circumstances, Eve starts racking her brain for answers and the courage to face the impossible… that this might be a computer virus able to spread from machine to man…

Three apparent suicides: a brilliant engineer, an infamous lawyer, and a controversial politician. Three strangers with nothing in common – and no obvious reasons for killing themselves. Police lieutenant Eve Dallas found the deaths suspicious. And her instincts paid off when autopsies revealed small burns on the brains of the victims. Was it a genetic abnormality or a high-tech method of murder?

Our last story, “The Gallery of His Dreams” (September 1991), by the Hugo-award-winning former editor of F&SF, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, won the 1991 Locus Award for best short fiction. Ms. Rusch has had fifteen novels published under her own name. Her latest books include: Hitler’s Angel, a mainstream hardcover written under the name Kris Rusch; Star Wars: The New Rebellion, a mass market paperback; Star Trek: Day of Honor, written with Dean Wesley Smith; and Alien Influences, a Science Fiction novel that was a finalist for England’s prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Walter Pettibone llegó a su casa a las 7:30 p.m. para encontrarse con su familia y un centenar de amigos que le recibieron con el grito de <<¡Sorpresa!>>. Era su fiesta de cumpleaños. Y, aunque no tenía idea de la fiesta que le habían organizado, la verdadera sorpresa estaba por llegar. A las 8:45 p.m., una mujer con ojos del color de las esmeraldas y cabello rojo le entregó una copa de champán. Y un sorbo del burbujeante líquido después… Walter estaba muerto.

El nombre de la mujer es Julia Dockport y nadie en la fiesta sabe quién es. Pero la detective Eve Dallas la recuerda muy bien. Diez años atrás, Eve fue la responsable de la encarcelación de Julie. Y ahora, liberada por buena conducta, sigue teniendo las mismas intenciones de antaño. Parece que quiere encontrarse de nuevo con Eve… en una reunión que ninguna olvidará…

When a high-society party is crashed by a naked, knife-wielding, blood-covered man who "thinks" he might have killed someone, Eve Dallas must track down the crime, and the criminals. Everything points to Satanic ritual, but Eve doesn't believe in devil worship…

The classic tale of adventure and the dark secrets of a lost city in the Brazilian jungle, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense.

THE LOST CITY

Hamilton knows the way to the ruins deep in the Brazilian jungle - and the secret they hold.

The millionaire who calls himself Smith seeks the lost city to avenge a wrong from his hidden past.

Their journey down the River of Death is an epic of violence and danger. But the secret that awaits them in the lost city is more dangerous still - as a legacy of theft, treachery and murder stretching back to war-torn Europe comes to a deadly climax beneath the ancient walls.

During a supposedly relaxing retreat at a Texas convent, herbalist China Bayles and her friend Maggie, an ex-nun, investigate the seemingly accidental death of the Mother Superior and uncover a deadly conflict within the walls of the cloister.

Holy communion spells death for Fr. Miguel Flores, a popular Catholic priest in New York City's Spanish Harlem, after he swallows wine laced with cyanide during a funeral in bestseller Robb's unusually introspective 27th crime thriller to feature Lt. Eve Dallas (after Strangers in Death). The ensuing homicide investigation suggests that Flores could actually be Lino Martinez, a former member of a disbanded gang, the Soldados, suspected of two bombings before he disappeared. The death by cyanide of another religious figure, Jimmy Jay Jenkins, founder of the Church of Eternal Light, complicates matters. Are the two murders connected? Sussing out the answer to that question involves some serious digging. Dallas 's husband, Roarke, and fun sidekick, Det. Delia Peabody, lend support. Robb offers a multilayered solution to several crimes that serves as yet another reminder that wolves sometimes hide in sheep's (or priest's) clothing, but justice, like faith, has no expiration date.

Dante had been courting his victim in cyberspace for weeks before meeting her in person. A few sips of wine and a few hours later, she was dead. The murder weapon: a rare, usually undetectable date-rape drug with a street value of a quarter million dollars.

Detective Eve Dallas is playing and replaying the clues in her mind. The candlelight, the music, the rose petals strewn across the bed-a seduction meant for his benefit, not hers. He hadn’t intended to kill her. But now that he had, he is left with only two choices: to either hole up in fear and guilt. Or start hunting again…

As the owner of Stoneham, New Hampshire's mystery bookstore Haven't Got a Clue, Tricia Miles can figure out whodunit in the latest bestseller long before she gets to the last page. But when her friend is killed in a freak accident, Tricia must use her sleuthing skills to solve a murder mystery that promises to be much more sinister than the books on her shelves.

