Thomas Austin was once a prominent NYPD detective, known for locking up a psychopathic serial killer dubbed "The Holiday Baby Butcher". Now retired in a small beach town in the Pacific Northwest, Austin runs a little café, trying to overcome the loss of his wife, a DA who was gunned down only one year ago.

Rumors have swirled around Jake Cashen his whole life. Is he crazy like his father? Is it true they booted him out of the F.B.I. right after he cracked a career-making RICO case? Was he dirty? Only Jake knows, and he’s not telling. He came back to his tiny hometown at the foot of Ohio’s Blackhand Hills to serve as a deputy sheriff. He hopes to punch a clock and keep his head down until retirement. It was a solid plan—until someone put a bullet in the head of a revered county judge.

Ex-Army Civil Affairs specialist Jo Gunning is a loner. No commitments. No fixed address. She's enjoying her anonymity in Virginia when she crosses paths with a runaway teenage girl in need. Assisting the girl in getting home leads to a phone call for help, and a claim from the girl that her father is holding her hostage. As Jo searches for answers, she finds that nothing is what it seems, and no one is telling the truth.

After a highly decorated police officer is found brutally murdered in the ski resort town of High Peaks, the State Bureau of Criminal Investigation steps in. Upon hearing the news, homicide investigator Noah Sutherland returns to his hometown in the Adirondacks, believing his brother's death to be more than just a cold, methodical ambush.

Former spy Maggie Bird came to the seaside village of Purity, Maine, eager to put the past behind her after a mission went tragically wrong. These days, she’s living quietly on her chicken farm, still wary of blowback from the events that forced her early retirement. But when a body turns up in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her. Maggie turns to her local circle of old friends—all retirees from the CIA—to help uncover the truth about who is trying to kill her, and why.

Tracy Crosswhite has spent 20 years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House - a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder - is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers.

D.I. Duncan McAdam is dispatched home to the Misty Isle. A body has been found buried in a remote location on the Waternish peninsula. Well-preserved in the peat, Isla Matheson—missing for the better part of two decades—is revealed to a shocked island community. A teenage runaway is dead...and no one is talking.

In the quaint town of Hart's Ridge, Deputy Taylor Gray is a force to be reckoned with. From clawing her way out of poverty and foster care to achieving her dream of being in law enforcement, Taylor is determined to make a difference in her community. When a five-year-old girl named Molly walks into a gas station alone and barely speaking, Taylor's determination is put to the test. As she delves deeper into the investigation, Taylor discovers that even the most idyllic towns have their secrets. But this time, the stakes are higher than ever before.

A lifeless girl slips into the river, cold and crumpled. Her body washes away with the rain. Her killer remains a mystery. Sheriff Elven Hallie has been longing for a new case that would add some excitement to his small-town life. But a dead girl wasn’t what he expected. On the last murder case he worked, he was just a deputy with an experienced Sheriff to guide him and they were looking for an outsider. This time, he’s in charge, and the killer is part of their community.

Graham is a detective inspector with London’s Metropolitan police force. He’s a career police officer, an educated, reserved, thoughtful, some might say, complex man. He has suffered tragedy in his life that serves to exaggerate his more introspective characteristics and, like many of us, has to look his demons in the eye from time to time and make tough choices. This box set contains the first four mysteries in this bestselling series.

Meet Mike Daley. Ex-priest. Ex-public defender. And as of yesterday, ex-partner in one of San Francisco's most prominent law firms. Today he's out on his own, setting up practice on the wrong side of town. Then his best friend and former colleague is charged with a brutal double murder, and Daley is instantly catapulted into a high-profile investigation involving the prestigious law firm that just booted him. As he prepares his case, Daley uncovers the firm's dirtiest secrets.

To defend her client, she must dig up a town’s darkest secrets. Defense attorney Cass Leary thought she’d escaped her hometown for good. But after leaving her high-paying job in Chicago, she decides to revisit her troubled past. When someone murders the beloved high school basketball coach and Cass steps in to defend the girl accused of the crime, she doesn’t expect the death threats that follow.... Confronting the town that shunned her as a child, she unearths secrets that some would kill to keep buried.

