Ector County Library - Book Reviews

Moonlight Mile
By Dennis Lehane

Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for help from the child’s aunt led investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on her case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl-only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home. Now Amanda is sixteen and gone again. Amanda’s aunt is once more knocking on Patrick Kenzie’s door. Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most. In their desperate fight to confront the past and find Amanda , Kenzie and Gennaro will be forced to question if it’s possible to do the wrong thing and still be right or to do the right thing and still be wrong. As they face an evil that goes beyond broken families and broken dreams, they discover that the sins of yesterday don’t always stay buried and the crimes of today could end their lives.

MATTHEW’S STORY – THE JESUS CHRONICLES
BY TIM LAHAYE & JERRY B. JENKINS
The authors of the Left Behind series introduce the Jesus Chronicles four books told in the voice of those who knew Jesus best, the Gospel writers, John, Mark, Luke, and new Matthew. This book brings to life the most unlikely of apostles, a sinner turned saint, and his time with the Lord. With Matthew, we will walk with Jesus as he gives the Sermon on the Mount, performs his miracles of healing the sick and raising the dead, contemplates his faith at the Last Supper and in the Garden of Gethsemane, is crucified and most important, resurrected. This uplifting story shows how the Messiah changed the life of one man, and forever altered the course of history.

THE MIDNIGHT HOUSE
BY ALEX BERENSON
CIA agent John Wells has the ability to go undercover in the Arab world, but he has never been tested like this. A retired CIA operative is shot to death in the street. That night, a former Army Ranger is gunned down at his doorway. The next day, Wells gets a call, come to Langley, now. The victims were part of a ten-member interrogation team that operated out of a secret base in Poland called the Midnight House. Now Wells must find out who is killing them. Islamic terrorists are the likeliest explanation, and Wells goes underground in Cairo to seek them out. The trail of blood he follows will lead him and his boss, Ellis Shafer to a place they wouldn’t have imagined and leave Wells facing the hardest of questions about the men of the Midnight House.

THE LAST SURGEON
BY MICHAEL PALMER
Dr. Nick Garrity spends his days and nights running a mobile clinic in D.C. and Baltimore, and searching for his war buddy, Sgt. Umberto Vasquez. Four years ago, Umberto was sent on a secret mission and hasn’t been seen since. Everyone told Nick that his friend, a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder simply disappeared. Nick doesn’t believe it. Neither does psych nurse Jillian Coates believe that her sister Belle, an ICU nurse, took her own life. Belle left Jillian a subtle clue, one that ties her to army surgeon Nick Garrity. Together, Nick and Jillian discover a chilling, high-level connection between these two seemingly random events, a common denominator that will lead a killer to the next victim and the last surgeon.

KISSER
BY STUART WOODS

Can Stone Barrington keep a rising star from being extinguished? When a lovely Georgian starlet enlists Stone Barrington’s counsel, he’s caught in the whirlwind as the ambitious actress storms Manhattan. It’s like a fairy tale, until her ex-husband tries to knife her on the street. While trying to protect her and warn him away, Stone is called to watch out for a trust-fund baby whose artist boyfriend is working a con. The swindler has a sideline, he sells narcotics out of his studio, and Stone is recalled to police work to bring him down. With these cases and the startling reappearance of his psychotic former wife, Stone is exhausted. When the bullets start to fly, can he stand up to the pressure? Or will the criminals throw him a smack aimed right at the kisser.

LAST SNOW
BY ERIC VAN LUSTBADER

When an American senator headed for the Ukraine turns up dead in Capri, the president calls on his special advisor Jack McClure to get to the bottom of it. While Jack follows a perilous trail of criminals and corruption across Eastern Europe, thoughts of his daughter’s death and the end of his marriage compel him to take on a personal mission along with his professional one. Can he keep safe from harm two unexpected companions, Annika Dementieva, a rogue Russian agent and Allie Carso, the president’s daughter, while being hunted by everyone from the Russian mob to the Ukrainian police? He must save the president’s daughter from his own government.

LEGALLY DEAD
BY EDNA BUCHANAN

U.S. Marshal Michael Venturi of the witness Protection Program relocates a mobster, now a government witness to a small rural town after creating a new identity for him. The man proves to be a monster unleashed on an unsuspecting community. The results are tragic. To make amends Venturi leaves the Marshals Service and assembles a team of close confidants to secretly create new identities for innocent men and women whose lives have been ruined through no fault of their own. Before they are relocated and reborn, each must change a lifetime of habits and actually become someone else, with new traits, tastes, and personalities. As Venturi continues to relocate the deserving, evil begins to stalk Venturi and his legally dead clients

LAVENDAR MORNING
Jude Deveraux

Book one in the exciting New Edilean Series. Jocelyn Minton was a woman torn between two worlds. Her mother grew up attending private schools, but she married the local handyman. After her mother died when Joce was only five years old, her father remarried into his own class and Joce became an outsider. Then she met Edilean Harcourt who was a kindred soul and understood her like no one else had. When Miss Edi passes away she leaves all her worldly possessions, including her eighteenth-century house and a letter with clues to a mystery that began in 1941. She also mentions she had found the perfect man for Joce a handsome young lawyer. The house and the future love of her life are all in Edilean a small town in Virginia. As she begins to dig into Miss Edi’s mystery, she soon discovers some shocking surprises.

MR. & MISS ANONYMOUS
Fern Michaels

A desperate act from their past brings two strangers together. Lily Madison and Peter Kelley first met when they were both students who donated to a fertility clinic as a way out of debt. Lily felt the place was sinister, although neither acted on their suspicions. Years later, they meet by chance at an airport and watch a broadcast of a school shooting in which one of the two survivors is a boy who looks exactly like Pete! More troubling is that while the teenager was, indeed, conceived at the clinic, he grew up in a group home, rather than with a family. Clearly their long-ago fears were founded, but nothing prepared Lily and Pete for the shocking truth or its repercussions.

LUKE’S STORY, THE JESUS CHRONICLES
Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins

This story follows Luke from Green slave to university educated physician to the author of one of the four Gospels. Along the way, he meets Saul of Tarsus, who becomes Luke’s role model and greatest competitor. The gripping story of Saul’s conversions, now called Pual, and the miraculous healing of one of his own patients by prayer, changes Luke’s life forever. Luke pledges himself to Christ and writes a gospel based on years of interviewing believers and listening to stories of the Lord’s life from those who knew him and most importantly, Mary, the mother of Jesus. The new book in the bestselling series from the authors of the Left Behind novels

Malice
by Lisa Jackson

New Orleans Detective Rick Bentz suspects his first wife Jennifer is following him. He doesn’t mention this to his current wife, because he knows Olivia will think he’s lost his mind, and maybe he has. Rick was the one who pulled Jennifer’s dead body from a car wreck twelve years ago. Lisa ratchets up the tension as Bentz, who has been mailed Jennifer’s death certificate emblemized with a red question mark, heads to L.A. determined to investigate her past life. Instead he walks into a killer’s trap when people connect to his former spouse are murdered and he’s the prime suspect. Bentz realized he’s being made to suffer for his sins, real or imagined. What he doesn’t know is that Olivia may have to pay for them. A gripping, edge-of-your seat tale of deception and betrayal or Rick Bentz is forced to confront the ghosts of his past, and a killer’s twisted vengeance.

