Crackerjack young FBI agent Judy Maddox is assigned to track down the elusive, sinister group called the "Hammer of Eden."Judy's boss, who has a grudge against her, thinks he has given her a waste-of-time assignment. But Judy's research leads her to maverick seismologist Michael Quercus, who gives her the shocking news that it might just be possible for an earthquake to be deliberately triggered. And when a tremor in a remote California desert shows evidence of being machine-generated, Judy knows the threat is terrifyingly real.Suddenly in charge of a life-or-death investigation, Judy must pinpoint the terrorists' next target, with the help of the erratic but attractive Michael. Their compelling romantic drama is played out as they race to beat the terrorist deadline and prevent an unthinkable disaster.Unknown to them, Michael's estranged wife, gorgeous but angry, has fallen under the spell of a clever, sexy cult leader called Priest -- and they have stolen from Michael's computer the key data that enables the Hammer of Eden to carry out their cataclysmic threat. Worse still, Michael's son is with his wife -- and under the control of Priest. All of them are in mortal jeopardy as Judy and Michael fight to save San Francisco from being brought down in ruins.Ken Follett became a best-selling author in 1978 with the publication of "Eye of the Needle, " which won the Edgar award and became a major motion picture. He has sincewritten numerous other best-selling thrillers and historical novels, including "The Third Twin, " and "A Place Called Freedom."

    Loath to draw negative publicity to the school, a bastion of European wealth and glamour, officials quickly dismiss the incident as an accident, but questions remain: Was it a suicide attempt? Or was Cressida pushed? It was no secret that she had a selfish streak and had earned as many enemies as allies in her tenure at the school. For her best friend, scholarship student Kersti Kuusk, the lingering questions surrounding Cressida's fall continue to nag long after she leaves the Lycée.Kersti marries and becomes a bestselling writer, but never stops wondering about Cressida's obsession with the Helvetian Society—a secret club banned years before their arrival at the school—and a pair of its members who were expelled. When Kersti is invited as a guest to the Lycée's 100th Anniversary, she begins probing the cover-up, unearthing a frightening underbelly of lies and abuse at the prestigious establishment. And in one portentous moment, Kersti makes a decision that will connect her to Cressida forever and raise the stakes dangerously high in her own desire to solve the mystery and redeem her past.An unputdownable read as clever as it is compelling, The Finishing School offers a riveting glimpse into a privileged, rarefied world in which nothing is as it appears.

    His boss, the district attorney, attractive but hard-charging, is planning to run for governor, and as a showcase she's planning to use a new crime initiative called At Risk; its motto: "Any crime, any time." In particular, she's been looking for a way to employ cutting-edge DNA technology, and she thinks she's found the perfect subject in an unsolved twenty-year-old murder—in Tennessee. If her office solves the case, it ought to make them all look pretty good, right?Her investigator is not so sure—not sure about anything to do with this woman, really—but before he can open his mouth, a shocking piece of violence intervenes, an act that shakes up not only both their lives but also the lives of everyone around them. It's not a random event. Is it personal? Is it professional? Whatever it is, the implications are very, very bad indeed ... and they're about to get much worse.Sparks fly, traps spring, twists abound—this is the master working at the top of her game.

    . . if you've ever known fear. In Palmerston, Pennsylvania, two men in long coats walk calmly into a crowded fast-food restaurant--then, slowly and methodically, gun down sixty-eight people. They take time to reload. On the Promenade of Santa Monica, California, a teenage girl gives sightseeing tips to a distinguished English tourist. She won't be going home tonight. In Dyersburg, Montana, a grief-stricken son tries to make sense of the accident that killed his parents--then finds a note stuffed in his father's favorite chair. It reads, "We're not dead."Three seemingly unrelated events, these are the first signs of an unimaginable network of fear that will lead one unlikely hero to a chilling confrontation with The Straw Men. No one knows who they are--or why they kill. But they must be stopped. Michael Marshall's electrifying debut novel is an instant masterpiece of modern suspense. An epic thriller for anyone who has feared that someone is watching us.

