Whispers


Dean Koontz - 1980
    And even though she died five years ago, the whispers still haunt him in the dark…enough to make him kill—and kill again…Hilary Thomas is one of his intended victims. And she’s about to learn that even death can’t keep a bad man down…

The Door to December


Richard Paige - 1985
    What happened to nine-year-old Melanie during the six years she was subjected to terrifying experiments? And what is the unstoppable power that she can unleash from behind the "Door to December"?

The Face of Fear


Brian Coffey - 1977
    With a beautiful, terrified woman. On the 40th floor of a deserted office building. By the psyshopath they call "The Butcher."DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause you're an ex-mountain climber. Because a fall from Everest left you with a bad leg... and a paralyzing fear of heights.DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause he has slaughtered the guards and short-circuited the elevators. Because the stairways are blocked, and for you and the woman with you, there's only one escape route.DON'T LOOK DOWNBecause 600 feet of empty space are looking back at you."A real breath-taker... should hold you glued to its pages till the wee small hours." --West Coast Review of Books

The Key to Midnight


Leigh Nichols - 1979
    ten years ago to sing in a Japanese nightclub. Ever since, she's been plagued with nightmares of terror. There is only one man can help her -- Alex Hunter. Ten years ago he saw her picture in the papers -- as a senator's daughter who had disappeared. Now he has to bring her memories back to her, memories of a past more terrifying than they dreamed possible...

Mr. X


Peter Straub - 1999
    Now, with his birthday fast approaching, Ned has been drawn back to his home town of Edgerton, Illinois, by a premonition that his mother is dying. On her deathbed, she imparts to him the name of his long-absent father and warns him that he is in grave danger. Despite her foreboding, he embarks on a search through Edgerton’s past for the truth behind his own identity and that of his entirely fantastic family. But when Ned becomes the lead suspect in three violent deaths, he begins to realize that he is not the only one who has come home…'Mr. X marks Straub's triumphant return to the tale of the paranormal and the supernatural....There are several scenes of utter, ghastly, hide-your-eyes horror; when Peter Straub turns on all his jets, no one in the scream factory can equal him. The plot is challenging, the characters are intriguing in their complexity, and the language is a delight.'Stephen King'No one is better than Straub at having whole communities rocked by the forces of wickedness.' Observer

Like a Charm


Karin SlaughterPeter Robinson - 2004
    In Like A Charm, the cream of British and American crime writers combine for a must-have collection. From nineteenth-century Georgia, where the bracelet is forged in fire, to wartime Leeds, a steam train across Europe, the violent backstreets of 1980s Scotland, present-day London, a Manhattan taxi, the Mojave desert and back to Georgia, each writer weaves a gripping story of murder, betrayal and intrigue.

Speaking In Tongues


Jeffery Deaver - 1995
    One seeking only peace. The other, violence." Tate Collier, once one of the country's finest trial lawyers, is trying to forget his past. Now a divorced gentleman farmer, land developer, and community advocate in rural Virginia, he's regrouping from some disastrous mistakes in the realms of love and the law. But controversy -- and danger -- seem to have an unerring hold on Tate. Even as he struggles to rebuild his life, his alter ego is plotting his demise.Aaron Matthews, a brilliant psychologist, has turned his talents away from curing patients to far deadlier goals. He's targeted Tate, Tate's ex-wife, Bett, and their estranged daughter, Megan, for unspeakable revenge. Matthews, ruthless and hell-bent, will destroy anything that inhibits his plans. When their daughter disappears, Tate and Bett reunite in a desperate, heart-pounding attempt to find her and to stop Matthews, a psychopath whose gift of a glib tongue and talent for coercion are as dangerous as knives and guns. Featuring an urgent race against the clock, gripping details of psychological manipulation, and the brilliant twists and turns that are trademark Deaver, "Speaking in Tongues" delivers the suspense punch that has made this author a bestseller. It will leave you speechless.

Girl Missing


Tess Gerritsen - 1994
    She's young. She's beautiful. And her corpse, laid out in the office of Boston medical examiner Kat Novak, betrays no secrets - except for a notebook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside. The next body is a warning. When a second victim is discovered, Kat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the city streets: a shadowy madman without mercy or apparent motive. The police are skeptical. The mayor won't listen. And Kat's chief suspect is one of the city's most prominent citizens. The final body . . . might be hers. With the death toll rising, Kat races to expose a deadly conspiracy and the brutal killer at its heart - a killer who will stalk her from the dangerous streets of the inner city to the corridors of power. Because he's closer than she ever dreamt. And every move she makes could be her very last.

