Danny and Calvin decide to find out why their fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Cakel, is suddenly behaving very strangely by not only failing to enforce her many rules, but by violating some herself.

The basis for the HBO® Original Series starring Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore), Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover), and Ted Danson,Bored to Death is a Raymond Chandleresque tale of a struggling Brooklyn writer—curiously named Jonathan Ames—who, in a moment of odd whimsy and boredom, becomes a private detective after spontaneously posting an ad on craigslist. As a rank amateur who just thinks he can help, this Ames alter ego quickly becomes embroiled in the search for a missing NYU coed. He moves from one scrape to the next, all while trying to escape a life of periodic alcoholism, dead-end relationships, writer’s block, and hours of Internet backgammon. Bored to Death was originally published in McSweeney’s Issue 24 and is the centerpiece of Ames’s collection of essays and fiction,The Double Life Is Twice as Good. Bored to Death Artwork © 2009 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved. HBO® and related channels and service marks are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.

This visionary first novel by the Booker Prize-winning author of To the Wedding and G. is at once a gripping intellectual and moral detective story and a book whose aesthetic insights make it a companion piece to John Berger's great works of art criticism.

Atticus Kodiak knows where people go to hide. That's why he and Alena Cizkova have come to a secluded Georgian town in the former U.S.S.R. What he doesn't know is what his friend and neighbor Bakhar Lagidze was hiding from. Bakhar and his entire family have been viciously murdered--all except for Lagidze's fourteen-year-old daughter, whose nightmare is just beginning. To rescue her, Atticus must enter a lethal web that stretches from Russia to Istanbul, from Dubai to Las Vegas, and into the very heart of evil. But what troubles Atticus the most is that Alena, once one of the world's most fearless assassins, is clearly terrified of what Atticus will uncover--and what he'll become when he does.

A young aspiring detective narrates the known facts of an unsolved historical mystery--the discovery in a forest in India of two girls said to have been raised by wolves--and challenges the reader to come up with a solution.

“Moses Wine is a force to reckon with and to read with pleasure.” —Dick Lochte, Los Angeles Times Book Review “Wine is the latest in an unbroken line of popular private eyes–molded by Dashiell Hammett in the ‘20s, psychoanalyzed by Ross Macdonald in the ‘50s and ‘60s and now dragged kicking and screaming into a new decade’s cultural crunch.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review With an introduction by Roger L. Simon Moses Wine solved his first major case in The Big Fix, and with it has come a certain amount of celebrity: articles about him and interviews with him have appeared in Newsweek. Dr. Gunther Thomas shows up at Moses front door with a challenge to clear best-selling author Jock Hecht of the murder of ABC anchorwoman Deborah Frank. Waist-deep in questions that seem to have no answers, Moses must find a way to solve the unsolvable or being portrayed as a jerk in a national magazine. Ever restless, ROGER L. SIMON has spent his life moving between books and movies, gaining distinction in both. In books, he is best known for the seven Moses Wine detective novels, which have won prizes in the U.S. and Great Britain and been published in over a dozen languages. In film, most prominent among his six produced screenplays—including his adaptation of The Big Fix—is Enemies, A Love Story, for which Simon was nominated for an Academy Award.

Daniella Goodman has lived her life in search of religious fulfillment. Steeped in Jewish teachings at a prestigious day school and an Orthodox summer camp, she finds herself far too busy with pre-med studies at the University of Pennsylvania to seek out religiously like-minded friends. Until she meets Steven, a devout Jewish scholar who prefers to be called "Shlomie." His religious interests skew toward the mystical and fanatical, and Daniella soon finds herself wrapped up in Shlomie's enthusiasm. Before long, she and Shlomie move to Israel to start a family and to further their religious education. Isolated from their friends and families and blinded by their quest for piety, Daniella, Shlomie, and their growing family become a target for one of Israel's most abusive, horrifying cults. Detective Bina Tzedek is tasked with unraveling the threads of pain, prayer, and prophecy in the most difficult case of her career. Ragen draws on the tactics of cult leaders and on victim testimony to craft this exploration of religious fanaticism, weaving togethervicious description of abuse and the Goodmans' higher-minded desires for purity.

In this sequel to "Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned", Socrates Fortlow is back in Watts, trying to leave prison in his past, and confronting the most dangerous emotion of all: hope.