    Caroline Verlaine, a young widow, comes to work at the estate hoping to discover the cause of the mysterious disappearance of her sister, who had been studying the nearby Roman ruins. Caroline found her employers a strange family, haunted by tragedies of the past, scarred by distrust. Yet she found herself irresistibly attracted to them - especially to the family's dark, moody young scion. But not until she had retraced her sister's fatal last steps could she answer the crucial questions about the family's past - and her own future.

    After the tragic death of her father, Bryony returns from abroad to find that his estate is to become the responsibility of her cousin Emory. Her family's estate with its load of debt is no longer her worry. Still, her father's final, dire warning about a terrible family curse haunts her days and her dreams. And there is something odd about her father's sudden death... Bryony has inherited the Ashley 'Sight' and so has one of the Ashleys. Since childhood the two have communicated through thought patterns, though Bryony has no idea of his identity. Devastated, she believes, that the mysterious stranger is her destiny... the lover-to-be who waits for her now at Ashley Court. Now she is determined to find him. But passion is not all that will greet Bryony upon her return -- for the crumbling walls of the old mansion guard dark secrets, tragic memories... and inescapable peril.

    The fear is numbing. Screams freeze in the throat. Death arrives in shades of white. Cold-blooded murder seems right at home....the chill of the grave.

    In present-day Russia, ruled by blue-eyed, unblinking President Vladimir Putin, Russian intelligence officer Dominika Egorova struggles to survive in the post-Soviet intelligence jungle. Ordered against her will to become a “Sparrow,” a trained seductress, Dominika is assigned to operate against Nathaniel Nash, a young CIA officer who handles the Agency’s most important Russian mole.Spies have long relied on the “honey trap,” whereby vulnerable men and women are intimately compromised. Dominika learns these techniques of “sexpionage” in Russia’s secret “Sparrow School,” hidden outside of Moscow. As the action careens between Russia, Finland, Greece, Italy, and the United States, Dominika and Nate soon collide in a duel of wills, tradecraft, and—inevitably—forbidden passion that threatens not just their lives but those of others as well. As secret allegiances are made and broken, Dominika and Nate’s game reaches a deadly crossroads. Soon one of them begins a dangerous double existence in a life-and-death operation that consumes intelligence agencies from Moscow to Washington, DC.Page by page, veteran CIA officer Jason Matthews’s Red Sparrow delights and terrifies and fascinates, all while delivering an unforgettable cast, from a sadistic Spetsnaz “mechanic” who carries out Putin’s murderous schemes to the weary CIA Station Chief who resists Washington “cake-eaters” to MARBLE, the priceless Russian mole. Packed with insider detail and written with brio, this tour-de-force novel brims with Matthews’s life experience, including his knowledge of espionage, counterintelligence, surveillance tradecraft, spy recruitment, cyber-warfare, the Russian use of “spy dust,” and covert communications. Brilliantly composed and elegantly constructed, Red Sparrow is a masterful spy tale lifted from the dossiers of intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Authentic, tense, and entertaining, this novel introduces Jason Matthews as a major new American talent.

