Collection: Mystery, Thrillers, & Crime

Ann Cleeves returns to her critically acclaimed Shetland Island series, now a BBC television show available on streaming.

Dead Water is the next stunning mystery featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez, who readers will remember from Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, and Blue Lightning. When the body of a journalist is found, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted from outside to head up the investigation. Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed in this case, and he decides to help Willow.

The dead journalist had left the islands years before to pursue his writing career. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl. When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize that the journalist was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn't want to come to the surface.

In Dead Water, a triumphant continuation to her Shetland series, Ann Cleeves cements her place as one of Britain's most successful crime writers.

Clue meets Little Shop of Horrors in the fun romp Ghoulia and the Mysterious Visitor, a rollicking mystery with an unexpected hero--the second fully illustrated chapter book from author/artist Barbara Cantini continuing the adventures of Ghoulia, a lovable, not-so-scary zombie.

One dark and stormy night, Ghoulia's cousin Dilbert comes to visit her at Crumbling Manor. She's confused--she didn't invite him, and it turns out that Dilbert's a real grouch. He complains about everything! When Ghoulia tries to track down Auntie Departed to find out why she invited Dilbert, she finds that Auntie has vanished. Ghoulia can't find her. And the doorbell won't stop ringing.

One after another, Ghoulia's friends arrive--all with the same mysterious invitation in hand. As the gang searches Crumbling Manor for Auntie Departed, one of their own goes missing. Finally, Dilbert inadvertently solves the mystery in the greenhouse when he finds himself face-to-face with the sinister Chatterbox Ivy.

Includes bonus activities

Ghoulia series:
Ghoulia (#1)
Ghoulia and the Mysterious Visitor (#2)
Ghoulia and the Ghost with No Name (#3)
Ghoulia and the Doomed Manor (#4)

Sleuthing duo Emily and James tackle their most challenging mystery yet set on the haunting Alcatraz Island in Book 3 of the New York Times-bestselling, middle-grade Book Scavenger series by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman!

Legendary literary game-maker Garrison Griswold is back in action--this time with "Unlock the Rock." For his latest game, Griswold has partnered with the famous--and famously reclusive--mystery writer Errol Roy to plan an epic escape room challenge on Alcatraz Island.

Emily and James are eager to participate, but the wave of fame they are riding from their recent book-hunting adventures makes them a target. Threatening notes, missing items, and an accident that might not have been an accident have the duo worried that someone is trying to get them out of the game at any cost.

When Emily's brother is caught red-handed and blamed for all the wrong doings, Emily is certain Matthew is being framed. With Matthew's record on the line, Emily and James can't afford to leave this mystery uncracked.

Christy Ottaviano Books

Praise for The Alcatraz Escape:

A Junior Library Guild Selection

"Emily, her friend James, and her brother Matthew travel to Alcatraz for an elaborate puzzle competition based on an original mystery by Errol Roy, a famously reclusive San Francisco writer. Series fans will enjoy following these likable young sleuths to Alcatraz Island, a distinctive setting for a mystery." --Booklist

Taut and terrifying, Snowblind is a startling debut from Ragnar Jónasson, an extraordinary new talent.

Where: An isolated fishing village in the fjords of northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors.

Who: Ari Thór is a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavík.

What: A young woman is found lying half naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed elderly writer falls to his death. Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one, and secrets and lies are a way of life.

*BONUS CONTENT: This edition of Snowblind includes a new introduction from the author and a discussion guide

The second book in this thrilling, terrifying series by New York Times bestselling author Barry Lyga is perfect for fans of Dexter.

Billy grinned. "Oh, New York," he whispered. "We're gonna have so much fun."

I Hunt Killers introduced the world to Jazz, the son of history's most infamous serial killer, Billy Dent.

In an effort to prove murder didn't run in the family, Jazz teamed with the police in the small town of Lobo's Nod to solve a deadly case. And now, when a determined New York City detective comes knocking on Jazz's door asking for help, he can't say no. The Hat-Dog Killer has the Big Apple--and its police force--running scared. So Jazz and his girlfriend, Connie, hop on a plane to the big city and get swept up in a killer's murderous game.

Both the stakes and the body count are higher in this suspenseful and unstoppable sequel from acclaimed author Barry Lyga.

Daniel doesn't believe the woods behind his new home are haunted by an evil witch and her terrifying beast. But then his little sister disappears . . . and it's up to him to find her. Mary Downing Hahn's popular page-turner will thrill readers who love spooky stories.

They say that a ghost witch lives in the woods, up on the hill. They say her companion has a pig skull for a face and stands taller than a man, his skeleton gleaming in the moonlight. They say that the witch takes young girls, and no one ever sees them again.

