High school teacher Tyson Cooper is just dismissing his class when a student flashes his phone. "Another shooting, Mr. C." And this one is too close to home. Tyson races to Pioneer Square...but he's too late. The light of his life has been snuffed out—and so has his faith. Veteran Portland PD Investigator Wayne Deetz, two years shy of retirement, is charged with leading the interrogations. When he meets 19-year-old shooter Rogan Sneed face-to-face, his life is changed eternally.

It was more than a break-in. More than a stalking. It was personal. When a stalker targets his family, journalist Jack Crittendon must uncover who the person is and what his motives are - if he is to protect the ones he loves. It will lead Crittendon into a world of behind-closed-door secrets and faith gone awry, as does his investigation of a missing pastor, whose apparent suicide is more than it appears.

Reporter Hudson Ambrose hears an early morning call on his police scanner about an injured person at a bus stop on Las Vegas Boulevard and rushes to the scene. His world is blown off its axis when he discovers a murdered homeless man with a bankbook in his pocket showing a balance of almost one million dollars. Should Hudson wait for the police, knowing the case will get lost in reams of red tape, or swipe the bankbook and take the investigation - and perhaps a chunk of the money - into his own hands?

Millionaire rock star Everett Lester had it all. His metal band DeathStroke played bars and honkytonks until a NYC record label discovered them and the band experienced a meteoric rise to the top of the record charts — and super-stardom. Despite Everett’s unfathomable popularity and riches, he was spiraling out of control into a dark existence where everyone wanted a piece of him, and where drugs and alcohol were his only comfort.

Eighteen-year-old Hale Frodele is presumed braindead from a tragic church bus accident in which he lost his younger brother, Nate. Little does anyone know—Hale hears and understands everything with crystal clarity. Hale remembers when his mom died at age 44 of pancreatic cancer and his dad turned his back on God.

When police stop Dustin Webb with a warrant to search his trunk, he knows there’s been a mistake. He’s former military and owns a security firm. But he’s horrified when the officers find explosives, and he can’t fathom how they got there. Criminal attorney Jamie Powell was Dustin’s best friend growing up. They haven’t spoken since he left for basic training, but she’s the first person he thinks of when he’s arrested. Jamie knows she’s putting her career on the line by defending an accused terrorist, but she’d never abandon him.

Matt and Elena Thompson present the picture of perfection. But their enviable life isn’t all it seems. Their marriage is on the rocks, and financial disaster looms. Then Matt is killed in a hunting accident, and the questions and accusations begin to mount.

When MacThomas Pockets finished his last tour as part of the Scottish Special Forces, he was hired to consult for a film director to finesse some scenes that weren’t working. In a twist he never saw coming, he ended up moving to L.A. to work as the bodyguard for movie star Maybe Joe Sue. It didn’t take long for Pockets to realize there were two Joe Sues: The Joe Sue the public saw with her perfect life and her Hollywood husband. And the private Joe Sue: the one with the traumatic youth that no amount of pills could cover up, who desperately wanted a child of her own.

Holly has drifted from one place to the next for as long as she can remember, never settling long enough to build a life. It's the only way she knows how to survive in a world that has no place for someone like her. But when mysterious footsteps follow her home, and she finds a cryptic note taped to her door, she realizes she's stayed too long. The man she's hiding from has found her. But how?

"I should have tried harder." Those final words are scrawled across a note that’s been pinned to a man's remains. Pulled to a crime scene in the middle of the night, Detective Marx struggles to unravel the mystery behind a message written by the victim. A suicide note...or an admission of guilt? Before he can discover the truth, what seems to be a random act of violence becomes something far more dangerous. With very little evidence and even less time, Detective Marx searches for the common thread between the victims, but his efforts might put him directly in the killer’s path.

Nine-year-old Annie Pederson’s life changed the night her sister was kidnapped. The two had been outside playing on a dock, and Annie never forgave herself for her role in her sister’s disappearance. Twenty-four years later and now a law enforcement ranger, Annie is still searching for answers as she grieves a new loss: the death of her husband and parents in a boating accident. But Annie and her eight-year-old daughter, Kylie, aren’t the only people in the town of Rock Harbor whose lives have been marred by tragedy.

Private investigator Kenna Banbury lost everything two years ago at the hands of a serial killer. From the ashes of that encounter, she’s built a life she believes in, searching for the lost and forgotten all over the western US. When a series of murders drags her into an FBI investigation, Kenna finds herself back in the place where it all went wrong. Struggling to make sense of the case, Kenna’s past and present collide in a deadly plot that risks another betrayal and threatens to shatter everything she’s built.