Abduction


Robin Cook - 2000
    A mysterious transmission from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean leads a crew of divers and oceanographers to investigate a phenomenon beyond scientific understanding....And to the discovery that will permanently change everything we have previously come to know about life on this Earth.

Icebound


David Axton - 1976
    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.

The Ambler Warning


Robert Ludlum - 2005
    There, far from prying eyes, the government keeps in "deep storage" former intelligence employees whose psychiatric state make them a security risk to their own government, people whose ramblings might jeopardize ongoing operations or prove dangerously inconvenient.One of these employees, former Consular Operations agent Hal Ambler, is one of the few who is so dangerous that he is in complete isolation from other patients, kept heavily medicated and closely watched. But there's one critical difference between Ambler and the other patients in the facility: Ambler isn't crazy.With the help of a sympathetic nurse, Ambler manages to first clear his mind of the drug-induced haze and then executes a daring escape. On the loose and barely one step ahead of the retrieval teams sent after him, he is out to discover who had him stashed in the psychiatric hospital and why.But the world he returns to isn't the one he so clearly remembers - friends and longtime associates don't recognize him, and there are no official records of any person named Hal Ambler. With no resources and his unknown enemies closing in on him, Ambler has to uncover the truth of who he was and figure out what it is about him - remember what he knows - that makes him such a danger that someone is willing to risk everything to see him dead.

77 Shadow Street


Dean R. Koontz - 2011
    I live in the Pendleton as surely as I live everywhere. I am the Pendleton’s history and its destiny. The building is my place of conception, my monument, my killing ground. . . .The Pendleton stands on the summit of Shadow Hill at the highest point of an old heartland city, a Gilded Age palace built in the late 1800s as a tycoon’s dream home. Almost from the beginning, its grandeur has been scarred by episodes of madness, suicide, mass murder, and whispers of things far worse. But since its rechristening in the 1970s as a luxury apartment building, the Pendleton has been at peace. For its fortunate residents—among them a successful songwriter and her young son, a disgraced ex-senator, a widowed attorney, and a driven money manager—the Pendleton’s magnificent quarters are a sanctuary, its dark past all but forgotten.But now inexplicable shadows caper across walls, security cameras relay impossible images, phantom voices mutter in strange tongues, not-quite-human figures lurk in the basement, elevators plunge into unknown depths. With each passing hour, a terrifying certainty grows: Whatever drove the Pendleton’s past occupants to their unspeakable fates is at work again. Soon, all those within its boundaries will be engulfed by a dark tide from which few have escaped.Dean Koontz transcends all expectations as he takes readers on a gripping journey to a place where nightmare visions become real—and where a group of singular individuals hold the key to humanity’s destiny. Welcome to 77 Shadow Street.

Creepers


David Morrell - 2005
    Built in the glory days of Asbury Park by a reclusive millionaire, the magnificent structure - which foreshadowed the beauties of art deco architecture - is now boarded up and marked for demolition.The five people are "creepers," the slang term for urban explorers: city archeologists with a passion for investigating abandoned buildings and their dying secrets. On this evening, they are joined by a reporter who wants to profile them - anonymously, as this is highly illegal activity - for a New York Times article.Frank Balenger, a sandy-haired, broad-shouldered reporter with a decided air of mystery about him, isn't looking for just a story, however. And after the group enters the rat-infested tunnel leading to the hotel, it becomes clear that he will get much more than he bargained for. Danger, terror, and death await the creepers in a place ravaged by time and redolent of evil.

Swimsuit


James Patterson - 2009
    Only hours after she goes missing, Kim McDaniels's parents receive a terrifying phone call. Fearing the worst, they board the first flight to Maui and begin the hunt for their daughter....WILL NEVER BE...Ex-cop Ben Hawkins, now a reporter for the L.A. Times, gets the McDaniels assignment. The ineptitude of the local police force defies belief--Ben has to start his own investigation for Kim McDaniels to have a prayer. And for Ben to have the story of his life....THE SAME FOR YOU AGAIN.All the while, the killer sets the stage for his next production. His audience expects the best--and they won't be disappointed. Swimsuit is a heart-pounding story of fear and desire, transporting you to a place where beauty and murder collide and unspeakable horrors are hidden within paradise.

Mine


Robert R. McCammon - 1990
    The child's mother, though, isn't about to take it lying down and, along with a tracker, begins a cross-country chase to get her child back.