Hidden deep beneath Manhattan lies a warren of tunnels, sewers, and galleries, mostly forgotten by those who walk the streets above. There lies the ultimate secret of the Museum Beat.Relic — Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human...Reliquary —When two grotesquely deformed skeletons are found deep in the mud off the Manhattan shoreline, museum curator Margo Green is called in to aid the investigation. Margo must once again team up with police lieutenant D'Agosta and FBI agent Pendergast, as well as the brilliant Dr. Frock, to try and solve the puzzle. Books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child The Pendergast Series Relic Reliquary Other books Mount Dragon Books by Douglas Preston The Kraken Project Impact Blasphemy The Monster of Florence The Codex Jennie At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    At least, it feels that way until a serial killer starts dicing up women from the shelter where she volunteers. Despite the ever-present tingling at the nape of her neck, Hannah manages to convince herself that the killings have nothing to do with her brutal past—until her boyfriend is murdered in the same ruthless manner as the others. It doesn’t help that the police think she might have done it. But the cops are right about one thing: Hannah is responsible. Because she knows who the killer is. Now she must face the fact that she brought a monster with her to Ash Park—and his appetite for blood is insatiable. Everyone's hungry for something. Some are more famished than others.

    With reminiscence and narration, a local sheriff must comb through his own humid world to unravel the truth behind the death of a local boy. But it’s not as easy as it seems, because no one is talking. The Other Side of the Bay is a remarkable portrait of the unique people in the Panhandle of Florida. The story weaves itself into the tall longleaf forests, and along the crests of the uneasy bay, telling a tale of the human spirit. This is a novel of how things aren't always as black and white as they ought to be, and how right and wrong aren't always easy to tell apart. It's an evocative tale that delivers its reader to the apricot sun rises and sepulchral storm clouds of their own bittersweet memories.

    Working with a single-minded tenacity, she sets out to prove it.Deputy Sheriff Ben Slater hides his personal pain behind the job, but Kate's arrival in his county knocks his world on its axis. He wants to believe her wild theory, but the idea of a serial killer with the kind of pathology she proposes is too bizarre.Together they work to find a killer whose roots began in a small town in Bigler County, but whose violence spread across the nation. A Janus-like killer, more monster than man, he fixates on Kate. The killer wants nothing more than to kill the "purple-eyed girl again."

    When Becker takes a mysterious job, he has no idea that it will force him to delve deeply into his own past. Undeterred by obstacles he is determined to complete his assignment. But he may realize too late that his success will permanently alter his future.

    To make matters worse, Painters Mill is in the midst of a county-wide power outage. At the height of the rager, a teenage Amish girl is attacked with a hammer and left for dead. Kate is called to the scene—an abandoned farm teeming with loud music and rowdy behavior—to find the girl unconscious and bleeding from a head wound. With the girl in a coma and an unknown attacker on the loose, Kate must discover who would want to hurt her, and why, before it’s too late.

    Especially handsome detectives with kind voices and beautiful eyes. So when her conscience just won’t shut the hell up, and convinces her to corner one such cop in a dark parking lot to tell him what she’s learned, she can just feel this won’t be the end of it. She doesn’t have time to worry about it, though. She has gangsters to piss off, homicidal gangs to infiltrate, and people to search for. Yes, this is Kyra’s life. The endgame is worth it, though. If she lives long enough to attain it. Join Kyra and Gabe in a pulse-pounding chase through Abstreuse City to find a killer and save a child before it’s too late. Because everyone loves good cop meets mysterious woman meets serial killer. And darkness lives in us all. “Intriguing storyline. Good fun…Highly recommend!” –R.V.P. Author Interview: What got you into writing crime fiction? Like so many others, I’ve always loved mysteries. Even a minor mystery is compelling to me and I’ve finished otherwise mediocre books, just to learn what the answer is. I watch a lot of police procedurals and have always especially been fascinated with criminal psychology and serial killers. It was always just a matter of time before I started writing about it. Yeah, but what’s a nice Christian girl like you doing writing about serial killers? Kind of dark subject matter, isn’t it? *laughs* It’s a question I’ve gotten a lot. It’s definitely dark subject matter. I prefer it that way, though. The darker the story becomes, the greater the capacity for character redemption. Lovers of horror understand this concept well. If the character can’t demonstrate a visceral ability to overcome a ridiculous amount of darkness, they’re almost not worth rooting for. Nothing is darker than a person willing to coldly take the lives of other human beings. I think that’s why our society is so interested in this type of villain. It’s a darkness we can’t understand, but want to, if for no other reason than to keep it at bay in ourselves. As an author, exploring that is both fascinating and kind of fun. Why this story? Why Abstreuse and the Mire? I came up with this story all at once. Many authors come up with stories based on the story they would like to see told, but haven’t found. It was more or less that way for me. There wasn’t any specific crime fiction story I was unsatisfied with, but rather while reading and watching them, I couldn’t help but start to form something in my mind I’d love to read myself. By the time I sat down to write, I had the entire draft of book 1 already formed in my head, and basic shape of the rest. It’s one of those stories that took on an urgency because I became so excited to tell it. So I did! You’ve written stories about both urban and rural crime. Do you have a preference? No, I don’t think I prefer one over the other. Being something of a country girl myself, writing about a killer in a small desert town held an interest all its own. But the urban setting of the inner city can definitely prove grittier. They present us with two different feels to the same kind of darkness. I personally find both tremendously compelling.

