Richard Floyd

In The Lady in the Lake, hard-boiled crime-fiction master Raymond Chandler brings us the story of a couple of missing wives - one a rich man's and one a poor man's - who have become the objects of Philip Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo, and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.

Nicolas Fox is a charming con man and master thief on the run. Kate O'Hare is the FBI agent who is hot on his trail. At least that's what everyone thinks. In reality Fox and O'Hare are secretly working together to bring down super criminals the law can't touch. Criminals like brutal casino magnate Evan Trace.

Even those who make bodies disappear for a living need a vacation. To Quinn and Orlando, the offer of a private villa on a quiet island beach sounds like heaven, and they jump at the chance for some family time with their six-month-old daughter and Orlando's teenage son. At first it seems as though their holiday will be even better than they'd hoped. The water is warm, the house is beautiful, and the view is spectacular. But when revenge is in the air, things have a way of going sideways.

Meet Jonathan Quinn: a freelance operative with a take-no-prisoners style and the heart of a loner. His job? Professional "cleaner". Nothing too violent, just disposing of bodies. But his latest assignment will change everything. The job seemed simple enough: investigating a suspicious case of arson. But when a dead body turns up, and Quinn's handlers at "the Office" turn strangely silent, he knows he's in over his head. With only a handful of clues, Quinn struggles to find out why someone wants him dead.

Detective Isaac Bell's wife has said that he is always in the wrong place at the right time. This is certainly the case when Bell thwarts the assassination of a US senator shortly after meeting the man. This heroic rescue is just the start of the mystery for Bell, who suspects that the would-be assassins have a much larger and more dangerous agenda - one involving the nearly constructed Panama Canal. While the senator supports the building of the canal, there are many, including a local Panamanian insurgency known as the Red Vipers, who never want to see its completion.

Fourteen-year-old Vega Jane lives in the village of Wormwood, where life is nasty, brutish, and short. Villagers have been told that there is nothing outside of Wormwood except for the Quag, a foul forest filled with terrifying beasts. No one comes, no one goes, and Wormwood has stayed this way for generations. Until Vega's friend Quentin Herms disappears. Quentin leaves Vega a secret message hinting that there's a way out of Wormwood and something extraordinary on the other side.

A hundred and forty years after a British ship wrecks on the way to an Australian penal colony and the survivors discover diamonds on the tropical island where they wash up, Maeve Fletcher, one of their descendants, is stranded on an island in Antarctica with a party of passengers after their cruise ship seemingly abandons them. Dirk Pitt, on an expedition to find the source of a deadly plague that is killing dolphins and seals in the Weddell Sea, finds Maeve and the passengers and rescues them from death.

Deep in the African desert, Dirk Pitt discovers that a top secret scientific installation is leaking a lethal chemical into the rivers, threatening to kill thousands of people - and to destroy all life in the world's seas. To warn the world of the catastrophe, Pitt must escape capture and death at the hands of a ruthless West African dictator and French industrialist and undertake a long, perilous journey across the merciless Sahara....

The towering iceberg drifting in the North Atlantic was a floating tomb. Embedded in the great gleaming mass was a ship - sealed in so solidly that not even its mast protruded. Here was a sea mystery to rank alongside the Bermuda Triangle and the Marie Celeste. But for Major Dirk Pitt, top trouble-shooter for the National Underwater and Marine Agency, it was also the first link in a fantastic chain of events that would lead him too close - and too often - to violent death.

Someone is killing the world's leading experts on robotics and computers. A desperate Russian scientist approaches Court Gentry and Zoya Zakharova to ask for their protection, but before they can help, they are attacked by a team of professional assassins. They escape, but wherever they turn, it's clear that whoever's tracking them is always going to be one step ahead. With a danger of this level, there's no choice but to attack into the threat.