Beloved Husband. Father. Friend. This is a very short story in honor of his legacy that he has left behind. Disclaimer: This is a short story. If short stories aren't your thing, please do not read the story. There isn't a cliff-hanger and will not reveal any clues on what could possibly come from The Underworld or any of the characters that are still alive.

     Shay Greene’s specialty is rescue and recovery, and she’s damn good at it. When the country’s wealthiest woman hires her to find a stolen pearl necklace known as The Mermaid’s Lament, Shay is plunged into a world of jealous goddesses, their half-human demigod offspring, and long-standing feuds. Petty rivalries have a nasty way of escalating in that world. The dangerous lengths the goddesses go to one-up each other leave Shay wondering if the goddesses are completely sane. Even the demigods have more power than she is used to dealing with. Shay doesn’t have much time to learn how to beat them. If she doesn’t recover the Mermaid’s Lament by the looming deadline, it will cost her everything she loves.

    She becomes gradually more obsessed with the case, never imagining how close she herself is to danger. Includes an extract from Karin Slaughter’s gripping new novel, Pretty Girls.

    The troubling talent has made the Southern California surfer wary of casual contact. But while impulsively saving a stranger from an accident, she experiences her most disturbing vision.   With only a good friend to help her, and mere traces of information to guide her, Makani must track down two mysterious women—one of them innocent, one not.   But Makani is stepping into the path of an adversary more dangerous than she can imagine: a brutal predator behind a pretty face, who won’t go down without drawing blood.   Acclaim for Dean Koontz   “Dean Koontz is a prose stylist whose lyricism heightens malevolence and tension. [He creates] characters of unusual richness and depth . . . with a level of perception and sensitivity that is not merely convincing; it’s astonishing.” —The Seattle Times   “Demanding much of itself, Koontz’s style bleaches out clichés while showing a genius for details. He leaves his competitors buried in the dust.” —Kirkus Reviews   “A rarity among bestselling writers, Koontz continues to pursue new ways of telling stories, never content with repeating himself.”—Chicago Sun-Times   “Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose. ‘Serious’ writers . . . might do well to examine his technique.”—The New York Times Book Review   “[Koontz] has always had near-Dickensian powers of description, and an ability to yank us from one page to the next that few novelists can match.” —Los Angeles Times   “Koontz is a superb plotter and wordsmith. He chronicles the hopes and fears of our time in broad strokes and fine detail, using popular fiction to explore the human condition.”—USA Today   “Characters and the search for meaning, exquisitely crafted, are the soul of [Koontz’s] work. . . . One of the master storytellers of this or any age.”—The Tampa Tribune   “A literary juggler.”—The Times (London)