Too Far


Mike Lupica - 2004
    Not even the death of the team's manager can dampen the enthusiasm for long, but then a kid on the high school paper begins to hear things-stories of brutalities at a team retreat, of hazing that went over the line . . . of murder. But no one wants to know, and at every step, the ranks close against him-the school, the parents, the police, the town fathers. Soon the threats begin, then the physical intimidation, and even after he recruits a fallen-from-grace city newsman named Ben Mitchell to help him, the incidents get uglier-and more dangerous. "You always kill for a big story," Mitchell tells him. "You don't get killed for one." But it may already be too late. Things may have gone too far. For years, such top thriller writers as Harlan Coben, Elmore Leonard, and Carl Hiaasen have praised Lupica for his tightly wound plots, rich characters, and dialogue "that is alone worth the price" (Leonard). Now Lupica joins their ranks. Too Far is a major novel of suspense-and a book that makes us all look in our own backyards.

What You Did


Claire McGowan - 2019
    A devastating accusation. Who should she trust, her husband or her best friend?It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.When Karen staggers in from the garden, bleeding and traumatised, she claims that she has been assaulted—by Ali’s husband, Mike. Ali must make a split-second decision: who should she believe? Her horrified husband, or her best friend? With Mike offering a very different version of events, Ali knows one of them is lying—but which? And why?When the ensuing chaos forces her to re-examine the golden era the group shared at university, Ali realises there are darker memories too. Memories that have lain dormant for decades. Memories someone would kill to protect.

Killing Me Softly


Bianca Sloane - 2012
    Her body was discovered days later, her beautiful face bashed in with a rock. Police determine her brutal death to be a mugging gone wrong and drop the matter into their cold case files.Over a year later, Tracy’s sister, Sondra, still can’t come to grips with what happened. She throws herself into her work as a documentary filmmaker to try and forget the cruelty of her sister’s death. However, a chance encounter with a man from Tracy’s past rips the wound open and sends Sondra on a desperate search for answers about the secrets from her sister’s life that may have led to her death.As Sondra struggles to uncover what happened to Tracy, she’s launched into a tangled web of deceit and danger that put her on a collision course with life and death…

Her Perfect Family


Teresa Driscoll - 2021
    The perfect family? Or the perfect lie?It’s their daughter’s graduation and Rachel and Ed Hartley are expecting it to be one of their family’s happiest days. But when she stumbles and falls on stage during the ceremony, a beautiful moment turns to chaos: Gemma has been shot, and just like that, she’s fighting for her life.PI Matthew Hill is one of the first on the scene. A cryptic message Gemma received earlier in the day suggests someone close to her was about to be exposed. But who? As Matthew starts to investigate, he finds more and more layers obscuring the truth. He even begins to suspect the Hartleys are hiding something big—from him and from each other.While Gemma lies in hospital in a coma, her would-be killer is still out there. Can Matthew unravel the family’s secrets before the attacker strikes again?

Insistence of Vision


David Brin - 2016
    So enter it prepared! Here are vivid tales about possible tomorrows, from the keen eye and colorful pen of David Brin, a modern master of speculative fiction. Visit a chillingly plausible tomorrow, when prisoners may be sent to asteroidal gulags. Or might prisons vanish and felons roam, seeing only what society allows? Suppose, amid lavish success, we gain the superpower to fly! Will we even appreciate it or will we find new reasons to complain? In "Mars Opposition," you'll experience an alien invasion like no other, confronting humanity with a stark and terrible choice followed by several more tales of conquest from beyond, each of them wildly different. On the other hand, might fantastically potent new beings emerge out of ourselves, as revealed in "Chrysalis ? Featuring guest appearances by Gregory Benford, Jules Verne, and Galileo, this adventure takes you beyond the very singularity in Stones of Significance, pondering what could happen after humans are like gods. And Reality Check asks one of you readers just one of you to wake up! Tomorrow awaits. We can face it and prevail. So long as our stance is brave INSISTENCE OF VISION."

Love Is Murder


Allison Brennan - 2011
    . . DEAD After a tough breakup with her boyfriend, Lucy Kincaid needs a different kind of break. So she heads west to join her brother, an ex-cop, for a long weekend of skiing in the mountains. At a picturesque lodge tucked high in the Sierra Nevada, Lucy finds just what she’s looking for: a peaceful retreat undisturbed by Internet, television, and cell phone distractions. She also finds an unexpected group of newlyweds seeking their own idyllic getaway.But finding one of her fellow guests dead wasn’t in the brochure. And neither was the overnight snowstorm that leaves the lodge cut off from the outside world. When Lucy’s brother suspects the honeymooner’s death was foul play, he’s mysteriously stricken ill. Now, to keep him and herself alive, it’s up to aspiring FBI agent Lucy Kincaid to figure out which of the lovebirds trapped in the lodge is really a bird of prey.BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Allison Brennan’s upcoming novel Kiss Me, Kill Me as well as an exclusive excerpt from an FBI interview with Lucy Kincaid!

The Simple Truth


David Baldacci - 1998
    But when his memory is jogged by a letter from the army, he has a shocking realization: he's not guilty. From prison, Rufus secretly files an appeal with the Supreme Court, unaware that the real killers are onto him. But the long-time convict knows he's running out of time when his lawyer and the Supreme Court clerk--the first person to see Rufus's appeal--are murdered. Escaping with his brother's help, Rufus must now elude capture long enough to expose a shocking cover-up and save his own life.

Death of a Nurse


Richard Marsten - 1955
    Reissue.