Mounting Fears
Stuart Woods

President Will Lee is having a rough week. As he prepares for the upcoming election, he has several crises going on at once. As if that weren’t enough, Kate Rule Lea, his first lady and CIA director, is contending with another threat: the return of the dangerous and unusually cunning fugitive Teddy Fay. There’s plenty of the usual trouble in Washington, but with the threat from abroad looming, the president puts every resource he has, including Lance Cabot and Holly Baker into damage control as the clock ticks down to election night. There’s enough intrigue to keep even the sharpest and most daring of intelligence agents on the edge.

Lethal Legacy
Linda Fairstein

When ADA Alexandra Cooper is called to Tina Barr’s Manhattan apartment, she finds that the terrified assault victim, a conservator of rare books and maps, refuses to cooperate with investigators. Then another woman is found murdered in the same apartment, with an extremely valuable, possibly stolen, book. Alex is drawn into the strange and privileged world of the book-collecting Hunt family. The search for answers takes Alex and her team on a breathtaking chases into the secret tunnels and chambers of the New York Public library. A complex trail of clues that will keep you guessing until the final page.

The Lucky One
By Nicholas Sparks

The problem for the hero of this moving tale is that he convinced a woman he’s never met is his lucky charm, having come to him in a time of dire need. U.S. Marine Logan Thibault finds a photograph of a smiling young woman half-buried in the dirt during his third tour of duty in Iraq. Actually, it’s a photograph of her lovely visage that saves him from the abyss. How he falls into the dark depths of despair, recovers and searches for his beautiful talisman. His best friend, Victor, seems to have an explanation for his good fortune: the photograph- his lucky charm. Back home in Colorado, Thibault can’t seem to get the photo and the woman in it out of his mind. Believing that she somehow holds the key to his destiny, he sets out on a journey across the country to find her. Never expecting the strong but vulnerable woman he encounters in Hampton, North Carolina, Elizabeth, a divorced mother with a young son- to be the girl he’s been waiting his whole life to meet.

It Only Takes a Moment
By Mary Jane Clark

Eliza Blake, host of the top-rated Key News morning show, has witnessed tragedy and danger in her career. Nothing has prepared her for when her seven year old, Jamie, is snatched from summer camp. With each passing day, the FBI and local authorities track down every lead. Eliza isn’t going to sit around and wait for answers. She and the rest of the Sunrise Suspense Society will band together to outwit a cunning criminal whose shocking motives threatens to snuff out a terrified little girl’s life.
Legally Dead

By Edna Buchanan

U.S. Marshal Michael Venturi of the Witness Protection Program relocates a mobster, now a government witness, to a small rural town after creating a new identity for him. The man proves to be a monster unleashed on an unsuspecting community. The results are tragic: To make amends Venturi leaves the marshals service and assembles a team of close confidants to secretly create new identities for innocent men, and women whose lives have been ruined through no fault of their own, people who deserve fresh starts in new lives. Before they are relocated and reborn, each must change a lifetime of habits and actually become someone else, with new traits, tastes, and personalities.

The death of a journalist leads Allon to Russia, where he finds that in terms of spy craft; even he has something to learn. He’s playing by Moscow rules now. It is not the grim, gray Moscow of Soviet Times but a new Moscow, awash in ill wealth and choked with bulletproof Bentleys. A Moscow where a new generation of Stalinists is plotting to reclaim an empire lost and to challenge the global dominance of its old enemy, the United States. One such man is Ivan Kharlow. Now, he is an arms dealer. He is about to deliver Russia’s most sophisticated weapons to Al-Queda. Unless Allon can learn the time and place of the delivery, the world will see the deadliest terror attacks since 9/11, and the clock is ticking fast.

Two small towns in the middle of nowhere: Hope and Despair. Between them, nothing but twelve miles of empty road. Jack Reacher can’t find a ride, so he walks. All he wants is a cup of coffee. What he gets are four hostile locals, a vagrancy charge, and an order to move on. They’re picking on the wrong guy. What are the secrets that Despair seems so desperate to hide? With just one ally, a mysterious woman Cop from Hope, and many enemies, Reacher goes up against a whole town, hunting the rich man at its core, asking the question: Who has the edge- a man with everything to gain, or a man with nothing to lose?

Los Angeles is gripped by the exploding celebrity of Allison Murietta, her real identity unknown, a modern-day Jesse James with the compulsion to steal beautiful things. Nobody ever gets hurt, until a job ends with ten gangsters lying dead and a half-million dollars worth of glittering diamonds missing. Rookie Deputy Charlie Hood discovers the bodies and he prevents an eyewitness, Suzanne Jones, from leaving the scene. With a stone-cold killer locked in relentless pursuit, Suzanne and Hood continue their desperate dance around the secrets that brought them together, unsure whether each new dawn may signal the day their lies catch up with them.

For intelligence operative Sean Dillon, it begins with a routine passport check. The events it will lead to will be as bloody as any he has ever known. The man he stops at Heathrow Airport is Caspar Rashid, and his 13-year-old daughter has been kidnapped and taken to Iraq to be married to one of the Middle East's most - feared terrorists, a man known simply as "The Hammer of God". Dillon has his own run-ins with his group in the past, so when the distraught man begs him for help, he sees a chance to settle some old scores. Little does he realize that the chain of events he's about to unleash would have devastating consequences. Before his journey is done, many men will die, and Dillon may be one of them.

Young attorney Mary DiNunzio is back in action in a case involving some pretty nasty characters. These days, things aren’t so rosy for Ms. DiNunzio. Her boss at Rosato and Associates has turned down her requests to be made partner and to get help with her case load. Trish Gambone, one of the “mean girls” from Mary’s old high school walks into Mary’s office demanding help. A hairdresser now, Trish has been living with a man who abuses her, and whom she believes is going to kill her. That man is Bobby Mancuso, Mary’s high school crush. Before she knows it, both Trish and Bobby disappear. Then a dead body turns up, and Mary is plunged into a nightmare that threatens her job, her family, and her life. She goes on a one-woman crusade to unmask the killer and on the way, find new love in a very unexpected place.

It's August, and New York City is sweltering. Asst.D.A. Alex Cooper is deep into a complicated rape trial when she gets a call: the body of a young woman has been found in an abandoned building. The brutality of the beating is disturbing enough, but when a second then a third body is found, the city's top brass want the killer found fast, before the tabloids alarm an already tense public. The heat is on, but Alex's leads are slim because the women had nothing in common. The only thing connecting them is the killer's choice of dumping ground and the olive blankets wrapping two of the bodies. Alex is convinced she has a sexual psychopath on her hands, and if she doesn't watch her step, she could succumb to the killer's deadly heat!

Spurred by her mother’s dying wish, Susannah Connolly has traveled from her lifelong home on the Connecticut shoreline to the fabled French Camargue, to see its famous white horses and find a mysterious saint linked to her family’s history. American-born Grey Dempsey had come to the Camargue as a journalist, fell in love with a celebrated Romany rider, and suffered a devastating loss of his own. Now he operates a ranch as he struggles to raise his young daughter, who, after a terrible night years ago, fears the horses she once loved. Within their bittersweet private orbit, Susannah Connolly will find a part of herself she hadn’t known she had lost, and how sometimes to find your way home you must travel far away.

