Early novellas, short stories, and poetry by the two-time Edgar Award — nominated author of The Guards and London Boulevard. Includes All the Old Songs and Nothing to Lose, considered Ken Bruen’s first foray into crime fiction

Jack Taylor has finally escaped the despair of his violent life in Galway in favor of a quiet retirement in the country with his friend Keefer, a former Rolling Stones roadie, and a falcon named Maeve. But on a day trip back into the city to sort out his affairs, Jack is hit by a truck in front of Galway’s Famine Memorial, left in a coma but mysteriously without a scratch on him. When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called “Miracle of Galway.” People have become convinced that the two children spotted tending to him are saintly, and the site of the accident sacred. The Catholic Church isn’t so sure, and Jack is commissioned to help find the children to verify the miracle or expose the stunt. But Jack isn’t the only one looking for these children. A fraudulent order of nuns needs them to legitimatize its sanctity and becomes involved with a dangerous arsonist. Soon, the building in which the children are living burns down. Jack returns to his old tricks, and his old demons, as his quest becomes personal

Evan Hunter’s new novel is a fresh and powerful demonstration of the narrative gifts, the instinct for themes that concern us, the exuberant flow of invention that were responsible for the nation-wide impact of his best-selling Strangers When We Meet and The Blackboard Jungle. A Matter of Conviction is the story — told dramatically and in depth — of a sensational murder, the passions it arouses in a community, the people caught up in its tangled after-math. Above all, it is the story of the ethical dilemma imposed on the young prosecutor who values justice above the triumph of a conviction. The prosecutor, Henry Bell, is dedicated to his profession. He demands of himself an almost inhuman objectivity. He is intensely disturbed when the murder forces him to revisit the crime-breeding slum in which he himself was born, from which he escaped by his ambition and his integrity, and which he has almost, but not quite, managed to forget. How can he serve blind justice when the boys he must prosecute are an image — impossible to shut out — of what he might have been, when the newspapers scream for their blood and their neighbors stop at nothing to protect them, when his superiors insist on chalking up a conviction, and when — the final blow — his investigations bring him face to face with a woman who once had his happiness, as she now has his reputation, at her mercy. Henry Bell’s ordeal is superbly told in a novel that plunges the reader into a world of law and disorder, of crime and vengeance, of turmoil — emotional and political — of cold panic. In Henry Bell, Evan Hunter has created a memorable hero — a man of conscience and heart. When you finish his story you know that you would trust him with your life

EVERY STEP... Paul Davis forgets things — he gets confused, he has sudden panic attacks. But he wasn’t always like this. TAKES YOU CLOSER... Eight months ago, Paul found two dead bodies in the back of a co-worker’s car. He was attacked, left for dead, and has been slowly recovering ever since. His wife tries her best but fears the worst... TO THE TRUTH... Therapy helps during the days, but at night he hears things — impossible things — that no one else can. That nobody else believes. Either he’s losing his mind — or someone wants him to think he is. Just because he’s paranoid doesn’t mean it’s not happening

She dreamed that she had died four years ago. The dream was terrifyingly real. Then Daisy discovered that the grave and the granite cross were really there in the cemetery, the date of death the same as she had dreamed, but a stranger’s name cut in the stone. Daisy Harker’s search for the lost day of her imagined death becomes a quest for the meaning of several lives, and for her own survival. As her nightmare emerges into reality, it threatens her comfortable relationship with her husband Jim, and thrusts her into more disturbing relationships: with Steve Pinata, the detective of uncertain origins: with Stanley Fielding, who lives by his wits on the edge of the law: and with the dark forces beyond the law. Daisy’s struggle between the world we know and trust, and the underworld of crime and degradation, is resolved in scenes of shuttering suspend and emotional power

Clanton, Mississippi. 1990. Jake Brigance finds himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial when the court appoints him attorney for Drew Gamble, a timid sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance digs in and discovers that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Jake’s fierce commitment to saving Drew from the gas chamber puts his career, his financial security, and the safety of his family on the line. In what may be the most personal and accomplished legal thriller of John Grisham’s storied career, we deepen our acquaintance with the iconic Southern town of Clanton and the vivid cast of characters that so many readers know and cherish. The result is a richly rewarding novel that is both timely and timeless, full of wit, drama, and — most of all — heart. Bursting with all the courthouse scheming, small-town intrigue, and stunning plot twists that have become the hallmarks of the master of the legal thriller, A Time for Mercy is John Grisham’s most powerful courtroom drama yet. There is a time to kill and a time for justice. Now comes A Time for Mercy

Someone — I wish it were me — has put together a fantastic collection of Woolrich stories that everyone needs to have. This includes most of his classics (It Had to be Murder is really Rear Window). Many great pulp classics here — plus one I’ve been looking for for a long time, Jane Brown’s Body, which is CW’s only Science Fiction story. Grab this one — it’s a noirfest everyone should indulge in

