Dead Letters


Caite Dolan-Leach - 2017
    Ahoy, Ava! Welcome home, my sweet jet-setting twin! So glad you were able to wrest yourself away from your dazzling life in the City of Light; I hope my death hasn't interrupted anything too crucial.Ava Antipova has her reasons for running away: a failing family vineyard, a romantic betrayal, a mercurial sister, an absent father, a mother slipping into dementia. In Paris, Ava renounces her terribly practical undergraduate degree, acquires a French boyfriend and a taste for much better wine, and erases her past. Two years later, she must return to upstate New York. Her twin sister, Zelda, is dead.Even in a family of alcoholics, Zelda Antipova was the wild one, notorious for her mind games and destructive behavior. Stuck tending the vineyard and the girls increasingly unstable mother, Zelda was allegedly burned alive when she passed out in the barn with a lit cigarette. But Ava finds the official explanation a little too neat. A little too Zelda. Then she receives a cryptic message from her sister.Just as Ava suspected, Zelda's playing one of her games. In fact, she's outdone herself, leaving a series of clues about her disappearance. With the police stuck on a red herring, Ava follows the trail laid just for her, thinking like her sister, keeping her secrets, immersing herself in Zelda's drama and her outlandish circle of friends and lovers. Along the way, Zelda forces her twin to confront their twisted history and the boy who broke Ava's heart. But why? Is Zelda trying to punish Ava for leaving, or to teach her a lesson? Or is she simply trying to write her own ending?Featuring a colorful, raucous cast of characters, Caite Dolan-Leach's debut thriller takes readers on a literary scavenger hunt for clues concealed throughout the seemingly idyllic wine country, hidden in plain sight on social media, and buried at the heart of one tremendously dysfunctional, utterly unforgettable family.

Dark Paradise


Tami Hoag - 1994
    Now it’s up to ex-court reporter Marilee Jennings to decipher the puzzle of her best friend’s death. But someone has a stake in silencing her suspicion. Someone with secrets worth killing for—and the power to turn this beautiful haven into a . . .  And as Mari digs deeper beneath New Eden’s picture-perfect exterior, finding the truth is suddenly no longer a matter of justice.     It’s her only hope of staying alive.From the Paperback edition.

The Hunt


Tim Lebbon - 2015
    The highest stakes. Only she can bring his family back alive …Rose is the one that got away. She was the prey in a human trophy hunt organised by an elite secret organisation for super-rich clients seeking a unique thrill. She paid a terrible price. Every moment since she has been planning her revenge … And now her day has come.Chris returns from his morning run to find his wife and children missing and a stranger in his kitchen.He’s told to run.If he’s caught and killed, his family go free. If he escapes, they die.Rose is the only one who can help him, but Rose only has her sights on one conclusion. For her, Chris is bait. But The Trail have not forgotten the woman who tried to outwit them.The Trail want Rose. The hunters want Chris’s corpse. Rose wants revenge, and Chris just wants his family back.The hunt is on …

Three Weeks To Say Goodbye


C.J. Box - 2008
    Finally their dream has come true with the adoption of their daughter, Angelina. But nine months after bringing her home, they receive a devastating phone call…Angelina's birth father, a teenager, never signed away his parental rights—and he wants her back. Worse, his father, a powerful Denver judge, will use every trick in the book to make sure it happens. The McGuanes attempt to meet face-to-face with the father and son…but soon it becomes clear that there's something sinister about their motivations—and that love for Angelina is not one of them.A horrifying game of intimidation and double crosses begins that quickly becomes a death spiral where everyone is suspect and no one is safe. Now Jack and Melissa will stop at nothing to protect their child—even though time is running out…

The Third Coincidence


David Bishop - 2012
    With little progress, U.S. President Samuel Schroeder asks Jack McCall, a veteran of the CIA and Defense Intelligence, to head up a special multi-agency task force to find the killers. A frustrated and unhappy FBI designates, as its representative, Rachel Johnstone, an agent with whom Jack has had some personal history. The Third Coincidence unfolds amidst continued assassinations, accusations that the president is attempting to form his own secret police, and confirmation hearings for reluctant nominees to fill the vacant positions while the Supreme Court struggles to sustain a quorum. Will a terrorist group or a mad assassin succeed in destroying these revered intuitions? In the spirit of The Day of the Jackal and The Manchurian Candidate, this story is juxta-posed through the eyes of both the hunter and the hunted as the devious plot to change America hurdles forward.

Debbie Macomber's Heart of Texas Series Volume 2: Dr. Texas\Nell's Cowboy\Lone Star Baby


Debbie Macomber - 2014
    It's a ranching town in the Texas hill country�and it's a place with a mysterious past. But Promise has a heart of goodness, and everyone here knows what really matters in life. Love, family, community…Now meet the people of Promise.They call her Dr. Texas. She's Jane Dickinson, a newly graduated physician from California who's working at the Promise clinic. They call him Mr. Grouch. Cal Patterson was left at the altar by his out-of-state fiancée, and he's not over it yet. Too bad Jane reminds him so much of the woman he's trying to forget! Dr. TexasNell Bishop, widowed mother of two children, is turning Twin Canyons into a dude ranch. One of her first guests is Travis Grant, a wannabe cowboy, an Easterner known for his books about the West. Nell's kids are crazy about him, and Nell�she could fall for him herself. Except that it's too soon… Nell's CowboyWade McMillen might be a minister, but he's also a man. Is it as a man that he responds to the lovely young woman who shows up in Promise, pregnant and alone? Or as a man of God? Maybe it's both. Amy Thornton hopes to make a new life for herself and her baby, and she needs Reverend McMillen's help. What she wants is the love of a man named Wade. Lone Star Baby The Heart of Texas. There's no place like it!