    In this masterful new novel, the killer may very well be the one you sympathize with the most... THE FIRST RULE IS NEVER BLAME THE VICTIM.They survived what no woman should ever have to endure. Now these three women have the means, the opportunity, and the perfect motive. Are they trying to get away with murder--or is someone trying to make sure that this time they don't get away at all? The Survivors Club... that's what Jillian Hayes, Carol Rosen, and Meg Pesaturo call it. They won't consider themselves victims. They are survivors. They faced the blazing headlines and helped lead the investigation that caught the man who changed their lives forever. And now that Eddie Como, the College Hill rapist, has been murdered, shot down outside a packed courthouse moments before his trial was about to begin, all three women are openly ecstatic that he's dead. They are also the prime suspects in his murder. Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin knows all too well what can drive even the best people to cross the line. But he has never seen a case quite like this one. No one doubts that the murder of Eddie Como was a professional job, especially when the gunman is killed only blocks away from the shooting.But questions taunt Griffin: Who ordered the deaths of Eddie Como and his killer? Could three ordinary women have been driven to do the unthinkable? Had someone in the Survivors Club become a killer? Griffin seeks the truth--and finds himself confronted with the leader of the Survivors Club. Jillian Hayes is beautiful, successful, cool as ice, and she harbors a pain that mirrors Griffin's own. Did the horror of what happened to her push her over the thin and desperate line that separates survival and revenge? And if it did, could he blame her--or anyone in the Survivors Club? Then another woman is brutally attacked.Suddenly, with the city on the ragged edge of panic, gripped in a media and political firestorm of controversy, cover-up, and conspiracy, the hunt is on for a ruthless and cunning killer. For Griffin, this may well be the case that shatters his career. For Jillian, the harrowing nightmare is beginning all over again. Someone is out there. Someone who wants to finish what was started. Someone who wants to make sure that no one survives the Survivors Club.

    Rich, handsome, and ingenious, he charms the city's most prominent citizens even as he plots the crime of his century, the daring theft of a fortune in gold. But even Pierce could not predict the consequences of an extraordinary robbery that targets the pride of England's industrial era: the mighty steam locomotive. Based on remarkable fact, and alive with the gripping suspense, surprise, and authenticity that are his trademarks, Michael Crichton's classic adventure is a breathtaking thrill-ride that races along tracks of steel at breakneck speed.

    But for the Brewster family it will be this year's holiday retreat, and for the kids Eric and Marci it's the perfect place to spend a lazy summer exploring.Which is how Eric and his teenage friends discover a curious collection of discarded objects stowed in a hidden room in the carriage house. The bladeless hacksaws, shade-less lamps, tables with missing legs, a headless axe handle - these unremarkable items add up to a pile of junk. Yet someone once took the trouble to list each worthless relic in a cryptic ledger, thus provoking a great mystery that is now whispering, coaxing, demanding to be solved. The more the boys devote themselves to piecing together the puzzle, the more their fascination deepens into obsession. Soon their days are consumed with this weird collection, while their nights become plagued by ever more ghastly nightmares.And finally when a horrifying discovery surfaces, so does the chilling truth about a twisted legacy with a malevolent life of its own.

    She’s even become a flight attendant for his airline so she can keep a closer eye on him.They are meant to be.The fact that Nate broke up with her six months ago means nothing. Because Juliette has a plan to win him back.She is the perfect girlfriend. And she’ll make sure no one stops her from getting exactly what she wants.True love hurts, but Juliette knows it’s worth all the pain...

    Lane Noble Graham stands accused of murdering her ex-husband. The one man who can help her, Johnny Mack Cahill, vowed never to return to the town that scorned him. But one secret could make Lane and Johnny Mack the target of a twisted killer.

    James, Robert Barnard and other literate writers in the genre will welcome US publication of this prize-winning author's first work. In postwar Tokyo, the K Apartment House for ladies is about to be moved intact in a highly publicized engineering feat. Then, flashback seven years to one of its occupants and her confederate--a man dressed in woman's clothes--as they bury a child's body in an unused communal bath beneath the building. A second flashback tells of the kidnapping of four-year-old George Kraft, son of an American army officer and his Japanese wife. The stage is set. The actors are a few of the present-day occupants of the K apartments--single, lovely, obsessed, neurotic--each life a novel in itself, told in a spare, unembellished style that never lapses into the sentimental. Manipulated by hidden strings, their actions and reactions lead to suicide, murder, and some final surprising revelations. This is a fresh, original novel, superbly crafted and riveting from start to finish.

    From the author of "Laguna Heat" and "Summer of Fear" comes an intense, masterful novel of murder and revenge on California's Gold Coast--a page-turning thriller with a deep emotional undercurrent about love, loss, and the need to make things right.