Harvest Home


Thomas Tryon - 1973
    The quiet, peaceful place was straight out of a bygone era, with well-cared-for Colonial houses, a white-steepled church fronting a broad Common. Ned and Beth Constantine chanced upon the hamlet and immediately fell in love with it. This was exactly the haven they dream of. Or so they thought.For Ned and his family, Cornwall Coombe was to become a place of ultimate horror.

The Fool's Run


John Camp - 1989
    LuEllen is his lover, and his favorite partner in crime. Their playing field in on the cutting edge of high-tech corporate warfare. This time they've been hired by a defense industry corporation to destroy its business rival through computer sabotage. If Kidd and LuEllen can pull it off, they'll reap millions. It's the sting of a lifetime. One false move and it's a lifetime sentence. As the takedown unfolds, everything goes according to plan. But their string of successes turns into a noose when the ultimate con artists find themselves on the wrong end of the ultimate con...

What You Don't Know


JoAnn Chaney - 2017
    A series of murders brings Denver to its knees in this wonderfully voice driven, dark, wry, and wholly original page-turning debut.The last victims of an infamous serial killer on death row may be the ones he didn't kill. Seven years ago, Detective Paul Hoskins and his larger-than-life partner solved one of the biggest serial murder cases of the decade. They dug up 33 bodies in a crawl space belonging to the beloved Jacky Seever, a pillar of the community and a successful businessman. Sammie Peterson was the lead reporter on the case. Her byline was on the front page of the newspaper every day. Seever’s wife, Gloria, claimed to be as surprised as everyone else.Today, Hoskins has been banished to cold cases, Sammie is selling make-up at the mall, and Gloria is trying to navigate a world where she can’t escape condemnation. And Seever? He’s watching the show.But when a series of new murders occur, and the victims are all somehow connected to Seever, Gloria is once again thrust into the spotlight, while Hoskins and Sammie realize this may be their chance to get their lives back, even if it means forfeiting their humanity in the process.

The Last Motel


Brett McBean - 2004
    A pair of petty criminals... A young man... And a peverse serial killer... Strangers with seemingly little in common with one another, are inextricably linked through a series of macabre events. In one explosive night, these people's lives will change forever. Their stories are all different, but their plans are all the same: Stay the night at the Lodgepole Pine Motel and leave the next morning. The only problem is that one night at the Lodgepole Pine Motel can be a lifetime. The Last Motel is fun; a thrilling, white-knuckled suspense read. Mcbean's voice is one that should be heard - a hint of Laymon and Koontz, yet distinctly his own. Genuinely creepy stuff ! Brian Keene, Author of No Rest For The Wicked and The Rising

The Church of Dead Girls


Stephen Dobyns - 1997
    The two disciplines collide in The Church of Dead Girls, a lyrical novel that inspired Stephen King to comment, "If ever there was a tale for a moonless night, a high wind and a creaking floor, this is it ... I don't expect to read a more frightening novel this year." Aurelius is a drowsy bedroom community in upstate New York that is rocked by a vicious, seemingly random killing. A woman is found murdered in her bed, her left hand missing. Just when the grisly details begin to fade, a young girl vanishes. The only clue: a bag with the girl's washed and folded clothes and a mannequin's left hand. Soon two more girls disappear, and when clues remain elusive, conjecture and rumour take over. The town awakens to a nightmare of suspicion and vigilantism. As the killer spirals in to kill again, the town spins out of control, and The Church of Dead Girls heads to a jolting conclusion. It'll give you goosebumps even if you read it at the beach.

King Con


Stephen J. Cannell - 1997
    Cannell, the force behind such acclaimed TV hits as "The Rockford Files," "The Commish," "Wiseguy," and "The A-Team." Now come Cannell's most engaging characters yet -- a spirited assortment of clever con artists.King Con vs. The DonRaised in a world of flimflams, come-ons and con-jobs, Beano Bates has done so well he's earned a spot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. But his lucky streak vanishes after a card game in which he scams a cool eighty grand from a notorious Mafia don -- who retaliates by having Beano nearly beaten to death.For the first time in his legendary career, Beano wants more than a big score -- he wants justice. Aided by a beautiful, no-nonsense female prosecutor and a legion of crafty cousins, all accomplished grifters, Beano, the king of the cons, puts together the ultimate swindle -- a well-planned sting of strategy, skill and deception. The target is America's most feared mob kingpin and his psychopathic brother. And in this game, winner takes all!

