Deck the Halls/The Christmas Thief: Two Holiday Novels


Mary Higgins Clark - 2009
    "Deck the Halls" (first published in 2000) was the mother-daughter duo's first collaborative effort, a brilliant story of high-stakes intrigue and detection played out against a holiday setting. Christmas is only three days away when Regan Reilly, the dynamic young sleuth featured in the novels of Carol Higgins Clark, accidentally meets Alvirah Meehan, Mary Higgins Clark's sharp-witted lottery winner turned amateur sleuth, at a New Jersey dentist's office. When a call comes through on Regan's cell phone notifying her that her father and his driver, Rosita Gonzalez, are being held for $1,000,000 ransom, Alvirah insists that Regan allow her to lend a hand in gaining their release. Complicating the situation is the fact that Regan's mother, the famous mystery writer Nora Regan Reilly, has just been hospitalized with a broken leg, and a brutal winter storm is bearing down on them all. Regan must comfort her mother while trying to meet the harsh demands of her father's kidnappers, who are not just rank amateurs but also laughably inept -- making them all the more dangerous and unpredictable.In "The Christmas Thief" (2004), Alvirah and Regan team up again to investigate another kind of kidnapping. When an eighty-foot blue spruce is chosen to spend the holidays as Rockefeller Center's famous Christmas tree, the folks who picked the tree have no idea that attached to one of its branches is a flask chock-full of priceless diamonds that Packy Noonan, a scam artist just released from prison, had hidden there over twelve years ago. When an excited Packy breaks his parole and heads to Stowe, Vermont, to reclaim his loot, he discovers that his special tree will be heading to New York City the next morning, so he and his bumbling crew have to act fast. Meanwhile Alvirah Meehan and Regan Reilly happen to be on a weekend trip to Stowe with their families when they learn that the tree -- and Alvirah's friend Opal, who won the lottery, but lost all her winnings in Packy's scam -- has gone missing.With two novels filled with twists and turns, intrigue and danger, as well as a hearty dose of good cheer, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark offer stories that are as breathlessly suspenseful as they are heartwarming -- Christmas classics for many holiday seasons to come.

The Night Bird


Brian Freeman - 2017
    When a series of bizarre deaths rock San Francisco—as seemingly random women suffer violent psychotic breaks—Frost looks for a connection that leads him to psychiatrist Francesca Stein. Frankie’s controversial therapy helps people erase their most terrifying memories…and all the victims were her patients.As Frost and Frankie carry out their own investigations, the case becomes increasingly personal—and dangerous. Long-submerged secrets surface as someone called the Night Bird taunts the pair with cryptic messages pertaining to the deaths. Soon Frankie is forced to confront strange gaps in her own memory, and Frost faces a killer who knows the detective’s worst fears.As the body count rises and the Night Bird circles ever closer, a dedicated cop and a brilliant doctor race to solve the puzzle before a cunning killer claims another victim.

I Found You


Lisa Jewell - 2016
    He has no name, no jacket, no idea what he is doing there. Against her better judgement she invites him in to her home.Surrey: Twenty-one-year-old Lily Monrose has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one. Then the police tell her that her husband never existed.Two women, twenty years of secrets and a man who can't remember lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell's brilliant new novel.

The Innocent


Harlan Coben - 2005
    Now, nine years later, he’s an ex-con who takes nothing for granted. His wife, Olivia, is pregnant, and the two of them are closing on their dream house. But all it will take is one shocking, inexplicable call from Olivia’s phone to shatter Matt’s life a second time….An electrifying thrill ride of a novel that peeks behind the white picket fences of suburbia, The Innocent is at once a twisting, turning, emotionally charged story and a compelling tale of the choices we make and the repercussions that never leave.

The Girl Who Lived


Christopher Greyson - 2017
    One girl lived. No one believes her story. The police think she’s crazy. Her therapist thinks she’s suicidal. Everyone else thinks she’s a dangerous drunk. They’re all right—but did she see the killer? As the anniversary of the murders approaches, Faith Winters is released from the psychiatric hospital and yanked back to the last spot on earth she wants to be—her hometown where the slayings took place. Wracked by the lingering echoes of survivor’s guilt, Faith spirals into a black hole of alcoholism and wanton self-destruction. Finding no solace at the bottom of a bottle, Faith decides to track down her sister’s killer—and then discovers that she’s the one being hunted. How can one woman uncover the truth when everyone’s a suspect—including herself? From the mind of Wall Street Journal bestselling author Christopher Greyson comes a story with twists and turns that take the reader on a journey of light and dark, good and evil, to the edge of madness. The Girl Who Lived should come with a warning label: Once you start reading, you won’t be able to stop. Not since Girl on the Train and Gone Girl has a psychological thriller kept readers so addicted—and guessing right until the last page.

