That is, his specialty is opening safes. Every job is a little mystery, and he has yet to encounter a lock he can't break or a box he can't crack. But the day Holloway gets called in to open a rare, antique safe in a famous author's library, his skills open a door that should have remained closed.In this haunting and singular story, previously published anonymously, Michael Connelly proves once again that he is "superb at building suspense.... the reader can never be sure what sudden turns the plot may take" (Wall Street Journal).

    Haunted by her absence--and her ghost--Aaron goes through her belongings, where he finds a receipt for a motel room in another part of the country. Piloted by grief and an increasing sense of curiosity, Aaron embarks on a journey to discover what Allison had been doing in the weeks prior to her death.Yet Aaron is unprepared to discover the dark secrets Allison kept, the death and horror that make up the tapestry of her hidden life. And with each dark secret revealed, Aaron becomes more and more consumed by his obsession to learn the terrifying truth about the woman who had been his wife, even if it puts his own life at risk.

    But one deranged viewer is out to destroy her career. He demands that her programme be scrapped and tells her to stop appearing on TV. To prove he means business he claims his first victim – a young woman who is found dead with her throat cut.Jessica and her bosses face an agonizing dilemma: take the show off the air or risk more murders. They decide to defy the killer, for fear of setting a dangerous precedent. But there are dire consequences.

    A serial killer is out there, his frequency increasing, and they know there is only one agent good enough to crack this case: Special Agent Riley Paige. Riley is on paid leave herself, recovering from her encounter with her last serial killer, and, fragile as she is, the FBI is reluctant to tap her brilliant mind. Yet Riley, needing to battle her own demons, comes on board, and her hunt leads her through the disturbing subculture of doll collectors, into the homes of broken families, and into the darkest canals of the killer’s mind. As Riley peels back the layers, she realizes she is up against a killer more twisted than she could have imagined. In a frantic race against time, she finds herself pushed to her limit, her job on the line, her own family in danger, and her fragile psyche collapsing. Yet once Riley Paige takes on a case, she will not quit. It obsesses her, leading her to the darkest corners of her own mind, blurring the lines between hunter and hunted. After a series of unexpected twists, her instincts lead her to a shocking climax that even Riley could not have imagined. A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, ONCE GONE marks the debut of a riveting new series—and a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #2 and #3 in the Riley Paige series are also available.

    His death - inevitable. His suffering - just beginning.Obadiah Stark aka The Tally Man, is executed at ADX Absolom, his death sentence watched by the world's media, victim relatives and one investigative reporter, Joe O Connell. Penning an account of Stark's personal history and subsequent crimes in the hope of determining what elements make the sociopathic mind tick, Joe discovers clues and inconsistencies which cause him to investigate Stark's execution.While this is happening in the real world, Obadiah Stark awakens to an afterlife where he has a wife and daughter bound to his childhood hometown. Following his natural predatory instinct, Obadiah proceeds to torment the town, committing multiple murders before being gunned down by the police. He awakens to find that everything has reset, with no one recalling his murderous spree a reality which offers no escape. As the scenes repeat, he is forced to submit to emotions he has never experienced before... and with it, a poisonous dose of morality.

    Perfect homes. Perfect families. It’s enough to drive some women mad…In a tale inspired by real events, pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. After spending a childhood on the move and chasing the screams and swirls of news-rich city life, she’s eager to settle down. Lilydale’s motto, “Come Home Forever,” couldn’t be more inviting.And yet, something is off in the picture-perfect village.The friendliness borders on intrusive. Joan can’t shake the feeling that every move she makes is being tracked. An archaic organization still seems to hold the town in thrall. So does the sinister secret of a little boy who vanished decades ago. And unless Joan is imagining things, a frighteningly familiar figure from her past is on watch in the shadows.Her fiancé tells her she’s being paranoid. He might be right. Then again, she might have moved to the deadliest small town on earth.

    A secret so dark, so disturbing that even he doesn't remember it. The winding waters of the Mississippi River give him solace. They hold his deepest mysteries like a vault, but now the murky abyss is breaking at the seams.When an old friend shows up and a rash of murders brings an echo from the past, Daniel's life is thrown into a cyclone. Now he must fight to keep his wife and unborn son alive, while trying to solve a mystery that keeps getting closer to home.They say to live in the present you have to forget the past. But what if the past can’t forget you?

    Ensnarled in a cover-up that puts her in an assassin’s crosshairs, Rita must unravel a web of lies and connections that date back to Jared’s service in the Iraq war – before a mysterious kidnapper returns Rita’s daughter Zoe one body part at a time. This fast-paced thriller is one you won’t want to put down from beginning to end.