August 2005
Amid death and destruction, hurricane- savaged New-Orleans has a new dark force to fear. As the rescue efforts unfold, a grisly discovery is made at one of the massive refrigerator “graveyards”. One of the metal hulks contains six human hands, all female, all right hands. With no way to trace the origin of this refrigerator, and with evidence lost to time, the case dead-ends. The press has dubbed the unknown perpetrator”The Handyman”. Captain Patti-O’Shay is assigned to the case. Her tough, unflinching character is fractured when her husband and fellow police captain is found murdered. {August 2007} Patti, still grieving, gets a call from homicide: skeletal remains have been unearthed in City Park. An unknown female victim and missing her right hand. Found beside the victim’s bones is her husband’s police badge. Casting aside the very “rule book” by which she has lived her life, Patti is fearless, but so is the killer. She knows that if she doesn’t find the Handyman first, she will become his last known victim.

Many years ago, Jack Swyteck saved Theo Knight’s life. Theo grew up on the streets of Miami’s roughest neighborhood and lost his mother to a violent crime. Although his uncle Cy tried to raise him right, by the time he was a teenager, Theo was on death row for a murder he didn’t commit, Jack was the lawyer who proved him innocent. Now a successful bar owner, Theo has turned things around, but he needs Jack’s help again. An escaped convict from the old neighborhood shows up at Theo’s back door, asking for help. In return, he’ll finger the man who murdered Theo’s mother. The answers aren’t so simple, and soon Theo’s own life is in danger. Jack and Theo must piece together a twenty-year-old conspiracy of greed and corruption. A brilliant and bullet-fast thriller.

In her new Capital Crimes page-turner, she leads us into the treacherous territory of political lobbying, where the right information and enough influence can buy the kind of power that corrupts, and sometimes kills. Arriving home from a fundraiser, Senator Lyle Simmons discovers his wife brutally beaten body. Soon, speculation swirls around a dashing lobbyist who was the last to see the victim alive. Former D.A. Phillip Rotondi has his own suspicions. Following a trail of dirty money and dirtier tricks, his investigation takes him into a closely guarded world of lobbyists where taking on the system is a dead man’s gambit. Rotundi harbors his own unsettling suspicions and after a second woman is killed, he discovers that a long-buried secret from his own past may hold the key to cracking the case.

Debbie Macomber reveals her inspiring life story. Encouraging readers to dream big and reminding them that they were made for a purpose. Debbie was ten years old when she began writing, but she kept it to herself, afraid of having her fragile dreams trampled. She was dyslexic, a slow reader, and a just-average student. Debbie clung to her secret dreams of publication. She believed that God called her to write, and today, after battling years of uncertainty and rejection, Debbie is a successful award-winning and beloved novelist. She’s here to tell you not to give in to discouragement. From your very beginning, God knit you together with hopes and aspirations.

The second novel, in The Jesus Chronicles, opens on the evening of the last day of Jesus as a man. In the years after, following in the footsteps of his friend and mentor Peter, Mark becomes an ardent follower of Jesus and devoted disciple of Christianity, spreading the Gospel outside the boundaries of Jerusalem and into the world. This book is a thrilling account that depicts the day before Jesus' crucifixion and the danger that early believers faced as they boldly proclaimed him Christ the Lord. Mark chronicles the growth of the early church, the struggles of Jesus' followers, and the persecution its members endured from a hostile world.

Spenser's latest case should be a simple investigation for an FBI agent who suspects that his wife is up to no good. Soon after Spenser catches Dennis Doherty's wife, Jordan, with another man, three people are dead. With his sidekick Hawk and gun-for-hire Vinnie Morris watching his back, Spenser delves into a complicated and far-reaching operation. Jordan's former lover, Perry Alderson is the leader of a group that sponsors anti-American violence. Alderson doesn't like Spenser poking around in his business, so he decides to get Spenser through his girlfriend Susan. What Alderson doesn't realize is that Spenser will stop at nothing to uncover the truth and keep Susan out of harm's way.

New York District Attorney Butch Karp, recovering from an assassination attempt that came within a few millimeters of killing him, takes on a shadowy cartel. As Karp struggles to uncover those responsible for planning the terrorist murders of six schoolchildren, he goes to the aid of the younger brother of his college roommate, who has been unfairly suspended from his position as baseball coach at a university in Idaho. Meanwhile, Marlene Ciampi is in Idaho to help her husband with the investigation, and she befriends a Basque sheepherder who is demanding answers to the disappearance of his daughter. This book is filled with twists and story lines torn from today's headlines, a climax that has been woven into a single, brilliant tapestry of action and suspense.

Diana Gabaldon weaves together the strands of Lord John’s secret and public lives, a shattering family mystery, and a war that stretches from the Old World to the New. In 1758, in the heart of the Seven Years War, Britain fights by the side of Prussia in the Rhineland. For Lord John and his titled brother Hal, the battlefield will be a welcome respite from the torturous mystery that burns poisonously in their family’s history. Now unlaid ghosts from the past are stirring. Lord John’s brother has received a page of their late father’s missing diary. Someone is taunting the Greg family with secrets from the grave. Frustrated, John turns to the Scottish Jacobite James Fraser for help. Until James Fraser yields the missing pieces of an astounding puzzle, and Lord John caught between his courage and his conscience, must decide whether his family’s honor is worth his life.

The investigation of LaShawn Tompkins murder seems straightforward enough. Upon his release from death row, the ex-drug dealer returned to his old neighborhood, where he was gunned down on his mother’s doorstep. It looks like just another case of turf warfare. As J.P. Beaumont starts digging the situation becomes more complicated. It appears LaShawn really had turned over a new leaf at the King Street Mission and his murder was premeditated. Someone had targeted the man for death. Meanwhile, Mel Soames is given a hush-hush investigation on registered sex offenders. They are dying off at an alarming rate and not all due to natural causes. Suddenly, Mel’s investigation becomes entangled with Beau’s, and the two begin to uncover a conspiracy that could involve people in high places, including their own top brass.

Eight years ago, in Sun Valley all that stood between New York State attorney General Elizabeth Shaler and a knife-wielding killer was local patrolman Walt Fleming. Now Liz Shaler returns to Sun Valley as a keynote speaker for Patrick Cutler's world-famous C3, a media and communications conference. A heart stopping race against the clock in which a local sheriff tries desperately to protect a controversial politician from the elegant plan of a hired assassin. The attorney general is expected to announce her candidacy for president. It's a media coup for Cutter, but a security nightmare for Walt Fleming, now county sheriff.

The castles, the emerald green hills, the romance, love is definitely in the air for the newlyweds Regan and Jack Reilly. While they're relaxing on their honeymoon in Ireland, they're also making time to research their Irish roots. When their search leads them to a small town outside Dublin, they find that certain things about their family histories are not as cut and dried as they seem. As they dig deeper, they discover some frightening information about their forefathers. Whose family is related to the Reillys-Regan or Jack's or both? Filled with fascinating Irish history.

Reunite with your favorite characters and see how they fare in this capstone final title of the Left Behind saga. While those who choose not to trust Christ are accursed and die young, devotees of the Other Light, Lucifer, conspire to populate the end of the millennial kingdom with a massive army. When Satan is loosed for a time to once again tempt the nations, he leads this force to the ultimate conflict of good versus evil, and the result ushers in the new heaven and the new earth. The saints of the ages, heroes from the Bible, help rule.

