Apt Pupil


Stephen King - 1982
    Good grades, good family, a paper route. But he is about to meet a different kind of teacher: Mr. Dussander. Todd knows all about Dussander's dark past. The torture. The death. The decades-old manhunt Dussander has escaped to this day. Yet Todd doesn't want to turn him in. Todd wants to know more. Much more. He is about to learn the real meaning of power—and the seductive lure of evil.

The Mill River Recluse


Darcie Chan - 2011
    An arsonist, a covetous nurse, and the endearing village idiot are among the few who have ever seen Mary.Newcomers to Mill River -- a police officer and his daughter and a new fourth grade teacher -- are also curious about the reclusive old woman. But only Father Michael O’Brien knows Mary and the secret she keeps -- one that, once revealed, will change all of their lives forever.

Beekeeping for Beginners


Laurie R. King - 2011
    King reveals an unforgettable new twist in the adventure that led supersleuth Sherlock Holmes to discover his first (and finest) apprentice, Mary Russell. Sherlock Holmes is fending off a particularly dark mood as he roams the Sussex Downs, in search of wild bees. The Great War may be raging across the Channel, but on the Downs, the great detective nears terminal melancholia—only to be saved by an encounter with headstrong, yellow-haired young Mary Russell, who soon becomes the Master’s apprentice not only in beekeeping but in detection. Holmes instantly spots her remarkable ability, but his sharp eyes also see troubling problems. Why is this wealthy orphan who lives with her aunt so shabbily dressed? Why is she so prone to illness and accident? Is she herself the center of a mystery? These are questions that the great detective must answer quickly lest his protégée, and his own new lease on life, meet a sudden, tragic end.The tale of their meeting has been told from Russell’s point of view, but even those who have never met the famed Russell-Holmes pair will read this tale with delight—and, as its climax builds, with breathless excitement.

The Devil and the Dark Water


Stuart Turton - 2020
    A detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist.It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Traveling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent.But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered.And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel.Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes?With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger onboard. A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board.The breathtaking new novel from Stuart Turton, author of the The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, winner of the Costa Best First Novel Award.

Island of Lost Girls


Jennifer McMahon - 2008
    She watches, unmoving, as someone dressed in a rabbit costume kidnaps a young girl. Devastated over having done nothing, Rhonda joins the investigation. But the closer she comes to identifying the abductor, the nearer she gets to the troubling truth about another missing child: her best friend, Lizzy, who vanished years before.From the author of the acclaimed Promise Not to Tell comes a chilling and mesmerizing tale of shattered innocence, guilt, and ultimate redemption.

Drood


Dan Simmons - 2009
    All of the first-class carriages except the one carrying Dickens are smashed to bits in the valley below. When Dickens descends into that valley to confront the dead and dying, his life will be changed forever. And at the core of that ensuing five-year nightmare is…Drood… the name that Dickens whispers to his friend Wilkie Collins. A laudanum addict and lesser novelist, Collins flouts Victorian sensibilities by living with one mistress while having a child with another, but he may be the only man on Earth with whom Dickens can share the secret of…Drood. Increasingly obsessed with crypts, cemeteries, and the precise length of time it would take for a corpse to dissolve in a lime pit, Dickens ceases writing for four years and wanders the worst slums and catacombs of London at night while staging public readings during the day, gruesome readings that leave his audiences horrified. Finally he begins writing what would have been the world’s first great mystery masterpiece, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, only to be interrupted forever by…Drood.Based on actual biographical events, Drood explores the still-unresolved mysteries of one of our greatest writer’s dark final days in a profoundly original tale that confirms Lincoln Child’s assessment of New York Times bestselling author Dan Simmons as “a giant among novelists.”

India Black


Carol K. Carr - 2010
    But when it comes to selling secrets, India's price cannot be paid by any man...In the winter of 1876, the beautiful, young madam, India Black, is occupied with her usual tasks—keeping her tarts in line, avoiding the police, and tolerating the clergyman bent on converting her girls. But when Sir Archibald Latham of the War Office dies from a heart attack while visiting her brothel, India is unexpectedly thrust into a deadly game between Russian and British agents who are seeking the military secrets Latham carried.French, the handsome, British spy, discovers India disposing of Latham's body and blackmails her into recovering the missing documents. Their quest takes them from the Russian embassy to Claridge's Hotel, from London to the English coast, all the while dodging Russians intent to do them harm.But it is their own tempestuous relationship they will have to weather as India and French attempt to resist the mutual attraction between them—an attraction that can prove as deadly as the conspiracy entangling them.