A childhood tragedy almost destroyed his life. A tragedy everyone thought was just an accident. So Adam Cross rebuilds his life in a small coastal town on the East Coast, pastoring The Lighthouse mission. The close-knit community of Turtle Cove surrounds him, he has his beautiful wife, Ruth by his side, and the delight of their little girl, Abigail. And he has his faith. Life couldn’t be more perfect. Until another accident happens. Except this time, all evidence indicates that something far more sinister is behind it.

Murphy Shepherd is a man with many secrets. He lives alone on an island, tending the grounds of a church with no parishioners, and he’s dedicated his life to rescuing those in peril. But as he mourns the loss of his mentor and friend, Murph himself may be more lost than he realizes. When he pulls a beautiful woman named Summer out of Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway, Murph’s mission to lay his mentor to rest at the end of the world takes a dangerous turn.

Allie is still recovering from the loss of her family's beloved waterfront restaurant on Florida's Gulf Coast when she loses her second husband to a terrifying highway accident. Devastated and losing hope, she shudders to contemplate the future - until a cherished person from her past returns. Joseph has been adrift for many years, wounded in both body and spirit and unable to come to terms with the trauma of his Vietnam War experiences. Just as he resolves to abandon his search for peace, he discovers a mother and her two small children lost in the forest.

It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. In the newest collection of stories by the Mystery Writers of America, each author weaves a fresh tale surrounding the eerie feeling that comes when a stranger enters our midst, featuring stories by prolific mystery writers.

Starting your life over at age 38 isn't easy, but that's what Sarah Winston finds herself facing when her husband CJ runs off with a 19-year-old temptress named Tiffany. Sarah's self-prescribed therapy happily involves hitting all the garage and tag sales in and around her small town in Massachusetts. But after returning from a particularly successful day searching for yard-sale treasures, Sarah finds a grisly surprise in one of her bags: a freshly bloodied shirt...that undoubtedly belongs to her ex, CJ, who now happens to be Ellington's chief of police. And Tiffany has gone missing.

A wealthy widow has asked Sarah Winston to sell her massive collection of mysteries through her garage-sale business. While sorting through piles of books stashed in the woman's attic, Sarah is amazed to discover a case of lost Hemingway stories, stolen from a train in Paris back in 1922. How did they end up in Belle Winthrop Granville's attic in Ellington, Massachusetts, almost 100 years later? Before Sarah can get any answers, Belle is assaulted, the case is stolen, a maid is killed, and Sarah herself is dodging bullets.

When Alex and Diane meet, there are instant, undeniable sparks. Both are single parents living in wealthy suburbia: independent, highly competent, and seemingly settled in their comfortable lives. She runs a successful catering business. He's a detail-oriented, rough-hewn thief who robs banks, casinos, and jewelry stores. They're immediately drawn to each other, but neither realizes initially that their lives have overlapped once before, under dangerous circumstances. Soon their shared history and burgeoning relationship will threaten everything they love.

In a riveting debut thriller that has drawn comparisons to masters of the genre like Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly, Brian Freeman weaves obsession, sex, and revenge into a story that grips the reader with vivid characters and shocking plot twists from the first minute to the last.

Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared 15 years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend, Brad Stockton - black and from the wrong side of the tracks - was convicted of the murders and is now on death row. Though he's maintained his innocence all along, the clock is running out. His execution is only weeks away when his devoted sister insists she spied Sarah at an area gas station.

Tess McBray was dying. The solstice syndrome had no cure, and she resigned herself to an early grave. But just when she gave up on survival, all her symptoms mysteriously disappeared. All but one symptom, anyway. Something is wrong with Tess’ hands. They absorb any material they touch, and her skin turns to wood, steel, or concrete. It doesn’t take this comic book obsessed 21-year-old long to figure out what’s going on: somehow, she’s developed super powers. And she’s not the only one; across the country, people are coming forward and sharing their gifts with the world.

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, Massachusetts, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number 17 in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived. When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday - the day she was kidnapped so long ago - Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous.

Wearing her shades, a black Stetson, and snakeskin cowboy boots, security agent Maxine "Max" Blake is the baddest thing walking. Ex-marine, ex-cop, and a whole lot of 'tude, Max doesn't have time for anything but her job. Her latest assignment: to protect Dr. Adam Gary. Her problem: He doesn't want her there.

Pittsburgh, 1995. The son of a black father he’s never known and a white mother he sometimes wishes he didn’t, 22-year-old Bobby Saraceno is passing for white. Raised by his bigoted maternal grandfather, Bobby has hidden his truth from everyone, even his best friend and fellow comic-book geek, Aaron, who has just returned home from prison a hardened racist.