New secrets and hidden agendas send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most outrageous adventure yet. Once upon a time, Stephanie was married to Dickie Orr, for about 15 minutes, until she caught him cheating on her with Joyce Barnhardt. She never wanted to see either of them again, but when bounty-hunter Ranger asks her to meet with Dickie, she can't refuse. Ranger thinks Dickie's doing something shady and he is. When Dickie turns up missing, guess who's the prime suspect? Now she must find Dickie, and figure out her feelings for Ranger and cop Joe Morelli, and stay alive!

Peyton Shields had always wanted to be a doctor. She's a first-year resident at a major Boston children's hospital. The hours are long, but it's the life she wants, complete with a husband who's an up-and-coming young lawyer. A late-night drive home in a heavy snowstorm changes everything. A car coming straight at her forces her off the road and into a frozen pond. Peyton knows she'd be dead if a stranger hadn't pulled her from the wreckage before vanishing into the darkness. In an instant her wonderful life has turned dark. The terror has only begun, for a series of strange increasingly dangerous events begin to plague Peyton. This novel offers a new twist on the phrase "woman in jeopardy."

Kay Lansing's father was a landscaper at the New Jersey estate of the powerful Carrington family. At the age of six, in the chapel of the mansion, she overheard a quarrel between an unknown man and a woman who seemed to be blackmailing him for money, supposedly for the last time. The caustic reply, "I heard that song before." Now grown and working as a librarian, Kay meets Peter Carrington, head of his family's business empire, who has lived under a cloud of suspicion for years, ever since a local girl, Susan Althorp, vanished after he gave her a ride home. The doubts and gossip only increased when his pregnant wife drowned in their swimming pool. Kay is haunted by questions, fragments of memories and knows that the blackmail scheme she overheard so long ago holds the key to the truth about Peter Carrington.

Lucas Davenport returns in the most startling Prey novel yet! In one of the richest neighborhoods in Minneapolis, an elderly woman and her housekeeper lie dead, killed with a pipe, their home ransacked and small valuables stolen. The cops figure it's the work of a small-time drug addict looking for cash for a quick fix. When they call in Detective Lucas Davenport of the State Bureau of Criminal Investigation, he's not so sure. At the same time, Lucas has the thankless job of investigating the very touchy case of a state senator accused of a heinous sex crime. Davenport doesn't know it yet, but these two very different cases are about to collide. Lucas knows he's on to something, but he'd better watch out, because the killers-yes, there are more than one-are waiting for him.

In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge. Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens-until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing, but, also, come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. It takes only nineteen minutes for Detective Patrick DuCharme's usually quiet beat to become the lead on every newscast in the country, and for Judge Alex Cormier to completely lose her composure. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge, could be the states best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. Can your own child become a mystery to you? Is it ever okay for a victim to strike back?

For ambitious, troubled architect Ray Jackson, the nightmare begins one sultry California night when his wife disappears. No phone call, no ransom note, no body, reveals whether Leigh is dead or alive. Then, suddenly, a woman shows up on Ray's doorstep demanding answers: Kathleen, an old friend of Leigh's. Suspected by his wife's friend and by the police, Ray launches a desperate search of his own. Using a collection of keys he has held on to since he was a boy, keys to homes he and his mother once lived in, Ray quietly yet boldly enters each house. As past and present collide, Ray is suddenly confronted with the most agonizing decision of his life. His choice will leave nothing and no one the same.

The death of history teacher Craig Foster devastated his young wife, who'd sent him off to work that morning with a lovingly packed lunch. It shocked his colleagues at the Upper West Side private school, and as for the ten-year-old girls who found him in his classroom in a pool of bodily fluids. They may have been traumatized for life. Lieutenant Eve Dallas is more hardened to murder cases, and this is clearly a murder case. That lovingly packed lunch was tainted with deadly ricin. It's Eve's job to get a feel for all the potential suspects, and find out why someone would have done this to a man who seemed so pleasant, so inoffensive.

Next, blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn. Welcome to our genetic world, fast, furious, and out of control. This is not the world of the future; it's the world right now. Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality, and shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.

Lisey Landon lost her husband Scott two years ago, after a twenty-five year marriage of profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Stephen King straddles the line between sentiment and horror as he tells the story of the widow of an acclaimed author, who must confront and protect the dark secrets of her husband's past. Scott's books were filled with stirring heroes, monsters, tragedies, and glories. His unexpected death has left Lisey adrift, stalked by supernatural forces, for only she knows the source of Scott's dark imagination and raw emotion. Now with literature professors desperate to get their hands on Scott's unpublished writing. Delving further into Scott's mysterious legacy, Lisey comes face to face with her own demons, ultimately confronting her husband's death and slowly and courageously moving forward into a new phase of her life.

Those metro maniacs Alexandra "Barney" Barnaby and Nascar driver Sam Hooker are back. Nascar drivers will like this book! Barney is convinced one of the competitors is up to no good on the track. Snooping to find evidence, Hooker and Barney "borrow" a Nascar hauler, turns out the hauler is carrying two race cars and a dead guy. It looks like Barney and Hooker are facing multiple counts of grand theft auto and homicide. So buckle up as Barney, Hooker, a 150 pound bundle of Saint Bernard love named Beans, and Super Cigar Ladies Felicia and Rosa shift into gear on a wild race around South Florida and Concord, North Carolina.

In a remote frozen corner of New Hampshire, a Navy Seal team and the elite security experts of Troubleshooters Incorporated are going head-to-head as fierce but friendly rivals in a raid-and-rescue training exercise. Then suddenly Tracy Shapiro, the Troubleshooter's new receptionist, vanishes while playing the role of hostage during a mock rescue operation. Teaming up with the FBI to launch a manhunt in the wilderness, Mark Jenkins and Lindsey Fountaine are called in to help. A lucky break leads to a discovery. A brutally murdered young woman wearing the jacket Tracy wore when she disappeared. Suddenly there is a chilling certainty that Tracy has fallen prey to a serial killer, one who knows the backwoods terrain and who doesn't play by the rules of engagement. In a race against time, a raging blizzard, a cunning opponent, Jack and Lindsey must come together in a desperate attempt to save Tracy and each other.

This is a true story. If you believe in America you are innocent until proven guilty. This book will open your eyes. In 1971, Ron Williamson left Ada, Oklahoma, as a draft pick for a pro baseball team. It was a dream come true that shattered six years later, after his pursuit of drinking, drugs, and women, compounded by a bad arm, landed him back home and going nowhere. It wasn't hard for anyone who was looking to see that Williamson was in a bad way, but was he a killer? When Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered in 1982, the police were convinced Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz were responsible, despite being told the 21-year-old cocktail waitress was last seen arguing with a male high school friend the night of the killing. Based on zero physical evidence and the word of disreputable snitches. The two were hounded for five years before being arrested and found guilty. While Fritz was given a life sentence, Williamson was sent to Death Row, where he stayed for 12 long years. Just five days before his scheduled execution, DNA evidence snatched him from the jaws of hell.