Daniel doesn't believe the stories. He figures the kids on the bus are just trying to scare him since he's new. Still, he wishes his family had never moved here--their house is a wreck, Mom and Dad keep fighting, and his little sister, Erica, spends most of her time talking to her creepy doll.

But when Erica disappears into the woods one day, Daniel knows something is terribly wrong. Has she been "took"?

Mary Downing Hahn is one of the most popular middle grade authors in the world, winner of numerous state awards as well as the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction (for Stepping on the Cracks) and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award (for Closed for the Season).

Also available as a graphic novel!

In more than fifty New York Times bestselling novels, Sandra Brown has captivated her millions of readers with stories of charismatic love and tantalizing twists of fate. In this classic tale, a woman is reunited with the man she has loved for years--and must reveal the secret that will jeopardize her chance for happiness at last.

He arrived out of the blue--a flesh-and-blood phantom from the past in a sports car as sleek and sexy as Law Kincaid himself. The world-famous astronaut was as devastatingly attractive as the first time Marnie Hibbs had laid eyes on him, seventeen years before. But she well knew the perils of falling for a ladies' man like Law. And this time she had someone besides herself to protect. Law is determined to discover who is sending him anonymous letters claiming he'd fathered a son he knows nothing about. Showing up at the Hibbs's return address from the letters seemed like a step in the right direction. Marnie swears she isn't the guilty party, but when Law meets her son, it's like a one-two punch to his solar plexus. The boy is nearly the spitting image of Law. Law can't remember sleeping with Marnie--then again, he can't remember much about his crazy past. But there's more to it than that: Marnie claims the boy isn't biologically hers.

As the tension between them becomes unbearable and the attraction undeniable, Marnie is forced to reveal a long-held secret...one that might cause her to lose both the boy she loves more than anyone--and the man she desires more than anything.

Knots and Crosses introduces gifted mystery novelist Ian Rankin, a fascinating locale and the most compellingly complex detective hero at work today.

Inspector John Rebus: His city is being terrorized by a baffling series of murders...and he's tied to a maniac by an invisible knot of blood. Once John Rebus served in Britain's elite SAS. Now he's an Edinburgh cop who hides from his memories, misses promotions and ignores a series of crank letters. But as the ghoulish killings mount and the tabloid headlines scream, Rebus cannot stop the feverish shrieks from within his own mind. Because he isn't just one cop trying to catch a killer, he's the man who's got all the pieces to the puzzle....

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
NPR - Cosmopolitan - Kirkus Reviews - BookPage

A page-turning thriller for readers of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and Stieg Larsson, Night Film tells the haunting story of a journalist who becomes obsessed with the mysterious death of a troubled prodigy--the daughter of an iconic, reclusive filmmaker.

On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley's life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova--a man who hasn't been seen in public for more than thirty years.

For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova's dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.

Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova's eerie, hypnotic world.

The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.

Night Film, the gorgeously written, spellbinding new novel by the dazzlingly inventive Marisha Pessl, will hold you in suspense until you turn the final page.

Praise for Night Film

"Night Film has been precision-engineered to be read at high velocity, and its energy would be the envy of any summer blockbuster. Your average writer of thrillers should lust for Pessl's deft touch with character."--Joe Hill, The New York Times Book Review

"Mysterious and even a little head-spinning, an amazing act of imagination."--Dean Baquet, The New York Times Book Review

"Maniacally clever . . . Cordova is a monomaniacal genius who creeps into the darkest crevices of the human psyche. . . . As a study of a great mythmaker, Night Film is an absorbing act of myth-making itself. . . . Dastardly fun . . . The plot feels like an M. C. Escher nightmare about Edgar Allan Poe. . . . You'll miss your subway stop, let dinner burn and start sleeping with the lights on."--The Washington Post

"Haunting . . . a suspenseful, sprawling page-turner."--USA Today

"Entrancing and delightful . . . [a] whipsmart humdinger of a thriller . . . It feels, above all things, new."--The Boston Globe

"Gripping . . . a masterful puzzle . . . Pessl builds up real suspense."--Entertainment Weekly

"A very deeply imagined book . . . sprints to an ending that's equal parts nagging and haunting: What lingers, beyond all the page-turning, is a density of possible clues that leaves you leafing backward, scanning fictional blog comments and newspaper clippings, positive there's some secret detail that will snap everything into focus."--New York

"Hypnotic . . . The real and the imaginary, life and art, are dizzyingly distorted not only in a Cordova night film . . . but in Pessl's own Night Film as well."--Vanity Fair

In the second part of John le Carré's Karla Trilogy, the battle of wits between spymaster George Smiley and his Russian adversary takes on an even more dangerous dimension.

As the fall of Saigon looms, master spy George Smiley must outmaneuver his Soviet counterpart on a battlefield that neither can afford to lose.