Leonid McGill's spent a lifetime building his reputation as a private investigator in New York. His seemingly infallible instincts and inside knowledge of the crime world make him the ideal man to help when Phillip "Catfish" Worry comes knocking. Catfish is a ninety-four-year-old Mississippi blues-man who needs Leonid's help with a simple task: deliver a letter revealing the black lineage of a wealthy heiress and her corrupt father. The opportunity to do a simple favor while shocking the prevailing elite is impossible for Leonid to resist. But when a famed and feared assassin puts out a hit on Catfish, Leonid has no choice but to confront the ghost of his own felonious past. Working to protect his client, and his own family, Leonid needs to reach the heiress on the eve of her wedding before her powerful father kills those who hold their family's secret. Joined by a team of young and tough aspiring investigators, Leonid must gain the trust of wary socialites, outsmart vengeful thugs, and, above all, serve the truth -- no matter the cost.

A brand-new mystery series from one of the countryas best-known, best-loved writers: a new character, a new city, a new era. A new Walter Mosley. His name is etched on the door of his Manhattan office: LEONID McGILL, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. Itas a name that takes a little explaining, but heas used to it. aDaddy was a communist and great-great- Granddaddy was a slave master from Scotland. You know, the black manas family tree is mostly root. Whatever you see aboveground is only a hint at the real story.a Ex-boxer, hard drinker, in a business that trades mostly in cash and favors: McGillas an old-school P.I. working a city thatas gotten fancy all around him. Fancy or not, he has always managed to get byakeep a roof over the head of his wife and kids, and still manage a little fun on the sideamostly because heas never been above taking a shady job for a quick buck. But like the city itself, McGill is turning over a new leaf, adecided to go from crooked to slightly bent.a New York City in the twenty-first century is a city full of secretsaand still a place that reacts when you know where to poke and which string to pull. Thatas exactly the kind of thing Leonid McGill knows how to do. As soon as "The Long Fall" begins, with McGill calling in old markers and greasing NYPD palms to unearth some seemingly harmless information for a high-paying client, he learns that even in this cleaned-up city, his commitment to the straight and narrow is going to be constantly tested. And we learn that with this protagonist, this city, this time, Mosley has tapped a rich new vein thatas inspiring his best work since the classic "Devil in a Blue Dress."

In the sixties era of black nationalism, political abductions, and epidemic police corruption, Easy's latest case will pull him--unremittingly and inevitably--into the darkest underbelly of Los Angeles. Rosemary Goldsmith, the daughter of a weapons manufacturer, has been kidnapped by a black revolutionary cell called Scorched Earth. Their leader, Uhuru Nolicé, is holding her for ransom and if he doesn't receive the money, weapons, and apology he demands, "Rose Gold" will die--horribly and publicly. So the authorities turn to Easy Rawlins, the one man who can cross the necessary lines to resolve this dangerous standoff and find Rose Gold before it's too late.

A mystery caller sends Leonid McGill to an uptown address 'just to check a girl's okay'. There's no explanation - just a name - Angelique - a reward, and the chilling knowledge that he's working for Rinaldo Alphonse, the most feared man in New York. What LT finds is a crime scene. A girl lies with her face blown off, her assassin felled by a knife. But the dead girl isn't the one LT was sent to find, and her killer's injuries don't make sense. The next day Alphonse comes calling: LT must find Angelique before the assassin's assassin tracks her down. Alphonse isn't the only one who wants a bit of LT's time - the NYPD, finding his appearance too convenient, think they can finally put away the thorn in their side. But why do so many people want a piece of the apparently normal, clean-living Angelique? And why is the mafia coming after McGill, linking his sons - shy Dmitri and streetwise Twill - to the escape of a sex trafficked Belarussian girl. As both plots career towards a thrilling finale, McGill must put his street know-how and book of lethal contacts to the test, while haunted by the re-appearance of a face from his crooked past and wife Katrina's continued infidelities (this time it's her son's best friend).

"A number of below-the-law powerbrokers plead with Easy to locate a mysterious, dangerous woman--Lutisha James, though she's gone by another name that Easy will immediately recognize. 1970s Los Angeles is a transient city of delicate, violent balances, and Lutisha has disturbed that. She also has a secret that will upend Easy's own life, painfully closer to home." --

Walter Mosley, "one of crime fiction's brightest stars" (People), returns to mysteries at last-with a dazzling new thriller set in the deadly back alleys of 1950s L.A.... Bookshop owner Paris Minton is minding his own business when a brief encounter with a beautiful stranger gets him beaten, shot at, robbed, and then burned out of store and home. Paris needs help but his secret weapon-brave, reckless WWII hero Fearless Jones-is in jail. Vowing to dish out some heavy justice, Paris plots to get Jones back on the street. But when these two men come together, they'll find themselves trapped in a bewildering vortex of sex, money, and murder-and a dicey endgame that's littered with dangerous players...