Emma Harte’s magnificent portrait graces the stairway of her famously elegant department store, serving as a remainder to great-granddaughter and heiress apparent-Linnet, that they share the same dreams. Unfortunately Linnet has no idea that another member of her family, Jonathan Ainsley has a dream of his own, and he’ll stop at nothing to destroy the Hartes. As Linnet battles for control of the family empire, Evan plans her wedding, and Tessa and India are caught up in their own tribulations. All the while Jonathan Ainsley is watching, waiting and perfecting his plan for revenge on the Hartes. Once Jonathan meets his soul mate in evil Evan’s jealous adopted sister Angharad, he knows his vicious plan can’t possibly fail. Finally, the Hartes are going to get their just rewards.

Eve Dallas is one tough cop. She has no problem dealing with a yuletide reveler who plunges 37 stories and gives new meaning to the term sidewalk Santa. When Trudy Lombard shows up at the station, it’s all Eve can do to hold herself together. Instantly, she’s thrown back into the past, when she was a vulnerable, traumatized nine-year old trapped in foster care with the twisted woman who now sits in front of her smiling. Trudy claims she just wants to find out how Eve is doing, but Eve’s husband Roarke suspects otherwise. His suspicions prove correct when Trudy demands money in exchange for keeping the ugly details of Eve’s childhood a secret. A few days later, Trudy is found dead in her hotel room and Eve is determined to solve the case. She and Roarke must follow a circuitous and dangerous path to find out who turned the victimizer into a victim.

Former CIA operative Grace Archer and her daughter are back in the sights of a ruthless killer in search of a scientific secret. For eight years Grace Archer has been in hiding with her young daughter Frankie at a rural Alabama horse farm. Formerly with the CIA, Grace has a special talent as a horse whisperer that links her to a scientific secret of mammoth proportions. When her safe world shatters and the people who owe Grace their gratitude and protection abandon her. Grace must put her faith in former agent Jack Kilmer, and in a man who she believes has already betrayed her once.

Freshly sprung, ex-con Ralph Fischer goes to murderous lengths to learn the address of his former wife who sent him to prison. Determined to settle the score, Ralph’s next step is to travel from Florida to Ohio to find his ex-wife’s house on Mad River Road. Meanwhile in Florida is down-and- out divorcee Jamie Kellogg. Her life in a shambles, Jamie’s new love interest convinces her to ditch her dead-end job and travel with him to visit his son who lives on Mad River Road. What ensues is a tale of murder, romance, and revenge as the lives of Ralph and Jamie cross in a climatic fusion of passion and fury.

For FBI agent Alex Cross there’s no vacation from murder. His family trip to Los Angeles is cut short when he’s asked to join the investigation of the shooting death of a three-time Academy Award winner outside her home. After the slaying, the killer, known as Mary Smith, e-mails a chilling letter to the L.A. Times describing the murder in grisly detail, and threatening more violence. This Tinseltown terror is crossing names off Hollywood A-list faster than you can yell “ action!” Can Alex find out what makes this psycho tick before Mary’s next explosive “ performance”?

Combe Island off the Cornish coast of England has a blood-stained history of piracy and cruelty. It now serves as a place where over-stressed men and women in positions of high authority can come to find serenity in conditions of guaranteed security. When one of its distinguished visitors is found hanging from Combe’s famous lighthouse, an apparent murder victim, the peace of the island is shattered. Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called in to solve the case. Dalgliesh is distracted, worried about his future with Emma Lavenham, the woman he loves. Detective Inspector Kate Miskin is coping with problems of her own and Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith is not happy about having a woman as his superior. The team has scarcely begun to unravel the motives of the various suspects before a second killing occurs.

While farm sitting with Cynthia outside Mitford, the retired Episcopal priest, Father Timothy Kavanagh, is charged with the revival of Holy Trinity, a mountain church that’s been closed for forty years. His bishop’s further mandate: “ Get it up and running, ASAP.” Though challenged and often doubtful, Father Tim’s soul lifts up as he gathers the flock that dwells “above the clouds”. Among them is the bedridden Dovey, who lives with the clues to her mysterious illness in plain view. Robert, who wrestles with the after- math of a crime Father Tim is convinced he didn’t commit, and the antisocial Jubal, who’s trying hard to hold God at gunpoint.This isn’t all Father Tim is struggling to say grace over. You’ll also find a heartfelt surprise. Don’t miss this last and best trip to Mitford. It will remind you of something vital: it’s never too late.

At the big, aggressive newspaper The Washington Tribune, a young woman has been murdered. The hunt for her killer is making sensational and lethal headlines. The Trib's journalist are horrified and anxious to solve the crime before the cops do, and put this scandal to rest. Then a second woman is killed, in Franklin Square. Like the first, she was young, attractive, and worked in the media. For veteran Trib reporter Joe Wilcox, the case strikes close to home. His daughter is a beautiful rising TV news star. Spearheading the Trib's investigation, he baits a trap for the killer with a secret from his past. As Joe's daughter finds herself trapped at the heart of a frantic manhunt, the walls come down between family, friendship, ethics, ambition, and a killer hides in plain sight.

Billy Graham’s now legendary first New York Crusade in 1957 was a touchstone that affected an entire generation. Nearly fifty years later, the Reverend Graham has returned to New York for what is possibly his final United States Crusade, preaching the power of God’s love to tens of thousands of people from all around the world over three life- changing evenings. This book contains all three sermons from Billy Graham’s historic 2005 New York Crusade. This book also features an original introduction and an afterward written by Billy Graham exclusively for this book.

Still grieving over the suicide of her teenage son and the painful dissolution of her marriage, Maggie Dartman has resigned herself to living a life alone. Meanwhile, her widowed neighbor Quinn Thompson is painfully learning too late the staggering depth of his late wife’s love, and can’t wait to escape past regrets by sailing around the world. When the storm of the century ravages San Francisco on New Year’s Eve, the powerful tempest will bring with it Jack Adams, a young carpenter who repairs more than just their damaged homes. He shows them how to weather life’s storm, and to, once again, believe in miracles.

Matt was a good student and an all around popular guy when he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught up in a fight at a frat party, Matt accidentally killed another man and ended up serving four years in prison. Now, nine years after his release from prison, Matt is slowly reintegrating into the community with his pregnant wife, Olivia. The couple is just about to close on a house in his hometown when, in an instant, things begin to unravel. First Matt gets a shocking call from Olivia’s phone. He begins to suspect that Olivia has a painful past of her own. When two people Matt encounters in his search for the truth end up dead, Matt’s rap sheet triggers an arrest warrant. Unwilling to lose everything for a second time, Matt and Olivia are forced outside the law in a desperate attempt to save their future together.

As a lifeguard resort, Ned Kelly meets the woman of his dreams. So when Ned’s cousin offers him a rich deal, Ned can’t turn him down. It is just a fast break-and-enter. The risk is high, and the reward is even greater- $5 million. The heist goes devastatingly wrong. Who will save the lifeguard? Only velocity and secrecy can save his life, but who is pursuing him? Whoever sabotaged the heist? Or is it tied into his new love and his oldest enemies?