    Who am I? My name is Christy Snow. I'm seventeen and I'm about to die. I'm buried in a coffin under tons of concrete. No one knows where I am. My heart sounds like a monster with clobber feet, running straight toward me. I'm lying on my back, soaked with sweat from the hair on my head to the soles of my feet. My hands and feet won't stop shaking.Some will say that I m not really here. Some will say I'm delusional. Some will say that I don t even exist. But who are they? I'm the one buried in a grave. My name is Christy Snow. I'm seventeen. I'm about to die.So who are you?In a return to the kind of storytelling that made Black, Showdown and Three unforgettable, New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker drags that question into the light with this modern day parable about how we see ourselves. Humming with intensity and blindsided twists, Eyes Wide Open is raw adrenaline from the first page to the last pure escapism packed with inescapable truth. Not all is as it seems. Or is it? Strap yourself in for the ride of your life. Literally.

    If only the nightmare had ended when she was rescued. Instead, her real father exploited her tabloid-ready story for fame and profit—until Charlotte finally broke free from her ghoulish past and fled. Just when she thinks she has buried her personal hell forever, Charlotte is swept into a frightening new ordeal. Secretly dosed with an experimental drug, she’s endowed with a shocking new power—but pursued by a treacherous corporation desperate to control her.Except from now on, if anybody is going to control Charlotte, it’s going to be Charlotte herself. She’s determined to use the extraordinary ability she now possesses to fight the kind of evil that shattered her life—by drawing a serial killer out from the shadows to face the righteous fury of a victim turned avenger.

    His childhood friend Claire, a psychiatrist, desperately needs a haven of her own after one of her patients unleashes his dark side. At turning points in their lives, it's inevitable that they should return to the past. And to Merle House. It's been waiting for them.All My Darkest Impulses is part of House of Crows, a four-part serial about friends with a shard history of darkness. They've spent their lives running, but they can not longer hide from the past. Each story can be read or listened to in a single haunted sitting.

     Isabella is being watched. 4:15pm, Starbucks. 9:07pm, home from work. 9:26pm a long, leisurely bubble bath. Someone is cataloguing her every move, listening to her every word, developing an obsession with her. And the beautiful young attorney doesn't have a clue, has no idea that an unseen man is busy making his own plans for her. Plans that will change her life forever... "Combination of romance and suspense that is simply irresistible." ~The Chicago Tribune "Nonstop action...guaranteed to keep mystery fans happy." ~Publishers' Weekly "Halliday is on top of her game." ~Booklist **Includes a sneak peek at the upcoming PLAY DEAD, thriller suspense novel!**

    I had just come off I-65, and my high beams lit her up from behind. She was walking along the road between dark, endless cornfields, and her right leg was in a cast. She wore denim shorts and a yellow tank top that didn’t quite reach the shorts. Without crutches, she moved as fast as she could on the gravelly shoulder. She would take a long step with her good leg, stiffly swing the cast forward the same distance, and immediately start the next step. Tilting jerkily, she looked as if she would fall with every stride. I crossed the centerline to give her more room to fall. Just as I was about to pass her, she glanced over her shoulder and stuck out a thumb.When Phil Larrison picks up a hitchhiker, he gets more than he bargained for.

    An opportunity to move on and make a fresh start. But when Carl is murdered, the police suspect Sam is responsible, forcing him to hunt down the real killer himself. Only someone doesn't want Sam Carlisle finding out the truth...

    Serial murders are less common. Serial murders committed in two different countries at exactly the same time, in exactly the same way, are unheard of. ..until now.In Toronto, Inspector Raid McTavish stares at the body of the young woman carefully posed in a bed of purple iris, her throat slashed, almost beheaded, her hands placed to cover her empty eye sockets. He knows this is not a random murder, but the first of more to come. What he doesn't know is that 2,000 miles away in Tucson, Arizona, Sergeant Gary Ronstadt is viewing an identical crime scene.Months later, McTavish and Ronstadt meet at a seminar on telepathy between identical twins, where they are shocked to discover that not only are they investigating identical murders, but their lives are intimately linked by a number of inexplicable similarities and coincidencesWhile working together to unravel the clues purposely left by the killers, the detectives realize they have but five days to find the killers before they strike again, only this time the killings will be much closer to home if they fail.

    This novella first appeared in the Cemetery Dance anthology "Brimstone Turnpike." Sam Kenzie is an LAPD cop who can't escape his obsession with a serial killer due to demons of his own.