Literary Mystery

Nayir al-Sharqi, known by his friends for religious piety and his Bedouin-like knowledge of the desert, lends his assistance to a wealthy family when their soon to-be-married daughter Nouf goes missing. After a short search, the girl is found dead, apparently drowned in the desert during a freak deluge. Something about her death doesn't sit well with Nayir, however, and he makes an uncomfortable alliance with a female coroner's technician to determine what really happened.

World War II is nearly over. For the Russians the enemy is no longer Nazi Germany but the American behemoth that threatens to topple the Communist revolution. Deep within the walls of the Kremlin, Stalin's top man hatches a brilliant plan that will alter the course of postwar history - and it's all based on a deception as simple as the shell game.

At a time when Humans were just starting to venture forth into the Galactic Union as mercenaries, Martin Quincy survived long enough to do something no one else had - he retired. There was only one problem: He got bored. After battling aliens for many years - killing aliens and getting paid - retirement didn’t suit him, and he decided to strap on the combat armor and go back to the stars. Along with his old friend Kal, Martin joined Cartwright’s Cavaliers, humanity’s best merc company. Life was exciting! But he got bored. Again.

There's something special about eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark. With her carefully plaited hair and her sweet cotton dresses, she's the very picture of old-fashioned innocence. But when their neighborhood suffers a series of terrible accidents, her mother begins to wonder: Why do bad things seem to happen when little Rhoda is around?

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

Before he can retire, Las Vegas detective Salazar is determined to solve a recent spate of murders. When he encounters a pair of conjoined twins with a container of blood near their car, he' s sure he has apprehended the killers, and enlists the help of Dr. Sunil Singh, a South African transplant who specializes in the study of psychopaths. As Sunil tries to crack the twins, the implications of his research grow darker. Haunted by his betrayal of loved ones back home during apartheid, he seeks solace in the love of Asia, a prostitute with hopes of escaping that life. But Sunil' s own troubled past is fast on his heels in the form of a would-be assassin.

A riveting novel in which old friends must excavate the formative event of their childhood - a murder - and determine how to pit truth against justice. Hutch Van Buren is 15 years old, playing sports and searching for arrowheads in a small industrial town in Ohio with his three closest friends when an altercation between the comrades and Petey Sanchez, a troubled 17-year-old, leads to Petey’s accidental death. Together, Hutch and his friends become ensnared in a web of secrets and moral dilemmas.

Burdened by debt after her husband's death, Lucy Muir insists on moving into the very cheap Gull Cottage in the quaint seaside village of Whitecliff, despite multiple warnings that the house is haunted. Upon discovering the rumors to be true, the young widow ends up forming a special companionship with the ghost of handsome former sea captain Daniel Gregg. Lucy finds in her secret relationship with Captain Gregg a comfort and blossoming love she never could have predicted.

This Victorian best seller, along with Braddon's other famous novel, Aurora Floyd, established her as the main rival of the master of the sensational novel, Wilkie Collins. A protest against the passive, insipid 19th-century heroine, Lady Audley was described by one critic of the time as "high-strung, full of passion, purpose, and movement." Her crime (the secret of the title) is shown to threaten the apparently respectable middle-class world of Victorian England.

It’s the kind of case that chills Caitlyn to the bone. Missing person. College student. Beloved daughter of a world leader in biotechnology. She was last seen on a spring break cruise. No witnesses. No motives. Just one possible lead - reports of a stranger who may have lured the young archeology major off the ship and into the jungles of Guatemala. When Caitlyn follows her hunch into the jungle - with the FBI’s Jake Carver by her side - the trail takes a surprising turn into the very heart of darkness.

Marina Willett, MD, has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends - or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears.

Ruso and Tilla, now newlyweds, have moved back to Britannia, where Ruso's old friend and colleague Valens has promised to help him find work. But it isn't the kind of work he'd had in mind - Ruso is tasked with hunting down a missing tax man named Julius Asper. Of course, there's also something else missing: money. And the council of the town of Verulamium is bickering over what's become of it. Compelled to delve deeper by a threat from his old sparring partner, Metellus, Ruso discovers that the good townsfolk may not be as loyal to Rome as they like to appear.

The 11-o'-clock lady has always been one of garden club president Liz Lacy's favorite spring wildflowers. The plant is so named because the white blossoms don't open until the sun shines directly on them and wakes them up. But another 11-o'-Clock Lady is never going to wake up again. Rona Jean Hancock - a telephone switchboard operator who earned her nickname because her shift ended at 11, when her nightlife was just beginning - has been found strangled with her own silk stocking.

The most ruthless ride-or-die women of Memphis saved their empire by nearly destroying the streets. But as unexpected new rivals rise and brutal secrets shatter lives, betrayal means winner rules all. Putting out chaos with gasoline is one play that even the women of the Dirty South can't control. One merciless kill vaults good-girl-gone-bad Ta'Shara into gangland's power elite - but an enemy she doesn't see is targeting everything she can't afford to lose.

To the outside world, they seem to have it all. Cassie Barrett, a renowned anthropologist, and Alex Rivers, one of Hollywood's hottest actors, met on the set of a motion picture in Africa. They shared childhood tales, toasted the future, and declared their love in a fairy-tale wedding. But when they return to California, something alters the picture of their perfect marriage. A frightening pattern is taking shape - a cycle of hurt, denial, and promises, thinly veiled by glamour.

On winter solstice, the birds disappeared, and the mist arrived. The inhabitants of Nebulah quickly learn not to venture out after dark. But it is hard to stay indoors: Cabin fever sets in, and the mist can be beguiling too. Eventually only six remain. Like the rest of the townspeople, Pete has nowhere else to go. After he rescues a stranded psychic from a terrible fate, he’s given a warning: He will be dead by solstice unless he leaves town - soon.

It was a dream come true. Susan loved all things Scottish. So, when the opportunity presented itself, there was no question in her mind that she would go on the archaeological dig in the Highlands.

One Deadly Needle: A Mystery Waiting to Unravel Agatha Royale's Aunt Edna moves into the Green Acres Assisted Living Facility, expecting peace and comfort. Instead, she steps into a whirlwind of intrigue and danger. Agatha visits Aunt Edna, only to be met with shocking news: a resident has been found dead, murdered with a pair of knitting needles. Amidst whispers of secrets and betrayal, everyone becomes a suspect. Determined to clear her aunt’s name, Agatha, with her trusty miniature schnauzer Mike and her friend Emma, dives into the investigation. The deeper they dig, the more tangled ...

The 1960s: news of riots, war, unheard-of behavior, and rampant crime crowds the papers and the airwaves. Spurned by his wife at home and by superiors at work, Earl Summerfield hunkers down in his cramped San Francisco apartment and keeps a diary that is a scratched record of a world going to pieces. The words he overhears, the words he wants to say, swim in his head, turning into fantasies of ambition, love, and retribution. He is sorry for himself. He is angry at everyone.

Max Reddick, a novelist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter, has spent his career struggling against the riptide of race in America. Now terminally ill, he has nothing left to lose. An expat for many years, Max returns to Europe one last time to settle an old debt with his estranged Dutch wife, Margrit, and to attend the Paris funeral of his friend, rival, and mentor Harry Ames, a character loosely modelled on Richard Wright.