Stephen Blake comes from a long line of Galway Blakes, a family famous in history — or infamous — for jettisoning its Catholic roots to save their land from the English. As a young man he was always happiest when drinking with his mates, and a ready hand in a fight. With no particular plans in mind, he went up to study at Trinity College, and immediately afterward “took the king’s shilling” by joining the British army, and came out harder, leaner, and suspect in the eyes of his countrymen. Now nearly forty, he is a good man blown in bad directions. Out of misplaced loyalty he agrees to take part in an IRA bank heist. Doomed to failure from the start, it goes disastrously wrong when his friend is killed, and Stephen must leave Ireland, determined to reinvent himself as an American. Now he and girlfriend Siobhan, best friend Tommy, IRA terrorist Stapleton, and a particularly American sort of psychopath named Dade are all on a collision course somewhere on the road between the dive bars of New York and the pitiless desert of the Southwest

At a crisis in his second marriage, Ron Galloway dropped out of sight. Having said good-bye to his wife and his sons in Toronto, he started out for his hunting lodge, where he had invited some friends to spend the weekend with him. When Ron failed to appear, two of his friends, Ralph Turee and Harry Bream, took it upon themselves to investigate his disappearance. Even before his body was found, they discovered that Ron had been leading a double life. The doubleness of Ron’s life was more than matched by the doubleness of his death, and the events that followed his death. Because a beautifully controlled irony is its keynote, any further summary of the story would reveal too much, and too little. When revelation does come, to Ralph Turee and the reader, it comes with the shock and illuminative flash of a carefully laid explosion

SHE HAD TWO PASTS — AND NO FUTURE　 But in the beginning Gev Dean didn’t know about that. It was one of those cold, misting December afternoons when dusk comes at three. He didn’t see the girl until she was suddenly in front of him, slim and dark and with her raincoat wrapped tight around her. She wanted a job at Dean Products, she said. And why not... She didn’t look like the kind of girl she was. And even after her high-polish exterior had been ripped away to reveal a shadow of the ugly forces beneath, Gev Dean still wasn’t sure what she was really like. A shorter version of this work appeared in Collier’s under the title “My Brother’s Widow.”

Consider Ariel Jardell, an adopted twelve-year-old girl driven by jealousy — her mother thinks — and by forces far more bizarre — as you will discern — to a precocious excursion into evil from mere mischief, to malevolence beyond compare... Haunting as The Turn of the Screw, chilling as The Bad Seed, Ariel spins a complex web of demonic circumstance with a fascinating, terrifying child at its center, giving new definition to the age-old conflict of good and evil, sane and insane

Having heard that her first husband, B. J. Lockwood, had amassed a fortune in Mexico, and with her second husband now a helpless invalid and dying, Gilda Decker hires Tom Aragon to go to Mexico to search for Lockwood. The stated reason: Gilda wants her share of Lockwood’s money — he owes her. But as Aragon questions those who knew Lockwood, he finds the man’s past shrouded in mystery; and as the young lawyer gets closer and closer to the truth, people start dying, one by one. Only on the very last pages does he, and the reader, learn the fantastic explanation for why he was really hired. This is another strong, unusual suspense novel by the author of Beyond This Point Are Monsters

The decomposed body of a much-loved eight-year-old, Annamay Hyatt, is found in a wooded creekside area. To an agonizing degree everyone concerned with Annamay feels responsible. To an even more agonizing degree, someone is. The effect of the child’s violent death runs through the community like a plague. It infects not only her parents and her cousin, Dru, the same age as Annamay, but everyone who lives or works in the area, from the aging gay who gives young parties to the white-robed con man who comes to the creek and hears a banshee. Perhaps most bereft is Annamay’s grandfather who studies the ancient Japanese fish in the koi pond, appalled that they and he should still be alive while an eight-year-old is dead. Through a telescope he watches the retired madam who lives in her villa across the canyon, surrounded by keepers. The madam also hears the banshee. Friends of the family are also badly infected, one of them fatally. These include Ben York, the young architect who designed the Hyatts’ house and the little girl’s play palace; his brash mistress who resents his attachment to the Hyatts; the minister who officiated at Annamay’s baptism and now her funeral and loses his faith in the process; and even the housekeeper, Chizzy, bewildered because Annamay did not heed her repeated warnings not to talk to strangers. Margaret Millar is a highly praised, widely read novelist. Banshee shows why, for over four decades, she has maintained a steady and devoted following

Margaret Millar’s latest book — which comes after a break of six years — is another superb example of the fusion of the novel of character and the puzzle of suspense. If it were not about a crime, it would still be an absorbing account of people, precisely studied and perfectly placed in their unfamiliar setting. That setting is a remote ranch on the border between California and Mexico. Robert Osborne inherited the ranch when his father was killed while driving a tractor: his father was usually drunk anyway, and no one was surprised that he’d had an accident. But now Robert has been missing for over a year, and is presumed dead by everyone except his doting mother. Robert disappeared not long after he had been on a trip to New York, from which he had returned with an attractive young wife. There doesn’t seem to be much doubt about what happened. A lot of blood was found on the floor of the bunk-house where the itinerant Mexican laborers were lodged, and all the laborers were missing. Plainly, they were responsible, and Robert must be dead. That’s how the sheriff sees it, and the ranch foreman, and Robert’s young widow, and Robert’s lawyer. Only Robert’s mother holds out, opposing the public hearing which the widow, Devon, is now demanding to legally establish his death. But the solution is not at all the expected one; and after it has been reached, Miss Millar has a startlingly macabre ending in reserve. It’s compulsive reading, and beautiful writing