Beware Greeks bearing gifts - especially when it's billionaire Demosthenes Skouratis selling the biggest pleasure cruise ship ever built to the United Nations for their headquarters. CHEAP! Over three times the size of the QE II, this huge vessel has everything from high tech offices and communications equipment to luxury spas, casinos, restaurants and palatial apartments. But the deal doesn't include a dozen dead bodies and a hull full of bombs being rigged to explode the night of the opening gala! And Remo Williams, the Destroyer, plans to crash the party. Tipped off the plot when CURE director Harry Smith is getting beaten up by some tough crew members, Remo and Sinanju master Chiun blast full steam ahead, drowning the sleazy rats and save the UN from a watery grave.

When they're not romancing, Alaska trooper Liam Campbell and bush pilot Wy Chouinard spend most of their time hopping from crime scene to scene. In So Sure of Death, there's no shortage of bodies (seven in one family alone) or suspects. But Campbell discovers that apprehending prime suspects and murderers are two different things. Strong character delineation.

In this star-studded cross-genre anthology, seventeen of the greatest modern authors of fantasy, science fiction, and romance explore the borderlands of their genres with brand-new tales of ill-fated love. From zombie-infested woods in a postapocalyptic America to faery-haunted rural fields in eighteenth- century England, from the kingdoms of high fantasy to the alien world of a galaxy-spanning empire, these are stories of lovers who must struggle against the forces of magic and fate.

Award-winning, bestselling author Neil Gaiman demonstrates why he’s one of the hottest stars in literature today with “The Thing About Cassandra,” a subtle but chilling story of a man who meets an old girlfriend he had never expected to see.

International blockbuster bestselling author Diana Gabaldon sends a World War II RAF pilot through a stone circle to the time of her Outlander series in “A Leaf on the Winds of All Hallows.” Torn from all he knows, Jerry MacKenzie determinedly survives hardship and danger, intent on his goal of returning home to his wife and baby—no matter the cost.

New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher presents “Love Hurts,” in which Harry Dresden takes on one of his deadliest adversaries and in the process is forced to confront the secret desires of his own heart.

Just the smallest sampling promises unearthly delights, but look also for stories by New York Times bestselling romance authors Jo Beverley and Mary Jo Putney, and by such legends of the fantasy genre as Peter S. Beagle and Tanith Lee, as well as many other popular and beloved writers, including Marjorie M. Liu, Jacqueline Carey, Carrie Vaughn, and Robin Hobb. This exquisite anthology, crafted by the peerless editing team of George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, is sure to leave you under its spell.

By Parker [email protected]

When the Imperial prison barge Purge–temporary home to five hundred of the galaxy’s most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels, and thieves–breaks down in a distant, uninhabited part of space, its only hope appears to lie with a Star Destroyer found drifting, derelict, and seemingly abandoned. But when a boarding party from the Purge is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back–bringing with them a horrific disease so lethal that within hours nearly all aboard the Purge die in ways too hideous to imagine.

And death is only the beginning.

The Purge’s half-dozen survivors–two teenage brothers, a sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers, and the chief medical officer, the lone woman on board–will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting aboard the Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn’t really empty at all. For the dead are rising: soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.

Thomas Anders had been a respected businessman. He and his wife, Ava, were very active in charitable organizations especially for families and children. He is found dead in his bedroom in what appears to have been a kinky sex scene gone bad. His wife was on vacation with friends when he died. It doesn't appear that anyone broke into their home. The security system was bypassed by an expert. There are no signs of a struggle on Anders' body. Why would someone want to kill him?

Lieutenant Eve Dallas and Detective Delia Peabody are assigned to the case. Because of his position in the community and the sensational death it quickly becomes a high profile case. His widow wants answers. So does Dallas. So she starts digging. Friends and relatives are shocked. Anders wasn't that type of person. He was conservative and comfortable. He adored his wife. They were a good couple.

The Anders marriage wasn't as it appeared on the surface. In fact Ava Anders had been seeing a Licensed Companion by appointment a couple times a month. The LC is Dallas' and Roarke's friend Charles Monroe. She is forced to admit they had an open marriage because his sexual requests were twisted in ways she didn't want to share. She knew there were other women.