The First Counsel


Brad Meltzer - 2001
    To protect her, the lawyer admits to something he shouldn't. So begin the problems and she may have to do something she shouldn't.

Lord Peter


Dorothy L. Sayers - 1972
    I Lord Peter Views the Body (1928) 12 stories: The .. 1 Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers2 Entertaining Episode of the Article in Question3 Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager's Will4 Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the Bag5 Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker6 Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention7 Vindictive Story of the Footsteps That Ran8 Bibulous Business of a Matter of Taste9 Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head10 Piscatorial Farce of the Stolen Stomach11 Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face"12 Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba"II Hangman's Holiday (1933) 4 stories: The ..1 Image in the Mirror"2 Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey"3 Queen's Square"4 Necklace of Pearls"III In the Teeth of the Evidence (1939)1 In the Teeth of the Evidence2 Absolutely Elsewhere"IV Striding Folly (1972)1 Striding Folly2 The Haunted Policeman3 Talboys* Sayers, Lord Peter and God by Carolyn Heilbrun* Greedy Night, A Parody by E. C. Bentley

Life Is Short and Then You Die: First Encounters with Murder from Mystery Writers of America


Kelley Armstrong - 2019
    First love. First loss. First job. The first taste of adult responsibilities, and the first look at an independent life away from both the restrictions and the security of home.And in this case, a very different type of “first”: murder.This short story collection of murder mysteries adds a sinister spin to the joy and pain of firsts that have always been a major part of life, whether it be high school cliques who take the term “backstabbing” too seriously, stumbling upon a body on the way home from school, or receiving a Snapchat message that promises something deadly.Contributors include Barry Lyga, Caleb Roehrig, Emmy Laybourne, Jonathan Maberry, R.L. Stine, Rachel Vincent, Y.S. Lee, and more!

A Flicker in the Dark


Stacy Willingham - 2022
    By the end of the summer, Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer and promptly put in prison. Chloe and the rest of her family were left to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren't really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer?In a debut novel that has already been optioned for a limited series by actress Emma Stone and sold to a dozen countries around the world, Stacy Willingham has created an unforgettable character in a spellbinding thriller that will appeal equally to fans of Gillian Flynn and Karin Slaughter.

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: After Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Classic Crime)


Richard Lancelyn GreenS.C. Roberts - 1985
    This anthology of stories featuring the character of Sherlock Holmes follows on from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories which ended with Holmes at Reichenbach Falls.

Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott


Louisa May Alcott - 1867
    Not only did it win the $100 prize, but, published anonymously, it marked the first in the series of "blood & thunder tales" that would be her livelihood for years. In Behind a Mask, editor Madeleine Stern introduces four Alcott thrillers: "Pauline's Passion and Punishment," "The Mysterious Key," "The Abbot's Ghost," and the title story, "Behind a Mask." First published in one volume in 1975, they are regarded as Alcott's finest work in this genre.

Finding Moon


Tony Hillerman - 1995
    In a chilling world of mystery and silence, disguise and deception, he'll risk everything for the sake of one little girl—and discover a Moon Mathias who's a better man than he ever thought he could be.

Spencerville


Nelson DeMille - 1984
    4 cassettes.

Twice Kissed


Lisa Jackson - 1998
    With the police indifferent and a cryptic suicide note setting up a dreadful possibility, she plunges into a seething world of scandal, intrigue, and illicit desire...and uncovers secret after shocking secret about the sister she thought she knew.But of all the men who loved and hated Marquise Walker, it is her wickedly handsome ex-husband Thane Walker who puts Maggie at greatest risk. Once, she desired him with all the wild, uncontrollable hunger of youth; now he is the man she dares not trust -- a man who could be a murderer. Yet soon Thane draws Maggie back into his dangerous, passionate embrace, where she is vulnerable again -- and where one final, shattering truth could destroy her chance for happiness forever.

The Ludlum Triad: The Holcroft Covenant / The Matarese Circle / The Bourne Identity


Robert Ludlum - 1986
    The first collection of Ludlum's works ever to be published, this omnibus contains three of his most famous and bestselling thrillers, The Holcroft Covenant, The Matarese Circle, and The Bourne Identity, unavailable in hardcover elsewhere.