A death in the rural family-from-hell bring Fry and Cooper to a remote and unfriendly community in the fourth psychological Peak District thriller. It’s nearly May Day and deep in the Dark Peak lies the village of Withens. Not a tranquil place but one troubled by theft, vandalism, strange disappearances and now murder. A young man is killed — battered to death and left high on the desolate moors for the crows to find. Ben Cooper, part of the investigating team, meets an impenetrable wall of silence from the man’s relatives who form Withens’ oldest family. The Oxleys are descendants of the first workers who tunnelled beneath the Peak. They stick to their own area, pass on secret knowledge through the generations, and guard their traditions from outsiders. Detective Diane Fry is in Withens on other business — looking into the disappearance of Emma Renshaw. The student vanished into thin air two years ago, but her parents are convinced she is still alive and act accordingly... which doesn’t help Fry in her efforts to re-open the case following an ominous discovery in remote countryside. But there are other secrets in Withens and more violence to come... The past is stretching its shadow over the present, not just for the inhabitants of Withens but for Cooper and Fry as well

A stunning psychological study of a man’s obsession and search for the truth, and a brilliant mystery that moves from San Francisco to a small, insular desert community in Nevada, Blue Lonesome is a masterful novel of suspense written by an author at the peak of his storytelling powers. Jim Messenger is a CPA who hates his job, loves jazz, and can’t forget the woman he’s seen eating at the Harmony Café. She goes by the name Janet Mitchell and her only comment when he introduces himself is, “It won’t do you any good.” When she commits suicide, Messenger has to learn why. From one slender clue he begins a search that is both a hunt for answers and a rite of passage. The name Janet Mitchell is only the first of the lies Messenger uncovers; in “historic Beulah,” Nevada, he discovers secrets coiled like rattlesnakes ready to strike and suffering chat lies like a suffocating blanket over lives put on hold. By the time his search is over there will have been many changed lives, a horrible murder brought to light, and a quiet, little town torn apart. And all the while Jim Messenger was evolving into a genuine hero

When blonde, 16-year-old, Sonya Lang confronts real-estate man Graham Kirby with the fact that she’s pregnant by his sleazy half-brother Burwell, that’s bad. When it turns out that her condition is the result of a particularly degrading rape, that’s worse. As her father says, “What wipes out that stain is blood.”　 This is quintessential James M. Cain, giving us characters whose emotional intensity is unlimited. Suspenseful, intricately plotted, CLOUD NINE is an important addition to contemporary American literature

Mix politics and police, and the result is poison

“Just you,” Andrew Farrell says, when Sarah Welles asks him what he wants of her. “Just you.” But long before she finally gives in to Andrew, long before she walks up those steps into the mysterious world of his wood-paneled office, long before she feels his naked body against hers, Sarah knows she has already chosen to betray her husband and her marriage. Adultery will be the least of her crimes. Making forbidden love to Andrew, Sarah has no idea of the dangerous game she has begun. She is about to find out who her lover really is, and Andrew is about to discover how unforgiving and relentless her husband can be. CRIMINAL CONVERSATION is a gripping novel of sex, passion, and violence, set against a backdrop of a society tattered by criminality. Prom victims to predators, from foot soldiers to kingpins, Evan Hunter spins a masterly tale that no one — not even Ed McBain — could do better: an explosive and erotic novel of psychosexual suspense

A mind-blowing discovery. A deadly conspiracy. Caught off-guard when she receives an unexpected phone call from an old friend she hasn’t seen in 20 years, Dr Sandy Jones gives Connie Pike a polite brush-off. A few days later, she learns that Connie has been killed in an explosion at her Princeton laboratory. Consumed by guilt, Jones heads to New Jersey, determined to find out the truth behind Connie’s death — and exactly what Connie had been trying to tell her in that last anxious phone call. Having previously participated in Connie’s and her lab partner, Paul Ruder’s, life’s work, the study of the human mind, Jones becomes convinced the pair had made a momentous scientific discovery shortly before the explosion, a discovery that could change the world as we know it. But who are the shadowy figures who are never far behind Jones as she continues her quest for the truth? As she gradually uncovers evidence of a terrifying global conspiracy, Sandy begins to fear for her life — and the lives of those around her

In 1875 Hans Bengler, a young entomologist, leaves Sweden for the expedition of a lifetime to the Kalahari Desert where he hopes to find a previously undiscovered insect to name after himself and advance his career. Instead, after his long and arduous journey through the sands, he finds a small boy, whose tribe has been decimated by European raiders. Accustomed to collecting specimens, Bengler decides to adopt the boy and names him Daniel. He takes the traumatised child home with him to Sweden and plans to ‘civilise’ him. But Daniel cannot slip into an alien culture, and a new life in the cold and snow, so easily. He yearns desperately for the desert and his real family, who visit him in his dreams. His only consolation comes from his friendship with a vulnerable young girl called Sanna, who is also an outsider in her community. But even this bond is destined to be violently broken, as Daniel’s isolation and increasing desperation lead to a chilling tragedy. As well as an acute psychological depiction of the life of a child thrown into extraordinary circumstances, in Daniel the acclaimed writer Henning Mankell also gives us a compelling and disturbing story of the dangerous gaps and misunderstandings that can exist between individuals and cultures

