Collection: Mystery, Thrillers, & Crime

Other people kill their husbands. Not her.

"A darkly clever thriller about women's thwarted ambitions, celebrity, the Time's Up movement and revenge."--People (Book of the Week)

In Invisible Woman, a dangerous secret held for too long between estranged best friends rises to the surface, and a long marriage comes apart with devastating consequences.

Joni Ackerman's decision to raise children, 25 years ago, came with a steep cost. She was then a pioneering filmmaker, one of the few women to break into the all-male Hollywood club of feature film directors. But she and her husband Paul had always wanted a family, and his ascending career at a premier television network provided a safety net. Now they've recently transplanted to Brooklyn, so that Paul can launch a major East Coast production studio, when a scandal rocks the film industry and forces Joni to revisit a secret from long ago involving her friend Val.

Joni is adamant that the time has come to tell the story, but Val and Paul are reluctant, for different reasons. As the marriage frays and the friends spar about whether to speak up, Joni's struggles with isolation in a new city, and old resentments about the sacrifices she made on her family's behalf start to boil over. She takes solace, of sorts, in the novels of Patricia Highsmith--particularly the masterpiece Strangers on a Train, with its duplicitous characters and their murderous impulses--until the lines between reality and fantasy become blurred.

Invisible Woman is at once a literary thriller about the lies we tell each other (and ourselves), and a powerful psychological examination of the complexities of friendship, marriage, and motherhood.

An electric, locked-room suspense thriller set in the remote Scottish Highlands, where icy temperatures and a terrible blizzard prevent any ideas of escape--from a brilliant new voice in crime fiction.

One bitterly cold February night at the remote MacKinnon Hotel, Remie Yorke begins her last shift at the front desk as the snow begins to fall. She has booked a one-way flight for the next day--and she's never coming back to Scotland. Or so she thinks.

As the storm quickly invades the surrounding Highlands, the roads become impassable and the phone lines fall dead. When the icy temperatures plummet further, an injured man stumbles into the hotel lobby from the blizzard. Police Constable Don Gaines has been in a car accident on the mountain road, and Remie welcomes him to safety. Gaines tells her that the other survivor of the accident is a dangerous prisoner who is now at-large; and Gaines is sure he is heading their way.

Then a second injured visitor arrives--also introducing himself as Constable Don Gaines. Both claim to want to protect Remie and the hotel's remaining guests. Both are convincing. Remie doesn't know who to trust.

But she must endure a deadly night before dawn breaks, and if she doesn't succumb to the cold, one of these men will surely kill her first. And she has no idea why they have chosen to come to the MacKinnon Hotel . . .

The brilliant novel in the New York Times bestselling series by Louise Penny, one of the most acclaimed crime writers of our time.

No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer. They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as "the beautiful mystery."

But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery's massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. There they discover disquiet beneath the silence, discord in the apparent harmony. One of the brothers, in this life of prayer and contemplation, has been contemplating murder. As the peace of the monastery crumbles, Gamache is forced to confront some of his own demons, as well as those roaming the remote corridors. Before finding the killer, before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between.

The Beautiful Mystery is the winner of the 2012 Agatha Award for best novel, the 2013 Anthony Award for best novel and the 2013 Macavity Award for best novel.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Hotel Magnifique opened the door to a sumptuous and glittering world of magic and mysteries and left me enchanted. Perfect for fans of Caraval and The Night Circus." -Erin A. Craig, New York Times bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows and Small Favors

Decadent and darkly enchanting, this lavish YA fantasy debut follows seventeen-year-old Jani as she uncovers the deeply disturbing secrets of the legendary Hotel Magnifique.

All her life, Jani has dreamed of Elsewhere. Just barely scraping by with her job at a tannery, she's resigned to a dreary life in the port town of Durc, caring for her younger sister Zosa. That is, until the Hotel Magnifique comes to town.

The hotel is legendary not only for its whimsical enchantments, but also for its ability to travel--appearing in a different destination every morning. While Jani and Zosa can't afford the exorbitant costs of a guest's stay, they can interview to join the staff, and are soon whisked away on the greatest adventure of their lives. But once inside, Jani quickly discovers their contracts are unbreakable and that beneath the marvelous glamour, the hotel is hiding dangerous secrets.

With the vexingly handsome doorman Bel as her only ally, Jani embarks on a mission to unravel the mystery of the magic at the heart of the hotel and free Zosa--and the other staff--from the cruelty of the ruthless maître d'hôtel. To succeed, she'll have to risk everything she loves, but failure would mean a fate far worse than never returning home.

The Lost Apothecary meets Dead Dead Girls in this fast-paced, STEMinist adventure.

Debut author Kate Khavari deftly entwines a pulse-pounding mystery with the struggles of a woman in a male-dominated field in 1923 London.

Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to blaze a new trail at the University College London, but with her colleagues' beliefs about women's academic inabilities and not-so-subtle hints that her deceased father's reputation paved her way into the botany department, she feels stymied at every turn.

When she attends a dinner party for the school, she expects to engage in conversations about the university's large expedition to the Amazon. What she doesn't expect is for Mrs. Henry, one of the professors' wives, to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin.

