Crime Mystery Fiction

At an auction house in Bath, England, a large slab of carved stone is up for sale. At the height of what turns into very competitive bidding, there is a holdup attempt by three masked raiders who are trying to steal the stone. They shoot and kill the highest bidder, a professor who has recognized the female figure carved in the stone as the Wife of Bath from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The masked would-be thieves flee, leaving the stone behind.

Bookstore owner Kerry Emerson finally seems to be back in control of her life. Her failure of a marriage firmly in her rearview mirror and her recent business expansion a success, she is in charge of her own future. One that is looking better than ever. The sight of the tall man, with the familiar salt and pepper goatee pushing open the door of her store, sets her hair on end. He doesn't exactly bring good memories.

When an archaeological dig unleashes a centuries-old virus, paramilitary operative Cole "Tox" Russell is forced back into action. With the help of archaeologist Tzivia Khalon and FBI agent Kasey Cortes, Tox searches for answers - and becomes entangled in a web of deception. As the team races to stop a pandemic, a secret society counters their every move.

When a lobster fisherman on an early morning run pulls in his traps, he finds something he wasn't expecting to catch - a body. When police discover the dead man was the brother of a senior Scottish government official who vanished without a trace, Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie takes over the investigation. At the same time, a woman in the wealthy enclave of Perth is clearing out her sister's home after a fatal road accident and finds a mysterious camper van in the garage containing a skeletonized body. But who is it?

A trio of vicious World War One veterans descend on the farm in the Adirondack mountains where one of them grew up and his father now lives alone. They embark on, happily wreaking drunken havoc at the old man's place and in the nearby town. But when a naïve, mail-order bride arrives, she ignites a tinderbox of resentment, lust, and betrayal among the men that explodes in brutal depravity, bloody violence, and shocking death. This hard-boiled, literary masterpiece includes a new introduction by Jack Mearns, author of John Sanford: An Annotated Bibliography.

Dark secrets lurk beneath the glamour and glitter of New York's high-society life in this riveting tale of murder, obsession, and revenge. Jo Slater, one of the grandest of New York's grande dames, is knocked off her pedestal when her husband of 20 years dies under strange circumstances and leaves his fortune to a mysterious French countess. When Jo discovers she has been the victim of a plot, she decides to set things straight. And nothing is going to get in her way.

Cuba and the United States are in talks to normalize relations, something the old guard on the Communist-controlled island has vowed to stop - by any means necessary. Zayda de la Guardia, a rogue general in the Cuban security services, has gotten his hands on a nuclear weapon left over from the Cold War. He plans to launch it on Miami, an attack that could kill millions. There’s just one thing standing in his way: Special agent Jericho Quinn and his team have traveled undercover to Cuba to unravel de la Guardia’s plot before it ignites a nuclear holocaust.

It is 1969 and Glasgow is in the grip of the worst winter in decades, yet it is something else that has Glaswegians on edge: a serial killer whose name alone is enough to make them tremble with fear. The Quaker has killed another victim, snatching a young woman from a nightclub and dumping her body like trash in the back of a cold-water tenement. He leaves no clues, and the investigation has led police down one blind alley after another.

Laurel Snow wouldn't call hunting a serial killer a vacation, but with a pile of dead bodies unearthed near her Genesis Valley, Washington, hometown, she'll take what she can get. Yet something about this case stirs her in unexpected ways. Like the startling connection she feels to Dr. Abigail Caine, a fiercely intelligent witness with a disturbing knack for making Laurel feel like she has something on her. Then there's Laurel's attraction to Huck Rivers, the fish and wildlife officer guiding her to the crime scene - and into the wilderness....

Accident victim Faith Parker has done what her doctors feared she never would: awakened from the coma that held her prisoner for weeks. But she has no memory of the crash that nearly killed her - or the life that led up to it. Nor does she remember journalist Dinah Leighton, the steadfast friend who visited her in the hospital...until she disappeared without a trace.