One chance in 7,000,000 of getting away! Four hours to make good their escape! She had not the courage to go without him. He cannot go until he finds the person who committed the murder which can so “circumstantially” be traced to his door. And that person was one of 7,000,000 in New York City. Bricky, the small town girl, meets Quinn, a boy from her own Iowa town, a day too late. The long arm of coincidence brings them happily together — two lost “little” people in the vast city. The long arm of retribution reaches out to separate them forever. When Quinn, at Bricky’s behest, so that as free people they can take the morning bus back to Iowa, goes to return some money he has just stolen, he finds a dead man in the house. They spend the rest of the night finding the murderer. If they don’t the police will find Quinn! The story of the night’s adventure is fast moving and tense, building constantly to almost unbearable excitement

The discovery of the partially-clothed body of a teenage girl in the heart of Bristol’s red light district indicates a tragic yet familiar scenario. But this marks the start of a baffling murder investigation where nothing is as it first appears. Fourteen-year-old Melanie Cooke told her mother she was visiting a school friend. Who was she really going to meet? Detective Inspector David Vogel is led towards three very different principal protagonists, each of whom grows increasingly chilling. But are they what they seem? And is any one of them capable of murder? A darkly complex secret lies behind Melanie’s death — and its ultimate revelation will shock Vogel and his team to the core

If you can’t trust your family, where do you turn... Joyce Mildmay’s life is torn apart when her husband Charlie is killed in a tragic yachting accident. Though financially secure, Joyce is left to raise their three children by herself within Tarrant Park, a secluded gated development set in the rural countryside outside of Bristol. Six months later a mysterious letter arrives on her doorstep which turns her shattered world upside down. The letter is from Charlie, delivered belatedly in the event of his death, and contains a sinister warning that Joyce’s father, Henry Tanner, and the family business is not as it seems. For their children to be safe, her husbad pleads, she must leave their home and never look back. Confused and alarmed by this message from beyond the grave, Joyce decides instead to stay and unearth the truth. But what she learns reveals a trail of intrigue and deceptiont that stretches back though the years. It seems that death is only the beginning

October 1914: the destroyer Svea emerges from the Stockholm archipelago bearing south-south-east. On board is Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, a naval engineer charged with making depth soundings to find a navigable channel for the Swedish navy. The engineer is fascinated by measurement, and his instinct for his profession is reflected in the comfortable domesticity he enjoys with his wife. Close to the waters where soundings are taken Tobiasson-Svartman alights on a barren skerry, presumed uninhabited, and is surprised to discover there a young woman. Despite her almost feral appearance, something about her strikes him. The mission is a success and the Svea returns to Gothenburg. Tobiasson-Svartman, however, remains haunted by this chance encounter; his equilibrium has been disturbed, and he feels compelled to return. In Depths Mankell confirms his status as a writer of great magnitude. By delving deep into the male psyche, he has produced a novel as tense and compelling as the Wallander series, but also powerful, moving and ultimately tragic

Ben Dibbuk has a good job, an accomplished wife, a bright college-age daughter, and a patient young mistress. Even as he goes through the motions of everyday life, however, inside he feels nothing. The explanation for this emotional void lies in the years he spent as a blacked-out drunk before pulling his life together-years in which he knows he committed acts he doesn’t remember. Then a woman from his past turns up at a gala for his wife’s new gig at a magazine called Diablerie and makes it clear that she remembers something he doesn’t. Their encounter sets wheels in motion that will propel Dibbuk toward new knowledge, and perhaps the chance to feel again

A sudden impulse to help a girl in trouble leads a beautiful woman doctor into the path of murder, blackmail and deadly danger

When Julia Davidsson’s son disappeared, there were no answers — only a fruitless search by police and volunteers on the remote island of Oland, off the coast of Sweden. Now Julia’s father has received a package in the mail. In it, lovingly wrapped, is one of Jens’ sandals — sandals Julia put on her son’s feet that very last morning. Suddenly Julia, who has spent twenty years in paralyzing grief, has no choice but to return — to the island she hoped she’d left behind forever, to her estranged father, who always refused to believe that Jens was dead. With only a handful of clues, the two begin questioning islanders who were present the day Jens vanished, wakening long-slumbering suspicions — and making a shocking connection to Oland’s most notorious murder case: the killing spree of a wealthy young man who fled the island and died years before Jens was even born. Soon Julia finds herself facing truths she never imagined — about what really happened on that September day twenty years ago, about who may have crossed paths with little Jens in the fog, and how a child could truly vanish without a trace... until now

