He's now in foster care because his mom is crazy and his dad is an ex-con. He's always in trouble or on his way to trouble. But none of these problems compare to the problem of The Beast. Stephen has been taking care of The Beast for years. It is his biggest secret -- and also his biggest challenge. If it could, The Beast would eat Stephen alive. The only thing separating them is a rusty cage. And the bars are about to break. . . .

    He calls Charlie by a secret nickname known by only one other person in the world—Charlie’s brother Jake, who went missing thirteen years ago. Could the homeless man have information about Jake’s whereabouts after all these years? Is it possible that the long-haired, bearded vagrant actually is Jake? Charlie has a hundred questions but the homeless man disappears before Charlie can ask a single one. So begins Charlie’s search for answers, and for his brother, a search that leads him down Boston's darkest streets, into its blackest alleys, and, finally, into its criminal underworld. But if Charlie wants answers he'll have to get them from some of the most feared and ruthless people in the city.

    Left at their last-known locations are birthday cards that read:YOUR GIFT IS THE GAME.DARE TO PLAY?The police aren’t worried – it’s just a game. But the families are frantic. As psychologist and private detective Dr Augusta Bloom delves into the lives of the missing people, she finds something that binds them all.And that something makes them very dangerous indeed.As more disappearances are reported and new birthday cards uncovered, Dr Bloom races to unravel the mystery and find the missing people.But what if, this time, they are the ones she should fear?

    But realizing that the body is in fact much newer, that the woman’s heart has been cut out and that she was killed within a few days of bearing a child, Tora, herself an obstetrician, becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her—even when the police, her colleagues and eventually her husband warn her against getting involved.Sacrifice is a bone-chilling, spell-binding debut that will grip readers from its beginning to its startling end.

    Waiting. Straining against the wood that holds them. The unwary catch a glimpse now and then - feel their desperate hunger, see a glint of red eyes - and scurry out of the shadows of the wood, back to the light.She's coming; it will be soon.They will run free on the moors again. The Hunt will return. And the ground will run with blood.An ancient curse placed on a family of witches foretells that twins will be born - one good, one evil; and one will destroy the other. But who can be trusted when no one is as they seem?

    Who will survive?

    A family gathers for the holidays in rural Connecticut, bringing with them confessions, accusations, demands. But suddenly personal agendas become meaningless as the priority shifts to survival. Two burglars break in, believing the house to be empty. In their panic they take the family hostage and the crime that follows spirals out of control.

    George Winnick, a farmer in his sixties, is found in a homemade coffin on the side of the highway with his lips sewn shut and his veins and arteries drained of blood and filled with embalming fluid. Chilling as that is, it becomes even more so when Kat finds that the Perry Hollow Gazette obituary writer, Henry Goll, received a death notice for Winnick before he was killed.Soon after, the task force from the Pennsylvania Bureau of Investigation shows up and everything takes an irreversible turn for the worse. Nick Donnelly, head of the task force, has been chasing the "Betsy Ross Killer", so named because he's handy with a needle and thread, for more than a year. Winnick seems to be his fourth victim. Or is he?Kat has never handled a murder case before, but she's not about to sit by while someone terrorizes her sleepy little town or her own son. But will her efforts be enough to stop a killer and bring calm to Perry Hollow.A portrait of a small town in turmoil, where residents fear for their lives, Todd Ritter's Death Notice is a gripping debut from a terrific new talent in crime fiction.

    No one cared. But a stranger, bent on revenge, is out to change all that. Kit Griffin has finally overcome a painful childhood at the hands of her mother, former actress Alana Stevens. No longer living in the grasp of the cold, tyrannical woman, Kit has found a new life tucked away in little San Madrid, California, running a business she loves, surrounded by friends she considers family. For the first time her life is on track. That is, until Alana is found brutally murdered on Mother’s Day, pulling Kit back in to the dark horrors of her past. To make matters worse, the police consider her the prime suspect.Jake Boston, an old family friend and the man Kit has loved since she was a teen, is fighting his own demons as a suspect in his wife’s murder two years earlier. Despite his past, he’s determined to win Kit over once and for all. But before that can happen they need to convince the police there’s a killer working his way down a list with cold-hearted vengeance in mind. Forced to delve into Alana’s dark past, it becomes clear someone is out to settle a score. When Jake and Kit uncover a forty year old double murder that leads them straight to the door of a legal dynasty, they soon find out just how far the heirs will go to keep the past buried and eliminate all the loose ends to protect their empire. Will Jake and Kit become the next victims or will they find an unexpected guardian angel?