Dr. Maxwell, Saffron's mentor, is the main suspect and evidence quickly mounts. Joined by fellow researcher--and potential romantic interest--Alexander Ashton, Saffron uses her knowledge of botany as she explores steamy greenhouses, dark gardens, and deadly poisons to clear Maxwell's name.

Will she be able to uncover the truth, or will her investigation land her on the murderer's list, in this entertaining examination of society's expectations?

In the shadows of a Scottish castle, something deadly is lurking in every corner...

When FBI special agent Luke Kendrick discovers chilling evidence of dozens of victims at a crime scene in London, he recognizes the calling card of the notorious H.H. Holmes Society. Named for the nineteenth-century monster regarded as America's first serial killer, the society is comprised of a twisted web of killers, working to carry out heinous murders in Holmes's memory. And now the group's been linked to a Scottish castle turned B and B--where guests check in but never check out.

Arriving at the sinister Graystone Castle posed as a tourist, Luke is joined by Special Agent Carly MacDonald, and the pair is immediately confronted by dangers hidden in the castle's depths. With guests disappearing and a network of killers closing in, Luke and Carly have only each other to rely on--and they'll have to race to cut off the head of the snake before the blood trail of the past can culminate in a very real and deadly present.

The Blackbird Files

Book 1: Death Behind Every Door
Book 2: Market for Murder
Book 3: Legacy of Blood

In a race across Nazi-occupied Italy, two women--a German photographer and an American stenographer--hunt for priceless masterpieces looted from the Florentine art collections.

In the summer of 1943, Eva Brunner is taking photographs of Nazi-looted art hidden in the salt mines of the Austrian hinterland. Across the ocean in Connecticut, Josephine Evans is working as a humble typist at the Yale Art Gallery.

When both women are called to Italy to contribute to the war effort, neither imagines she will hold the fate of some of the world's greatest masterpieces torn from the Uffizi Galleries and other Florentine art collections in her hands.

But as Italy turns from ally to enemy and Hitler's plan to destroy irreplaceable monuments and works of art becomes frighteningly clear, each woman's race against the clock--and against one another--might demand more than they were prepared to give.

The Last Masterpiece takes readers on a heart-pumping adventure up the Italian peninsula, where nothing is as it seems and some of the greatest works of art and human achievement are at stake. Who might steal and who might save a work of art--and at what cost?

Inspired by the incredible true story of the Monuments Women, the Fifth Army WACs, and the looted Florentine art collections during World War II, the latest historical novel by USA Today bestselling author and art historian Laura Morelli plunges readers into the heart of war-torn Italy.

In the tradition of Craig Johnson and C. J. Box, Bruce Borgos's The Bitter Past begins a compelling series set in the high desert of Nevada featuring Sheriff Porter Beck...

Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, north of Las Vegas. Born and raised there, he left to join the Army, where he worked in Intelligence, deep in the shadows in far off places. Now he's back home, doing the same lawman's job his father once did, before his father started to develop dementia. All is relatively quiet in this corner of the world, until an old, retired FBI agent is found killed. He was brutally tortured before he was killed and clues at the scene point to a mystery dating back to the early days of the nuclear age. If that wasn't strange enough, a current FBI agent shows up to help Beck's investigation.

In a case that unfolds in the past (the 1950s) and the present, it seems that a Russian spy infiltrated the nuclear testing site and now someone is looking for that long-ago, all-but forgotten person, who holds the key to what happened then and to the deadly goings on now.

From the author of the multimillion-copy bestselling A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series and Five Survive comes a gripping thriller following one teen's search for the truth about her mother's shocking disappearance--and even more shocking reappearance--during the filming of a true crime documentary.

Lights. Camera. Lies.

Eighteen-year-old Bel has lived her whole life in the shadow of her mom's mysterious disappearance. Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price vanished and young Bel was the only witness, but she has no memory of it. Rachel is gone, long presumed dead, and Bel wishes everyone would just move on.

But the case is dredged up from the past when the Price family agrees to a true crime documentary. Bel can't wait for filming to end, for life to go back to normal. And then the impossible happens. Rachel Price reappears, and life will never be normal again.

Rachel has an unbelievable story about what happened to her. Unbelievable, because Bel isn't sure it's real. If Rachel is lying, then where has she been all this time? And--could she be dangerous? With the cameras still rolling, Bel must uncover the truth about her mother, and find out why Rachel Price really came back from the dead . . .

From world-renowned author Holly Jackson comes a mind-blowing masterpiece about one girl's search for the truth, and the terror in finding out who your family really is.

Get to know the only kid on the FBI Director's speed dial and several international criminals' most wanted lists all because of his Theory of All Small Things in this hilarious start to a brand-new middle grade mystery series.

So you're only halfway t

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!