After his estranged wife disappears, a husband returns to the remote lake house where their young daughter died, and he soon loses his grip on reality. Paul Luden has been haunted by a memory he can't recall. Whatever happened to his marriage, to his two-year-old daughter, is too traumatic to remember, so his unconscious has chosen to block out key details. But when he receives a phone call from the small lake town where they'd lived, telling him that no one had seen or heard from his wife in ten days, he knows what he has to do. He and his nineteen-year-old girlfriend drive from L.A. to Washington State where he's forced to confront his past. And as he pieces together his buried memories, Paul unravels mentally, falls into self-destructive trances and ultimately discovers the truth about his wife.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Monogram Murders—in the ranks of Ruth Rendell, Deborah Crombie, Kimberly McCreight, and Tana French—makes her William Morrow debut with a dark and chilling psychological thriller in which a woman desperate to hide a devastating secret in her past is drawn into a murder investigation. Traffic on Elmhirst Road has come to a halt. The police are stopping cars, searching for something. Nicki Clements waits patiently, until she glimpses a face she hoped she’d never see again. It’s him—and he’s the cop checking each car. Desperate to avoid him, she makes a panicky U-turn and escapes. But Nicki’s peculiar behavior did not go unnoticed, and now the police have summoned her for questioning. A resident of Elmhirst Road has been murdered—a controversial newspaper columnist named Damon Blundy. The detectives begin peppering her with questions. Why was she seen fleeing the scene? What is her connection to the victim? Why was the knife that killed him used in such a peculiar way? Why were the words “HE IS NO LESS DEAD” painted on the wall of Blundy’s study—and what do they signify? One simple answer could clear her. But she can’t explain why she fled Elmhirst Road that day without revealing the secret that could ruin her. Nicki isn’t guilty of murder. But she’s far from innocent. . . .

The New York Times bestselling author of The Monogram Murders and Woman with a Secret returns with a sharp, captivating, and expertly plotted tale of psychological suspense. All Beth has to do is drive her son to his soccer game, watch him play, and then return home. Just because she knows her ex-best friend lives near the field, that doesn't mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her. Why would Beth do that and risk dredging up painful memories? She hasn't seen Flora for twelve years. She doesn't want to see her today--or ever again. But she can't resist. She parks outside the open gates of Newnham House, watches from across the road as Flora arrives and calls to her children Thomas and Emily to get out of the car. Except . . . There's something terribly wrong. Flora looks the same, only older. Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look precisely as they did then. They are Thomas and Emily without a doubt, but they haven't changed at all. They are no taller, no older. Why haven't they grown? How is it possible that they haven't grown up?

A must for all crime aficionados, The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 spotlights the very best the genre has to offer. Notable for their dark tone, frequent plot twists, and, above all, their outright entertainment value, here are twenty of 2006's stand-out short stories by bestselling authors and newcomers alike. The veterans show us they still have new tricks up their sleeves, while the (as yet) unknowns clearly mark themselves as talents to watch.Sellected by bestselling author Scott Turrow, 2006's collection includes stories by: James Lee Burke, Jeffery Deaver, Andrew Klavan, Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosely, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Crime is common ground for the twenty-one women writers in this extraordinary collection of contemporary mystery fiction, introduced and edited by Sara Paretsky The voices here include professional crime solvers who take you from the mean streets of V.I. Warshawski’s Chicago in a case of music and murder . . . to the California freeway where Kinsey Millhone's beloved VW skids into a shooting . . . to the gang-held turf of Sharon McCone’s San Francisco, where an eye witness to a slaying says mum’s the word. And then there are mothers, grandmothers, battered wives, and social workers—ordinary women in extraordinary situations whose voices reveal contemporary life as seen through a woman’s eye. From the opening tale of a girl down-and-out in London and what she steals from a corpse . . . to the final story of a summer vacation in the Berkshires, complete with romance and sudden death . . . this unique collection brings us great mystery writing that engages both our intellects and our hearts. This collection features stories from twenty-one authors, including: Sara Paretsky • Sue Grafton • Marica Muller • Susan Dunlap • Carolyn Hart • Antonia Fraser • Dorothy Salisbury Davis • Amanda Cross • Nancy Pickard • Dorothy B. Hughes • Faye Kellerman • Julie Smith • Barbara Wilson • Mary Wings • and more!