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.

    But the rhythm of her life is disrupted when attorney Mitchell Reece requests her help in locating a stolen document that could cost him not only the multimillion-dollar case he's defending but his career as well. Eager to get closer to this handsome, brilliant, and very private man, Taylor signs on . . . only to find that as she delves deeper and deeper into what goes on behind closed doors at Hubbard, White & Willis, she uncovers more than she wants to kno--including a plentitude of secrets damaging enough to smash careers and dangerous enough to push someone to commit murder. Yet who is capable of going to that extreme? With her life on the line, Taylor is about to learn the lethal answer. . . ."The characters are well drawn, the plot is fast paced, and the writing avoids totally the usual trappings of blockbusterdom. . . . An intelligently written thriller."--Booklist

    And they get loose.

    For everyone who thinks the bad guys are so much more fun to read than the good guys, this is a book just for you. The definitive volume containing every major villain from the Crouch/Kilborn/Konrath Universe is here.First, there was Serial, the collaborative smash-hit that has been downloaded 500,000 times and optioned for film.Then came Serial Uncut, which expanded on that story.Then Killers, the sequel to Serial.Then Birds of Prey which introduced every major villain the writers had ever created into one cohesive novel. (Birds of Prey + Killers = Killers Uncut.)And now, all that and more has been brought together for this definitive, omnibus monster...Serial Killers UncutThis epic work, over two years in the making, contains Serial Uncut, Killers, Birds of Prey, Crouch's Break You, an interview with the authors, and more. Serial Uncut + Break You + Killers + Birds of Prey = Serial Killers Uncut If you haven't read anything by Crouch, Kilborn, or Konrath, Serial Killers Uncut is the perfect introduction to the dark side of their universe. And if you enjoy a despicable bad guy (or bad girl), you're going to love this.There are twenty-one serial killers featured in this book: Lucy and Donaldson from Serial, Orson and Luther from Desert Places, Locked Doors, and Break You, Mr. K from Shaken, Alex and Charles Kork from Whiskey Sour and Rusty Nail, Isaiah from Abandon, Taylor from Afraid, Javier from Snowbound, and many, many more.There are some good guys too, including Andrew Z. Thomas (Desert Places, Locked Doors), Jack Daniels (Whiskey Sour, Shaken), Violet King (Locked Doors, Break You), Tequila (Shot of Tequila), and Clayton Theel (Draculas).Serial Killers Uncut is an original 120,000 word double novel that stands alone without having read any of Konrath's, Kilborn's, or Crouch's work.

    Kay Scarpetta, the intrepid chief medical examiner of Virginia, isn't busy solving crimes, she is concocting delicious dishes in her kitchen. In Scarpetta's Winter Table, Patricia Cornwell takes her readers behind the scenes for intimate glimpses of her three major characters as they come together to celebrate the week between December 26, "the biggest letdown day of the year, " and New Year's. On the day after Christmas, Scarpetta make her special pizza pie and Detective Pete Marino creates his "cause-of-death eggnog" (he uses corn liquor), while Lucy Farinelli (a special agent with ATF and Scarpetta's only niece) goes on a long run in the snowy suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. The next day, Scarpetta flies to Miami to spend a few days with her querulous mother and Sindbad, her Siamese cat. In Richmond, Lucy entertains her friends, all from various federal law enforcement agencies; and Marino first apprehends and then befriends Jimmy Simpson, a ten-year-old boy who had been snowballing his house. In the final scene of the novelette, all the characters (including Jimmy's mother, who seems to catch Marino's eye) gather in Scarpetta's warm house on a cold night to enjoy her famous stew. This book--a special "gift" from Cornwell to her readers--is perfect for the Christmas-present buyer, and gives the reader insights into her best-known characters that cannot be found in any other work. It is illustrated with photographs that suggest the locales and activities of her characters, and it includes the ingredients for all the dishes described in the story.

    Bartholomew Miller had been one of them. After years of plying the seas for England as a privateer, he finally found a home and love on Bone Island off the Florida coast.But Bartholomew also made enemies in his time--enemies that would take everything Bartholomew loved and create a curse to haunt Bone Island for centuries....