J.P. Beaumont is back in a riveting story about a shocking, long-buried case of murder. An eyewitness to a fifty year-old murder has come forward. While undergoing hyprotherapy, a middle-aged nun recalls the grisly details of a cold-blooded killing she witnessed when she was five years old. Though fear has kept these memories repressed, they’ve now risen to the surface to cast a harsh light on a deadly plot that spans two generations. Beau’s caught in the glare, facing a ruthless band of coconspirators willing to go to any lengths to keep their secrets hidden. There’s more shaking up Beau’s world. His former partner, Ron Peters, is caught in a bitter child-custody battle becomes the prime suspect in his ex-wife’s vicious murder.

When young, healthy people start dying after what seems to be a successful, routine surgery, New York City medical examiners Dr. Laurie Montgomery and Dr. Jack Stapleton suspect foul play. Despite resistance from her superiors and the residents at Manhattan General, Laurie pursues her own investigation. Though it seems impossible to determine why and how the patients are dying, she comes to believe that not only are the deaths related-they’re intentional, suggesting the work of a clever serial killer with a very unusual M.O. Then Laurie is dealt a double blow: while coping with Jack’s inability to commit to their relationship, she discovers she carries a genetic marker for a deadly disease. As her life starts to unravel, the need for answers become more urgent, especially when Laurie is pulled into the nightmare as a potential victim herself.

While desperately trying to protect her mother from her abusive stepfather, 10-year-old Liza Barton shoots and kills her. Although the juvenile court rules it an accident, Liza stepfather has the tabloids turn her into a murderess. Twenty-four years and two marriages later, with her identity changed, Liza, now known as Celia, has left her past behind. That is, until her husband presents her with a gift: the household of her childhood tragedy. More and more, there are signs that someone in the community knows Celia’s true identity. As Celia fights to prove her innocence, she is not aware that she and her son, Jack, are now the targets of a killer.

Everything Sasha does is within the boundaries of tradition. Sasha is widowed, a woman who knows she was lucky enough to be married to the most wonderful man in the world and thankful for every moment they had. Liam is half in and half out of a marriage that only a “wacky” artist could manage. While the two are unalike- and a nine-year age difference stares them squarely in the face, their passion for art brings these two mis-matched people together in this heart warming tale of love and compromise.

It’s a beautiful summer night in Portland, Oregon. Ami Vergano, a young attorney and single mother, arrives at her son Ryan’s Little League game with their tenant, Dan Morelli. When the assistant coach calls in sick, Morelli seems happy to help out. When one player calls in sick, Morelli seems happy to help out. When one player roughly blocks another, and a fight erupts, Ami witnesses violence that shocks and horrifies her. It makes her question everything she thought she knew about Morelli. In Washington, D.C., ex-mental patient Vanessa Kohler is watching a piece on television about the Little League massacre. She quickly places a call to the FBI. For years she’s been telling anyone who will listen about a vast government conspiracy to conceal a secret military unit headed by Gen. Morris Wingate, a presidential candidate, and for years everyone has dismissed her stories. When she sees Dan Morelli fighting, she believes she’s found the key to proving that her theories are true. Vanessa hires Ami to represent Morelli, who is charged with attempted, murder, and Ami is drawn into Vanessa’s paranoid world.

Alan Gregory finds his friend and fellow therapist Hannah Grant dead at the office, while one of her patients-a young girl- has gone missing from Boulder on Christmas Day. The clock is ticking as Alan tracks one of Hannah’s most elusive patients; has she been kidnapped or is she a runaway. The answers to both cases may be locked in the mind of a patient he has been treating for a schizoid personality disorder. In a maze of dilemmas that could cost him his career or his life, Alan takes a bold risk that will have readers racing to the stunning conclusion of Missing Persons.

Hardy and Glitsky are embroiled in a murder that begins in the upper echelons of San Francisco society, where money and political influence collide. It starts with a double homicide. Because of the high profiles of the victims- a politically connected socialite and his glamorous fianc�e- the mayor of San Francisco herself demands that a high-ranking detective be put on the case, and Abe Glitsky is thrust into the controversial investigation. Dan Cuneo, the officer already working the case, is wary of Glitsky and doesn't hide his distrust. Matters are made worse when Cuneo starts to focus on his primary suspect- who also happens To be an old girlfriend of Dismas Hardy's. Convinced that Hardy's client is the wrong suspect, Glitsky breaks ranks within the police department to continue his own investigation. As Hardy's murder trial builds to its stunning conclusion, Glitsky's search for the truth reveals a trail of deception that leads beyond San Francisco.

Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson-five days whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year; the second in his twenty-third year; the third in his twenty-eighth; the fourth in his twenty-ninth; the fifth in his thirtieth. What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What challenges must he survive? With each crisis he faces, he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. Here is the story of five days in the life of an ordinary man born to an extraordinary legacy- a story that will challenge the way you look at good and evil, life and death, and everything in between.

What really happened on the night of July 17,1996, when TWA Flight 800 exploded in midair over the Long Island Sound? Did the fuel tank really explode? What about the more than 200 witnesses who claimed to have seen a missile- like object shooting into the night sky just minutes before the plane exploded? Was it friendly fire, or a terrorist attack? John Corey's wife, Kate Mayfield, has always believed that malevolence caused this tragedy. Now, five years later, during a scorching New York summer, Kate enlists her husband's help; John and Kate uncover information that points to a cover-up at the highest levels and discover evidence that can prove their suspicions.

"Wild" Bill Barnaby's dropped off the face of the earth and big sister Alex heads for Miami, Bill's last known sighting, on a hunt to save her brother. Alex has been bailing her brother out of trouble since they were kids. Engaged in a deadly race, wild Bill's "borrowed" NASCAR driver Sam Hooker's sixty-five-foot Hatteras and sailed off into the sunset & just when Hooker has plans for the boat. Hooker figures he'll attach himself to Alex and maybe run into Bill, and maybe Hooker'll get lucky in love with Bill's sister. The race is hot and hard, taking Alex and Hooker into international waters, exposing a plot to grab Cuban gold and a sinister relic of the Cuban missile crisis.

Historic Union Station means nothing to the elderly man speeding south on the last lap of what will turn out to be a one-way journey from Tel Aviv to D.C. on a train that will soon land him at Gate A-8 and, moments later, at St. Peter's Gate. This weary traveler is Louis Russo, a former mob hit man and government informer. Two men are at the station to meet him. One is Richard Marienthal, a young writer whose forth- coming book is based on Russo's life. The other is the man who'll kill him. Russo has returned to help promote Marienthal's book. Those in power fear the contents of his book will expose not only organized crime's business, but also a top-secret assignment abroad that Russo once masterminded for a very-high-profile Capital Hill client.

Terrorists have seized the world's largest cities. London, New York, Frankfurt, and Washington, D.C. will be destroyed, unless certain demands are met- demands that are impossible to carry out. After tiny Crescent Valley, Nevada is fire-bombed- a practice run- Alex Cross knows that it's only a matter of time before the bombers' threats to the other cities are brutally executed. Heading up the FBI, CIA, and Interpol investigation, Cross is stunned when surveillance photos show Geoffrey Shafer, a.k.a. the Weasel, near one of the bombsites. He senses the presence of the Wolf as well, the most vicious predator he has ever battled. With millions of lives at stake, Cross has to see if the most powerful agencies in the world can stay ahead of these two cunning men.