It all begins on a Monday, when four people board an elevator in a Manhattan office tower. Each presses a button for their floor, but the elevator proceeds, non-stop, to the top. Once there, it stops for a few seconds, and then plummets. Right to the bottom of the shaft. It appears to be a horrific, random tragedy. But then, on Tuesday, it happens again, in a different Manhattan skyscraper. And when Wednesday brings yet another high-rise catastrophe, one of the most vertical cities in the world — and the nation’s capital of media, finance, and entertainment — is plunged into chaos. Clearly, this is anything but random. This is a cold, calculated bid to terrorize the city. And it’s working. Fearing for their lives, thousands of men and women working in offices across the city refuse leave their homes. Commerce has slowed to a trickle. Emergency calls to the top floors of apartment buildings go unanswered. Who is behind this? What do these deadly acts of sabotage have to do with the fingerless body found on the High Line? Two seasoned New York detectives and a straight-shooting journalist must race against time to find the answers

This new novel by James Hadley Chase is a remarkable psychical study of a prostitute. Set against the picture-making industry of Hollywood, the story revolves round two people, Roger Thurston, who has cheated his way to fame, and Eve, an utterly worthless woman who lives on men. EVE is a bigger subject and a deeper view of life than Mr. Chase has ever before given us. His vigorous, unconventional style is, as always, supremely adapted to the recounting of such a swift-moving, dramatic account of human conflict

This strikingly original love story deals with the disintegration of a marriage, a breakdown which occurred against the wishes of its principals and in spite of their good intentions. Martha Pearson, the central figure, is a young woman of character, whose goodness seemed almost forbidding at times. In the midst of serious difficulties with her husband, Charles, she was resolved to be faithful to him, to make something of the partnership on which he seemed to depend so completely. Then Charles went away for a while to mend his health and for the first time in years Martha had the opportunity to assess her life. In the crisis precipitated by the return of her first lover, she found that her marriage had come very near to cutting her off from the sources of happiness. She found also that a happiness once lost can he recovered only partly and on difficult terms. Experiment in Springtime presents with mature technique the subtly dramatic interplay of three modern personalities at a turning point in their lives. The psychological accuracy and depth, the unflinching honesty, for which its author is already known are here applied to a more serious and fascinating problem than Margaret Millar has previously attempted. The result is a novel of extraordinary interest and truth. It will establish a brilliant mystery writer as one of the most promising of our younger novelists

Newshawk Sanson staggered from a Mexican minx’ arms into the Bordertown smugglers’ tea-party — just as the gorilla with bloody mitts started shelling out the shrouds

He kept staring at her with something akin to horror. “A second-degree count?” he whispered. “You don’t know what you’re saying at all. I can’t hope for that. I can’t, don’t you understand? I didn’t tell you all of it that night.” He groaned. “Do I have to stand here naked before you? The girl wasn’t the only one... there were others...” Instantly he saw his mistake. Instantly he saw that he had lost her irrevocably now, pushed himself beyond the pale. That if there had been a chance before this, now there was none. And frightened — he had always been so quick to take fright — he tried to hold her to him, where she was and as she was, to keep from losing her. And she in turn, taking fright from hi fright, abandoned him even quicker, receded all the more and with an added haste, just as a frantic beating of the water sometimes sends an unmanned boat even further off

Galatea may seem strange Cain to those who link him with California and violent stories out of the West. But to those who knew him earlier, particularly his origins in Annapolis and his life in the counties near by, it will hardly come as a surprise. Cain returned to southern Maryland to find it startlingly changed. Cogitating this transformation from oxcarts, scrub woods, and plug tobacco to grand boulevards, lumber, and big auction rooms, he found himself inventing a novel about it. The result is Galatea, the story of Holly Valenty, a girl who is a product of the old dispensation, but who succumbs to the temptations of the new, a story with all the Cain magic — brutal, shocking, yet tender and believable

Jack Taylor has never quite been able get his life together, but now he has truly hit rock bottom. Still reeling from a violent family tragedy, Taylor is busy drowning his grief in Jameson and uppers, as usual, when a high-profile officer in the local Garda is murdered. After another Guard is found dead, and then another, Taylor’s old colleagues from the force implore him to take on the case. The plot is one big game, and all of the pieces seem to be moving at the behest of one dangerously mysterious team: a trio of young killers with very different styles, but who are united in their common desire to take down Jack Taylor. Their ring leader is Jericho, a psychotic girl from Galway who is grieving the loss of her lover, and who will force Jack to confront some personal trauma from his past. As sharp and sardonic as it is starkly bleak and violent, Galway Girl shows master raconteur Ken Bruen at his best: lyrical, brutal, and ceaselessly suspenseful

Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town. “Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.” —BILL HODGES Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries. When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down. Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless. Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King. “I could never let Holly Gibney go. She was supposed to be a walk-on character in Mr. Mercedes and she just kind of stole the book and stole my heart. Holly is all her.” —STEPHEN KING Review “A deadly folie a deux…[Holly] pursues this case to the gates of hell, figuratively—there’s no supernatural element in this powerful exploration of grief and delusion, just pure, undistilled evil.” —New York Magazine “Deliciously, darkly comical. I’m all in on Holly.” —Neil McRobert, Talking Scared “Holly Gibney steps into the spotlight [and] takes center stage at last…Holly’s complexity and relatability make her an endlessly fascinating protagonist.” —BookPage “King eschews the supernatural here but finds all the horror possible in the evil that ‘normal’ people may do…readers will find much to love.” —Library Journal “Chilling.” —AARP “In her new leading role, Holly shines. She’s tough, relentless, and compassionate while at the same time being vulnerable and prone to lapses of confidence. The story is the kind of thing King excels at, too—dark, mysterious, and deeply unsettling. This is the novel Holly deserves.” —Booklist “A tour de force. Creepy as hell but full of heart, too.” —Linwood Barclay, #1 internationally bestselling author of Take Your Breath Away and Look Both Ways

Nocturnes: Short dark riffs, the blues formalized. James Ellroy, described by the Los Angeles Times: “Developing into one of the great American writers.” Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet novels — The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz — an epic pop history of a toxic metropolis. Hollywood Nocturnes: An alternative Ellroy universe, etched less in blood and more in elegiac neon. Dick Contino: Accordion virtuoso, lounge lizard, Red Scare scapegoat. On a greased slide in ’58 L.A.: A show biz fatality begging to happen. Dick Contino’s Blues: Half nocturne, half torch song. A blast back to tailfins, disease-free promiscuity, sex killers, Commie-bashing, publicity kidnaps, and B-movie redemption — an ode to a time when love came cheap. Nocturnes: Noir set to music. James Ellroy: America’s great noir writer. Dick Contino: America’s kingpin accordion player, then and now. The accordion and noir?... Suspend your disbelief. Hollywood Nocturnes: The novella Dick Contino’s Blues, Ellroy’s entire short-story oeuvre, and a few surprises. Dig it, kats and kittens, chix and charlies: This is prime-time Ellroy

The request was an odd one, and it came to Quinn from an unlikely source. Her name was Sister Blessing of the Salvation, and she belonged to a quasi-religious colony which had established itself in the California mountains, far from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Though money was forbidden in the colony, she paid Quinn one hundred and twenty dollars to find out if a man named Patrick O’Gorman was still living in the desert town of Chicote. It turned out that O’Gorman had disappeared under mysterious circumstances five years before. As Quinn investigated these circumstances, he discovered that Sister Blessing and some of her fellow colonists were as deeply involved with the world and the flesh as the people of Chicote. He saw their lives disrupted by violent passions and ultimately by violent death. As the intricate design of this novel emerges, it builds a pattern of mounting terror which reaches its climax on the last page, Mrs. Millar has never told a story of such sweep, ranging from the mountains to the desert, from a millionaire’s yacht to a cell in die state penitentiary, and into the darkest recesses of the human mind. Beginning with Quinn himself, the young detective who has his own moral problems, the characters are depicted with wit and penetration. This is perhaps the most compelling novel that Margaret Millar has given us in the course of her continually surprising career

They won’t all live to tell the tale... An addictive and twisty standalone psychological thriller from the bestselling Alex Barclay. Seven friends. One killer. No escape... A group of childhood friends are reunited at a luxury inn on a remote west coast peninsula in Ireland. But as a storm builds outside, the dark events that marred their childhoods threaten to resurface. And when a body is discovered, the group faces a shocking realisation: a killer is among them, and not everyone will escape with their lives

A young widow listened while her two gallant suitors discussed how she would die

Jack Hollis had finally steeled himself for what had to be done: When a man is threatening your daughter and grandson, when reason can’t stop it, when restraining orders don’t work and the police can’t help, then a father’s choices are limited. David Rakubian was vicious, abusive, powerful, deadly — and Angela’s husband. Everyone Hollis knew, the members of his family, his friends, all wanted to help save Angela. But this was something Jack had to do himself: Failure would be costly; success just as risky. Now he waited across the road from Rakubian’s house, hoping he’d get home quickly, before he lost his nerve. But Rakubian never got there, and the distraught father came up with another plan, something foolproof. Promising Rakubian a meeting with Angela so they could discuss their problems, he arranged for them to be somewhere isolated, somewhere a body could be easily disposed of, somewhere that would offer a perfect alibi. But Rakubian never got there, either. And when Hollis finally tracks him down, he discovers that someone may have done his job for him. Now he doesn’t know who to protect: There are too many people who’d wanted to help Angela, too many suspects (including himself); so many people and no one saying a word

One rainy night, the unthinkable happens: Dylan Moran’s car plunges off the road into a raging river, his beautiful wife drowning as he struggles to shore. In the aftermath, through his grief, Dylan experiences sudden, strange visions: wherever he goes, he’s haunted by glimpses of himself. Dylan initially chalks it up to trauma, but that changes when he runs into a psychiatrist who claims he’s her patient. She says he has been undergoing a unique hypnotherapy treatment built on the idea that with every choice, he creates an infinite number of parallel universes. Now those parallel universes are unlocked — and Dylan’s doppelgänger has staked a claim to his world. Can Dylan use these alternate realities to get a second chance at the life that was stolen from him? Or will he lose himself...  to himself?

