Showing titles in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Hours after 22-year-old Brett Allen finds her boyfriend brutally slain, she finds herself in police custody, the prime suspect. Her aunt, Caroline Masters, is summoned to act as her defense attorney. The result is a painful meeting with Brett, whom Caroline has not seen since infancy, and a confrontation with 3 people from whom she is deeply estranged: her first lover who is now the prosecutor, her half-sister, and most difficult of all, her domineering father. The story moves quickly now, opening into the police investigation and the courtroom. Yet the truths about herself and her family that Caroline ultimately uncovers are painful beyond the deepest doubts and shocking beyond the deepest fears that haunt her adult life - and make up the explosive core of the author's most powerful novel to date.

When Athena disappeared from St. Polycarp's College at Oxford, her friends assumed she had run away - to hide from her overbearing, wealthy Greek family, or even to marry some unacceptable young man. To their shock, they find out at their 10-year reunion that her body has been discovered in an excavation. Private investigator Regan Reilly, Athena's former college roommate, is determined to track down her friend's killer.

Follow the adventures of lottery-winning couple Willy and Alvirah Meehan through these best selling short stories. The couple is targeted and pursued by ex-cons after winning the lottery in "Plumbing for Willy," they discover the body of actress Fiona Winter in their New York apartment in "The Body in the Closet," and they help Cynthia Lathem solve the murder of her stepfather in "Death at the Cape."

Michael Brock is billing the hours, making the money, rushing relentlessly to the top of Drake & Sweeney, a giant DC law firm. One step away from partnership, Michael has it all. Then, in an instant, it all comes undone. A homeless man takes nine lawyers hostage in the firm's plush offices. When it is all over, the man's blood is splattered on Michael's face - and suddenly Michael is willing to do the unthinkable. Rediscovering a conscience he lost long ago, Michael is leaving the big time for the streets where his attacker once lived.

In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm, 26-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case. Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison: Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out of chances - except for one: the young, liberal Chicago lawyer who just happens to be his grandson. One secret could save Sam Cayhall's life...or cost Adam his.

Emma Bovary is not content to be the mere dutiful wife of a French country doctor. She yearns for excitement and a sense of romance that pulls at her so strongly she is powerless to resist, even though pursuing her dreams will exact a terrible price. Learn why Gustave Flaubert's compelling heroine has enchanted and puzzled readers for centuries.

Listen to mystery stories by today's top writers and the masters who inspired them. The idea for this collection came to Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Lawrence Block when he was asked, "What is your favorite mystery story?" Block compiled this unique collection by posing the same question to some of today's favorite writers of the genre, including Stephen King, Tony Hillerman, and John Lutz.

In a seedy D.C. porno house a patron is swiftly garroted to death... The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief. To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it was political dynamite. Suddenly, Darby is witness to a murder - a murder intended for her. Going underground, she finds there is only one person she can trust - an ambitious reporter after a news break hotter than Watergate.

Qwill, Koko, and Yum Yum return for another adventure "400 miles north of everywhere" in the twelfth episode of the extraordinarily popular Cat Who... series. Back in Pickax, Jim Qwilleran's plans to resume a quiet, normal life are disrupted by a series of annoyances, culminating in the discovery of a dead body in his orchard. When Qwill's friend Dennis Hough becomes the chief suspect, he embarks on a crusade to clear Hough's name.

It is the first uncertain year of the peace process in Northern Ireland, a land ravaged by centuries of religious and political conflict. On a single night, a renegade group of Protestant extremists tries to turn back the hands of time with three savage acts of terrorism. Retired CIA officer Michael Osbourne, is lured back to the Agency after his father-in-law, former U.S. Senator Douglas Cannon, is nominated to be the new American ambassador to London.

In The Other Side of the River, his eagerly awaited new book, Kotlowitz takes us to southern Michigan. Here, separated by the St. Joseph River, are two towns, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. Geographically close, they are worlds apart, a living metaphor for America's racial divisions: St. Joseph is a prosperous lakeshore community and 95 percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and 92 percent black. When the body of a black teenaged boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river, unhealed wounds and suspicions between the two towns' populations surface as well.

On a remote Arizona ranch, a man who has known loss, fear, and war weeps for the first time since he was a child. His tears are for the father taken from him four decades before in a deadly shoot-out. And his grief will lead him back to the place where he was born, where his father died, and where a brutal conspiracy is about to explode. For Bob Lee Swagger, the world changed on that hot day in Blue Eye, Arkansas, when two local boys rode armed and wild in a '55 Fairlane convertible.