As a television news correspondent, Alex Callahan has traveled to some of the most dangerous corners of the globe, covering famine, plague, and war. Separated from his wife, and struggling not to become a stranger to his six-year-old twin sons. Alex is logging some all-too-rare quality time with the boys when they vanish without a trace amid the hurly-burly of a countryside Renaissance Fair. Then a phone call comes- a chilling silence, slow, steady breathing, and the familiar, plaintive voice of a child- "Daddy"- complete the nightmare and set in motion a juggernaut of frenzy and agony. The longer the police search, exhausting leads without success, the deeper Alex's certainty grow that time is running out. Alex vows to use his own relentless investigative skills to rescue his children from the shadowy figure dubbed The Piper.

Snowshoeing over crusted snow in the woods near their home, twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon and her father come upon something shocking. There, in the pristine winter scene, an abandoned baby wails. Its survival made possible only by the coincidence of their having chosen this path for their late afternoon outing. As she follows the fate of the baby girl, Nicky for the first time asks questions about her life's strange shape. Why has her father moved them to this isolated New England farmhouse? How can they come to terms with the tragedy they left behind? Nicky's ideas about life are thrown into stark relief by the arrival of a young woman haunted by her own terrible choices. Together, Nicky, her father, and this woman must work their way through a thicket of decisions, each one seeming to carry equal possibilities of heartbreak or redemption.

A quaint New England village by the sea, Cape Light is populated by an unforgettable cast of characters who know the importance of lending a hand and cultivating gratitude. Even though their lives are sometimes touched by disappointment, the residents of this close-knit community have discovered time and again how love has the power to sustain the spirit and heal suffering. Ever since her bitter divorce, single mom, Molly Willoughby has become increasingly disillusioned. Over the years, she has shied away from love- and given up her dream of opening her own catering business. Then she meets newcomer Dr. Matthew Harding, who inspires her to again dream that success and love may be possible

An enzyme that will dramatically prolong life has been discovered two thousand feet down in the North Atlantic in an area known as “Lost City”. Why are the people attempting to harvest it getting killed? Why are the scientists in a remote Greek laboratory disappearing one by one? What does this all have to do with a body found frozen in the ice high up in the Alps? For Kurt Austin, leader of NUMA’s Special Assignments Team, and his colleague Joe Zavala, it’s clear they have their work cut out, but it may be even bigger than they think- in fact, it may be their greatest challenge ever.

Anny Butler is a caretaker, first for her own brothers and sisters, and then as a director of an agency devoted to the welfare of children. What she has never had is a real family. That changes when she meets and marries Lewis Aiken. When they marry, she finds her family, not a traditional one, but a group of Charleston childhood friends who are inseparable, who are one another’s surrogate family. They are called the Scrubs, and they all in some way have the common cord of family. Bad things begin to happen- a hurricane, a fire, deaths- but the remaining Scrubs cling together. Eventually the Scrubs move to a new island retreat, and Anny must learn that everything is not as it seems. Some loves carry a secret and a terrible price.

When Chicago detective Alex Buchanan is offered a prime position with the FBI, he takes it as the perfect opportunity to leave the Windy City and follow in his brothers’ footsteps to the top echelons of law enforcement. He first must complete one last assignment: acting as a bodyguard to hotel heiress Regan Hamilton Madison. The gorgeous exec has become entangled in some potentially deadly business. Someone has e-mailed her a graphic crime scene photo, and the victim is no stranger. At a Dr. Lawrence Shields seminar, the doctor persuades his guests to partake in an innocent little “cleansing” exercise. He asks them to make a list of the people who have hurt or deceived them over the years. Treating the exercise as a game, Regan plays along. Then the first person on Regan’s list turns up dead, and other names on the list start to surface as corpses. Regan must discover who has turned her private revenge fantasies into grisly reality.

Mary (Mare) DiNunzio takes on a case close to her heart and her roots, a pro bono representation of the Brandolini estate. The roots of the matter sink deep into the past, when Amadio Brandolini immigrated to Philadelphia, started a family, and built up a fishing business. At the outbreak of World War II, Brandolini was arrested by the FBI as part of a mass interment of Italian-Americans and was sent to a camp in Montana, where he eventually committed suicide. Now, more than sixty years later his son’s estate hires Mary to sue for reparations. Mary vows to vindicate Amadeo even though it won’t be easy. Someone doesn’t want Mary to find the truth, and before long, her life is threatened. Suddenly, Mary is risking life and limb to finger a killer and lay a beloved ghost to rest.

Grace Lawson is going through a packet of photos and there in the middle of the packet is a photo she’s never seen before. It looks to be about 20 years old and she thinks one of the people in it might be her husband, Jack. He sees it, claims he doesn’t know anything about it, Jack disappears. Not knowing where he went, or why he left, Grace struggles alone to shield her children from Jack’s absence. Each passing day brings only doubts about herself and her marriage, and the realization that there are others looking for Jack, and the photograph- including one fierce, silent killer who will not be stopped from finding his quarry, no matter who or what stands in his way. There are secrets, a past and a history that involves both Grace and Jack that no one could possibly expect.

Jean Sheridan didn't particularly enjoy high school at Stone croft Academy in Cornwall, NY- so she has no desire to revisit the past at her 20-year reunion, where she's to be honored along with five other members of her class. She decides to attend when she learns a memorial is scheduled in honor of her close friend and fellow alum, Alison Kendall, who drowned just a month before in her swimming pool.Unnerving Jean further is the anonymous fax she just received threatening the life of Lily, the daughter she gave up for adoption 20 years ago… a secret she has kept for years. Now- at what should be an occasion for congratulations, laughter, and fond memories- among the guests is a killer bent on adding Jean's name to the growing list of classmates taken all too soon.

The story this country has hungered for, as told by Lynch herself to Pulitzer prize-winning author Rick Bragg. In it, she tells what really happened in the hospital; what really happened, from her perspective, on the night of the rescue. More than this, the collaboration between Lynch and Bragg captures who she is and where she's from: her childhood in Palestine, West Virginia, a lovely, rugged stretch of land always referred to as the hollow, where she rode horses, played softball, and was crowned Miss Congeniality at the Wirt County Fair. The same year the steer she raised took a ribbon.

Meet Bailey Weggins, the thirty- something, true crime writer for a leading Manhattan women's magazine. Gloss magazines' editor Cat Jones needs Bailey's help to find the killer who poisoned her nanny, also, if the lethal candy was meant for Cat. Can Bailey uncover the truth? Bailey will need all her street smarts and some lightning- fast detective work to catch a killer who could end up deleting her name from the masthead for good. If Looks Could Kill introduces a heroine whose blend of wry humor and gustiness will win over readers everywhere.

When journalist Avery Chauvin returns home to Cypress Springs, Louisiana, after twelve years, it's as if time has stood still. Yet for her everything has changed-her mother died a year ago and now her father is gone. Devastated by her father's suicide, she has come looking for answers. She discovers a box of fifteen-year-old newspaper articles covering the brutal murder of a young woman in Cypress Springs.Then Avery meets a newcomer to Cypress Springs- a woman looking into her brother's disappearance and whispered rumors of strange happenings in town. Avery soon discovers that each layer of deceit she exposes is somehow linked to that long-ago murder- and to her father. In this peaceful Southern town, a terrible evil lives, protected by the power of silence.