Prince of Thieves


Chuck Hogan - 2004
    Their guns are drawn on the bank manager. She nervously recites the alarm code, and the tumblers within the huge vault fall. The timing and execution are brilliant. It could be the perfect heist. But as the huge sum of cash is stolen, so too is one man's heart -- and that man is the Prince of Thieves...Charlestown, a blue-collar Boston neighborhood, produces more bank robbers and armored car thieves than any square mile in the world. In this gripping, intricately plotted thriller, Claire Keesey, the branch manager for a Boston bank and one of an influx of young professionals chipping away at the neighborhood's insularity, is taken hostage during a robbery. She is released, but Doug MacRay, the brains behind the tough, tight-knit crew of thieves, can't get her out of his mind. Tracking her down without his mask and gun, Doug introduces himself, and as soon as he and Claire meet, their mutual attraction is undeniable -- as are the risks of a relationship. Meanwhile, Doug's crew pulls off another audacious, meticulously planned job. Frustrated by their ingenuity and brazen ambition, FBI Agent Adam Frawley begins to zero in on Doug and his pals -- and against his own better judgment, he, too, develops more than a professional interest in Claire.Under pressure from Frawley's ever-closer investigation, Doug imagines a life for himself away from bank robberies and Charlestown. But before that can happen, the crew learns that there may be a way to rob Boston's venerable baseball stadium, Fenway Park. It's a magnificently dangerous and utterly irresistible opportunity -- yet for Doug, pursuing his former hostage may be the most dangerous act of all... Chuck Hogan's brash tale of four men -- thieves, rivals, friends -- being hunted through the streets of Boston by a tenacious FBI agent, and the woman who may destroy them all, is a spectacular, stylish, heart-pounding thriller.

The Shining Girls


Lauren Beukes - 2013
    But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. Curtis stalks them through their lives across different eras until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back.Working with a former homicide reporter who is falling for her, Kirby races against time and reason to unravel an impossible mystery.

Wicked Stepmother


Michael McDowell - 1983
    Making him die of a heart attack a week after the wedding was hardly any trouble at all. Now she has money, social status, everything she has cunningly schemed to get since she was a poor little girl. Everything except the Brookline mansion and the multi-million dollar trust fund left to the three children. But what wicked stepmother couldn't get rid of three children? Jonathan, too smart for his own good and suspicious about his father's death, has to be the first to go. Then there's pretty, spoiled Verity, hooked on cocaine and perpetually drunk - who'd ask any questions if she died suddenly? And clever Cassandra, just out of college and beginning a career as a literary editor, will simply have to get over being dead. Wicked Stepmother (1983) is the second of the camp classics written by Michael McDowell (co-author of Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas) in collaboration with Dennis Schuetz. Five of McDowell's classic horror novels are also available from Valancourt.

The Killing Gift


Bari Wood - 1975
    . .Everyone whispered that there was something strange and ominous about Jennifer -- that she had no real friends, scared people off somehow. But that was probably just jealous gossip, for Jennifer had everything other people coveted: beauty, money, success.Yet frightening things did seem to happen around her. Objects fell and should have broken -- but didn't. And when people displeased Jennifer, when lovers made her angry, she became possessed by a power she could neither see nor hear. All sound was swallowed. The air became heavier and heavier. And her deadly energy unleashed an evil so impossible that it could not be believed.But it must . . . .

I Remember You


Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - 2010
    But they soon realize they are not as alone as they thought. Something wants them to leave. Meanwhile, in a nearby town, a young doctor investigating the suicide of an elderly woman discovers that she was obsessed with his vanished son. When the two stories collide, the shocking truth becomes horribly clear.In the vein of Stephen King and John Ajvide Lindqvist, this horrifying thriller, partly based on a true story, is the scariest novel yet from Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, who has captivated the attention of readers around the world with her mystery series featuring attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir. Now, Yrsa will stun readers once again with this out-of-this-world ghost story that will leave you shivering.