    A chilling tale consumed in under an hour, but not so quickly digested.She had secretly wanted the baby to die, but Fate never sided with her until twenty-three years later, when Destiny Childs got her wish.Broken, middle-aged Destiny daily struggles to survive her haunting past. Dead parents. Unplanned teen pregnancy. Cyclic addiction and depression. Life hasn't treated her kindly. Then one day she sees the name of her castaway daughter on the news: a victim of murder.Seeing this as an opportunity to extort the rich family her daughter left behind, Destiny crafts a plan. But as all her plans go, it loosens a mess of secrets long buried, along with the truth behind the killing.In this haunting murder mystery short story, discover the gruesomely intimate stranger harbored within Destiny... and who may lurk within any one of us."The Scream of Silence" originally appeared in Reader's Circle of Avenue Park's "Crooked Tales" anthology but is now published for the first time as a standalone short story.

    It was also the last time. Molly Blackburn, nicknamed Jane the Ripper by the Las Vegas press after killing eleven men while posing as a prostitute, was strapped to the chair without incident. The switch was flipped.Everything after that went horribly wrong.Since that day, a copycat Jane the Ripper has appeared almost every decade in a different city, mimicking Molly's choice in victims as well as her methods of murder. She kills eleven men then disappears, never to be found. The similarities between the bodies left behind each decade is uncanny. As if they are all the victims of the same murderer, not a copycat.But that's impossible, of course, because Molly Blackburn is dead, her execution witnessed by a dozen people.FBI Agent Jack Shaw, the lead investigator in the Jane the Ripper cases since the seventies, finally catches a break in 2009 when the intended fifth victim manages to turn the tables on the newest copycat . Everyone believes that the horror has finally ended with her capture. Shaw is not so sure, though, wondering if someone else will take up the mantle and kill seven more men to complete the cycle. But when no more bodies with her distinctive markings show up over the next two years, Shaw allows himself to believe that maybe he has seen the end of the Jane the Ripper murders.As it turns out, what he thought was the end was only the beginning.His hunt will take him across the country, and even when he thinks he's finally discovered the truth, he quickly learns that not everything is as it seems.That not every monster is created equal.That the nature of good and evil is not as black and white as he has always believed.That not everything that is broken can be put back together.That not every fractured soul can be saved.When blood, smoke and ashes rise, no one comes out the same on the other side.Blood, Smoke and Ashes is a 115,00 word supernatural thriller/horror

    Together they must untangle the threads of this ever-more-complicated case—and stay ahead of whoever’s trying to slash their progress. The old man’s failing memory adds urgency: wherever he is, he’s no doubt lost, confused, and in extreme danger.What started as a traffic stop gone wrong quickly unfolds into one of the darkest cases of Susan’s career, and it all leads to a sick, desperate killer. Susan and Liam must work fast to save the old man’s life and keep future victims from the killer’s grasp.

    Her fiancé vanishes, leaving the battered and bloodied body of his brother in their London apartment. Someone is stalking her, watching her every move. And her family are hiding a horrifying secret; a secret that threatens all those she loves. In a desperate race against time, Emma must uncover the truth if she ever wants to see her fiancé alive again. The One You Love is a fast-paced suspense mystery, full of twists and turns, following in the tradition of writers such as Nicci French and Sophie Hannah.

    What ensues is a twisted game of cat and mouse, that only Boulder or the Watcher can survive. But who will it be? <

    Why do psychopaths act as they do? How do they come to be? Why don’t they feel any remorse for the suffering they cause? And are there better ways of spotting and stopping them?After having been kidnapped, tortured and left for dead when she was just a teenager—by her high school boyfriend—she’s determined to understand how someone she trusted so much could turn on her. So she’s established a revolutionary new medical health center in the remote town of Hilltop, Alaska, where she studies the worst of the worst.But not everyone in Hilltop is excited to have Hanover House and its many serial killers in the area. Alaskan State Trooper, Sergeant Amarok, is one of them. And yet he can’t help feeling bad about what Evelyn has been through. He’s even attracted to her. Which is partly why he worries.He knows what could happen if only one little thing goes wrong...

    A young woman in a remote farmhouse has called 911 on an intruder and is killed. The clue path leads Healy to several suspects, but when the victim’s brother opens fire on the cops, the department is ready to close the case. Healy persists with his own investigation, leading him into the world of human trafficking where an escort service is used by government officials. Healy tracks a potential killer, who is holding a child hostage. But the case is not yet closed, and another killer must be brought to justice.