In depths of despair, the beautiful, lonely Madeline contemplates suicide. She gently strokes an ugly revolver, the sole legacy of an alcoholic father. Holding the barrel to her temple, she pulls the trigger. There is only the click of the hammer on an empty chamber. The failure of the weapon brings on a rush of joy, and renewed hope for her future. She throws down the gun — and it explodes with deadly fury. The bullet strikes an innocent young woman passing in the street outside, who in the next moment dies in Madeline’s arms. So begins Into the Night, the quintessential Cornell Woolrich novel, never before published. Although Woolrich worked on it for years, this tale of hatred and passion, of love and suspense, remained unfinished at the time of his death. This undiscovered masterpiece has been completed by Lawrence Block — one of today’s most distinguished mystery writers — to create a work which will stand beside Woolrich’s Rear Window, Phantom Lady, and The Bride Wore Black

In the clammy recesses of the cement stairwell, she discovered the terrifying truth: she was the patsy, and her role was to die — screaming!

CARD-GAMBLING AND LOVE GAMBOLING IN THE CITY OF GAY DIVORCEES Jane Delavan had dark, red hair and plenty of shape of a nice, refined kind. To Ed Horner she was only a little fancy flirtation under the Nevada moon, but he found some peculiar circumstances developing when Jane’s husband, Tom Delavan, himself came to town, followed very shortly afterwards by his first wife, the beautiful but jealous Lady Sperry. Ed wondered what kind of game Jane Delavan was playing with him, leading him on as she was? And why should Lady Sperry take a heated interest in him of a sudden? What were the cause of secret midnight callers roaming at will through hotel bedrooms? Suddenly Ed Horner found himself slowly being ringed about by a group of hard-hating, highly emotional people who all had motives that involved them in a case of murder and the JEALOUS WOMAN. Adding to the fast growing list of James M. Cain novels, JEALOUS WOMAN is fiction that rates high for tight-packed action and a set of colorful, trigger-tense characters — a sure guarantee of the reader’s interest to the final smashing climax

Realistiškas ir tuo pačiu kupinas paslapties, įtraukiantis Jūsų protą ir jausmus į stulbinanti spėlionių žaidimą. Aukščiausio lygio psichologinis romanas, kuris supina Agathos Christie plunksnos vertą detektyvą ir Stepheno Kingo dramatišką mistiką. *“Negalėsite padėti šios knygos į šalį.”* *— San Francisco Chronicle* OBUOLYS Knyga nukelia į 1954-uosius — nuošalioje saloje stovinčią psichiatrijos ligoninę, iš kurios ypatingai saugomos kameros ką tik dingo pavojingais nusikaltimais apkaltinta moteris. Užklupus pragaištingai audrai, nelieka ryšio su žemynu, o neįprasta byla dviems ją tirti atvykusiems pareigūnams įgauna dar tamsesnių atspalvių… Kodėl saloje dvigubai daugiau prižiūrėtojų nei pacientų? Kokie paslaptingi eksperimentai vyksta ligoninėje? Kodėl spygliuota viela aptvertas švyturys? Tai, ko gero, geriausias psichologinis detektyvas, kokį esate skaitę

„Kvepalai. Maži, dideli, spalvoti, matiniai buteliukai ant lentynų. Užtenka pažvelgti į vitriną, jų ten šimtai, bet ar pagalvojom, kad tarp tokios daugybės rūšių, pavadinimų iš tikro nėra genialių kvepalų. Žanas Batistas Genujis vienintelis žinojo, kad tobulų kvepalų nėra ir vienintelis mokėjo juos sukurti. Ir sukūrė, daugybę tobulų kvapų. Gali tapti nepastebimas, mylimas ir nekenčiamiausias pasaulyje, tam tik reikia tinkamų žiedų, žolelių, gal net žmogaus plaukų. Taip, romanas nėra labai švelnus, skaidrus, rožinis, kvepiantis. Taip negali būti, nes parodomas tikras pasaulis. XVIII a. Prancūzija: skurdas, purvas, smarvė, neapykanta, žiaurumas – hiperbolizuojami, tačiau išlaikyta stebėtina pusiausvyra tarp šių bjaurių dalykų ir tobulumo, švarumo, tikrojo grožio

She was born with the morality gene missing. As beautiful, as inviting, as treacherous as the sea around her, Linda is one of the most compelling women yet created by John D. MacDonald

Here is the story of a mad love, written against the mysterious background of the underworld. Unlike the ordinary tale of this type with its crude, realistic descriptions, Manhattan Love Song is attuned in style and pace to the exoticism that surrounds and controls the life of Bernice. Because it is unusual, daring and bizarre this book will impress and delight the reader as few books have done before

Here are the swift pace, the hard, crisp prose, the almost unbearably tense dramatic situations which are typical of James Cain. But here also are a deeper view of life, a bigger subject, and a group of characters closer to the average reader’s experience than Mr. Cain has ever given us before. Here, in other words, is his most substantial and most ambitious novel. It is the story of a woman, her daughter, and her two husbands. At twenty- eight she was a “grass widow” without a cent. She learned to work; she created a business and built it into a notable success. Along the way she acquired two lovers, one of whom became her second husband. But none of that was important. What was important was her daughter Veda — the lovely, haughty, greedy, cruel child who knew what she wanted and got it. The relations between mother and daughter, between mother and husband and lover, between husband and daughter, intermingle and fuse into a shattering climax. Nine years have passed, and in this terrific moment all the characters are at last stripped and revealed, all the motives — good and evil — hared, all the ways of life finally chosen. It is a scene no one will easily forget