Michael Mann, four-time-Oscar-nominated writer-director of The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, Ali, Miami Vice, Collateral, and Heat teams up with Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner to deliver Mann's first novel, an explosive return to the universe and characters of his classic crime film--with an all-new story unfolding in the years before and after the iconic movie

"A hard-boiled, cinematic read that moves as fast as a well-planned heist." --Esquire

One day after the end of Heat, Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) is holed up in Koreatown, wounded, half delirious, and desperately trying to escape LA. Hunting him is LAPD detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). Hours earlier, Hanna killed Shiherlis's brother in arms Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) in a gunfight under the strobe lights at the foot of an LAX runway. Now Hanna's determined to capture or kill Shiherlis, the last survivor of McCauley's crew, before he ghosts out of the city.

In 1988, seven years earlier, McCauley, Shiherlis, and their highline crew are taking scores on the West Coast, the US-Mexican border, and now in Chicago. Driven, daring, they're pulling in money and living vivid lives. And Chicago homicide detective Vincent Hanna--a man unreconciled with his history--is following his calling, the pursuit of armed and dangerous men into the dark and wild places, hunting an ultraviolent gang of home invaders.

Meanwhile, the fallout from McCauley's scores and Hanna's pursuit cause unexpected repercussions in a parallel narrative, driving through the years following Heat.

Heat 2 projects its dimensional and richly drawn men and women into whole new worlds--from the inner sanctums of rival crime syndicates in a South American free-trade zone to transnational criminal enterprises in Southeast Asia. The novel brings you intimately into these lives. In Michael Mann's Heat universe, they will confront new adversaries in lethal circumstances beyond all boundaries.

Heat 2 is engrossing, moving, and tragic--a masterpiece of crime fiction with the same extraordinary ambitions, scope, and rich characterizations as the epic film.

Piper Gray starts a true-crime podcast investigating a seventeen-year-old cold case in this thrilling YA murder mystery by New York Times bestselling author April Henry.

Seventeen years ago, Layla Trello was murdered and her killer was never found. Enter true-crime fan Piper Gray who is determined to reopen Layla's case and get some answers. With the help of Jonas--who has a secret of his own--Piper starts a podcast investigating Layla's murder. But as she digs deeper into the mysteries of the past, Piper begins receiving anonymous threats telling her to back off the investigation, or else. The killer is still out there, and Piper must uncover their identity before they silence her forever.

No one in Sinful liked Pansy Arceneaux, but who hated her enough to kill her?

When aspiring actress Pansy Arceneaux returns to Sinful, Louisiana to head up the beauty pageant portion of the Summer Festival, CIA assassin Fortune Redding knows she's in for trouble. Her undercover identity as a former beauty queen make Fortune the perfect choice to chair the event with Pansy, but Pansy's abrasive personality make it impossible to get through a single rehearsal without a fight.

When Pansy turns up dead, Fortune is the prime suspect.

Armed with only her wits and two conniving seniors referred to locally as The Geritol Mafia, Fortune launches an investigation to find the real killer before her cover is blown.

Intrepid reporter Charlotte "Charlie" James arrives in Paris in 1938 eager to make a fresh start, but little does she know the trouble that awaits her...

Charlie James is chasing her first big scoop as correspondent for British-based newspaper The Times, and she needs to prove to her boss that she can do this job as well, if not better, than her male counterparts. The best way to forge the necessary contacts quickly is to make well-connected British expats, Lord and Lady Ashworth, her business. Lady Eleanor knows everyone in Parisian high society, and at her sumptuously extravagant annual party, a Circus Ball, Charlie will meet them all.

On the summer solstice eve, the Circus Ball is in full swing, with the Parisian elites entranced by burlesque dancers, tightrope walkers, a jazz band . . . and a horrific murder. A wealthy but unscrupulous investor is dead, and the list of suspects is a veritable who's who of le haut monde. As Charlie tries to determine who the murderer is, she finds herself drawn into the magical parties, couture houses, and bohemian wine bars of the City of Lights. Soon secrets start to unravel, including some Charlie has a personal stake in keeping hidden.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A high-stakes thrill ride through the darkest corners of the Sunshine State, from the author hailed as "the best thriller writer alive" by Ken Follett

We expect our judges to be honest and wise. Their integrity is the bedrock of the entire judicial system. We trust them to ensure fair trials, to protect the rights of all litigants, to punish those who do wrong, and to oversee the flow of justice. But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe?

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. It is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. After nine years with the Board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption.

But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business, and he claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined. And not just crooked judges in Florida. All judges, from all states, and throughout United States history. And now he wants to put a stop to it. His only client is a person who knows the truth and wants to blow the whistle and collect millions under Florida law. When the case is assigned to Lacy, she immediately suspects that this one could be dangerous. Dangerous is one thing. Deadly is something else.

"[A] main character [who's] a seriously appealing woman . . . a whistle-blower who secretly calls attention to corruption . . . a strong and frightening sense of place . . . [John Grisham's] on his game."--Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"[John Grisham is] our guide to the byways and backwaters of our legal system, superb in particular at ferreting out its vulnerabilities and dramatizing their abuse in gripping style."--USA Today

"Riveting . . . an elaborate conspiracy."--The New York Times Book Review

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

Who's killing the ranch's chickens? What's Ranch Security going to do about it? These are the critical questions in Hank's sixth adventure. A fiendish murderer is loose on the ranch. Never has Hank followed so many clues or interrogated more suspects. Every character in the book turns out to be a suspect--including Hank himself.