This is the story of 11-year-old Mark Sway, who witnessed the bizarre suicide of a New Orleans attorney. Just before he dies, the lawyer tells Mark a deadly secret. The police, the federal prosecutor, and the FBI pressure Mark to tell them the attorney's last words, but Mark knows that with the mob watching his every move, revealing his secret will almost surely get him killed.

Beatrice Poole may be a vicar's daughter, but that doesn't mean she's a stranger to the darker passions. Indeed, she knows enough about gothic terrors to have carved out a highly successful career penning "horrid novels." But now the talented authoress finds herself in the midst of an ominous adventure that rivals anything she's ever written.Her beloved Uncle Reggie is dead, Beatrice suspects that he was murdered - all because of his keen interest in a fabled treasure that may not even exist. Rumors abound that the Forbidden Rings of Aphrodite, said to give their possessor the most unnatural powers, have surfaced in London. Yet Beatrice needs more than rumors to uncover the truth. That's why she's braved the wilds of Devon to seek out a leading authority on antiquities and ancient legends: The famously eccentric, unquestionably reclusive, possibly dangerous Earl of Monkcrest, a man believed to dabble in the supernatural.But bearding the Mad Monk of Monkcrest in his den and dangling the possibility of uncovering a fabulous artifact before him may be the biggest mistake of Beatrice's life. For suddenly, she finds herself joined in an uneasy alliance with a man who is every bit as fascinating as one of the heroes in her novels.

When a nuclear-empowered Iran begins throwing its weight around the Persian Gulf, the U.S. uneasily stands by, its military weakened by years of budget cuts and unpopular, inconclusive police actions. But the new President realizes there is one weapon he can use: the newest secret cell of the CIA's Intelligence Support Agency, code-named Future Flight.

A local contractor who left Goldy's kitchen in a shambles is found strung up in the house of one of her best friends. Certain that her friend isn't a killer, she must find the ingredients of a mystery that includes the dead contractor's unwholesome past, a food saboteur, and the theft of 3 historical cookbooks. What she comes up with is the perfect recipe for murder. And Goldy may be the next one on the menu!

Hired to cater a hockey party, Goldy comes up with a winning menu featuring zesty South of the Border Appetizers, succulent Goalies' Grilled Tuna and iced Stanley Cupcakes. Yet Patricia McCracken, her client and long-suffering friend, won't be satisfied until Goldy adds a hefty side order of revenge...Patricia is convinced that her obstetrician and her Health Maintenance Organization - penny-pinching ACHMO - are to blame for the recent loss of her baby.

In this gripping best seller, Robert Ludlum spins a web of suspense and high-stakes intrigue as two men who are sworn mortal enemies must cooperate in order to foil a sinister plot to topple the world's governments. Ludlum's recollection of his war buddies gave him the idea for this book. Hear the details in the sample below.

During the latter days of the Vietnam War, deep in-country, a young idealistic Marine named Donny Fenn was cut down by a sniper's bullet as he set out on patrol with Swagger, who himself received a grievous wound. Years later Swagger married Donny's widow, Julie, and together they raise their daughter, Nikki, on a ranch in the isolated Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. Although he struggles with the painful legacy of Vietnam, Swagger's greatest wish - to leave his violent past behind and live quietly with his family - seems to have come true...until a mortal enemy found him once again.

Stiles Island is a wealthy and exclusive enclave separated by a bridge from the Massachusetts coast town of Paradise. James Macklin sees Stiles Island as the ultimate investment opportunity: all he needs to do is invade the island, blow the bridge, and loot the island. To realize his investment, Macklin, along with his devoted girlfriend, Faye, assembles a crew of fellow ex-cons - all experts in their fields - including Wilson Cromartie, a fearsome Apache. James Macklin is a bad man - a very bad man. And Wilson Cromartie, known as Crow, is even worse. As Macklin plans his crime, Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone has his hands full. He faces romantic entanglements in triplicate: his ex-wife Jenn, is in the Paradise jail for assault, he's begun a new relationship with a Stiles Island realtor named Marcy Campbell, and he's still sorting out his feelings for attorney Abby Taylor. When Macklin's attack on Stiles Island is set in motion, both Marcy and Abby are put in jeopardy. As the casualties mount, it's up to Jesse to keep both women from harm.