The deeper they investigate, the more Dallas is sure that Anders' murder wasn't an impulse or accident but cold bloodedly planned out. She is even fairly sure she knows who planned it. Now she, Roarke, and Peabody have to figure out how it was carried out.

J.D. Robb pulls a classic mystery theme out for Strangers in Death. It is a strong book, well crafted, and sticks true to the characters. While I am completely involved in all the different personal stories throughout the In Death series (this time the focus is on Charles and Louise), the better ones usually are the ones that put the mystery first and the personal second. The threads are there in this novel, and in a good story-telling fashion, the thrown out threads bind together is unanticipated ways.

Enjoy – both the mystery and the personal stories.

Pure fun, pure intrigue. The action never stops until a fascinating climax! -Clive Cussler

You like golf, you like murder mysteries, then Sudden Death is your book! -James Patterson

***

Reid Clark is a pro golfer at the top of the leader board during the PGA tour; he s also a hothead with a reputation for trouble. Reid receives a death threat right before teeing off on the final day of the Master's Tournament, and hires a P.I. to track down the perpetrator. Suspense builds throughout as Reid tries to compete in one of golf s most prestigious contests…and woo the woman he loves…while dodging death at every turn. For golfers, and mystery lovers in general, Sudden Death will score big.

A daring, kaleidoscopic novel about the clash of empires and ideas in the sixteenth century that continue to reverberate throughout modernity — a story unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

Sudden Death begins with a brutal tennis match that could decide the fate of the world. The bawdy Italian painter Caravaggio and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo battle it out before a crowd that includes Galileo, Mary Magdalene, and a generation of popes who would throw Europe into the flames. In England, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII behead Anne Boleyn, and her crafty executioner transforms her legendary locks into the most sought-after tennis balls of the time. Across the ocean in Mexico, the last Aztec emperors play their own games, as conquistador Hernán Cortés and his Mayan translator and lover, La Malinche, scheme and conquer, fight and f**k, not knowing that their domestic comedy will change the world. And in a remote Mexican colony a bishop reads Thomas More’s Utopia and thinks that instead of a parody, it’s a manual.

In this mind-bending, prismatic novel, worlds collide, time coils, traditions break down. There are assassinations and executions, hallucinogenic mushrooms, utopias, carnal liaisons and papal dramas, artistic and religious revolutions, love stories and war stories. A dazzlingly original voice and a postmodern visionary, Álvaro Enrigue tells a grand adventure of the dawn of the modern era in this short, powerful punch of a novel. Game, set, match.

This is a remarkable and unique story of Jim Brigginshaw. Having been captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore in 1942, Jim was first sent to work in Burma, to build what has become known as the Death Railway. Unlike many of his comrades, Jim survived this ordeal, only to be transferred to Nagasaki, Japan, where he was sent to work in the mines of Sendryu.

Jim describes how the conditions in the ‘Hell pits of Sendryu’ were even worse than those experienced in Burma, but were ultimately the reason why he survived the war. On the 9th August 1945, the Americans, dropped the second nuclear bomb on Nagaski. Jim was fortunately underground at the time, but through this book re-lives the harrowing aftermath of the attack when the ground shook violently.

No affairs. No criminal connections. No DNA. No clues. Eve Dallas may be the best cop in the city-not to mention having the lavish resources of her husband, Roarke, at her disposal-but the Swisher case has her baffled. The family members were murdered in their beds with brutal, military precision. The state-of-the-art security was breached, and the killers used night vision equipment to find their way through the upper middle-class house. Clearly, Dallas is dealing with pros. The only mistake they made was to overlook the nine-year-old girl cowering in the dark kitchen…

Now Nixie Swisher is an orphan-and the sole eyewitness to a seemingly inexplicable crime. Kids are not Dallas 's strong suit. But Nixie needs a safe place to stay, and Dallas needs to solve this case. Not only because of the promise she made to Nixie. Not only for the cause of justice. But also to put to rest some of her own darkest memories-and deepest fears. With her partner, Peabody, on the job, and watching her back-and with Roarke providing the kind of help that only he can give-Lieutenant Eve Dallas is running after shadows, and dead set on finding out who's behind them.

Swords Against Death is a fantasy short story collection by Fritz Leiber featuring his sword and sorcery heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. It is chronologically the second volume in the complete seven volume edition of the collected stories devoted to the characters.