Bestselling author Martin Walker pens stories filled with small-town ambience and charming characters. In The Devil’s Cave, police chief Bruno Courréges is investigating a murder as the tiny French village of St. Denis prepares for Easter. An unknown woman - dead, naked, and bearing the marks of a black magic ritual - is found in a boat floating down the River Vézère. With the townsfolk terrified, clues quickly lead Bruno to the Gouffre de Colombac - the Devil’s Cave.

Afghanistan, 2008. A Black Hawk helicopter carrying a senior CIA operative is shot down by a surface to air missile, its lone passenger taken hostage by a fanatical new insurgent group. Knowing this man holds information vital to the ongoing conflict, the CIA bring in Ryan Drake and his elite Shepherd team to find and rescue their lost operative.

Callum is lured to an isolated boathouse by an attractive older woman. When she gets him alone, she knocks him out with a single blow. Surrounded by hills and lakes, Still Waters is home to a close-knit community of wealthy retirees. It's an unlikely setting for violence. The police don't take Callum's disappearance seriously: he's 24-years-old, after all. But Callum's mother, a Still Waters resident, knows that something is very wrong. Then a body is discovered floating in the lake. Head bashed in. But it's not Callum. And someone tweets: Come out to play one last time, Alice.

Mark Randall lay dead in a field near Lowacre long before Smith had done what he had to do in Belfast. By the time he went back to work, the investigation was well underway. "It's not my case," he says more than once, and he really doesn't need it to be; he has enough to think about as it is. But going around the Norfolk countryside dotting the i's and crossing the t's, speaking to the local farmers and the Brothers of St. Francis from Abbeyfields, Smith begins to suspect that the investigation might be heading in entirely the wrong direction.

Summer is coming to a close on beautiful Sea Isle in Scotland, and Dr. Emilia McRoy is celebrating one year since her big move. With a weeklong festival to end the season, the town gathers for a magical ride on the newly refurbished Storyteller’s Train, but the launch’s success is dampened by an unexpected death. What appears to be a case of deadly allergies is soon revealed as murder. As Emilia, her assistant Abigail, and the local constable Ewan McGregor unravel the mystery, the killer sets their murderous intentions on them.

Serge and sidekick Coleman head out west to take on Hollywood bigwigs and L.A. lowlifes in Dorsey's most outrageous novel yet. Before Tinseltown knows what's hit it, Serge has made an unforgettable foray to the Playboy Mansion and come up against Japanese Yakuza and a host of wacky characters.

The roar of the crowds, the glittering lights and the adoration of fans everywhere! Millions of young women want their chance to shine upon the stage, and now, thanks to a new Reality TV show, a handful will get their shot! ....yet behind the glamour of celebrity lurks hidden danger.... Jillian Moore, one of the world’s hottest pop stars soared to stardom and crashed down into obscurity ten years ago. Now she’s making a comeback with her hit TV show Live Like a Pop Star. But things aren’t as rosy as they seem.

Edinburgh, 1847. Will Raven is a medical student, apprenticing for the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson. Sarah Fisher is Simpson’s housemaid and has all of Raven’s intelligence, but none of his privileges. As bodies begin to appear across the Old Town, Raven and Sarah find themselves propelled headlong into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh’s underworld. And if either of them are to make it out alive, they will have to work together to find out who’s responsible for the gruesome deaths.

On New Year's Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests. His vacation homes on Mirror Lake are a success, and he's generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbors. But by midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake. On New Year's Day, Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects. The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbors, friends and family—and Ffion has her own secrets to protect. With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn't who wanted Rhys dead . . . but who finally killed him.

A teenage girl is found murdered, encased in glass. Detective Dove Milson is called out to a chilling murder scene by the coast. The murder is a replica of the work of a serial killer known as the Glass Doll Murderer, who entombed his victims in glass to watch them die. He would've be the prime suspect, but he's already dead. The kicker? Dove's own niece was one of the Glass Doll's original victims.