Driven by a compulsion that challenges his self-control, the man calling himself Charles Milton prowls the rodeo circuit, hunting young women. He chooses those he believes are the most vulnerable, wandering alone and distracted, before he strikes. For years, he has been meticulous in his methods, abducting, murdering, and disposing his victims while leaving no evidence of his crimes—or their identities—behind. Indigenous women have become his target of choice, knowing law enforcement’s history of ignoring their disappearances.

She was the girl everyone wanted but no one could have—no one but him. They’d loved each other. Becca’s suicide at age eighteen broke Logan. The heartache never fully healed. But nothing could have prepared him for the shock of what came next. At age thirty nine, Logan Cooper’s hard-earned detective career is hanging on by a mere thread. His rage went too far this time. The department has assigned a psychiatrist, Dr. Webb, to help him unpack his deep-seated anger issues.

Blake Wilder is plagued with nightmares from her dark and twisted past. Fourteen years ago, her entire family was taken from her. Her parents murdered and her sister taken. At the age of 22, Blake joined the FBI in hopes of one day discovering the truth behind the mysteries of her own past.

Secrets and lies can’t stay buried forever in Cedar Valley. In the summer, hikers and campers pack the small Colorado town’s meadows and fields. And in the winter, skiers and snowboarders take over the mountains. Season by season, year after year, time passes, and the lies, like the aspens and evergreens that surround the town, take root and spread deep. Now, someone has uncovered the lies, and it is his murder that continues a chain of events that began almost 40 years ago.

Sam Acquillo is at the end of the line: he's a middle-aged corporate dropout living in a ramshackle cottage in Southampton's North Sea. But then the old lady next door ends up floating dead in her bathtub, and it seems that Sam is the only one who wonders why.

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.

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.

Nina is a tough Queens detective with a series of cold-case homicides on her desk - men whose widows had the same alibi: They were living in Artemis, a battered women’s shelter, when their husbands were killed. Nina goes undercover into Artemis. Though she is playing the victim, she’s anything but. Nina knows about violence and the bullies who rely on it because she’s experienced it in her own life.

A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than murder.

When a local girl falls prey to a sadistic serial killer, Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson and her lover, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, find themselves in a joint investigation pursuing a vicious murderer. The Southern Strangler is slaughtering his way through the Southeast, leaving a gruesome memento at each crime scene – the prior victim’s severed hand.

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller's Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady"; she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown.

In Osaka in 1973, the body of a murdered man is found in an abandoned building. Investigating the crime, Detective Sasagaki is unable to find the killer. Over the next 20 years, through the lens of a succession of characters, Higashino tells the story of two teens, Ryo and Yukiho, whose lives are most affected by the crime, and the obsessed detective, Sasagaki, who continues to investigate the murder, looking for the elusive truth.

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.

Thomas Austin was once a prominent NYPD detective, known for locking up a psychopathic serial killer dubbed "The Holiday Baby Butcher". Now retired in a small beach town in the Pacific Northwest, Austin runs a little café, trying to overcome the loss of his wife, a DA who was gunned down only one year ago.

Across the Pacific Northwest, a twisted killer stalks victims representing ancient archetypes: The Ruler. The Warrior. The Scholar. The Priest. Four are dead, leaving FBI investigators puzzled by the macabre, color-coded shrines the killer left behind. And clues now point to a fifth victim.

Twenty years ago Brandon Penny was a criminal prodigy. Today, he’s a broken-hearted movie buff working a dead-end job. But everything is about to change. As a child, Brandon carefully studied his mother and her crew of thieves. Gifted from the start, Brandon was pulling short cons by age six, stealing jewelry by age eight, and orchestrating heists by age eleven. But one night a job went bad, a gun went off, and Brandon’s mother disappeared.

