Opal

Doris Grandfelt, an employee at an accounting firm, was brutally stabbed to death . . . but nobody knew exactly where the crime took place. Her body was found the next night, dumped among a dense thicket of trees along the edge of an urban park, eight miles east of St. Paul, Minnesota. Despite her twin sister Lara Grandfelt’s persistent calls to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the killer was never found.

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes.

For GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, McAlpine Lodge seems like the ideal getaway to celebrate their honeymoon. Set on a gorgeous, off-the-grid mountaintop property, it’s the perfect place to unplug and reconnect. Until a bone-chilling scream cuts through the night. Mercy McAlpine, the manager of the Lodge, is dead. With a vicious storm raging and the one access road to the property washed out, the murderer must be someone on the mountain. But as Will and Sara investigate the McAlpine family and the other guests, they realize that everyone here is lying.

Gaia is dying. That, at least, is what Dr. Lionel Scott believes. A renowned expert in tropical and infectious diseases, Scott has witnessed the devastating impact of illness and turmoil at critical scale. Society as it exists is untenable, and the direct link to Earth’s death spiral; population levels are out of control and people have allowed disarray and disorder to run rampant. While most are concerned about deadly disease, Scott knows that it is truly humanity itself that will destroy Gaia.

Five-year-old Leilani Pierson has been missing for over a decade. Amateur detective Frankie Elkin is an expert at finding missing persons. But this case has unusually high stakes. The request comes from Leilani’s sister Kaylee, a convicted serial killer weeks away from her execution date. The main suspect in the kidnapping? Kaylee’s ex-boyfriend, a tech billionaire who has hidden himself away on a remote base camp near Hawaii.

Alex Sand was spending the evening at home playing basketball with his two young sons when all three were shot in cold blood. A wealthy federal judge, there’s no short list of people who could have a vendetta against Sands, but the gruesome murders, especially that of his children, turn their St. Paul community on its head. Sand was on the verge of a major donation to a local housing charity, Heart/Twin Cities, and with the money in limbo, eyes suddenly turn to his grieving widow, Margaret Cooper, to see what she might do with the money.

Former movie star Jenna Hughes left Hollywood for an isolated farm in Oregon to get away from fame. But someone has followed her - an obsessed fan whose letters are personal and deeply disturbing. And while Jenna's already shaken up by what she's seen on paper, she'd be terrified if she knew what Sheriff Shane Carter is investigating. It's a shocking case that started with the discovery of a dead woman in the woods. Now two more women are missing, one of whom bears a striking resemblance to Jenna...

A pool boy enters a secluded Bel Air property and discovers two bodies floating in the bright blue water: Gio Aggiunta, the playboy heir to an Italian shoe empire, and a gorgeous, even wealthier neighbor named Meagin March. A married neighbor. An illicit affair stoking rage is a perfect motive. But a “double” in this neighborhood of gated estates isn’t something you see every day. The house is untouched. No forced entry, no forensic evidence. The case has “that feeling,” and when that happens, Milo turns to his friend, the brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware.

Chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds herself in a Northern Virginia wilderness examining the remains of two campers wanted by federal law enforcement. The victims have been savaged beyond recognition, and other evidence is terrifying and baffling, including a larger-than-life footprint. After one of the most frightening body retrievals of her career, Scarpetta must discover who would commit murders this savage, and why.

When 12-year-old Holly Mitchell’s fragile little body is found on the steps of a mountainside church in the small town of Denton, a doll made from pine cones clasped tightly to her chest, Detective Josie Quinn rushes to attend the scene. She knows this little girl’s angelic face; her mother had offered Josie help when she’d needed it most. Searching the girl’s house, Josie is devastated to find that Holly’s mother is dead, too, and her little sister is missing.