The mole has been eliminated, but the damage wrought has brought the British Secret Service to its knees. Given the charge of the gravely compromised Circus, George Smiley embarks on a campaign to uncover what Moscow Centre most wants to hide. When the trail goes cold at a Hong Kong gold seam, Smiley dispatches Gerald Westerby to shake the money tree. A part-time operative with cover as a philandering journalist, Westerby insinuates himself into a war-torn world where allegiances--and lives--are bought and sold.

Brilliantly plotted and morally complex, The Honourable Schoolboy is the second installment of John le Carré's renowned Karla triology and a riveting portrayal of postcolonial espionage.

With an introduction by the author.

Nearly seventy years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Once he was a well-liked, well-paid young partner in a thriving Mississippi law firm. Then Patrick Lanigan stole ninety million dollars from his own firm--and ran for his life.

For four years, he evaded men who were rich and powerful, and who would stop at nothing to find him. Then, inevitably, on the edge of the Brazilian jungle, they finally tracked him down.

Now Patrick is coming home. And in the Mississippi city where it all began, an extraordinary trial is about to begin. As prosecutors circle like sharks, as Patrick's lawyer prepares his defense, as Patrick's lover prays for his deliverance and his former partners wait for their revenge, another story is about to emerge. Because Patrick Lanigan, the most reviled white-collar criminal of his time, knows something that no one else in the world knows. He knows the truth.

Don't miss John Grisham's new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

One of the Twelve Best Indie Horror Books of 2023 - The Lineup

Eddie's parents may be arguing about the disappearance of his infant brother Danny, but Eddie's facing a terror all of his own. There's a strange figure outside that claims it has Danny safe and sound-all Eddie needs to do to get his brother back is open that window.

Eddie's father is filled with guilt over his relationship with his own lost brother. His mother has been abandoned to navigate her grief and terror alone. And his grandmother carries a disturbing, all-too-relevant truth about their shared family history.

As minutes tick by and hope for Danny grows ever smaller, the very fabric of their world disintegrates, welcoming eldritch terrors of unspeakable provenance to their doorstep. The family is losing a decades- long struggle against an entity that is not of this world, and its hunger threatens to swallow them whole.

On the day author Mari Morgan receives the email, she has little left to live for.

The message-simple yet utterly life-changing-offers a glimmer of hope to her dismal existence. It's the opportunity of a lifetime, and if she takes it, it could change everything.

Mari's immediate sense of unease is eclipsed only by her curiosity-elicited from the supposed fan on the other end of the email. Unsatisfied despite doing her due diligence, and with no way to discern the legitimacy of the sender, Mari takes a leap of faith and replies.

What harm could come from one innocent message?

Soon, as she comes face to face with her 'number one fan, ' it's all too clear things are not what they first appeared. Now trapped by a villain far more sinister than she could've crafted herself, the fate awaiting her is inspired by the darkest depths of the monsters in her own novels.

In order to escape and survive, Mari must use the strength of the heroines she's spent years writing about. But this villain has spent years inside her worlds, too.

How will she defeat an evil who has learned from the best?

For fans of Misery, YOU, and Behind Closed Doors, million-copy bestselling author Kiersten Modglin brings us a haunting tale of obsession and survival in the form of a writer's worst nightmare come to life.

Since 1960, both boys and girls have enjoyed reading about Alvin Fernald and his Magnificent Brain. Whenever it clicks into action and a glassy stare comes into his eyes, it's time to watch out! Because Alvin is thinking up another marvelous invention.

Maybe it's the Foolproof Burglar Alarm for his bedroom door, or a Sure Shot Paper Slinger for delivering newspapers from his bike. Or a Portable Fire Escape, very handy when it comes time to crawl out the window for a secret meeting with his best pal, Shoie. No doubt about it, as his sister the Pest says, "Alvin is a genius!"

The hint of a mystery surrounding the old Huntley place is all Alvin needs to launch a new series of inventions which bring extraordinary results. His remarkable inventing bench becomes the scene of frenzied activity. With Shoie and the Pest, who always tags along, there is never a dull moment as Alvin unfolds the most brilliant plan of his career.

Detective brothers Frank and Joe stop a splash pad saboteur in the seventeenth book in the interactive Hardy Boys Clue Book series.

Frank and Joe are looking for ways to beat the heat on their summer vacation, so they're super excited about the opening of Bayport's new Splash and Dash Pad. But on their second visit, they find that the fountains are overrun with bubbles! The park director announces that the pad will stay closed until he finds the culprit who poured soap down the drains, so the boys pull out their clue book to search for the Bayport Bubbler.

Were the kids who wanted a bike ramp instead of a splash pad trying to ruin the opening? Or perhaps this is a publicity stunt to promote Lucy Lafferty's new bubble lemonade. The suspects are piling up higher than the bubbles, but if anyone can find the sudsy saboteur, it's the Hardy brothers!