    A fragile child. Will they save each other?Harvey’s training at The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children prepared him for the most important case of his career to date, the abduction of eight-year-old Gabriel Wheeler. Nothing, however, could prepare him for the boy’s blame-shifting mother from hell who shoots up instead of alerting police when the boy goes missing. Nor is Harvey equipped to deal with the heartbreak when his girlfriend leaves him on the same night, taking Effie, the non-biological young daughter Harvey adores. The case goes cold when Harvey fails to interview Effie’s best friend, the only witness able to identify the perpetrator’s car. As police resources are wasted on dead ends and wrong suspects, Gabriel receives unlikely help to escape from Willard Crawley, a simple-minded abductor seeking a replacement for the infant brother he accidentally suffocated years before.Book 1 in the Missing & Exploited Suspense Series, All That Remains explores childhood resiliency in a dangerous adult world (previously published as Notes From a Cold Case).

    Now, she wants it back. Lori had it all until that day: the perfect marriage, a job she loved, and a beautiful home in a small town. But when a tragic car wreck takes her husband's life and leaves her hospitalized, she has to learn to live alone again. Her friends look out for her, or so they say, but they don't believe her when she says she's being followed.Her counselor says she's suffering PTSD, and her sister says she's paranoid. But Lori knows herself better than anyone else does, and she's certain someone is watching her. What she doesn't know is why, but she'll do anything to find out - even if it costs her life.Tormented by nightmares, mood swings, and self-doubt, Lori's life is on the brink of collapse. Every move she makes will leave you begging for the truth until the very last page in this brand-new psychological thriller full of lies and conspiracies.

    The novel pits Ted Cogan, a forty-three-year- old surgeon and self-described womanizer, against Hank Madden, a handicapped veteran detective. From the outset it's not clear who is victim and who is victimizer, as the usually dispassionate Madden grapples with his long-suppressed prejudices and his obsession with bringing Ted Cogan to justice at any cost. It all leads up to the most stunning surprise ending since Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent.

    a secret so terrible that he must share it in order to find those who will help him protect the knowledge that will one day save humanity. He has chosen two brothers, both hermit monks, to join him in his quest. But time is short... and no man is ready to receive the news that Talus must now share with them both: That they are both already dead.THE KEEPER is the short story prequel to Forbidden, the first novel in The Books of Mortals series. First there was the Circle Trilogy. Now a new stunning epic begins.

    #2: Don't pick up hitchhikers, because the traveler you pick up could be raving nutcase.So what if, on some dark, isolated road, Crazy #1 offered a ride to Crazy #2...

     (Warning: graphic material may be disturbing.)

    It-s clear to her, and to Special Agent J.D. Cass, that the murders are the work of a deranged serial killer. At first, the only link is the victims- similar physical appearance. But then another connection emerges, tying them to a long-ago series of horrifying crimes Audrey hoped would never resurface - crimes that hit all too close to home.No Time To CryEach grisly new discovery proves the past has not been forgotten, and the worst is yet to come. Audrey went looking for the truth and she's about to find it-and it will be more twisted and more terrifying than she ever imagined...

    And that of strangers, too. Wherever she goes, she’s being watched. Each stalker is different from the last, except for one thing—their alarming obsession with Nicki.Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Nicki’s father is turning to someone who can protect her: retired private detective and ex–Navy SEAL Jon Lancaster. Teaming up with FBI agent and former abduction victim Beth Daniels, Lancaster can help—his way. He’s spent most of his career dispatching creeps who get off on terrorizing the vulnerable. Unlicensed, and unrestricted, he plays dirty…But this case is unusual. Why so many men? Why this one girl? Does Nicki have something to hide? Or do her parents?Trawling the darkest depths of southern Florida, Lancaster faces a growing tide of secrets and deception. And the deeper he digs, the more he realizes that finding the truth won’t be easy. Because there’s more to this case than meets the eye.

    These former agents have all faked their own deaths and now work for the CIA on a strictly secret basis, taking on dangerous and illegal jobs the agency may not officially carry out. They're headed to the Molguzar mountains to look for sixty-billion dollars worth of gold hidden by the KGB before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and taking a perilous detour to rescue FBI agent April Showers from a sociopath torturer. But Storm's loyalties are put to the test as the mission begins to unravel into a bloody mountaintop showdown, and he and Showers must find out the hard way that their assignment may not be what they thought it was.