Perfect Little Town


Blake Crouch - 2010
    When they stop for the afternoon in sleepy Lone Cone (Pop. 317), they’re charmed by the quaint tourist town which is filled with B&Bs, candy stores, and gift shops.But the folksy hospitality will vanish as the sun drops behind the mountains. A winter storm is approaching, and the Stahls couldn’t have picked a worse night of the year to get snowed into this perfect little town with a dark, dark secret.

Little Girl Gone


Brett Battles - 2011
    He just wants to live in peace and forget his troubled past. But one morning his quiet life is upended when he interrupts the attempted murder of his father's best friend Tooney.The next thing he knows, Logan is on his way to Los Angeles, searching for Tooney's missing granddaughter and uncovering a sinister plot connected not only into Tooney's Burmese past but to the boardrooms of corporate America.As the odds stack up against him, Logan must fall back on old skills from the past he'd rather forget. He's made a promise and the only way to fulfill it is to bring the girl home alive.

Dead To Me, A Trio of Chilling Tales


Kelley Armstrong - 2012
    Tanya’s new B&B is said to have plenty of both. And it might be more than a marketing ploy. Originally published in Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories.Dead to MeWhen a young woman’s soon-to-be-ex-husband falls down the stairs during a fight, she knows no one will believe her. So she hides his body…only to discover that he isn’t so easily silenced. Originally published in Tesseracts 13.Plan BA Nova Scotia gallery owner and his landscape artist wife discover that an affair can be murder on a marriage, and even the best laid schemes always need a plan B. Originally published in Like a Charm.

Of Mice and Minestrone: Hap and Leonard, The Early Years


Joe R. Lansdale - 2020
    Master storyteller Joe R. Lansdale has cooked up a passel of tales for you about the unlikeliest duo East Texas has to offer.Hap Collins looks like a good ol' boy, but from his misspent youth on, his best compatriot is Leonard Pine - black, gay, and the ultimate outsider. Inseparable friends, Hap and Leonard attend family gatherings, climb into the boxing ring, get in bar fights, and just go fishing - all while confronting racism, righting wrongs, and eating copious, delicious food.Chock full of Lansdale's unique blend of humor, ferocity, and insight, Of Mice and Minestrone delivers five never-before-seen (plus one perhaps familiar) Hap and Leonard stories, a selection of the boys' favorite recipes, and an introduction from New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Kent.So come discover the legends of Hap and Leonard, created by Joe R. Lansdale his own self, and featured in the by Hap and Leonard TV series starring Michael K. Williams (The Wire), James Purefoy (The Following), and Christina Hendricks (Mad Men).

Off the Main Sequence: The Other Science Fiction Stories of Robert A. Heinlein


Robert A. Heinlein - 1941
    Here are smart, savvy tales of space adventure, time travel, weird science, mysterious phenomena, apocalypse and dystopia, tales that reflect the concerns of their day, yet eerily foreshadow our own. There's Successful Operation, a Twilight Zone-ish gem in which a dictator gets his just desserts...Let There Be Light, about two inventors who triumph over political corruption...and On the Slopes of Vesuvius, in which a Bomb-fearing barkeep sees his worst fears realized. -And He Built A Crooked House- tells of an architect whose innovative home design leads straight into a funhouse fourth dimension. Solution Unsatisfactory gives us a chilling alternate end to WWII, while -All You Zombies- paints a time-twisty picture of the ultimate causality paradox. All these and more, including three previously uncollected stories, Beyond Doubt, My Object All Sublime and Pied Piper, display Heinlein's creative genius to full extent.

Before Evil


Alex Kava - 2017
     From her small Quantico office, Special Agent Maggie O'Dell has profiled serial killers using Poloraids, faxed copies and scraps of evidence provided by homicide detectives from across the country. She's gained a reputation for successfully profiling killers and solving crimes without ever stepping foot at a real crime scene.Then comes Albert Stucky, and nothing will ever be the same.Stucky is a sadistic madman who enjoys his twisted games as much as he enjoys the kill. Pieces of victims start showing up in takeout containers, strategically left for unsuspecting bystanders to find. Sometimes the body is dumped near by. Others are never found.Maggie is tasked with profiling the murders. Despite all her skills and talents nothing has prepared for this. For the first time in her career she’s seeing the gruesome crime scenes firsthand, because this madman has chosen the backwoods of Virginia as his killing grounds.When Stucky discovers an attractive female FBI agent is part of the task force to stop him, he begins to taunt Maggie. He leaves notes and bits and pieces as if they were clues for a morbid scavenger hunt. Each step of the way he’s daring Maggie to catch him if she can, all the while planning to make her his next prey.Let the chase begin.

Paranoia


Joseph Finder - 2004
    But when corporate security catches up with Adam Cassidy, a low ambition junior staffer at the high-tech behemoth, they call it something else: embezzlement, to the tune of nearly $80 grand.Ruthless CEO Nick Wyatt is impressed by Adam's scheming, and offers him one way out-take on the role of a rising corporate hotshot and infiltrate Wyatt's rival, Trion Systems. His mission is to get close to Trion's legendary founder Jock Goddard, and his ultra-secret "Project Aurora," and report back to Wyatt.With Wyatt pulling the strings and a dramatically improved identity, Adam is set up as Trion's new boy genius. Suddenly, he's got a sweet new Porsche, a closet full of $1,500 suits, and even a lovely lady who thinks he's a dream. But it's all just a mirage, because Adam is about to learn that nothing is what it seems and that it isn't paranoia...everyone is out to get him...