A lifeless girl slips into the river, cold and crumpled. Her body washes away with the rain. Her killer remains a mystery. Sheriff Elven Hallie has been longing for a new case that would add some excitement to his small-town life. But a dead girl wasn’t what he expected. On the last murder case he worked, he was just a deputy with an experienced Sheriff to guide him and they were looking for an outsider. This time, he’s in charge, and the killer is part of their community.

Rumors have swirled around Jake Cashen his whole life. Is he crazy like his father? Is it true they booted him out of the F.B.I. right after he cracked a career-making RICO case? Was he dirty? Only Jake knows, and he’s not telling. He came back to his tiny hometown at the foot of Ohio’s Blackhand Hills to serve as a deputy sheriff. He hopes to punch a clock and keep his head down until retirement. It was a solid plan—until someone put a bullet in the head of a revered county judge.

When human bones are found beneath an old chapel in the woods, evidence suggests the remains could be linked to the decades-old case of missing teen Annalise Jansen. Homicide detective Jane Munro—pregnant and acutely attuned to the preciousness of life—hopes the grim discovery will finally bring closure to the girl’s family. But for a group of Annalise’s old friends, once dubbed the Shoreview Six by the media, it threatens to expose a terrible pledge made on an autumn night forty-seven years ago.

In present-day Greece, deep in an ancient forest, lives a family: Irini, a musician, who teaches children to read and play music; her husband, Tasso, who paints pictures of the forest, his greatest muse; and Chara, their young daughter, whose name means joy. On the fateful day that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives, flames chase fleeing birds across the sky. The wildfire that will consume their home, and their lives as they know it, races toward them.

Emma Frost inherits a house on Fanoe Island when her grandmother dies. She decides to move there with her family, much to her teenage daughter's regret. One morning a wealthy older woman living in her street is found murdered and soon Emma finds herself wrapped in a mystery uncovering the island's dark secrets reaching into her own family.

It came out of the blue. A half-million dollars on graduation day. For Annie Daisy Clark, it was the capital she needed to start a business. Vowing to pay back every penny of it one day, she kept the bag of cash she’d found, and never looked back. Ten years later, Annie’s investment has paid off. The owner of a successful chain of elegant coffee bars, she is blissfully engaged and about to return to Boston for her ten-year college reunion. She also begins making good on her promise. But just as Annie’s life seems complete, the dark history of the money returns to haunt her.

From the author of The Natural comes a classic short story about a young rabbinical student and his fateful encounter with an enigmatic matchmaker. A co-production with the National Jewish Theater. Recorded before a live audience at Chicago’s Guest Quarters Suite Hotel in July 1992.

From the attic of Driftwood House, there are stunning views of the deep green sea and sapphire sky. But Rosie can’t tear her eyes away from the faded photograph in her hands, and the words written on the back that will change everything.... Back in the tiny seaside village of Heaven’s Cove after the death of her mother, all Rosie Merchant wants is to hide her tears, rent out her childhood home and get back to her ‘real’ life, away from the gossiping villagers and wild Devon weather she escaped from years ago.

On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn't allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. She's never even ventured beyond her narrow room. Momma insists it's for Lilly's own protection, that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time - and sold to the circus sideshow.

Carmen Sanchez is a tough Homeland Security agent who plays by the rules. But when her sister is attacked, revealing a connection to a series of murders across Southern California, she realizes a conventional investigation will not be enough to stop the ruthless perpetrator. With nowhere else to turn, Sanchez enlists the aid of Professor Jake Heron, a brilliant and quirky private security expert who, unlike Sanchez, believes rules are merely suggestions. The two have a troubled past, but he owes her a favor and she’s cashing in.

Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the fiscal news on his phone, already preparing for the next grueling day in the cutthroat realm of finance. Then one morning Devine’s tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead.

After years of self-exile, Jacinda “Jac” Brodie is back in Brook Haven, South Carolina. But the small cliffside town no longer feels like home. Jac hasn’t been there since the beloved chief of police fell to his death—and all the whispers said she was to blame. That chief was Jac’s father. Racked with guilt, Jac left town with no plans to return. But when her granddad lands in the hospital, she rushes back to her family, bracing herself to confront the past.