All Our Yesterdays


Robert B. Parker - 1994
    Gus, Boston's top homicide cop: he knew equally well the backroom politics of City Hall and the private passions of the very rich, a man haunted by the wanton courage and perilous obsessions he inherited from his father... Conn, the patriarch, a lawless cop who spawned a circle of vengeance and betrayal that would span half a century... and Chris, Gus's beloved son, a Harvard lawyer and criminologist, fated to risk everything to break the chain of obsession and rage...  Three generations linked by crime and punishment--cops and heroes, fathers, sons, and lovers united at last by revelations that could bring a family to its knees...

Hearts in Atlantis/Misery (Debenhams Slipcase Ed.)


Stephen King - 2001
    

When You Witch Upon a Star


Melanie James - 2016
     Jessica Franchetti realized how miserable she was when her boss handed her a new name tag that read: “I’m not really a waitress.” The way she saw it, she had every reason to move on. After all, she was a newbie witch, a rookie cryptozoologist, and a young woman with a secret wish for a paranormal romance with a real Shifter. You know, the kind of romance she reads about, the kind that would knock her socks off. Standing on the threshold of her twenty-second summer, all she needed was to be pointed in the right direction. Thanks to a nudge from her cousin, Kelly, that direction took her straight to Assjacket, West Virginia. Certainly, she’d find at least one hot Shifter to dig her stilettos into. Right? Unfortunately, Assjacket is also home to some pretty crazy witches and they’re nothing like Kelly and her friends at Witches Union Local 1313. It turns out, they have their own boss and their own rules. They might not be too happy if they find out the newcomer is a young novice witch, especially if they learn she’s a Union witch. Will it be an awesomely magical summer where Jessica’s wish comes true? Or will she find herself on the business end of a wrath-fueled witch’s wand?

Chains of Darkness


Victor Methos - 2011
    . . A killer stalks the city of San Diego, brutally slaying women on the fringes of society. The body of a young woman torn apart in her bedroom makes even the hardened detectives of the San Diego PD's Homicide Unit tremble with disgust and rage. A Detective With a Troubled Past. . . For SDPD homicide detective Jon Stanton, the young woman is more than just another case. His former partner, Eli Sherman, was the original detective assigned to the case; before he was discovered to be one of San Diego's most ruthless serial killers. A Final Chance at Redemption. . . Stanton was unable to see Eli Sherman for what he was and blames himself for the murders he committed while on the force. Near death, Stanton swears that he will never wear the badge again. But with a depraved killer eluding the best San Diego PD has to offer, he must once again fight to uncover a killer that leaves no evidence behind, and that has turned his attention to new prey. . .

Bump in the Night


J.D. Robb - 2006
    Here they present stories of ethereal circumstances, magical romance, and otherworldly suspense. Beginning with an all-new tale from #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts writing as J. D. Robb--and featuring lieutenant-of-the-future Eve Dallas--this collection will take you on a breathtaking journey through the passion of the heart and its power to transcend the everyday...Including:Haunted In Death by J.D. RobbPoppy's Coin by Mary BlayneyThe Passenger by Ruth Rayn LanganMellow Lemon Yellow by Mary Kay McComas

Single & Single


John le Carré - 1999
    A children's magician in the English countryside is asked by his bank to explain the unsolicited arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust. A freighter bound for Liverpool is boarded by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea. The celebrated London merchant venturer "Tiger"Single disappears into thin air.In Single & Single the writer who both epitomizes and transcends the novel of espionage opens with a haunting set piece, then establishes a sequence of events whose connections are mysterious, complex and compelling. This is a story of corrupt liaisons between criminal elements in the new Russian states and the world of legitimate finance in the West. Le Carré's finest novel in years, it is also an intimate portrait of two families: one Russian, the other English; one trading illicit goods, the other laundering the profits; one betrayed by a son-in-law, the other betrayed, and redeemed, by a son.This is territory le Carré knows better than anyone. Masterful and prescient, he is writing at the height of his creative powers, and Oliver Single, the central protagonist, is one of his most fascinating characters.

Who Guards a Prince?


Reginald Hill - 1982
    The pattern that emerges is that of a shadowy, immensely powerful organization, with a reach that extends to the White House and the English throne. And all that stands against them is the implacable McHarg?one discontented copper with little left to lose. Best-known for his award-winning series featuring Dalziel and Pascoe of the Mid-Yorkshire CID, in Who Guards a Prince Reginald Hill takes on a different kind of cop and a very different bad guy. The Philadelphia Inquirer called the book ?a good old-fashioned thriller, ? but in truth, that doesn't begin to describe the ride.

In the Hush of the Night


Raymond Benson - 2018
    Chicago Special Agent Annie Marino examines the case of a dead young woman who possesses a tattoo Annie has come across before—that of bloody bear claws. Several deceased women with the tattoo have turned up over the past few years, all suspected of being involved in a vast sex slave and human trafficking operation.Annie’s neighborhood friend, Jason Ward, is a young writer engaged to be married into an upper-class family from a posh Chicago suburb. Jason believes his future brother-in-law, a war veteran, is definitely a bully—but does he also have ties to the Russian mob? Yana Kravec, a woman from St. Petersburg, Russia, has been fraudulently lured into a trafficking scheme and thrown into a horrid and seemingly hopeless situation. She is, however, determined to fight back and escape her captors.Annie’s investigation eventually uncovers a sordid plot of procuring sex slaves overseas and marketing them in the US. Her interests soon coincide with those of Jason and Yana, bringing the trio together to fight against a deadly network of criminals. As the separate lives of these characters collide, their paths ultimately converge in a night of terror and survival in a Michigan forest, where they become the prey of evil men who will stop at nothing to protect their secrets.

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...