In This Mountain finds Father Tim and Cynthia again living in Mitford, following their stint on Whitecap Island a few years ago. Though Father Tim dislikes change, he dislikes retirement even more. His wife wins awards, receives bouquets, and gets invited to tour the country. What's he doing? Staring at a blank page in a proposed book of essays, waging a losing battle against moles, and filling an occasional pulpit. Thus, when he decides to take on a unique and difficult ministry, he feels newly energized. He even begins to think he likes change- until an unexpected event propels him on a painful journey that shakes his faith, his marriage, and the whole town of Mitford.

The law partners, Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez face a difficult task of defending San Francisco's District Attorney when he is indicted for the bizarre murder of a male prostitute. The deeper they dig, the seamier their findings. Mike and Rosie chase down trails that take them from the lowest depths of the Mission District, where drugs and bodies are always for sale,to the gated mansions of Pacific Heights. They are frantically trying to piece together what is really at stake in the case against Gates.

Set in medieval times, the Crusades has taken Hugh far from home, but disillusion soon sets in. When he returns, the battle- weary Hugh finds his village ravaged, his wife Sophie abducted by brutal knights and his son killed. Unaware the Duke's cronies believe he has stolen a priceless relic-a sacred lance- an icon considered to be worth more than any throne in Europe. Now, to rescue his true love, Hugh must go on a personal crusade, taking on the role of a jester. It's the only way he can infiltrate his enemy's lair and free his wife. But a jester's life is one fraught with danger. How will he, an outlaw living by his wits, avenge himself against his wife's captors? Hugh has a plan more daring than anyone could imagine... and he's prepared to risk everything to carry it out.

Johnny was the son every parent dreamed of having. A star athlete and class Valedictorian of his senior class, with a promising future... until a fatal car accident on prom night shattered everything. Following the loss of her son, Alice Peterson struggles with her grief. When a sudden illness sends Alice to the Hospital, a glorious vision of Johnny comes to her in a dream. Soon Johnny walks to his mother's side, leaving miracles in his wake. Alice is about to discover, Johnny has returned not just to help those he loves, but, also, to uncover a purpose he cannot comprehend- one that will change his life forever. Gleaned from her own personal tragedy- the loss of her beloved son Nick Traina- Danielle Steel delivers her most inspirational novel yet. It will make you laugh and cry... and hold on to your loved ones tighter than ever.

This is the finale to the series that has reunited the Coleman and Thornton families. Nealy Coleman Diamond faces her greatest challenge-to produce another Derby winner and show the world that a determined woman never quits. Nealy returns to Blue Diamond farms for a family reunion and finds that Emmie has let the farm slide and has picked the wrong horse to send to the Derby. Now, with the ghosts of the past haunting them both, Emmie and Nealy engage in an unstoppable rivalry, two headstrong women engaged in a battle of wills, each determined to win…no matter what the dangers, no matter what the cost.

Avery Delaney has always tried to put the past far behind her. Abandoned by her conniving mother when she was only three days old. Avery was raised by her grandmother and beloved Aunt Carolyn. Then when she was eleven, before she was shot and left for dead, she witnessed her grandmother's violent death. Her sharp mind and ability to gather data and decipher evidence has made Avery an expert crime analyst for the FBI. Soon she will have to use all her skills on a case that is close to home. Her aunt, Carolyn Salvetti, is sent reservations to the posh Utopia Spa in the mountains of Colorado. Carolyn never makes it to Utopia. Under false pretenses, a hired assassin takes her to an isolated retreat. Now Avery must track down and save Carolyn and out maneuver a brilliant killer who is part of an elaborate plot of madness and lethal vengeance.

It takes raw courage and nerves of steel to be the head of the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team and Web London's got both to spare. On his last mission, roaring into a dark alley with his team to flush out a dangerous drug ring, Web froze. Minutes later the team is ambushed and every man is killed except Web. His FBI superior want answers and so does Web. With his stellar reputation on the line, Web's search for the truth leads to more grim news: a hardened criminal he helped put away several years ago has escaped, and everyone connected with the case has been slaughtered. Again, everyone but Web. Acting on his instincts, Web believes he knows where the killer will strike next. Only this time, he may not survive the attack.

Miami criminal defense lawyer, Jack Swyteck faces his biggest challenge yet. Tatum Knight is a former contract killer, and he's Jack's newest client. Tatum is the older brother of Jack's best friend; Theo. Theo himself spent time on death row until Jack found the evidence to prove him innocent. A young woman has been shot dead on a Miami street. Tatum denies that he had anything to do with it. Sally Fenning was worth forty-eight million dollars when she died. She named six heirs in her will, but there's a catch. No one gets a penny until all but one of the heirs is dead. It's survival of the greediest.

This new thriller takes familiar characters into unfamiliar territory, to the crumbling glories of Cuba's largest city. Max Pauling-ex-CIA-ex-State Department- has taken early retirement to become a flight instructor in New Mexico. A colleague, also "retired", offers him a contract to fly medical supplies into Havana. He takes the deal and flies to Havana waiting for his contact. The reason for their collaboration is to uncover the truth about an intense competition between rival U.S. pharmaceutical companies for access to Cuba's surprising high-quality anti-cancer research.

Jillian Hayes, Carol Rosen, and Meg Pesaturo survived what no woman should have to endure. They won't consider themselves victims. They are survivors. They helped lead the investigation that caught the man who changed their lives forever. Now, Eddie Como, the College Hill rapist, has been murdered and all three women are ecstatic that he's dead. Who ordered the deaths of Eddie Como and his killer? Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin seeks the truth. Then another woman is brutally attacked. Suddenly, with the city on the ragged edge of panic, the hunt is on for a ruthless and cunning killer. For Griffin, this may be the case that shatters his career. For Jillian the harrowing nightmare is beginning all over again. Someone is out there who wants to finish what was started. Someone who wants to make sure that no one survives the Survivors Club.

Reviews Archive

Moscow Rules

Nothing to Lose

L.A. Outlaws

The Killing Ground

Lady Killer

Killer Heat

Light of the Moon

Last Known Victim

Last Call

Murder on K Street

Knit Together

Mark's Story

Now & Then

Malice

Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade

Justice Denied

Killer Weekend

Laced

Kingdom Come

The Final Victory

Lean Mean Thirteen

Lying With Strangers

I Heard That Song Before

Invisible Prey

Nineteen Minutes

Keeper of the Keys

Innocent in Death

Next

Lisey's Story

Motor Mouth

Into the Storm

The Innocent Man

Just Rewards

Memory In Death

On The Run

Mad River Road

Mary Mary

The Lighthouse

Light From Heaven

Murder At The Washington Tribune

Living in God's Love : The New York Crusade

The New York Crusade

Miracle

The Innocent

Lifeguard

Long Time Gone

Marker

No Place Like Home

Impossible

Lost Lake

Missing Persons

The Motive

Life Expectancy

Night Fall

Metro Girl

Murder At Union Station

London Bridges

The Murder Artist

Light on Snow

A New Leaf

Lost City

Islands

Murder List

Killer Smile

Just One Look

Nighttime Is My Time

I Am a Soldier, Too The Jessica Lynch Story

If Looks Could Kill

In Silence

In This Mountain

Incriminating Evidence

Jester

Johnny Angel

Kentucky Sunrise

Killjoy

Last Man Standing

Last to Die

Murder In Havana

The Survivors Club

I Am a Soldier, Too
The Jessica Lynch Story