The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories follow the lives of two larcenous but likable rogues as they adventure across the fantasy world of Nehwon. The pieces in Swords Against Death follow the duo as they shake the dust of Lankhmar from their feet in the wake of the deaths their of their first loves. There follow a miscellaneous series of adventures from their wanderings.

The Green Mile, Stephen King’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel, was first published twenty years ago in six original paperback installments. Inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Tom Hanks about an innocent man on death row, The Green Mile is now available for the first time in e-serial form. The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix is Volume Four.

Time has run out for one of the inmates at Cold Mountain penitentiary. Eduard Delacroix is set to make his way into the lap of Old Sparky. But first he must say good-bye—to the guards, to his fellow inmates, and to a strange creature that forever changed his life. Little does he know of the terrible fate that awaits him, and of a devilish plan of revenge. Though no execution can ever be routine, it can follow procedures put in place to minimize pain and avoid a ghastly end. But those procedures are only as good as the men carrying them out. Unfortunately for Delacroix, one of those men is Percy Wetmore. And he’s determined to hear Delacroix’s screams of agony echoing along the Green Mile.

The first three volumes of The Best Horror of the Year have been widely praised for their quality, variety, and comprehensiveness.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straubb, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect — and enjoy.

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

— H. P. Lovecraft

This statement was true when H. P. Lovecraft first wrote it at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it remains true at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The only thing that has changed is what is unknown.

With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this “light” creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year, edited by Ellen Datlow, chronicles these shifting shadows. It is a catalog of terror, fear, and unpleasantness, as articulated by today’s most challenging and exciting writers.

The best horror writers of today do the same thing that horror writers of a hundred years ago did. They tell good stories — stories that scare us. And when these writers tell really good stories that really scare us, Ellen Datlow notices. She’s been noticing for more than a quarter century. For twenty-one years, she coedited The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and for the last six years, she’s edited this series. In addition to this monumental cataloging of the best, she has edited hundreds of other horror anthologies and won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards.

More than any other editor or critic, Ellen Datlow has charted the shadowy abyss of horror fiction. Join her on this journey into the dark parts of the human heart. either for the first time. or once again.

An Air Force Loadmaster is menaced by strange sounds within his cargo; a man is asked to track down a childhood friend… who died years earlier; doomed pioneers forge a path westward as a young mother discovers her true nature; an alcoholic strikes a dangerous bargain with a gregarious stranger; urban explorers delve into a ruined book depository, finding more than they anticipated; residents of a rural Wisconsin town defend against a legendary monster; a woman wracked by survivor's guilt is haunted by the ghosts of a tragic crash; a detective strives to solve the mystery of a dismembered girl; an orphan returns to a wicked witch's candy house; a group of smugglers find themselves buried to the necks in sand; an unanticipated guest brings doom to a high-class party; a teacher attempts to lead his students to safety as the world comes to an end around them…

What frightens us, what unnerves us? What causes that delicious shiver of fear to travel the lengths of our spines? It seems the answer changes every year. Every year the bar is raised; the screw is tightened. Ellen Datlow knows what scares us; the twenty-one stories and poems included in this anthology were chosen from magazines, webzines, anthologies, literary journals, and single author collections to represent the best horror of the year.

Legendary editor Ellen Datlow (Poe: New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe), winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, joins Night Shade Books in presenting The Best Horror of the Year, Volume One.

“Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year series is one of the best investments you can make in short fiction. The current volume is no exception.”

—Adventures Fantastic

For more than three decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror readers crave. Now, with the tenth volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night.

Encompassed in the pages of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers as:

• Neil Gaiman

• Kim Stanley Robinson

• Stephen King

• Linda Nagata

• Laird Barron

* Margo Lanagan

• And many others

With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows. It is a catalog of terror, fear, and unpleasantness as articulated by today’s most challenging and exciting writers.

DISTANT WORLDS, TIME TRAVEL, EPIC ADVENTURE, UNSEEN WONDERS AND MUCH MORE! The best, most original and brightest science fiction and fantasy stories from around the globe from the past twelve months are brought together in one collection by multiple award winning editor Jonathan Strahan. This highly popular series now reaches volume nine and will include stories from both the biggest names in the field and the most exciting new talents. Previous volumes have included stories from Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Cory Doctorow, Stephen Baxter, Elizabeth Bear, Joe Abercrombie, Paolo Bacigalupi, Holly Black, Garth Nix, Jeffrey Ford, Margo Lanagan, Bruce Sterling, Adam Robets, Ellen Klages, and many many more.