The Last Pope


Luis Miguel Rocha - 2006
    After the suspicious death of Pope John Paul I, a few operatives bold enough to penetrate the Vatican's shadowy inner circle will investigate what went wrong- and try to prevent the popular new Pope from meeting the same fate. But unfortunately for them, a passion for truth and justice can be dangerous, especially to John Paul II.

Davenport House


Marie Silk - 2016
    She lives isolated in the Pennsylvania countryside with her affluent and secretive family. When her father dies suddenly, Mary becomes pained with grief and increasingly suspicious of those around her. A humble servant girl has the chance of a lifetime to become a lady's companion. Costly dresses, exquisite rooms, and fine dinners are pleasant distractions from what is really happening in the house.

Poison Orchids


Sarah A. Denzil - 2019
    Denzil and Anni TaylorYoung backpackers Gemma and Hayley arrive at a remote mango farm, out of money and desperate for work. The farm's owner, Tate Llewellyn, welcomes them in with open arms. An enigmatic, wealthy chemist, Tate spends his days running his hobby farm and cultivating rare orchids in his greenhouse.The weeks go on, a blur of fruit-picking with the other international backpackers, parties, campfires and wading beneath waterfalls in the nearby hot springs. Tate calls the girls his orchids...his pretty orchids... Until the night the girls find themselves on a dark highway, bruised and bloodied.How did paradise turn so ugly?Senior Detective Bronwen McKay and psychologist Megan Arlotti question the terrified girls. But Hayley and Gemma are telling two very different stories of what happened to them over the past three months.Which story is the truth and what are the girls covering up?

The Abbey


Chris Culver - 2011
    Another year, and he'll be out of the department completely. That's the plan, at least, until his niece's body is found in the guest home of one of his city's most wealthy citizens. The coroner calls it an overdose, but the case doesn't add up. Against orders, Ash begins a danger-filled investigation to find his niece's murderer, but the longer he searches, the more entangled he becomes in a case that hits increasingly close to home. If he doesn't solve it fast, his niece won't be the only family member he has to bury.

Let Me Call You Sweetheart


Mary Higgins Clark - 1995
    When her daughter's face is cut in a car accident, Kerry is relieved that the plastic surgeon who treats her is the eminent Dr. Charles Smith. Then Kerry notices something bizarre. Two of Smith's patients bear an uncanny resemblance to Suzanne Reardon, a young woman killed eleven years earlier. Why would Dr. Smith create look-alikes of a murder victim? A chilling tale of obsession by America's reigning queen of suspense.

Afterwards


Rosamund Lupton - 2011
    They are in there...Black smoke stains a summer blue sky. A school is on fire. And one mother, Grace, sees the smoke and rush. She knows her teenage daughter Jenny is inside. She runs into the burning building to rescue her.Afterwards Grace must find the identity of the arsonist and protect her children from the person who's still intent on destroying them. Afterwards, she must fight the limits of her physical strength and discover the limitlessness of love.

In Pale Battalions


Robert Goddard - 1988
    At last the time has come when secrets can be shared and explanations begin... Their journey starts with an unscheduled stop at the imposing Thiepval Memorial to the dead of the Battle of the Somme near Amiens. Amongst those commemorated is Leonora's father. The date of his death is recorded as 30th April, 1916. But Leonora wasn't born until 14th March 1917. Penelope at once supposes a simple wartime illegitimacy as the clue to her mother's unhappy childhood and the family's sundered connections with her aristocratic heritage, about which she has always known so little. But nothing could have prepared her, or the reader, for the extraordinary story that is about to unfold.

Christine Falls


Benjamin Black - 2006
    It’s the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse—and concealing the cause of death. It turns out the body belonged to a young woman named Christine Falls. And as Quirke reluctantly presses on toward the true facts behind her death, he comes up against some insidious—and very well-guarded—secrets of Dublin’s high Catholic society, among them members of his own family. Set in Dublin and Boston in the 1950s, the first novel in the Quirke series brings all the vividness and psychological insight of Booker Prize winner John Banville’s fiction to a thrilling, atmospheric crime story. Quirke is a fascinating and subtly drawn hero, Christine Falls is a classic tale of suspense, and Benjamin Black’s debut marks him as a true master of the form.