Two teenage boys befriend an escaped bank robber — an act that changes their lives forever — in Moonchasers, a powerful short novel in the tradition of Stand by Me and To Kill a Mockingbird. Tom and Barney are only fifteen years old, and content to spend the summer sharing dime novels, monster movies, and all the other innocent pleasures Somerton, Iowa, has to offer. But when they conspire to shelter a wounded criminal who reminds them of their idol, Robert Mitchum, they set in motion a chilling chain of events that will teach them about trust, brutality, and courage. Moonchasers and Other Stories also contains several other compelling tales of suspense by Ed Gorman, including “Turn Away,” which won the Shamus Award for best detective story, and a new story that has never appeared in any previous book or collection, “Out There in the Darkness.” These and other stories make up an outstanding collection of fiction by an author who has been described by the San Diego Union as “one of the most distinctive voices in today’s crime fiction.”

The incredible words in the diary stood — clearly accusing: Last night I sharpened the kitchen knives for her. When I finished the largest carving knife she took it and held it so tightly her knuckles showed white. “This is my pet,” she said. “I call it Mr. Killer”

Joey had read all the psychological thrillers — but he never dreamed he’d get personally involved

Cornell Woolrich published his first novel in 1926, and through-out the next four decades his fiction riveted the reading public with unparalleled mystery, suspense, and horror. America’s most popular pulps — Dime Detective, Black Mask, and Detective Fiction Weekly — published hundreds of his stories. Classic films like Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid, Tournier’s Black Alibi, and Siodmak’s Phantom Lady, as well as dozens of other motion pictures, came chillingly to the screen from his work. And novels like Deadline at Dawn, Rendezvous in Black, and Night Has a Thousand Eyes gained him the epithet “father of noir.” Now, with this new volume — the first in nearly two decades — of previously uncollected suspense fiction by the writer deemed to be the Edgar Allan Poe of the twentieth century, a whole new generation of mystery readers, as well as every one of the countless many who have long read and loved his work, can thrill to the achievement of Cornell Woolrich. “Our poet of the shadows,” as he has been called, Woolrich liveв a life of such deep despair and utter terror that he could do little except spill those fears onto the printed page. Yet he would never rid himself of his dark disquietude Woolrich’s life was, as James Ellroy put it, “a tragic existence that resulted in a superbly sustained fictional output.” Masterfully wrought, these stories of night and fear indelibly translate Woolrich’s personal horror into words

Here is brilliantly executed narrative of two human beings caught in the terrifying grip of their own hatreds and fears. On an immediate level this is a powerful novel of violence and suspense, but in a more significant area it casts a surgically compassionate light on the most anguishing problems of the human spirit. The story develops with classic simplicity; two men, strangers but inevitable enemies, meet in the planning of a crime. They violate the laws of society deliberately and gravely; a bank is broken into, a man is killed and the two protagonists are driven to ground in a lonely farmhouse. One of them is bitter and inarticulate, tormented by his inadequacies and failures. His accomplice, a Negro, is clever but in panic at the thought of death. Do they dare trust one another? Instinct warns them no, and betrayal becomes inevitable. But who will be betrayed is the lesser question; what is betrayed is of paramount importance. There is freedom of the spirit as well as freedom of the body, and a glimmering of this occurs to betrayed and betrayed alike. In the framework of this problem, they are forced to examine their hatred and fear and to reassess themselves as individuals possessing our common humanity

Rose and Antonia had a good war. As WAAF plotters, they had all the excitement and independence of a difficult and dangerous job, and all the fun of being two women on an RAF base. Peacetime is a disappointment. There is rationing, shortages, and nothing to do. Rosie’s war-hero husband has turned brutal lout: Antonia, bored with her rich manufacturer, wants to move to America with her lover. Neither can afford a divorce. But what are plotters for, if not to plot? And Antonia’s ruthless scheme would give them both what they want. If Rosie doesn’t lose her nerve, they could get away with murder

In the era before he created moody private investigator Matthew Scudder, burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, sleepless spy Evan Tanner, and the amiable hit man Keller — and years before his first Edgar Award — a young writer named Lawrence Block submitted a story titled “You Can’t Lose” to Manhunt magazine. It was published, and the rest is history. One Night Stands and Lost Weekends is a sterling collection of short crime fiction and suspense novelettes penned between 1958 and 1962 by a budding young master and soon-to-be Grand Master — an essential slice of genre history, and more fun than a high-speed police chase following a bank job gone bad

He looked at her, at her fine grave face and too elegant gestures. He thought tiredly that this one was nearly gone, that she would go on drinking too much gin and sleeping in too many beds, that she would remember nothing between the beds and the bottles. The worst of it was that he liked her. She had a face he would remember. And for a long time he would think of her and wonder just what had become of her, whether she was alive or dead